Intermission

... Not dead yet ! Just kinda travelling up and down at the moment. This will be updated sometime this week, I hope and almost swear. It will be about full-on Droorstalgia, as it often occurs. Let the horns blow!

Interlude | Nico Levet is seeing red

Tired of staring in the eyes of Dee Edwards's beautifulness, now below this post? OK, I got something you might like better. I am talking Haters' Ball, SxE-esque, not on a positive trip, raw and immaculated misanthropy. So as the world should know, Nicolas Levet is a French fun ball hailing from Grenoble, France, and got nicknamed many moons ago 'Marre De Vivre' (Tired of living) for he, as about two other people in France, has been enjoying the merry , somewhat monastic, straight-edge lifestyle. A very apt nick as, besides being an excellent, and creative skater part of the Trauma adventure, Nico's been known to address the world issues by calling a firestorm upon them -literally, as it is one of his favorite Earth Crisis songs. Which include anybody dressing unaccordingly, the TWS videos makers, a very vast array of pro skaters, hippies, the general French population etc etc. There's nothing, he swears, that hanging wrong-doers in an organic sleeping bag while a team of righteous, animal-friendly, compassionnate buddies whip them with bike chains can't fix. Ethical purification? Mmmh, tooouchy subject.
The funniest thing is, Nico is actually a sort of shy and hilarious dude from what I remember -I haven't seen him since 1998- who incidentally also enjoys the world to see his "quenelle", and photographer Loïc Benoit's (thanks for the pic) for that matter.
Anyway after this fastidious introduction, which will probably only attract a firestorm threat upon me -not to mention upon my pagan dub habit-, here are the straight-edge tunes MDV would like to see in a video, and for what SxE skater. "It was hard to find 5", Nico conceded. Yet, he enlightens us in his concessions-free fashion:


1. Earth Crisis : Firestorm
"Would have been a good tune for Mike V's part in New Deal's 1281, even though the original tune was actually by legendary SxE singer Dan O Mahoney, who allegedly was ths first one to get a 'Poison Free' tattoo. Back then, Mike V was the shit, he wasn't corrupted by the dollars and the merchandising yet. The Earth Crisis song's tough guy touch would have fit perfectly the character he was, I remember that once he fought Joey Suriel cause he did a bad joke to Templeton about veganism. In these days, Mike V could have thrown a firestorm to purify skateboarding".


2. Side By Side: You're Only Young Once So Do it Right
"This I can see on a Geoff Rowley part, understood that he stopped being vegan when he was 30, so yeah, he saved his youth. Maybe they should modify the title and call it You're Only Old Once So Do it Right".


3. Bold: Always Try
"This one should back a Jub part. It would be good in a video just because of the slams he gets."


4. Seven Seconds: Young 'til I Die
"For this hardcore SxE classic tune, you need a classic skater. I'd say Rick Mc Crank, still vegan, still straight-edge".


5. Minor Threat: Minor Threat
"I think that Ed Templeton might like this. I mean, he seems to be a lot into Dischord and Fugazi [Ian Mc Kaye's label and current band, note] stuff, so..."

Oh, and I almost forgot : for those who can read French, you MUST read his video reviews on the Mofo blog. Too bad the slogan "He says out loud what everybody only thinks" is already taken by the National Front in France, cause that would suit perfectly.
I can't resist translating just the outtro to his Ride The Sky article :

"If you like the Zero vids, you won't be disappointed.
If you like the Static vids, then don't bother.
If you like TWS vids, then you like anything.
If you like the Jolie Routine, then go and kill yourself.
If you like the Parisien vid, then go and hang yoursef in a sleeping bag to a rafter, I'm coming with a sledgehammer to kill you [I liked it very much - Seb's note. What color for the bag?].
If you like the Antihero vids, then do run away.
If you like Eastern Exposure, then you know what's up."

A teasa please | Dyson and Dee

Teasers suck. I mean, usually. If it's for my retina to be bombarded by a 30-second epileptic pile of half way-cut tricks and/or just slams, I tend to end up more frustrated than, hum, teased. There are exceptions, though. If you extend the concept to (a very selected amount of past) 411 commercials and "short video parts that should do until something more consequent drops", then you might find a few gems, skate-wise and music-wise. Hit or miss kind of deal : you only have one tune to pick, so please dig deep and don't embarrass yourself by using Highway To Hell for the 234th time. Plus, you can choose a tune you actually love, as you'll be able to keep it under the radar in terms of music rights clearances...

