AVS # 12⎜Life of Leisure (1996)

The Sole Tech owners got it all wrong in the mid-90s. Budget canvas shoes with vulcanized soles and some eco-concerns? That could never work. Then. I.e. in an Axion-packed skateboard world. Ever imagined the killing Sheep shoes would make today? But I’m partial, probably because the only video the brand put out bared two excellent reggae songs from two excellent reggae albums, and I’ve made my personal crusade to unveil them all, the eight of them.
I mean, I can’t see myself praising the Lou Reed and Pink Floyd classic albums heard on Life Of Leisure’s soundtrack as well, for their complete works you should already own. I won’t discuss why this flick is a classic, with its subtle subliminal messages and collages using the tripped-out time lapses from the 1982 Koyaanisqatsi film -please thank Buttery Robbie for the reminder- and/or heteroclitic juxtapositions of Natives getting smoked next to Dukes of Hazzard clips. But it worked. So did Life Of Leisure’s soundtrack. Here are three of its must-own albums.

Horace Andy: Feel Good All Over 1970-76
Tune used: Nice and easy (Matt Field)

Obviously, this one wasn’t “Matt’s dub”, as the ending credits stated. Thankfully, it didn’t take a particularly seasoned reggae collector to unmask the tune and recognize the familiar falseto voice at its highest-pitched: Horace Andy, singing his 1975 lovers hit Nice And Easy, musically not a stranger to a noticeable dose of disco influence. In true “dynamic rasta” style -remember that Big Brother caption?- Matt anihiliates positively, setting the mood to a tune that was to become a few years later one of the UK’s Lovers Rock, reggae’s equivalent to the slow jams trend, founding anthems once covered by Susan Cadogan. But that’s for later.

For now, that compilation should help you see clearer through the jungle of releases that Justin Hinds’ cousin has been heard on in his almost 40-years long career, other highly recommanded albums including Skylarking (Studio One label),  DanceHall Style (Wackies), and In The Light (Blood And Fire).

Sonic Youth: Experimental Jetset Trash and No Star
Tune used: Waist (Ed templeton)

A few times in his life, Ed Templeton skated not to Sonic Youth. It was so weird -like not having Jason Dill skating to the sounds of the latest band à la mode du jour. What’s weirder is to imagine who else is associated with the band, skate flick-wise : Jason Jesse in Streets On Fire. Now THAT’s an agnostic match in hell.

Even though all old-farts out there will forever lament over the band’s-now defunct SST label times, even their 1994 album, which contained probably their biggest hit (Bull In The Heather), is more than listenable, not to say absolutely crucial. Think Dinosaur Jr. Timeless, sorta. On an interesting side note, some will remember that Self-Obsessed and Sexxee was intended to be the second single from Experimental Jetset and No Star, but its promo pressing got cancelled, launching the copies already pressed (out on their side label Sonic Death) into the voracious Ebay jaws. Also, since Life Of Leisure is all about subliminal messages too, don’t forget that the band recorded EJTANS over the master tapes of Sister, so you can hear some of its tunes being played, faintly, in between tracks. A budget album for a budget shoe company’s video. How awesomely on point.

The Pioneers : Let Your Yeah Be Yeah
Tune used: Wolves in Sheep Clothing (Sergei Trudnowski)

It’s fair to say that Sergei reached legend status. For his balls-out yet mellow skating of course, but also who besides a legend has their own, personal stalker? Her name is Trisha, hopefully she’s not a hoax, and no idea what she’s been up to since the last updates in 2002, but her blog was too hilarious, and weird, and embarrassing, not to mention it. One of the entries, for instance, reads: “Sergei spotted in dog park with current fat ugly slut girl friend and her stupid ugly dog who i fed a spider to when they weren’t looking. 6/12/01″ OG Twitting! And so on…

Personnally not willing to comment on “the cute tight pants” he was seen in on Jan 11^th 2002, I’ll just try and focus on his 1996 skateboarding, when Sergei was at his downhill-firecracker best, mastering SF ass-hauling to the aptly named “Wolves in Sheep Clothing” tune. It was sung by the nonetheless aptly-named Pioneers, a vocal trio out of Jamaica that reached their own legend status (without Trisha’s blog) within the early reggae, mod, non-fascist skinhead circles as one of the most revered ska/rock steady bands ever.

