It seems Ken Block is up to his old tricks yet again. After leaving people shaking their heads with his ridiculous Gymkhana videos, not to mention the shred-rally section of DC’s Mtn. Lab 1.5 vid, the DC founder cum modern-day Evil Knievel has once again upped the ante of what can be done with machines.

Joining forces with Subaru, Block’s newest toy—the TRAX STI—would make even Vin Diesel’s character in Fast and Furious bow down like in total unworthiness like a Neon-driving chump. Dubbed the “ultimate backcountry shred car,” this veritable snow tank is said to be the world’s fastest cat track operation automobile. Trust me when I say this isn’t the usual clunky metal box you may have had the pleasure of riding in if you’ve been catboarding.

The TRAX STI is essentially a Subaru WRX-STI with burly snow cat tracks, and an upgraded-to-the-tits suspension. There are 400 ponies running buck wild under the hood, alongside performance mods including a 2.5-litre, 4-cylinder, turbocharged engine with a KAPS 5-speed close-ratio dog-engagement gearbox. What the what what? I don’t get it either. But that’s not all. Apparently there is a sleigh (yea, a sleigh) designed to be pulled behind this beast that will carry four shreds and all of their gear. One part complete overkill, one part shredder dream mobile. Either way, there’s no doubt the DC team is going to be on some next level shit this winter in terms of stealing the spotlight as they roll straight-luxe into some backcountry spots.

Check out the video below to see this monster in action.

Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock, it’s presumable you’ve heard of the David and Goliath-like battle blowing up online over the past week. Hansen Beverage Corp., the makers of high-fructose corn syrup otherwise known as Monster Energy, have sent a cease and desist letter to Vermont’s Rock Art Brewery, claiming the brewer’s “Vermonster” label on select beers caused brand confusion with its “Monster” energy drink.

Since we all know what Monster Energy is, I will divulge a few background nuggets I’ve dug up on Rock Art Brewery. Essentially it’s the classic story of an American Dream come true—a small family-run business up in backwoods Vermont that started in a basement, and garnered enough local support and popularity to be able to move into a real office/brewery and hire 7 more people. The owner and his wife are still very hands on with the operation. Well, the American Dream has turned on them. Hansen’s argument is that there will be confusion in the customer’s mind between the two products, especially if they decide to branch off into making beer in the future.

Owners Matt and Renee Nadeau are fighting back, claiming there is no infringement issue and that the “nuisance lawsuit” is another case of corporate bullying and brand over-protection. Nadeau says that his lawyers have told him that there is no copyright infringement. However, they can still take him to court at a whopping 65 Gs, and if he wins, they can appeal a few times. After one or two of these, he won’t be able to pay for the court costs, and that results in an automatic default. Essentially they will take him to court until he’s burned through all of his cash.

Now, this post isn’t intended to point fingers or predict outcomes—that’s been done through the frenzied talk of twitters and message boards for the past few days. The real interesting thing here is watching the juggernaut machine that is online PR and social media do its work.

In the past, a dispute like this would normally get the ol’ sweep-it-under-the-rug-and-wipe-our-hands-clean treatment. Much of the communication surrounding the issue would limited to contacts of the brewer and, perhaps, some particularly alert outsiders. But with the easy access and viral power of social media, Monster could be facing a nasty PR shitstorm and heavy amounts of damage control to remedy the situation.

Rock Art Brewery has posted an online video on its site that sums up its operations and breaks down the legal implications against them. The video and subsequent viewer feedback, which have effectively put a name and story of struggle to the issue, has exchanged hands from blog to facebook page to tweet post across the web in recent days. By using links, embedding video, and marking with twitter hashtags such as #boycottmonster and #monsterboycott, the cause has gathered snowball-effect momentum to the extent that at the time of this blog posting, it’s Facebook group,  Vermonters and Craft Beer Drinkers Against Monster, had reached 15,000 strong.

Now, Associated Press and various other other mainstream news outlets have picked up on the story and, because of its juicy nature, are following it fervently. It will be interesting to see how Monster reponds, perhaps with an online PR campaign of its own. Needless to say they have the money and resources to do it.

You’ve really got to give Louie Vito some credit. With no dance experience and having never watched an episode of Dancing With The Stars in the past, to trade in his Nike snowboard boots for ballroom shoes and perform a dance for millions of viewers—plus the entire snowboarding industry (which is a massive feat in its own right)—really takes some serious balls.

And like ABC initially alluded to in their pre-amble to last night’s premiere episode, we finally got to “watch this champion pro boarder shuffle down from the slopes to the floor of the Dancing with the Stars set in Season 9.”

Now, I’m no Patrick Swayze, but aside from being called “little dancing hobbit” by one of the judges, Vito and his partner really seemed to be cutting a rug with their foxtrot routine. 

The tale of snowboarding in Canada is about as coloured as the medals on a grizzled war vet, and its story is marked by one of tremendous ups, a few not-so-glorious dips, with a bunch of colourful characters and fashion trends thrown into the mix for good measure. Beyond publications like Snowboard Canada, Canadian-made shred vids, and a handful of ‘zines, rags and blogs that have come and gone (remember Vehicle and Sequence, or when Concrete had “Powder” as a sidekick in its name?), nothing has been assembled that truly chronicles just how rich and compelling this story is. That is, until now.

Needing no introduction, and widely held in a special place of the heart by many north of the 49 shreds, venerable Canadian brand Westbeach is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. To mark the milestone, the Vancouver-based crew put forth The Heritage Project, a retrospective spanning the last three decades of snowboarding in Canada and how the brand played a pivotal role from its earliest raw-dawg, hand-diggin’ pipe days to the current level of progressive riding going down today.

