Sharp Notes and Flatspots

If a broken ankle affords me time for anything, it's sleeping, reading, and watching whatever skate videos catch my eye. Now, anyone whose watched their fair share of skate videos (which, in the last eleven years, I have), will tell you that good music can either make or break a video; a well-chosen soundtrack will help to permanently burn every part of a video into one's subconscious, while a forgettable soundtrack may cause one to brush off even the most phenomenal skateboarding.
Here, of course, is where this post could potentially cause a lot of upset. Music is, after all, a passionate, delicate subject for most people, and opinions are like that one pair of socks you skate vert in..... or something like that...
Anyway, I felt the best approach to this post was to get the opinions of people whose opinions I respect on the matter, before delving into my own. I asked for the help of two of the most passionate, opinionated pros that I have the joint pleasure and honour of sharing correspondence with: Nate Sherwood and Mike Vallely.

Nate's Take:

"man any of those vids from like 95 to 96 where they used classic rock crap like magic carpet ride and c.c.r. or whatever sucked. ed temp rules but his taste in music for those toy vids back then sucked ass. I would have to say any vid that uses main stream shit sucks. I like hearing new under ground stuff. like how the old plan b vids and h- st vids did. I got into op ivy. sub society and hiero as well as antcon rhyme sayers kool keith the germs. the adolescents sub humans. and even skinny buda and handy with shovels all due to skate videos. now kids hear the same crap in vids they would hear on the radio or mtv it is not rad."


Mike's Take:

"All of my favorite skate videos are from the 80's. And all of them have killer soundtracks. Skate Visions has an all Agent Orange Soundtrack and the Powell-Peralta videos have original soundtracks with most of the songs being composed by Dennis Dragon. Back then skate videos didn't have bad soundtracks... and they didn't have cookie cutter skateboarding either."

 There are a few things that these gentlemen make very evident in their comments on the matter.
1) An eclectic soundtrack makes for a good soundtrack, though not one lacking in energy.
2) Mainstream banality ought to be avoided
3) There is a serious problem with contemporary skate videos and their accompanying music.
(Note: Nate and Mike, if I've misrepresented your views in any way, let me know).




I couldn't agree with these points more.


There seems to have been a gradual shift in the more mainstream skate videos as of late to have soundtracks that are primarily filled with sleepy, somnambulist space-pop that couples well with excessive use of slow-mo and pristine white Macbooks. Lots of artistic angles and film effects are used, and the skateboarding is some of the most technically advanced stuff ever seen, and yet the video is a blur; providing you can sit through an hour and a half of ledge combos set to synthesizers and painfully underdriven guitars without falling asleep, you'll be lucky to remember even half the tricks in any given part - the whole thing becomes a DFA dissertation with a superhuman subject, and the viewer is left feeling overwhelmed and discouraged
......or sleepy.....

I don't ant to hate on Marc Johnson, Ty Evans, or Lakai, but if the skate shoe fits.......


Rather, the most memorable videos are the ones whose music is pulsing with an unbridled energy, the ones whose individual parts not only have music that best represent the skaters in said parts, but that make you sit up and pay attention, that make you want to get up and go skate.

Jason Adams' part from Bag of Suck, as well as the video on a whole, is one of the best contemporary examples of this, and I encourage all of you to go and give it a watch, along with anything from H-Street, Old Plan B, Powell-Peralta, 1031, Classic Santa Cruz, and Black Label.


Big thanks to both Nate Sherwood and Mike Vallely for helping out with this - both are truly standout individuals in what can often be a den of mediocrity.


Now go skate.