Skate Sounds by Christian Kerr

Ever since the Bones Brigade pioneered the skateboard video in the early 80’s, the video part has been the ultimate representation of a skater’s aesthetic. Though its manifestation has transformed from VHS to DVD to YouTube, one thing has stayed the same: the importance of music to the skate video. An East coast legend once said that “music is fifty-percent of the video part”; the other half, I’m guessing, is divided into something like thirty-percent skating and twenty-percent filming/editing. Too often, great skating can be rendered unwatchable by bad music backing (e.g. Flip’s entire Extremely Sorry video). But, in an effort towards optimism, I’d like to focus on those videos that find the perfect symmetry between skating and soundtrack. Video parts where the editing rides the music like the skater rides his skateboard.

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