Mostly known for their late-60s Long Shot song, Sidney Crooks, Jackie Robinson and former tailor George Agard recorded for another legend, producer Leslie Kong, and had more than a hand in one of reggae’s most mysterious groups, The Slickers, that came, saw, and pretty much disappeared -the only extensive article about them can be read in this mag, in French though- after their one mega-hit, Johnny Too Bad. A bit like Trisha’s blog, alas.

Back to more musical concerns, even though it’s a song from after the Pioneers’ golden age, Wolves In Sheep Clothing, and the compilation album it’s the easiest to find it on, will remain as one of the classic anthems when it comes to bomb some Avenues, well-perched on a reliable set of Physics 60 mm wheels.

A Teasa Please ⎜Hopps-essed with funk oldies

Remember that Hopps commercial that came out internet-ages ago? I mean, like a month ago? Besides still-awesome skating by mastermind Jahmal Williams and by comeback kid Jerry Fowler, it also featured quite a banging tune -a perfect pretext to resurrect our ‘Teasa Please’ irregular feature, which for some reason always seems to tend towards a disturbing obsession for soul oldies/funk divas these days.

Took me a minute pestering Jahmal but in the end it worked out: the commercial in question was set to Midwest funkette Wanda Davis’ only known tune, Save Me, an Aretha Franklin cover available on a few CDs, the most remarkable being a pretty cool compilation straight outta the Tornado Alley, Midwest Funk (From the excellent UK-based Jazzman label).

You can also endanger your retirement savings by trying to put your hands on the original 45, or be the true, full-on, skateboard dude, by trying to get a copy of one of Jack Sabback’s mix CDs -which is where Jahmal got it from. Lemme call Jack and get back to you.

Beat it (I’m late)

In my usual “just a week too late” fashion -wait ’til the next post and you’ll see- I had to pay my Michael Jackson hommage too. The only thing is, by now everything was said and this photo of him skating a banana board has been all over the interweb.

So, being the partial advocate I am, I decided to pass along a bunch of his tunes that reggae has covered  over the years, compiled by Roots&Discipline over at the Blood And Fire forum. Get the mix right here, or there once the link passes away.

If you thought there only was Shinehead’s interpretation of Billie Jean, think twice, cause the opening I Want You Back version by Esso Trinidad Steel Band pretty much sums it all -Esso being the name of the gas company by the way, who used to sponsor the group at first! Nice digging work.

Sundays with Sundae

Sundae has done many things after skateboarding, such as art and spinning records for prestigious labels and crowds. But as they say, you can take the man out of 1993 but you can’t take 1993 out of the man. This is where his skateboarding clock stopped, as his playlist du dimanche will attest.

Ah, 1993 in Montpellier, France… I was doing that fanzine Barbe A Poux (“flea-infested beard”), Sundae offered a hand on it -I promptly slaughtered all of his work by either cutting his articles in half or pasting old ayatollah heads on his awesome graffitti art. I have an excuse though: we all thought that making LSD at home was a normal thing, since there were articles in Big Brother about it. Evoking these souvenirs I could probably cry for hours, like an emotional Greg “Pignolo” on his first drinking binge after he saw Chico’s part in Finally (true story) but for now let’s see what Laurent Richard thinks are the best ever tunes used in skate flicks.

1. John Coltrane : Traneing In > Mark Gonzales -  Video Days (Blind)

2. A Tribe Called Quest : Oh My God (Know Naim Remix) > Jeron Wilson – Goldfish (Girl)

3. Dinosaur Jr : Just Like Heaven > Rudy Johnson – Video Days (Blind)

4. Group Home : So Called Friends > Tony Ferguson – Goldfish (Girl)

5. Steve Miller Band : Serenade > Colin McKay – Virtual Reality (Plan B)

6. David Bowie : Ziggy Stardust > Intro – Finally (FTC)

7. Diana Ross : Love Child > Daewon Song – Love Child (World Industries)

8. Mary J Blige : Sweet Thing > Jeron Wilson – Finally (FTC)

9. Black Sheep : Black With N.V. (No Vision) > Shamil Randall – New World Order (World Industries)

10. The Cowsills : Hair > Spencer Fujimoto – Love Child (World Industries)

Interlude⎜Jeremy Wray’s white room

He shot with Daniel Harold Sturt and got the only Dr Seuss graphic board that never got a cease-and-desist but a thank-you letter from the doc’s wife instead… In the Droorstalgic circles, Jeremy Wray will also remain for ever as the closing part in Plan B’s Second Hand Smoke video, with such a nice tune to it that it politely waited for his monster Carlsbad gap f-side kickflip before it started.
While I can’t find a link to the part in question that actually has the song on it –not like it matters since you watched it a million times in 1994– why this song and how did it go down, you may ask? Here are a few first-hand precisions from the man himself.

