DVD Review: Children of the Con

Children of the Con is the latest Con.Artist Brand team DVD. I won’t talk much about the menu or the cover of the DVD as this is not what impressed me the most. Let’s get straight to the skating.


The intro is kicked off by Jeff Dalnas who does what he does best, murdering a massive kink-rail. Pretty much the whole team is presented in the intro and you also get to see the one or the other slam. The skating is nice and makes you hungry for more.

Brett Dasovic is the star of opening section. At first his section starts of with a pretty relaxed song. Even though I got so see some of Brett’s famous AO and Zero Spin Topsouls I was not totally satisfied until the second, faster part of his section started. The second part is edited to I Wanna Live by The Ramones. His style just blew me away. This guy must have knees made of rubber!

Up next is Jeff Dalnas. He skates to Moving to New York by The Wombats. No matter if he is skating a small curb or some curved drop-rail Jeff is always good for some unbelievable tricks. This guy shows technical spin-to-win tricks as well as massive hammers. What really made my jaw drop was Jeff showing that it is possible to Backslide UP a stair handrail. In my eyes letting Jeff go was Rollerblades biggest mistake since parting ways with Broskow!

Kevin Meland skates to a The Cramps song which I did not really like. What I liked about Kevin’s section is that he was doing some nice tricks on stuff not everybody would enjoy to skate. This for sure is his best section that I have seen so far!

I don’t know why but most of the times the songs used in Victor Arias sections are great. Here Magic Doors by Protishead was used and it is a perfect selection. This is a Victor Arias section, what more do I need to say!? You get to see the craziest combos with almost Haffey-like control.


Jeff Dahmen is someone I have not heard too much of so far. His skating is really good, but I don’t like his style and I think that this is the least interesting profile on the DVD. Don’t get me wrong, his tricks are crazy but he is the just doesn’t seem to stand out too much. I have also not hear a lot about Dereck Larsen before but he was a nice surprise. He lays down hammer after hammer and skates amazingly good. His section is worth watching!

Brad Magnuson is known for drop spots and crazy True Topsouls. If this is what you expected you will be satisfied. This guy definitely has got balls of steel because those are needed to Fullcab AO Soul drop-rails and to True Topsoul triple-kink-rails.

I still remember seeing Blake O’Brien in a Daily Bread video the first time. It was in the very early days of rollerblading when Blake was a little kid and people were going crazy because he did a very short Frontside 5050 on a p-rail. But rollerblading and Blake have both made a huge step forward. It’s a good thing to let Blake have the closing section of the DVD. This leaves a great final impression. I never thought Bloc Party was cool until I saw Blake skate to Hunting for Witches. You can clearly see that Blake’s style had time enough to mature over the years. Everything he does looks solid and controlled.

- Lui Summer

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