Anyway, this is a new, irregular feature on A Visual Sound, which will resurrect everytime an above-average tune pops up in of these court-métrages, the idea kinda came from this previous post.

So, has anybody noticed the brilliance of the choice on this Dyson Ramones teaser from a few weeks back? Perfect skating style aside (very important for a stale fart such as yours truly who grew up watching all the Ethans and the Barleys and the Luy-Pas out there), listen carefully.
At first, the fuzzy guitar might lead you in a wrong, hippyish/psych direction. Spit your acid and save it for later -at least wait for the Bummer High teaser- as instead, this is the intro to Why Can't There Be Love, by soul diva Dee Edwards.It originally came out on a very much sought-after 7'' on the Bum Shop (sic) label in 1972, and is easier to find around here in its German version (on Vogue, see picture), yet, if your record-shopping budget doesn't bare the equivalent of a small country's Gross National Product, this delicate English DJ Gilles Peterson has a present for you : he included it on this compilation.

Dee's life was pretty interesting too : born in 1945, she passed away in 2006 in Detroit due to a heart attack after a night out, fallen soldier-style, a definitely familiar adieu in the skaters' circles. After starting The Paragons -the US ones, not these awesome Paragons- she went solo in 1963 and You Say You Love Me, her first tune on her own, came out on the local, Alabama-based label Tuba.
After a sting of 45s for the label, she proceeded to marry arranger Floyd James and recorded a bunch of soul gems for various labels -try to find one that didn't include the word "love"- before hitting the charts with a disco tune in 1979 (The musical equivalent to becoming a contest robot in skateboarding), then disappearing during the '80s, focusing on her painting and family.
Dee only had time to have one full LP out, Heavy Love (on Cotillion), but Why Can't There Be Love will always remain a Northern-Soul collector favorite. Kind of like the first Natural Koncept video: the second time around, you miss the surprise factor -even though, please, do yourself a favor and check Dysfunctional Family.

(Think a particular teaser had a good tune to it? Please do comment...)

Re:music | Rudy Johnson

As absolutely nobody noticed, I haven't posted anything substantial in a while, yet actual articles might come back at some point. Maybe. In the meantime I'll just throw a meager bone every now and then...

So again, this was part of a bigger Rudy Johnson interview that I did for his 'Memory Screened' page in Skateboarder a few months ago. I left the charango bit that was in the mag, just cause, but the rest wasn't used yet. I'm thinking of starting a separate blog with the full-on interviews cause there are always some funny anecdotes in them -in Rudy's case, how he hung up on Mark Gonzales the day Gonz asked him to ride for Blind, as he thought it was a prank call, or how his Big Brother interview in issue 3 was actually made up, since he was dissing his mom's girlfriend in the actual cold call he got, and wasn't too stoked about it being run as the girlfriend in question was a Powell am's sister. That kind of stuff. Realistically though, I already have trouble updating one blog every now and then, so... two? We'll see.
For now, here's a little thing about Rudy J on music. I hope that will do until a bigger post.

Just Like Heaven
"In Video Days, I think the only people they picked the song for were Guy and Jordan Richter. Guy’s part, that was perfect. I remember Jason wanted Milk, and Mark wanted some jazz. I definitely picked that Dinosaur Jr tune, the Cure cover. It was cool cause it was on a tiny little mini-disc, really small, you couldn't find it on any other CD [It later came out on the Fossils single compilation]. It worked perfect for the part.
I hesitated between a few other songs but I would have had some metal for sure, something heavy. I’ve been playing guitar for like 20 years, when I first started it was like: Metallica! I always had the rock in me. I knew for sure I wouldn’t take no rap."

The charango board
“Paulo Diaz and I, we went to Bolivia in 1995. We went together, without no skate affiliation. We went just to go on vacation, for probably two and a half weeks. And it was really strange, cause we were very young, like 22 or something. But we went out there, and we learned about all these instruments. This is like a strange instrument, with ten strings, but it's only five double strings. And this one in particular is called a charango, it's made out of an armadillo, a real animal.
We went to Bolivia cause that’s where they make this instrument. There are three countries that make it: Peru, Chile and Bolivia.
This actual graphic is a poster that I brought back. The whole ting. Instead of my name, it said : Ernesto Cavour, who was a master player. And it just said that, it was the exact same layout. I was so happy to ride this board, and people loved it. I still own two of the posters.”