“I was working with Jake Rosenberg and we were going through a music list I had, trying to pick what we wanted to use. I brought in a few different options, I think I even had them on cassette tape at the time. Besides White Room, there was another Cream song we were  considering, Sunshine Of Your Love, which Adam Alfaro ended up using in one of his parts, and I had other ones, I probably have them written down somewhere.  I had Sly and the Family Stone’s Everyday People, and then Jimi Hendrix, Voodoo Child or something like that.

It was me, Jake, my friend Paul Luna, Dave Schlossbach was helping too, and we’re all listening to all of them trying to figure out what would work. But the way White Room was, and the way you can edit tricks to it, that ended up being the best choice. And we were gonna run out all the way to the end of the song, and we had more footage to use, but when we put everything in and got to the frontside flip at Carlsbad, it matched up with the very end of a part of the song. After that, there’s an instrumental part for a long time but we cut it right there, cause it was perfect.

It’s funny cause back then we used to be able to go in there and help editing the video exactely how we wanted, and work with the people on it. These days it seems like there’s a guy in charge of the project, and he got his own idea of what he wants, and they treat it as their baby, they don’t let you have much say at all even though it’s your footage and your part. It’s like it’s their part. Plus now you don’t get to choose the music cause they gotta get rights for the music, and you end up with something you would never want to skate to. I guess at the time skateboarding was smaller and most companies were skater-owned and they didn’t worry about getting sued. ‘Cause there was not much they could get sued for.”

(*) Please do yourself a flavor and check Spanky Wilson’s funky cut of the tune as well.

Amour suprême

While trying to rack my brain regarding the unanswered question: “Why is there so little straight jazz in skateboard flicks?” asked by old-time pal Sundae for his blog, I re-stumbled upon the Love Supreme video done in 1995 by Thomas Campbell for Supreme. A Coltrane tune, some black and white film and a mind at work sometimes suffice. Enjoy it here -if it doesn’t work, click here, then the click the “random” box.

Bastien and the tune that never was

… And most likely never forgotten. Photo courtoisie of Fred Mortagne

Sometimes the real world phones and you have to take the call, but, I mean, a month already since the last post? Et merde… Anyway, thanks for the wait, let’s go back to some Frenchness if you will. I read a while ago a post, possibly on Slap, where somebody was wondering about Bastien Salabanzi’s Mr Dibbs -Y2K’s skate flick’s editor’s best friend- tunes in his Sorry part. Or was it about the elusive Triple Deckers group that had stuff in Sorry and the Cliché vids? Right when Bastien chose the Wallenberg contest for his come-back (Just kidding, kids, I have no idea), here’s some sort of answer for either/or concern.

You think editing a video is easy? Cut some lines and tricks, slap a tune on it, next? Sometimes it’s a bit more complicated. Here’s for instance how it went down in this specific case, with the Triple Deckers’ mastermind Nicolas Malinowsky…

“It all happened during the last stop of the Vans tour in that black bus -same one used by Celine Dion and [French OG hip hop duet] NTM. So we were in Lyon and against all logic, me and [photog] Leo [Vernhet] decided to go to a house party that Olivier Chassignole had told us about.

It was at some girl’s place, and in attendance were Geoff Rowley, Ali Boulala, Bastien, plus a good chunk of the Lyon scene, Fred Mortagne included. That was the first time we actually got to talk, he told me how he was doing the Flip video, and that he liked the music I had done for the Cliché Spanish tour in a 411. He was really thinking about coming back to Lyon, he was totally over the US, and asked me if I wanted to do a track for the Bastien part. At the time I had this project called Triple Deckers with my friend Charly, we would do music strictly for skate videos.  

