The second stop on my quarter life crisis tour was Albuquerque’s Filter Boardshop. Walking in I found a great selection of both upstart and heritage brands throughout. Noah runs a tight ship over at Filter alongside his dog, Cowboy. Everybody who walked into the shop during my visit was treated like a friend, whether they were stopping in for a new setup, or to hang on the couch with Cowboy and watch a skate video. I picked Noah’s brain for a few minutes to find out more.
What’s the story behind the name Filter?
We pretty much came up with twenty different names that we’d written down, and I was sitting in the car with my buddy Chris when we settled on Filter. It’s meant to Filter out all the bullshit, because there’s just so much bullshit that you’ve got to filter through.
Yeah definitely, from the brands that you guys carry on top of everything else, you guys wanted to skim away the fat. You just want to filter all that other shit out.
Totally. That’s where it came from.
How long have you guys been open?
It’ll be two years on June 21st.
You opened on Go Skate Day.
Yup that’s when I opened up.
What made you want to open a skate shop in today’s climate with so much competition out there be it from online retailers, to mall stores and the like?
You wouldn’t think it’s the right climate to open a shop in, but I’ve skated with everybody in this scene for my whole life and I worked in one of the other Albuquerque skate shops that went out of business since I was twelve. To me it just made sense, because with that shop closing there wasn’t a community driven place, so we’ve been trying to fill that void and make that happen.
It sounds like some shops are resting on their laurels as if them being around for say, twenty years, guarantees that they’ll stick around for another twenty years. But it sounds like whatever it is that they’ve always done doesn’t speak to the current skate community.
Totally, it just worked out because I already nerd out on skateboarding, and it just goes hand in hand and I have a bunch of friend who do a lot of art, and we do a lot too and we just run graphics and make sure everybody is included.
Are all of the shop’s logos and graphics created by your friends and other local artists?
It’s literally all homies. My friend Adrian who does tattoos, he’s done a couple graphics. My friend Pepe has done stuff for us. Just photographers and artists work so well alongside skateboarding.
That’s sick to hear. Not to say it was a business strategy to do that, but having all of the shop’s imagery being created by local artists/friends really demonstrates it’s own vibe, while at the same time staying rooted in the area it comes from.
Yeah, it’s got it’s own aesthetic. We’re pretty unique out in New Mexico in terms of culture and history so it’s really cool to have something special to identify with this particular place.
Aside from what we just mentioned, is there anything else that sets you guys apart from other Albuquerque shops, or other shops in general?
Just homie shit. That’s all it is. The whole thing is just friends and doing whatever comes to mind. That’s the cool thing about running the shop at this point is just having an idea and we can make it happen.
Are you the only person working in the shop? Are you in here seven days a week?
It’s me, and I have one kid, Theo, who rips. He’s huge, he’s seventeen and he’s 6’3”! He kills it and works on Sundays.
Rad, so you get one day off on Sunday?
Sunday and then I’m closed Mondays.
So you still get a two day weekend.
Can’t work too hard.
Are there other shops that you’re hyped on? Maybe not so much out here from the sound of it...
I’m hyped on a ton of shops. Out here actually I’m stoked on Microwave Skate Shop.
Microwave is sick?
Yeah. Ray Chavez runs it, he’s the homie. Ray is fuckin’ sick. He just kills it. He’s got a little shop downtown.
It’s far enough away that you don’t really take too much business from each other?
Yeah. We’re so spread out in Albuquerque that it works and we don’t carry a lot of the same brands so we’ve kinda worked things out. There’s so many shops I fuck with. Labor is sick, Humidity is sick. Lotties is dope, I like Kingswell. There’s just so many...Venue, that’s a sick shop (as Venue’s Gospel video plays on the shop’s television). There’s just a group of shops that are doing shit so good that it’s hard not to pay attention.
Exactly. Do you guys follow one another and interact on social media?
I follow them and look at what they’re doing. I interact with this little shop up in Portland called Shrunken Head. That’s all of our homies. Some of them are from here actually. Portland’s rad! The’ve got a super sick scene
Has it been difficult as a young shop to get support from the local skate community?
Yeah there’s just a lot of shops out here. But on the bright side we all skate together so it’s been working itself out. I kinda knew what to expect because I’ve been working in skate shops for so long. So I didn’t set out to make any money or anything so my expectations have already been exceeded just with the support of our homies and the people who have gotten involved. It’s been a cool experience.
Definitely, and since you’ve been working in shops for so long, it just sent you on this path and you already knew everyone in the local scene through years of involvement.
Yeah, just people I’ve grown up with and people I’ve looked up to. We have such a tight knit skate community that we all know each other.