A message to you...
"Right now I play in The Allentons, we are a seven-piece band, I play drums in it, it’s a traditional ska band. It's been over ten years, we keep it as a hobby first, but we play around town, or in Canada, in Mexico, on the east Coast, we even backed [legendary Jamaican trombonist] Rico Rodriguez !
It's not like we're gonna quit our jobs to do it though. I mean, I maybe would, man. Not all the way, I would keep in touch with all this, nowadays you can be anywhere in the world and send images or whatever.
I also play the guitar, which I consider my primary instrument, I got my own music and actually I'm gonna be doing a lot of writing and music and maybe get some stuff in the Chocolate video and some other projects. You guys will be hearing it soon."

Bonus | The You Will Soon box set

As you might know already, the You Will Soon dudes are "a bunch of white guys obsessed with shoes and the gangster lifestyle who live with their moms and need to get a life". Or not.
Anyway, I, the David of blogs, won't make you the offense to introduce the Goliath of the www, cause you know and follow their adventures already if you landed here, I'm sure.

Now ready for the most impressive skate-tunes playlist ever? Straight outta The North of Everything, here's a little explanation about the four undecipherable screens below. The newest honoris causa citizen of the Nerdistan Republic, Dan Watson compiled the ultimate, 9 hours-long playlist of tunes that were in skate videos and has this to say about it:

"I've been working and adding to this playlist for so long. I've been rocking a version of it since like 97 or 98 on cassette tape, obviously when mini discs and IPods came along it allowed me to expand the playlist. I work in a skateshop and it's so good to listen to because the entire playlist is like 9.2 hours long, so gets you through a whole workday.
My skate nerd trick that I impress all my employees with is to quiz me at any time on any song and I can tell them what skater's section it's from and what video it's in."

Re:music | Ron Allen

"I love Ron Allen, he proved that one can be old and skate something else than just bowls." A very famous French desk editor just told me this, and he pretty much summed up exactely why Ron's the man. I mean, H Street, Life, the '90s heart throb company Fun (Pupecki, Keenan, Travis Mc Glothin, Huf, Liversedge... and even this close to get Gino) and the politically-charged American Dream -the resume says it all.
What's below is just a small portion of a really long interview I did with him recently, a well-deserved space for the original "I make my my music for my own part" pro. Besides how Ron was not too stoked on some morbid graphics the Godoys did for him, and how he got paid off from H Street with 500 boxes of plain white t-shirts in order to start a new company somewhere else, I also found out some interesting bits about his experience in the music field. While I'm at it by the way, how come everybody remembers Sheff from A Soldier's Story, but never John De Ago? I digress, though. Ron Allen about music, it's pretty long, and it's right here:

“Rudy Ramos was this amazing musician, he could play every instrument. He could play bass, he could play guitar, he could play everyting. He would lay down a drum track, play instruments and I'd come in and do vocals to it. Just me and him in his appartment making 4-track music. And all the people were like tripping, they thought it was baaad! Then a couple of stuff we did with bands, but it would always come after we did the 4-track stuff. We’d call ourselves Black Dress Theory, Sir Lady Java or Loopzilla cause we were making loops. I didn’t know it would ever been known. I even did an interview with a German mag, just about Shackle Me Not’s music, they called it ‘H Street music’! We weren’t even a garage band, we were a ‘inside somebody’s bedroom band’. I would record the lyrics in a closet, shut the door and just bang out the lyrics.

Most of it was me and Rudy. It’s funny, we split out cause he hated rap and I couldn’t help it, I loved it. That’s when I made the music switch from being involved in rock to hip hop. I play with a lot of different bands. I was just the lyricist for that band Cannonball, they toured and played everywhere. It was jazz, then they’d funk it up or hip hop it up and I’d rhyme over it. They played in more places in California than I have ever heard of.

