DESCENDANT

DESCENDANT will be releasing a new capsule collection with skateboarding team, El Burrito's Skate Amigos. One of the members, Taku Takemura, is a freelance editor and writer for culture magazines and books. He and our director, Tetsu Nishiyama, have been friends since elementary school. Via email, we interviewed Takemura, who was on a business trip abroad, to inquire how El Burrito's was formed, its business, and how things led to a collaboration with DESCENDANT.

―How did El Burrito's Skate Amigos get started? Originally, I did a series of articles in a magazine called, “Cheap Fat Burritos,” with my classmate since elementary school, Taro Hirano, whom is a photographer. Skaters in Los Angeles and San Francisco say, “Lets’s get a burrito,” when they are hungry. Burritos are a perfect choice for skaters on a budget because its cheap and fills you up. I really wanted to incorporate the word “burrito,” and is how the title was decided. With this background in mind, when Taro had asked me to create a skateboard team, we decided to name it “El Burrito.” Taro’s idea was, “why not have a skateboard team that worships burritos?” I think this all started back in 2004.

ーーWhat are some of the activities of El Burrito's? Honestly, there isn’t much that we do that can be called activities (laughingly). Our friend’s band just released a song called “El Burrito's Skate Amigos”. Other than that, we asked Raymond Pettibon^(*1) to design our logo and produce stickers and T-shirts for fun. It’s just the name, “El Burrito's” makes us happy. We believe not in the actual activities but the existence of El Burrito's in everyones mind is important.

ーーHow did you get connected to do a collaboration with DESCENDANT? Tetsu Nishiyama went to the same elementary school as Taro and I, and we all started skateboarding after watching the video, “Animal Chin”^(*2), together when we were in junior high school. Of course, Tetsu knew about “El Burrito's” and we had a blast when we got together with our crews to skateboard a couple years ago. When I co-produced the event called “LOVE + GUTS”^(*3) with Lance Mountain, Steve Olson and Pat Ngoho last year in Japan, I asked Tetsu to design the logo, then Tetsu suggested to me “lets’s make some El Burrito's products with DESCENDANT”.

ーーWhat are the contents for the collaboration with DESCENDANT? There are some products that Tetsu had suggested as well as some suggestions of my own. We are also silk screen printing T-shirts, produced by “Restaurant Printing”. I wanted Tetsu to create some product items, that on our end, could not. My request were Hanes packed T-shirts, tote bag and stickers. Tetsu designed each items base and I gave him some ideas and comments to complete the final designs. I love all the items and can’t really say which is my favorite but I guess the T-shirt with the Pettibon logo design. There is a DESCENDANT logo on the front pocket and a large “El Burrito's” print on the back, it’s sick! The stickers are also nice and no question, always stoked to have.

• *1 Raymond Pettibon – Born in Arizona, USA, in 1957. An artist who had made his mark in the punk rock scene of Southern California in the 80’s. His brother, Greg Ginn, founded the band, Black Flag, and thier very well known logo. He is also known for designing album jackets for Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters and so on.
• *2 Animal Chin – A skateboard video that was released by Powell in 1986 called, “The Search for Animal Chin”. It’s a story in which members of Bones Brigade such as Tony Hawk, Lance Mountain, Steve Caballero, Tommy Guerrero and Mike McGill, head out on a journey to search for the legendary character Animal Chin. A biblical piece of work for kids who skated in the 80’s.
• *3 LOVE + GUTS – An art show by legendary skaters, Lance Mountain, Steve Olson and Pat Ngoho. Launched in 2005, to express skateboards as art. Events were held in the US, South America and Oceania and finally made its way to Japan last year.