I’ve seen Karsten around for the last 10 years, he started skating around the time when Oslo’s biggest skatepark was suddenly built in his neighborhood of Bekkestua. At first I thought he was just going to turn in to a skatepark rat, but I was wrong, he’s decently one of the raddest street skaters out there at the moment, with full-on power and speed. The last time I meet him was randomly in Paris this summer, whilst he was on a Lakai tour and I noticed that he was enjoying skating with bigger confidence than before, I realised then that he had stepped up he’s game to the next level. – Gabriel Engelke

Hey Karsten, what have you been up to since Berlin?

Yo Sem! Everything is good!  Just been skating a lot and hanging out with friends!  Normal stuff I guess!

How’s your elbow by the way? I remember it swelled like a balloon after that slam on the rail. 

My elbow is back to normal after the slam. The thing was that I had an infection in my elbow two weeks before the trip to berlin.

Stalefish. Ph:Nykwen.

Ah yeah, I remember now about the infection.

Yep. So it was really vulnerable and then when  I took that slam straight to my elbow it just swelled up crazy!

Do you actually live in Norway? Where exactly? 

Yeah I live in Oslo, the capital of Norway!

Isn’t it too cold to skate there now? 

It’s way to cold to skate! It’s freezing!

Do you have good indoor parks?

We have two small indoor skate parks in Oslo and they are so crowded all the time! We really need a new one.

Bluntslide. Ph: Sem.

And how’s skating and living in Oslo?

My city is pretty mellow! It’s not too big not too small, and it’s really good for street skating during the summer. I usually skate with a few friends I live with.

Do you share a flat with skaters?

Yeah, we’re four friends sharing a flat in the east part of town. And we’re all skaters, so it’s perfect.

During the spring and summer I try and spend as much time as possible in Oslo ‘cause it’s so good, but when fall and winter come I try to travel. Like right now I’m in Long Beach with Nassim, skating and enjoying life!

True that, I’m sorry I called you earlier today, I didn’t realise it was so early over there. So, How is Long Beach going? 

Ha ha, no problem man! I had to get up anyway. I’m going to stay here for one month!

Switch smith. Ph: Sem.

Is it your first time there?

It’s not my first time. I have a couple of friends over here so I usually go a couple of times a year. This would be my 6th time I think.

Alright, now I understand why your English is so good. Is it a personal skate trip or does Element want you to be there for some reason?

It’s both. I’m coming here to film for the upcoming Element Europe video and to chill and escape the Norwegian Winter.

And how’s the US this time then?

Well when I arrived at the airport and had to go through the border control. The lady didn’t like me, or something, so I had to go through another control and wait for one and a half hours before they decided that I wasn’t a terrorist and let me go!

Karsten is 22 and rides for Element, Lakai, Session Skateshop, Spitfire, Thunder.

On the cover of this month’s issue we’ve got Adrien Coillard taking out Geoff Rowley on Lyon’s famous hubba for the second time. Yep, the little guy who casually gap to bluntslid the beast in issue 110 went back for more.

In related “Bon Voyage” news, we covered Brophy, Flo, Joey, Pete Eldridge and Sammy Winter’s trip to China. The article should give you a good idea of the standard of skating we can expect from this new Cliché video. Only 4 days to go!

Since Element Europe are also working on a video (Hold It Down) we decided to send Sam Ashley to Morocco where Karsten, Nassim, Madars and Phil were out on a filming mission. Needless to say they absolutely killed it. With a crew like that what else would you expect?

We even managed to fit in Michi Mackrodt, Kenny Reed and globe trotting photographer Alexey Lapin’s recent  trip to the Balkans.

As you can tell from the titles on the cover we’ve also picked the brains of some pretty funny characters this month. I’m sure a lot of you will find the Pearls Of Wisdom with the one and only “Give your life to Christ”  Christian Hosoi quite interesting.

Samu Karvonen gets the first interview slot and tells us about organising a skate flea market, why he eats food from dumpsters and what he knows of Quicksilver’s plans for the Euro skate team. The second goes to Element Europe’s Jarne Verbruggen who came through with 16 pages of all terrain savagery. Finally we’ve got an Effect with Tom Day. Those of you who (like me) haven’t seen very much of him before this are in for a shock. This guy destroys some seriously unwelcoming terrain. Can’t wait to see the footage of these tricks in Heroin’s “Video Nasty“.

Now that you know what’s in there, go and get yourself a copy!

This is a bit of a special issue as it’s loosely focused around the European skater of the year awards with interviews from Rookie Of The Year Tom Knox and European Skater of the year/winner of the Kingpin Reader’s choice award Madars Apse. The Burn section is also packed with photos from various nominees such as Pontus , Willow or Jesus Fernandez.