I thought it wasn’t such a bad thing that we went to this party, after all…

So I did the track real quick cause I was going to Boulder, Colorado for six months the following week. Fred liked it, Bastien liked it so-so, and Geoff hated it. Or maybe Bastien hated it and Geoff liked it so-so, can’t remember exactely. So I went to Boulder, came back and did another track that was more powerful maybe, but it didn’t work either…

Honestly the whole thing is  a bit blurry. I think I was a bit torn between different styles, cause Bastien wanted hip-hop a la Dr Dre, Rowley wanted rock, and Fred wanted something in the vein I was exploring then : a mix of Mr Dibbs / Mr Oizo / MF Doom / Company Flow -but less good, and my way.

For the second track, I tried to integrate all these requests, and it must have sucked pretty bad -I can’t find it anymore. When you’re young you try to stick to the memo pretty much, even if it’s stupid, instead of just trying to do something good, period. Plus I put on myself all that extra stress, like “shit, it’s the Flip video, I can’t mess up”. Maybe doing good music, when commissioned like that, doesn’t work? Not for me anyway. I think you’ll catch something out of coincidence, or from a certain ambiance…

In the end, Fred told me that Dibbs sent something, I thought that was cool for Bastien and I went on with my life.”

 

* Note: To this day, Fred Mortagne still feels bad about the whole thing, and the two are still friends and collaborate every now and then. No controversy here, (extremely) sorry.

Interlude | Not Highway to Hell

 

Not Mao's Little Red Book either. Lennie in SF, 1996 © Carayol

It took me a minute that has been lasting for eleven years now, but one of my personal skate-video musical Holy Grails was just reached today. I saw the light. I mean, I found the tune from Lennie Kirk’s part in Time Code.

In his typical manner they say, the enemy tried for many years to send me on the wrong path, as the credits of the video state that it was sung by the mysterious “Pilgrims Jubilee Singers” and was called King’s Highway. 

Well, it wasn’t quite the case -even if the topic and style, I’m sure, must have shared some common grounds.

The epic expressway Lennie seemed determined to take towards his ultimate demise in Alien Workshop’s second flick was actually, and joyously, set to a tune called Highway To Heaven as you might have guessed, sung by The Times Square Church Children’s Choir, a kids group from the NYC mega-church that Kirk used to attend in the mid-’90s when in the City. It graced an 8-track album called Oh Lord You’re Beautiful, that contains at least another skatable tune on it -for Lennie’s comeback part? 

As a special present to celebrate (I think) the first year of A Visual Sound, it’s downloadable for free right here. You welcome.

It’s partly the pants, I think (*)

Freshly graduated from the Gareth Sehr school of pantalonic excellence, Paulo Diaz either spent a lot of time on this chef d’oeuvre of pantalones, or skated really hard and try to slam on many distinct areas -a true artist’s performance in both cases.

Just to say that Mike, French cartoonist extraordinaire, is also nostlagic of a certain era in skateboarding. He kept his old mags too, and scans every now and then some gems on this other blog. And when I say gems I mean it: for a while when it was around (1989-1992) that French mag Noway ran interviews with obscure US ams, soon to be stars, and the cover above is just an amuse-bouche before the beautiful, full 1990 Paulo Diaz interview (which he’ll post soon), complete with huge Powell Peralta stickers and fside 180 stalfishes over handrails if my memory serves correctly. Can’t wait for that, and don’t forget : backside 180 stale-fishes on flat are the old “anything from a dude in Mind Field” as far as picking a cover shot goes.

(Skateboarding & music link : remember the million instruments paulo was playing in the opening of his Big Brother interview? See.)

(*) : Waiting for the Boil The Ocean cease-and-desist for this title.

Interlude ⎪ Howling at the moon

Two posts in one day? Fret not, old friend : it’s only for the sake of shameless self-promotion. So. The first leg of that bigger-than-I-thought project is now just completed: after the whole year it took me to find all the people involved, the article I wrote in Wax Poetics Magazine’s new issue about the mysterious jazz album Ululation (used on a certain video whose name was borrowed by this very blog)  just came out in newsstands and the usual record shops, or can be ordered online -I’m just talking about the mag right now.

It will be followed by the reissue of the two Ululation albums on a double-LP (Ululation 2 actually never came out, its only trace is on the audio tape below) on Wax Poetics records in a few months, I will keep you posted…