The humble nose or tail butter, whilst riding casually down the piste, is one of snowboarding’s simple joys. Sadly, though, it has been largely ignored by film makers in recent times. Whereas back in the 1990’s you had the skate-influenced skills of Noah Salasnek, Jamie Lynn and Mike Ranquet (who actually coined the phrase ‘buttering the muffin’) tearing up the screen with their tweaked out, board bending flatland tricks, these days the focus is squarely on massive jumps and monster handrails (although to be fair, Marc Frank Montoya has tried his best to keep the piste shred alive while maverick soul surfers Nicolas Müller and Jake Blauvelt have taken it to the pow).
This weird and wonderful video from Japan, then, is a breath of fresh air. The Japs have always had a good eye for style (witness our old slack-trousered friend Kazuhiro Kokubo) and they’re also not shy of a retro trend (Elvis, vintage Patagonia duffle coats and old school surfboards are all ‘big in Japan’) so it’s not that surprising that those pint-sized snowboarding fashionistas from the Orient should cotton onto the fact that BUTTERING IS STILL F*CKING COOL! Just check out that extreme nose press on 1:43. The fact this clip has had nearly half a million views says it all really. Film makers are you listening? The viewers want more butter on their muffins!