Through various mediums, The Heritage Project features a timeline documentary blog, timeline video series, and, the crown jewel—a much-anticipated book that just rolled off the press called, “Out West: Snowboarding, Westbeach and a New Canadian Dream.” Westbeach put lensman Dano Pendygrasse on the daunting task of diggin’ through the archives and cobbling the book together. The copy I received—signed by none other than founder Chip Wilson, who subsequently went on to Lululemon fame—does an incredible job at chronicling the fascinating story of how Canada contributed to snowboarding’s growth, alongside the role Westbeach played while riding shotgun the entire time. At 120 pages deep, trust me when I say that the book truly runs the gamut from the original roots of Canada’s knuckledraggers right up through the glory days of the ’90s and the influence of the now-defunct Westbeach Classic on proliferating the overall scene. If not for any of the above, it’s worth a look just to get a laugh of some of the OG Westbeach gear—or what passed as “gear” at the time—that was dug out of parents’ basements and dusty closets and submitted by pros and fans alike.   Westbeach is releasing chapters online every two weeks all season long.

Check out the first chapter online here. Better yet, put a piece of shred history on your bookshelf and shell out a measly $12.95 US or $14.95 Cdn for it. Buy it here.

Here are a few sneak peek pages from the book.

This little contest from Nikita cruised into my email inbox first thing this morning. If this isn’t the best deal ever, I really don’t know what is:

Nikita is celebrating it’s first flagship store grand opening on Saturday, September 26th with a party to be remembered.  Nikita will be joined by music mavericks, GusGus who are honoring the release of their new album ‘24/7’. GusGus will be playing a live set right in Nikita’s back yard!
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To mark the occasion, Nikita will be inviting two extremely lucky ladies to come and join in the festivities.  The winners will be chosen, contacted, flown over to Reykjavik,Iceland, motherland of the whole Nikita company, and get to enjoy the following:�

1. See the new store first hand and fresh for the launch with the Nikita crew
2. Party like the locals, with the locals
3. Watch Gus Gus play live, right in the heart of one of the most amazing cities in the world
4. Receive Nikita gear from the new autumn / winter ’09 collection

For a chance to win e-mail michelle@nikitaclothing.com BEFORE September 23rd  explaining, in 50 words (English please), why you want to come and how much you need to party right now!  That’s it!  We will need your full name, address, date of birth and contact details included in the e-mail.  You also need to have a valid passport and be 18 years of age or older.

See you there!  Laugavegur 56, Reykjavik 101, Iceland from 9pm!

It never ceases to amaze me how much Ride can push the envelope with graphics on its board line, not just in terms of the quality of raw art, but also by reaching out to the unlikeliest of artists for its snowboard line.

Case in point: rather than approaching a coveted artist to drum up graphics for its ‘09/’10 Crush, Ride asked Pam Neithercott’s third period art class at Denny Middle School in its hometown of Seattle to create a mythical creature consisting of two other animals. Not only was the result a kick ass graphic reminiscent of doodling away hours of classroom time as a kid, it gave the school badly needed dough for art supplies and gave the kids a chance to go riding with an on-hill snowboard day. Good deed. Best part—the graphic can only be seen on the top sheet of the Crush when it gets cold. It’s just looks like an unassuming blank piece of paper at room temp, but as soon as it hits the snow—bam—the ink changes colour and this gnarly monster appears in black on the top.

But back to the story at hand. Ride has just unveiled the first of their DH2 limited edition, artist series decks. The art on the DH2.1, as it’s aptly named, was conceived by none other than Michael J Zepeda III of Volcom fame. A twin rocker that comes in both regular and wide in a grip of sizes, only 350 DH 2.1 snowboards will be available through select Ride retailers starting on October 1. Ride will drop the next deck in the series, the DH 2.2 on October 15 and the DH 2.3 on November 15.

Conglomeration, mergers and concentration of ownership in media isn’t just a trend affecting the big print papers. As employees of 10-year-old Euro indie shred pub Method Mag found out a couple days ago, it’s an issue that hits home as well.

Boomerang Plus, a television production group based in the UK, just bought Method’s print and online properties for an undisclosed lump of cash. The company says it plans to integrate Method into its new subsidiary, Boom Extreme Publishing.

Boomerang’s growth strategy in regards to action sports appears aggressive, saying its objective is to “seek opportunities with key publishing brands, help drive and develop multimedia concepts and build a digital media portfolio within the extreme sports space using the Group’s existing infrastructure and expertise.”

In a press statement, Gareth Rees, executive director of Boomerang, said: “We are extremely pleased to welcome Method as part of our group. It is one of the most credible brands in the European extreme sports scene and we are very excited to bring publishing and TV together to take advantage of new media platforms.

“The group sees this acquisition as a natural and exciting extension to the business and realises the potential benefits and opportunities this could afford through various synergies. We have a development plan in place to aim to become the ultimate snowboarding media platform in Europe and beyond.”

Rasmus Ostergaard, managing director of Method, said: “The group’s skilled professionals share our enthusiasm for snowboarding and are leading players within extreme sports production. Boomerang’s expertise, creativity and business qualities will have a significant positive impact on our business.

“Long term, it gives us a stronger foundation to project the Method brand to a bigger audience, and short term, it helps us to focus on delivering high quality content both in print and online to our existing audience.

“It also enables us to focus on our advertisers’ needs for partnerships with media groups like us in print magazine, online and IPTV for the future growth of snowboarding.”

The shape of more things to come like this for niche media? Perhaps it’s what’s needed to take an outlet to its next level. Interesting story, indeed. Here’s to hoping the little guys don’t get the short end of the stick.