This issue doesn’t  limit itself to a being BESA recap though and amongst other things we’ve decided to offer you interviews from 2 very different skaters: Leo Valls and Hjalte Halberg. Leo justifies his original approach to skating by comparing it to any other artistic activity: “where would painting be if people had only explored figurative painting and it’s technical aspects?”. Further on in the mag Polar’s powerhouse  shows off some of his stylish moves and discusses the difficulties of being a professional skateboarder in a city with such harsh winters: Copenhagen.

We’ve also managed to fit in a warriors trip to Bulgaria and an Indy/Lifeblood tour around Europe. The edit documenting Jake Collins, Kevin Kowalski and the rest of the gang’s drunken ways should hit the web some time next week, so be sure to keep an eye out for it.

Oh yeah, the guy doing a Danny Gonzalez on the cover is Antiz’s Sam Partaix. Is it the first time we see a European wallriding his way onto the ceiling?

Anyway, now that you know what’s in the mag, go and get yourself a copy!

Anyway, on the cover we have Javier Mendizabal who seems to be floating backside over some sort of fluorescent inter-dimensional portal.

A French delegation from the Converse team head to New York to find out if America really is the land of the free. It probably didn’t take them too long to realise that’s its quite the opposite, but I’m sure they got over the disappointment. When you see the photos you’ll probably even be quite happy that none of the under 21′s could drink, it’s probably what made it such a productive trip!

We’ve also got an Element Europe  trip through Spain, with Nassim and the gang.

Cliché celebrate their fifteen years in the business, and it’s got everything you need in there. From JB doing a sick manual, to the young Adrien Coillard gapping out to bluntsliding the famous Rowley hubba in Lyon. The whole article is also “illustrated” by Chet Childress: pure madness. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the edit.

As we mourn Blueprint’s death, Sylvain Tognelli comes through with his best full length interview to this day. I can’t wait to find out where all of these ex-Blueprint guys are going to end up.

Last but not least the European Volcom team explores a land considered uncharted by most skateboarders: Slovakia. That place has got some unbelievable spots…

Go and buy yourself a copy!

Anyway, here’s his Interview from issue 99.

Words and portrait by Deeli.

What was the cock sucking 
award speech all about?

Ah man, that’s just what booze
 does to a person. I mean if you feed me with free alcohol for two days and then ask me to say something smart, you’re not doing anyone any favours. But the background for 
this was that it was my first time at the tradeshow and it just seemed so bizarre that everyone is so pleasant to each other, how everything that everyone does is so great all of a sudden and everyone agrees. About everything. And all of that just made me want to say something like, hey, it’s not all that great, you know, and maybe we’re just here for the free booze after all? I mean we’re all friends and it’s nice, but like all this praise for everything just seemed too much. So looking at it all with Sean James, getting gradually more drunk we started thinking it was more like we’re all sucking each other’s knobs all day. And by the time of the gala I was so smashed 
I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I basically woke up the next day pretty miserable, wondering what I’d done. So I’m blaming the booze and the lack of sleep and I hope I didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings!

How was your year?

Just fine really, no serious injuries, filming, some photos, the usual.

Anything that stood out as special?

The Emerica dudes visited Europe for a while and I had a chance to travel with them for a bit, that was good. Got to know them a bit better and had fun skating with everyone.

Didn’t you then do a trip with Emerica in the US after that?

Yeah, but that was basically the only time last year when I was
hurt, so that sucked a bit ‘cause I couldn’t do much. But I heard they were coming to Europe again this summer, so hopefully I’ll get to go along again.

Back smith by Percy Dean.

When did you hear about being nominated for this award?

The vote was already on, when Pete (Ruikka) called me and woke me up one morning and told me about it. Pete told me I was up for the award and that I was winning the vote at the time. So I got up and went online to check it, and obviously all the Finns had been going nuts with the voting
– otherwise why would I
be up there winning when there’s Lucas Puig, Chris Pfanner, Steve Fortsner and all these world class names there?

How did you feel about that?


I don’t know, surprised? I mean I knew all my friends would vote for me, of course, and I guess it would be the same for everyone else, right?

Didn’t some Finnish tabloid newspaper mention it on the website as well?

Yeah, there’s an old skater, a friend of mine, working there as a sports journalist and he posted it on their news. So of course there’s a lot of random people who are into sports reading it and when they see there’s a Finnish guy up for some European award they probably went and voted for me, just because it’s easy.

Frontside flip By Jelle Keppens.

So…what do you think, what made you win in the end?

Pfff…it’s hard to say really. I guess I just have to thank everyone who voted for me! But to be honest, I don’t really feel like I did anything special in the past 12 months. I’ve been filming loads and I have this part coming out in a friend’s video that I’m really stoked on, but I mean it isn’t out yet, so I can’t really feel like I should get an award for that obviously. It’s almost like I need to see that part come out before I can feel like I did something to deserve this, if you know what I mean.