Has it been tough as a young shop to get certain accounts especially given that you’re not the only shop in the area?
There’s a couple. There’s some that are just hard to get. Vans was one of them. They took a long time but DanLu helped with that. I can’t do Adidas, they supposedly have an account freeze so they haven’t been opening up any accounts recently. Other than that I was lucky because I already had relationships from when I worked at past shops that I was able to bypass with some of the staple brands that you pretty much need if you want to open a shop.
What does Filter do to bring the Albuquerque skate community together as far as events, etc.?
We try to incorporate people into different aspects of the store with local artists doing graphics, we do a bunch of events. We just had the Pyramid Country guys out here and we held a barbecue. It wasn’t a demo or signing, it was just a session so all the kids could interact with us and the dudes on the team. It was rad. We try to do a lot of events, we do a lot of ditch races (the famous Indian School ditch is a mile down the street), just random stuff. Just skateboarding. Skating is just super sick.
Do you guys hook up any local kids? Is there anybody we should look out for?
This kid Gush. His name is Agush Agushi.
That’s a sick name. I actually met him yesterday. Gush is awesome.
He’s a super nice kid and he rips. The Duran Family. Mariah, Elijah, and Zeke.
Is Mariah the one that’s on Adidas?
Yeah that’s her, so she’s doing good. Mariah and Zeke are on fire.
That’s good to hear. It’s sick that aside from the big names that have come out of Albuquerque in the past that the progression of the scene hasn’t died down.
It’s pumping right now. It’s gotten to the point where so many kids are good out here. It’s so good to see everybody just progressing like that. Especially kids that I’ve skated with forever.
Yeah definitely, especially for you still being as young as you are. You said you’re twenty-three?
Twenty-four.
To be starting your own business in an industry that’s tough to stay alive in at an age where many kids are still deciding their major in college.
Yeah it’s kinda crazy how that worked out. So the last shop I worked at closed down, and the owner said he’d sell me, basically his whole shop. So my mom pulled out her whole retirement savings. I then took the next seven or eight months to sell off that inventory and pay my mom back and start the shop. It just happened so quick. It’s like a dream.
Damn, that’s crazy. All things considered you guys are doing really well for yourself. Everything in the shop looks great.
Thank you man. I appreciate it.
Changing gears a bit, I’ve got a few more questions. What’s the local skate bar? Where do you go after work?
Anodyne. Anodyne is dope. The owner is a sick dude. My homie Johnny Gomez, who took the picture for one the shop’s board graphics, he’s a bartender there. My homie Chris, who basically helped me put this all together, he works there too. It’s sick, you just play pool, hang out. It’s like a pool/dive bar.
Dustin wanted me to ask you about @FilterNSFW. What’s the story behind that?
Haha, so me and Chris, who helped me open the shop, we run this little company called Bon Grip, and we post videos to these little accounts of just...fuckery. It’s super funny and we have all this shit we post that I just cannot post on the shop instagram because it’s just not safe for work. It’s super fun, a bunch of the Portland homies are involved too.
Just a side account where you’re not worried about the local shop kid’s mom seeing what you post.
Yeah that’s exactly what it is.
Where can you find the most fire frito pies? That’s a New Mexico staple, right?
Bob’s Burgers! Well, frito pies not so much, but Bob’s Burgers kills it. They’ll give you the red ring for sure.
Top 3 skaters that have come out of Albuquerque?
Dan Garcia, he kills it. Dan Lu, obviously....and Mariah she’s been killing it. DanLu and Mariah are doing it right now, but Dan Garcia is an OG.
How many lurkers normally stop by here on Saturdays?
Probably five.
Five randoms that always seems to show up or?
There’s this one kid, Troy. He always texts me in the morning “When does work start?” and then he shows up and is here the whole entire day.
So he’s trying to get a job?
No he just wants to kick it. He works five days a week and then just wants to hang on his day off.
Anybody else?
There’s this kid Skylar that comes in, he kills it too. Theo comes in all the time when he’s not working. That kid Ryan you just saw, he comes in here. It changes all the time too, especially since Summer just started there’s a bunch of kids that will start coming in every day to just hang and watch skate videos all day.
Have there been any odd customers or upset parents telling you how to run your shop?
That hasn’t happened. Not Yet. But I kicked a lady out one time.
How’d that go?
She wanted a shirt that I didn’t have in stock. I told her they didn’t make any more. She wigged out on me so I kicked her out.
What kind of shirt was it?
It was a shop shirt. “Why the fuck don’t you have it?”
That’s all I’ve got for you Noah. Thanks for taking the time.
Thanks for stopping by the shop.
