Al Partanen goes crate digging in skate mecca, Long Beach
- Text by HUCK HQ
“I’m not a DJ anyways, I just play records,” says Al Partanen as he prepares for his set at Long Beach’s Red Room. “I’m just like your uncle playing records in the basement at a family gathering or something.”
Al’s DJ sets meander through the genres, stringing a golden thread of good vibes through the decades and he credits his eclectic tastes to skateboarding.
Before the internet, video parts and skate mags like Thrasher exposed him to all types of music, and the skate crowd at the Red Room share his open-minded attitude to music, dancing late into the night to his genre-busting selection.
Supported by Levi’s Skateboarding Collection.
Subscribe to Huck’s YouTube channel to make sure you catch all our short films first.
You might like
Lost photos from the heyday of punk and new wave
Crash Bang — DB Burkeman’s latest photobook unearths photographs from his younger years as an aspiring music photographer, which sat undeveloped in his family home for decades.
Written by: Miss Rosen
Analogue Appreciation: Xmunashe
Make Yourself At Home — In an ever more digital, online world, we ask our favourite artists about their most cherished pieces of physical culture. Today, it’s elusive freeform explorer Xmunashe.
Written by: xmunashe
Danny León pulls huge aerial in line with the solar eclipse
Totality — Combined with a board grab, the Spanish skateboarder performed the trick just as the moon’s path had completely covered the sun.
Written by: Isaac Muk
The global skateboarding crew reshaping Muslim sisterhood
Skater Uktis — Founded in London in 2020, the crew has ballooned across the world, with meetups and members in Pakistan, Palestine and beyond. Zahra Onsori tracks its rise and the powerful community it has created.
Written by: Zahra Onsori
Grainy, yearning memories of Europe’s ’90s free rave heyday
Never Alone — A new photobook from Cheyenne Clementi and Valentina Morandi presents pictures they made over seven years while touring the continent as part of the Tekno Mobil Squad soundsystem crew. It archives parties, people and a lifestyle largely consigned to the past.
Written by: Isaac Muk
As Hanoi’s nightlife faces raids & repression, its underground scene modulates
Spaces Between the Beats — Tensions between nightlife and authorities have grown in recent times, as police target venues and their patrons with increasingly frequent drug testing and searches. With clubs becoming hostile spaces as a result, Hanoi’s electronic music community is finding new spaces and forms of expression, reports Martin Guttridge-Hewitt.
Written by: Martin Guttridge-Hewitt
