Maybe it was a Melbourne thing but Silverchair always seemed to be a divisive band … They were obviously popular but I never met anyone who admitted to liking them. Then when I first went to the UK a friend of mine would swap seamlessly between thrash metal and Silverchair (he even had posters on his wall) which always seemed weird. Still, even though we hadn’t heard from them in a few years, news of their breakup made big news and one friend of Pop’s felt like …

Our friend Julius’ buddy Max is one of the guys behind the first Castle Music Festival happening on July 2nd. Max and his business partner, Jake Laderman, plan to run the festival, “twice a year showcasing up and coming bands and DJs in an environment that  let’s them do their thing in front of a substantial crowd in the great outdoors.” They guys have got Kins (ex Oh Mercy), The Harlots (Nick Caves cousin), Indian Summer DJs (Director of Wax Waves) and many more …

Street League have just posted the finals highlight reel from the Kansas City event. It has Chaz Ortiz, Chris Cole, Nyjah Huston, Ryan Sheckler and Sean Malto killing it. Check em out and see a bunch of photos from the qualifiers and the finals over here.

Last weekend at The Berrics saw Rodrigo TX take on Morgan Smith which ended in a result I did not see coming. Sunday was Davis Torgerson up against Ronnie Creager which was a pretty damn epic battle. For once, my strategic prediction was spot on! This is the closest I’ve come to making it onto the leaderboard. Head over here and enjoy!

A much edited down version of this interview originally appeared in issue 18 of Pop Magazine. Steve Berra gave up hours of his time to sit with our writer, Steele Saunders, and talk about The Berrics, his history and his opinions on the direction of skateboarding. It’s an amazing interview – the full text is being released in four parts, this is part one. All up it is 17,000 words and I’ve listened to it and read it over a dozen times so far. We’re releasing …

We just wanted to send out a huge congrats to Lewis Marnell and his awesome girlfriend Nami on their engagement last weekend! We’re all really excited for them!

The first Street League stop in Kansas City went down last weekend and Nyjah Huston upped his bank account by another US$150,000. That takes his total winnings for this year to over $300,000! He took out Chris Cole in a nail biting finish on the big section. Huston didn’t secure the win till his final attempt on the big section with a huge nollie inward heel. Third place was taken by Chaz Ortiz with KC local Sean Malto taking a close fourth…

One of my favorite skate writers, Chris Nieratko, has interviewed Hillary Thompson for King Shit magazine. Thompson is the first openly transexual skateboarder and the interview is amazing for the fact that it gives you a small insight into how much of a tough time she must have had growing up but also that she shreds. Check out the video of part of the interview below and head over here for the full version in the magazine. Kudos to Nieratko for an amazing read.

As a follow up to Stay Gold Emerica have been releasing a bunch of B-side videos…

I don’t remember how I found this clip but it is, as the headline promises, Brandon Biebel being awesome. A bunch of old and recent footage put into a compilation of raddness. Check it out!

The Street League course for Kansas City has been revealed … Sort of. The above photo gives you a bit of an idea of how this weekend is going to look inside the Sprint Center arena. It is under construction as we speak and for those of you not lucky enough to be hitting the snow this weekend, you can find the Australian broadcast times for the event back here.

X Games 17 is coming up and the promo clip for the new Real Street comp is out. Last year the comp was amazing – there were some great videos that came out of it. This year, they have Daewon Song, Tommy Sandoval, Dylan Rieder, Darrell Stanton, Joey Brezinski, Tom Asta, Anthony Schultz, Zered Bassett, Eli Reed, Brandon Westgate, Ryan Decenzo, Louie Barletta, Billy Marks, Silas Baxter-Neal, Tony Tave and Guru Khalsa competing … Based on the

Dew have sponsored the creation of a skatepark in Auckland, New Zealand based on a pinball machine… Complete with working live scoring mechanism, sound effects and launch. The guys spent $500,000 creating the park (which is money well spent if you ask me) which will exist for three weeks. The clip below gives you more detail in the setup and has the bonus of a reporter eating it on a roll in. Full credit to the guy for the attempt though. Check it out.

This weekend is the second stop of the 2011 Street League tour. It’s the first time it has hit Kansas City (Sean Malto country) and it’s set to be another banger. The qualifiers and last chance qualifiers will be broadcast live on Facebook and the finals will be live on ESPN2 (for those of you with cable) and through DC for those of us outside of the US. Check the broadcast schedule below (converted to Aus East Cost time) with links so you can watch along.

This one kinda slipped by me but thanks to our own paparazzo BFG, who happened to be wandering by with his camera, I got some photos over the weekend on the new Element store in Melbourne. The place looks incredible – anyone know when it officially opened its doors? Apparently the store is stocking RVCA, Nixon, Von Zipper, DVS, Matix, PlanB, Lakai, Sector 9, Element Eden and more. Check the layout of the store above!

Greg Lutzka has taken the win at the Maloof Money Cup in NYC over the weekend. It came down to a close final frame with Denis Busenitz who couldn’t quite pull it off but still walked away with $40,000 for the days work. Lutzka is $160,000 richer for his effort. Third went to Ryan Decenzo. The Ams was won by Evan Smith with Micky Papa and Felipe Gustavo close behind – check the full results for the ams below.

Here is Aaron Homoki setting some kind of record and landing himself the cover of the July issue of Thrasher. This spot is in Louisville, KY. My body hurts just watching it…