There was a third band called Hueman Flavor. It was interesting cause it came right when the whole skate thing kinda ended for me, when Deluxe told me that American Dream was over, and I was kinda like wow, tripping on that. I was hanging out at this jazz club and there were playing. They had this dude named Josh Jones and they were these sick jazz cats. I was like, man, I wanna rhyme in that band some day. So I did a couple shows with them, then I was invited to this gig they had every Tuesday. After that they were invited to the San Francisco jazz festival and they were like, dude, you rhyming on stage with us. So I went, I was the first MC to rhyme at this festival. At that time it was taboo, hip hop and jazz, you wouldn’t do that...

They ended up opening for sick acts, like Nas. I remember at the time I was the younger in the band, and I was 32! There were some heavyweights in that band. The guitar player, he was also my landlord, when Jerry Garcia died, they asked him to come and perform. They were like, you ride that skateboard, huh?
And then in 1997-98, my girl and I did a night club in the City, for like two-three years, called the Red Light. We’d do the flyer for it, find the talent for it, but it was such a blast, so many arists came through, you’be blown away by who’s on your stage. Freestyle Fellowship used to come through. Sometimes they’d come through and there’d be 8 people in the club. And then slowly it got more popular. There are some nights where Weapon Of Choice played, George Clinton got on stage with them. Literally, capacity was 750 and there were 1500 people there that night. It was just that little hip hop Monday night in San Francisco.”

Top 3 Ron Allen's tunes in skate flicks
1. Black Dress Theory : Greedy (Shackle Me Not)
2. Loopzilla : It's Gone (Lotti/Carter in Hokus Pokus)
3. Sir Lady Java : A Soldier's Story (take a wild guess)

Did you read all this? Come on. I know you only clicked on the links.

Interlude | The French romance

He ain't French, hence his name : French, straight outta Thornton Heat (London). Not only a professional artist but a full-time dreamer as well, French approaches life with the playful spunk of a baby seal and... what do you mean, that was Andy Roy's intro in Big Brother? I'm into literary sampling, it's an art form too. Anyway yeah, French's artwork is awesomely evil, the man himself loves to drink tea and more importantly, as far as A Visual Sound is concerned, he doubles as a death-metal monomaniac.

What tunes from this delicate soul-oldies-inspired subgenre would sound good in a skate video? Let's listen to what this man of widom has to say. Or grunt.

French's disclaimer :
"OK, so I don't know about what I'd wanna put on a video but these are the ones which I fucking love and think could work well if I was making a one. These are all proper death metal, mostly pretty modern, none of this "oh yeah I'm really into death metal, my friend once lent me an Entombed record" shit. It's proper."

1. Putrid Pile : My Inner Demon

From : The Pleasure In Suffering

"Putrid Pile is seriously under rated. The guitars are sickness and the vocals are total brutality, without any sort of vocal distortion.
The art on the CD is sick as well, and it's unbelievable this is just one guy."

2. Rompeprop : Vaginal Luftwaffe
From: "Hellcocks Pornflakes"
"These guys could only be Dutch for fuck's sake. The cover is a fake cock cumming into a bowl of cornflakes and the vocals are just unhuman. All in all, this is one on my favourite songs/records of all time. Its insane vocals and powerful riffs are all you need in gore/grind."

3. Inveracity : Visions of Coming Apocalypse
From: "Extermination of Millions"
"I'm actually going to see these Greek nutters tonight. They are tight, the songs are really techniqual and they hold their shit down well.
It's this song that has the amazing pitch and tempo changes but continues to hold the brutality."

4. Lividity : Coated With My Semen
(live bonus track)
From: "Fetish for the sick"
"I just love how out of order these dudes are and how all the songs are about fucking and murder or the two in one. But more than ever the crazy intro the lead singer gives would be rad for a skate video: 'This ones for the ladies who love big dicks and cum in the face, coated....with...my.....SEMEN!!'"

5. Prostitute Disfigurement : Body to Ravage
From: "Left in a Grisley Fashion"
"My ex-girlfriend hated their name so much she wouldn't let me keep the records in the house, so she's now my ex. Anyway, this song has a rad intro and then breaks into a short or death/ thrash Malevalent Creation style riff, but still with the pig grunting vocals. The Dutch must be loving death, as these dudes are Dutch as well."

Cute, huh? I'm in a romantic mood too right now. I mean, a romance-coated mood.