THE ROME SKATE ZINE BY MATT PRICE

We knew we were onto something after Matt's LA zine so we are going to keep this going.  $10 doesn't even cover the production run, but we wanted these to exist for posterity because skateboarding in print is important. Matt's intro below sums it up: "When we were kids we would pile six deep into someone’s sedan with little more than a backpack and a skateboard and head off to a new place, sometimes for weeks. More often than not we crashed on new friends’ studio apartment floors, but sometimes if we felt speedy we would get a single hotel room for the whole crew at the local Motel 6 equivalent. It’s hard to say whether these first skate trips feel extra special because we were just young and excited or if it was something else. Because, now after years of having my own hotel room on the road, there does seem to be something that feels different about skate trips, and I was almost ready to chalk it up to the fact that I had outgrown the excitement of my youth. It turns out I was wrong. When I arrived in Rome, I climbed the It turns out I was wrong. When I arrived in Rome, I climbed the five flights of granite up to the tightly packed apartment the crew was going to be sharing and was introduced to everyone in a dining area that would have felt claustrophobic if it wasn’t overflowing with energy and excitement. After greeting Marcello, Antonio, Adam and Vinny, I was introduced to Papik, Matteo and Simone, and something special happened. It was like I was right back in one of those Motel 6 rooms with my old skate crew ready to search for spots in a new city. I can’t really put my finger on why this trip felt so special, but I can’t really put my finger on why this trip felt so special, but after spending just a few days with this crew it was clear that at almost 40 years old I was making some lifelong friends, and I felt more at home in a city I have never stepped foot in than I do in the city I have lived in for years. It all felt really pure for some reason. It may have been the amazing meals we ate every night, or the hours spent walking the streets and talking shit, but I think more than anything it was us all packing into that room for coffee to start the day, or for beers to end the night. We all get trained to think we need so much personal space, We all get trained to think we need so much personal space, which I do think can be healthy, but at some point too much which I do think can be healthy, but at some point too much space starts to be bad for you. From navigating tiny alleyways, to spending hours in traffic in a Fiat Panda, when you get the right people crammed together there’s a special bond that forms that can never happen from a certain distance. There are a hundred reasons why this was the best skate trip I’ve been on in a decade, but I can’t help but think that giving ourselves a little less space was the most important one." - M.P. Printed in the UK on 80 gsm bright recycled paper. 6.7" x 9.8" Limited run of 100.