What’s your take on the awards in general,
 are they important in skateboarding?

I guess it feels a bit odd, but maybe just because it’s a new thing. I mean we’re used to having the American Skater of the Year, so we’re already thinking about who might
 get it next, but this one came out of nowhere so quickly and unexpected that it’s hard to say what I think about 
it just yet. I’m sure if this award becomes something that’s given out every year it’ll become interesting to skaters and you might get people thinking about what they’ve done that year and if they might have done enough to be awarded for it. Who knows, time will tell.

Any names you think should’ve been on the list of nominees but weren’t? Definitely Samu Karvonen. He had the last part in the Antiz video, he turned pro and all that. Other than that, Tim Zom.

Front board by Jelle Keppens.

Who would’ve been your pick for Skater Of The Year?

Lucas Puig for sure. No one deserves it more than him. Congratulations on that!

Any plans for the year ahead?


Just more of the same! I’m your typical skater who doesn’t want to make any plans and just wants to go where the road takes me.

50-50 by Percy Dean.

Photos and interview by Nikwen.

The new Kingpin issue is out, and by the time you read this you are likely to have heard of the Youness Amrani wizardry it features. His switch frontside flip on cover is just as insane as everything else he’s managed to come up with for his 18 page interview. A ten stair feeble grind to manual?!  No wonder he’s been nominated for Kingpin reader’s 2012 skater of the year. By the way if you still haven’t voted, hurry up and cast your votes here.

This issue also features an Effect with Cliché’s flow rider Mauro Caruso. This guy has been killing it for ages, this part came out for his Shine On back in 2009, and since then he’s been on a rampage.  I hope we get a chance to see a few clips of him in their upcoming video!

Vivien Feil, Jimmy Lannon and the rest of the Magenta gang go to Japan.

Adidas international shot an article in Valencia, I think some of the footage from the trip can be found in this edit. Chewy Cannon coverage is always a treat.

We also spent a week with this years Vans Shop Riot Winners Streetmarket in their hometown. As the both the article and the footage illustrate, it was one hell of a productive week.

You’ve even got two Alex Olson photos in there, so go and get yourself a copy!

This issue should be in the shops to buy by now and there’s a whole bunch to get you stoked on skateboarding.

Let’s start at the start. On the cover we’ve got Finnish badman, Jesse Turunen, with an ollie up on to and kickflip in to one of the upgrades from the Kingpin X burn energy  Save Our Spot project.

This particular spot in Warsaw, Poland  was the one that got the whole ball rolling and it, alongside the other stops, all feature in the dedicated issue.

Volcom get their pedal power on the go in London in On Yer Bike and Element get their hammers out in Berlin, and there’s plenty of other stuff in there too.

Keep an eye out for the burn edits by Sam Bailey (on cover mounted DVD and online there after) and  the Volcom edit from Kev Parrot and Morph coming soon too.

Happy days.

Check out the SOS trailer here while you’re waiting for the full edits to come online!

Burn SOS Trailer a Skateboarding video by kingpin

The Drive issue (Kingpin 107) is now on sale and full of the kind of stuff you’re going to be stoked on.

Radio Skateboards took the challenge title this time around after smashing it for 8 days on the road to Helsinki, making sure to take time to party themselves silly along the way as well as shredding hard.

Sweet Skateboard, Perus Crew, Superdead Skateboards and Crv Wkd also made the trip to Finland’s capital for the final party and skated their asses off along the way too. The edits will be live on the site really soon so make sure to come back to check them out.

DC and Element also feature in this epic issue so why are you reading this? Go and find you self a copy. Or even better click here to get yourself a copy sent to your door for 12 months with a subscription that is an insanely good deal (which includes all of this as a sweetner: A PAIR OF DICKIES, A WITCHCRAFT KOOZIE, A MABASI TOOL and AN EXCLUSIVE KINGPIN TEE SHIRT BY JAMES ‘BARF’ CALLAHAN)

Certainly no lightweight this issue: On the road with the twenty odd strong Supra team around Spain, France and Germany. Almost everyone from Tom Penny to Erik Ellington to Lizard King went along. And to finish it off, Lizard King has a banging interview and the cover to boot.

Bastien Marlin talks skateboarding and fishing in his Effect. Sweet and Perus have a get together in Berlin to see what kind of trouble they could get themselves in. Jart tour the continent for the premiers of their video All You Need. Watch the video in its entirety right here.

On the comp circuit, there’s CPH Pro, Vans Downtown Showdown with some classic skatejournalism and there’s Helsinki Hookup.

So yeah, Kingpin issue 106 is now on sale on the newsstand and in your local skateshop. Or if you can’t find it, tell the dude behind the counter to put the pipe down for a minute and order some.