Outsider art is a really interesting concept. It’s when an artist appears and they have no formal training or background in any type of art. Usually something like this ends up pretty bad cause when people who don’t do art decide they want to, they just end up drawing what they think their art should be. With people in our demographics probably half ass tattoo styles with maybe some psychedelic overtones. Cause that’s cooo. Once in a while someone will create something completely intuitively and without pretenses and it’ll be so unique to itself that it can’t help but be interesting, leaving the viewer mesmerized.
Like this work above is by a guy name Henry Darger. He’s some closet nutcase who did janitor work by day and at night he came to his empty house worked on his epic story book. Normally this wouldn’t be that strange, actually commendable to have that tenacity to do something like that but Henry Darger never showed anyone or told anyone. So it ends up being creepy and obsessive. His subject matter doesn’t help his case either. All this was only unveiled when he passed away and somebody went through his belongings finding thousands of pages of this book tucked away somewhere in his house.
I only bring this up cause if BMX is an art and there is certainly a genre of BMX which is Outsider BMX. It’s the type of riding usually from the East Coast where there is no semblance of any traditional BMX styles. They’re always attention grabbing and down right strange. Not something other people really try to replicate or aspire to cause it’s so out there. You wonder how they came to be riding that way cause usually we watch BMX, sweat something and work towards that. Most riders may diverge a bit but for the most part it’s on a semi predictable path.
This Ian Mcomber section has nothing like that. I can’t think of any rider at all who remotely has a similar style. Maybe a bit of George Dossantos but it’s like Ian took one aspect of George D’s riding and focused on it entirely. 99% of this section is fakie cassette tricks. It’s bizarre and almost counter intuitive. At this point freecoasters existed and freecoaster riders who specialize in that were around. Ian took a drastically different approach by almost emulating those freecoaster riders but at the same time retaining a very different and unique bag of tricks by keeping that cassette. Like the half cab brakeless fufanu on a quarter. That wouldn’t be possible without a cassette necessarily. Halfcab rails require a lot of pedal pressure something that freecoast riders don’t do.
Another aspect is there’s no real precedence for something like that. No build up. No 180 bar before the truck. Progression is a line and BMX as a community follows these progression paths laid by different riders at different times Garrett Reynolds became famous and a lot of riders took what he did and made something a lil bit different but somewhat the same. Someone like Sean Ricany while now very different has that semblance of Garrett in his riding. Something like Ian Mcomber’s riders doesn’t have a real clear cut line. His influences, his beginnings, how he came to be is all a mystery. Even with the popularity of freecoasters today, this style is still not something that exists. All this with a cassette none the less when by 2008 I wanna say freecoasters were becoming more prevalent. It’s one of kind and it works cause it’s understandably hard. Just like making thousands of pages of some random picture book. Cause with a lot of things as long as it seems like it takes real effort than whatever it is becomes credible.
I brought up earlier that this Outsider BMX is more prevalent in the East Coast. I think there is a case to be made that BMX and extreme sports in general are more of a rarity on this side. With that a lot of riders they become geographically and BMX socially socially isolated. I remember personally growing up a close friend of mine definitely had an outsider style. We only rode with each other, never had a skatepark close enough. I watched the same three riders who never really did any tricks obsessively so my personal riding is a derivative of that. He wasn’t the type to cosume BMX media, he just saw something that interested him and found a way to get it done. This is a guy who did a fakie bar to half cab before he could hop bar forwards. It’s this type of BMX isolation I think leads to these type of styles something I think is gonna become rarer as we progress towards the future.
Because It’s impossible not to consume BMX media today. Only a real indifference anything in riding itself would be the reason for so. I think this is also a reason why riding styles seem to be more the same everywhere. It’s that idea of California-cation. Where Hollywood and in an extension mass media is washing over regional styles and exporting that brand to the world. It’s why there are kids in Indonesia who listen to Lil Yachty and dress like Soundcloud rappers. The BMX equivalent is a kid in Indonesia learning to pull up bars wearing a beanie in Winter or something like that. It’s absolutely a happening in BMX and a larger extent culture.
If Henry Darger’s mom put him through extensive art school, he wouldn’t have created what he did. More than likely if he was born today he’d be painting owls or something. We are what we consume, physically and mentally. There isn’t anyway to predict outsider riding is ever gonna be in cause it doesn’t work like that. Every outsider rider is different one another. I think the best case in BMX with someone who took it the furthest would be Erik Elstran. Who rides nothing like Ian Mcomber. That’s the beauty of this genre, no two is similar. It’s just an interesting idea and concept to wrap your head around.
Ian “Fakie Master” Mccomber
Cold As Ice by Foreigner
Fakie master 08 (2008)
Edited by Anthony Villani
