Satva Leung is an OG bad ass. I first saw him rippin' shit up in an old Toy Machine video. I've always thought he had a rad style, and it always looked like he was smiling and having fun with skating. It's been about 10 years since i've seen that toy machine video, and your boy Satva is still doing it. He resides in San Francisco and has managed to make it in the dog eat dog world of club DJ's and for the past couple years has been producing the critically acclaimed The Streets dvd series. I bumped into Satva recently while he was lurking around Los Angeles, so I stuck a mic in his face and asked him a few questions. read on then go to www.streets.tv

9.29.05 @ the Concord on La Cienega
What's good with The Streets?
The Streets is basically a travel guide for skaters. It's the Wild On E! for skateboarders. If you get the dvd you'll get the skate spots, the clubs, the nightlife, the restaurants... ya know? You'll have a good knowledge of the city before you get there. That's basically what we're trying to do... cover all the cities and just break it down on a street level.

What inspired such a good idea?
Travelling! Basically travelling on skate tours all over the world is what inspired it. It's like no one was doing it, so we decided to do it. If you were going to some city that's new to you, wouldn't you like to see a dvd about that city before you go? That way you would know where all the hotspots are.

Where has The Streets been to so far?
We did San Francisco, Barcelona, Melbourne, and now we're doing Los Angeles. The next city will either be Montreal or Toronto

So whats the M.O.? You call the local skaters ahead of time and let them know you're coming?
Basically, The Streets is one big gypsy tour. We just go in there... sleeping on couches, randomly driving around. Yesterday we were driving down the street and we saw Muska just skating by himself so we interviewed him. I've been sleeping on Chico's (Brenes) couch the past couple days. It always works out somehow. But of course you're right, we have to do a little research beforehand and call a few local skaters up. Honestly though, The Streets' skate footage depends on the local skaters and the filmers. We wouldn't be able to do it without the loc's. It's like we come in and we'll break it down as far as the spots, the interviews... but we need to buy the skate footage of the local filmers. It's like people will ask, "why don't you do The Streets Bangkok?" Well, there's no filmers in Bangkok with any footage. We depend on local filmers and the skateboarders that live in the particular cities.

So does all the good shit happen after the cameras are off?
I think yes and no. If you're trying to interview somebody and they're telling a really crazy story and whatever and then you stick a camera in their face and they don't want to tell the story again because they already told it... that kinda sucks. So what you do is set up a camera ahead of time... kinda underground and low pro and they don't really notice it, then you get them going on their stories. They're gonna be more natural, ya know? The camera can definitely make you feel intimidated. It goes both ways though too. Some people like the camera, they like the attention and they just go off. They turn into a different person and start spitting out whatevers. It's like, "alright now, calm down". gotta take the camera off them... they think they've got their own reality show or something.

I think the first time I met you you gave me a mix cd you made. How's the whole dj thing going?
Yeah, that was a Judah promo cd. Basically right now I'm in San Francisco, I'm a full time DJ. I DJ 2-3 nights a week, do a lot of special events. It's paying the bills. The Clubs and The Streets.

This is a really broad question: where is skateboarding headed to in the next few years?
That's the cool thing about skateboarding. You never really know... it just mutates. Of course there's gonna be trends and people jump on trends... and that's what's cool about skateboarding; it's always ahead of everything else, it's always setting the trends. Look at it fashion-wise. Mike Vallely wearing baggy cargos back in the day... and don't get me started with the ravers wearing size 44 New Deal jeans. It's always mutating and it's so unpredicatble. It's Skating! It's just how skating is. Of course it's gonna get more technical and people are going to go bigger, but you never really know.