Friday, April 4, 2008

Skate Videos Used To Have Good Music



Throughout my many years of skateboarding I've discovered a lot of different artists that I still love to listen to today while watching skate videos. I think it's evident to point out that there is no visible spectrum between the likes and the dislikes of music by various cultures.

It seems to me that we're reliving the 1980's all over again as absolutely everyone is guilty of listening to shitty music nowadays. That is not to say that skateboarding has been tarnished by poor skateboarding skills however, the kids are getting better and better by the day. They do however lack that extra oomph, that extra soul factor that a lot of the really big greats always had since the beginning (i.e. Tom Penny, Danny Way, Gino Iannucci, Guy Mariano, Keenan Milton, Eric Koston, Chad Muska, Rodney Mullen, etc, etc, etc). They're good, really good even, but not quite the same as the O.G.s were.

The same could be said about the music nowadays, it's not that it's bad, it's just an even more worse version of the shit that was mediocre and came out 20 some years ago.

Here is an example of a video where the dude is a living legend. His name's Guy Mariano and he's filmed about 3 video parts in the past two decades. He's had a video part in Powell/Peralta's "BAN THIS", which was released in 1989 and featured a way ahead of its time part of Frankie Hill, a Chad Muska of his generation. He's had a full length video part in Girl Skateboard Company's film entitled "MOUSE", which features an all funk/jazz/retro soundtrack and is so good I decided to post the video of it in my blog.

He also has a full length part in the recently released full length feature from Lakai Footwear entitled "Fully Flared". The Fully Flared part is just as good, if not even better than his part in MOUSE, however, for the sake of the argument about the quality music and quality of skate videos, I would have to say that Guy Mariano's Par in MOUSE can dust anyone's video parts that have been comin' out in the new millenium (Rodney Mullen's and Daewon Song's not withstanding).

I hope you enjoy the video and I hope you enjoy the song. The flick came out in 1997 and is outstanding if you haven't seen it before, and the song is "Watermelon Man" as performed by Herbie Hancock.

Ah, the good ol' days...

1 comment:

MrBlue said...

Dope clip! It's so true about people now a days listening to really crappy music. And the OG's had a different swag to them, I'm pretty sure it had a lot to do with the fact that the whole Jiggy era wasn't prominent in the skateboarding industry. There is nothing wrong with being a thug, and skating, or rocking bling while you skate, but the overall vibe that surrounded the OG skaters is completely different than it is now. back then they were scientists, now they are celebrities... aaashaaa!