Skate Video Soundtrack Review: Foundation "Nervous Breakdown"
This might come as a surprise, but I had never seen this video before I started doing this project. The first Foundation video I’d ever seen was “Art Bars, Subtitles, and Seagulls” and that was like one time at half-watching it at a skateshop. I did own “That’s Life” and watched it often, but “Nervous Breakdown” was new territory. I’ve mentioned it before, but I grew up in a small town. There were only a few other skateboarders, there was Joe LaRue, who quit skating early on. But he was the first person I ever saw with a NOFX shirt. There was Mike Clancy, but when I got into skating in seventh grade he said to me, “Everyone is skating these day, it’s played out.” And he would go on to be a local legend on the South Shore of Massachusetts, like the Loch Ness Monster of skating, you needed video proof of him emerging again or nobody would believe it. Then there was Kevin Soul, the first guy I ever filmed doing a handrail. He was the type of skater that would fit in really well in “Fulfill the Dream. Finally, there was James Perry, who was the best skateboarder in Hanson in my opinion. I used to watch videos with James in his basement, but “Nervous Breakdown” wasn’t in the rotation. We had a weird falling out for a while, apparently he had heard I talked shit on his shoes. Which wasn’t true. I would never talk shit about another man’s shoes. We eventually reconciled and would go on to shoplift a lot of CDs together from Strawberries locations across the South Shore. But James was that dude who knew of every band, and knew every skate spot in Boston. I still have no idea how he gathered all that knowledge, maybe he had a separate group of friends that I never met that made him way cooler, and then he eventually passed that info along to me.
I had two other really close friends, one of whom rollerbladed. We would hang out at Shaw’s every single day, get a room-temperature Orange Soda for a quarter, then get a sundae at McDonald’s. Here’s a kickflip off the Shaw’s loading dock from around 1999.
My other good friend rode BMX, so all that to say, we didn’t spend a lot of time watching the latest skate videos. I had a handful at home I watched over and over.
But man, if I had been given this video in 1999 I would have said, “Holy shit, this has a bunch of my favorite bands. It’s like they made a video for me.” So let’s break down this soundtrack before I post another skate clip filmed off my TV.
Watch the video, listen to the soundtrack.
Intro: Black Flag “Nervous Breakdown”
I love this song. I bought Black Flag “The First Four Years” from Exile on Main Street in Barre, Vermont when I was 12 years old alongside two Dead Kennedys CDs. We also named The Hard Times book after this comp. I played that Black Flag CD so much it turned into dust. Weirdly enough, I never liked the Henry Rollins era of Black Flag, there are a few decent songs like, but my interest in the band stops after the first four years. Maybe it was his short shorts, maybe I just thought he kind of sucked. But this intro does do it for me. The song is sick and they play the whole damn thing. That’s two minutes of slams, and dudes who all look exactly the same throwing their boards. If I had seen this when I was 15 I would have been jumping up and down on my couch out of excitement. Then my mother would come in and yell at me for ruining the furniture. I’d say, “This couch is a piece of shit anyway,” and she would yell at me more for swearing and threaten to hit me with a wooden spoon. Because all of our parents were lead poisoned and violent and they wonder why we don’t want to talk with them on the phone.
Omar Salazar: Slayer “Abolish Government/Superficial Love”
I will come back to this over and over, but skateboarding is one of the only mediums where filming an underage kid doing crazy things doesn’t get you put on an FBI watchlist. Omar was probably 13-14 when filming most of this and it’s a pretty good use of Slayer. Thankfully they don’t use an absolute classic song like “Angel of Death” because it’s tough to put together a part worthy of such a ripper, but they use a decent Slayer song that isn’t going to make anyone’s “Essential Slayer” playlists. So you get the intensity of Slayer, but nobody is going to make a stink that a teenager is skating to a legendary thrash metal track that should be reserved for Hall of Fame-level skate parts. If I’m being nitpicky, Omar does have hints of “little kid style,” and that doesn’t pair well with Slayer. But Omar is a talented skater, and the part is good enough that nobody should actually care. And if a teenager skating to Slayer does actually bother you then go take a look in the mirror, ask yourself when your life turned it shit, and then apologize to all the women you’ve harassed online.
Ethan Fowler: Syd Barrett “No Good Trying”
Ethan Fowler is going to come up in these reviews a lot. And there are two things at play when I write about him, the first is that I’ve never been a huge fan of the guy. I don’t know if it was his hair? His tight shirts? Maybe it was the fact he looks like the type of guy who wants to talk about French New Wave cinema, and that bothers me because “Rocky IV” is my favorite movie. The world may never know, but he was never one of the guys I would seek out. Second, he’s a racist. That seems pretty well known in the skate world by now, so how do I objectively review the music that a racist skates to? I guess I just need to try my best. And yeah, I don’t think this music works at all. This is the worst choice in the video. The music itself is whatever, if you are into psychedelic folk music then I’m sure you jerk off to Syd Barrett. But I’m a straight edge hardcore dude, and if I walked into an apartment where this song was playing on the turntable, I’d have to politely remove myself before some guy named Skunk offered me a hookah pipe. This racist is very good at skating, but of course he can’t skate to a punk song in this punk video, he has to mix it up and fuck up the flow of everything.
Judd Hertzler: The Clash “Tommy Gun”
The Clash is one of those bands that I’ve never fully dove into. When I was growing up I would see The Clash get hyped by the mainstream and it made me avoid them, but any time I hear one of their songs I think to myself, “Yeah, I get it.” This track is a prime example. The Clash and skateboarding almost make too much sense together, so it sort of feels like cheating. There are some skaters who can skate to anything, and there are some musicians who can have anyone skate to them. Now let’s say you were 12 in 1999, your parents just split up. Your dad liked to drink, and your mom, well, she also liked to drink. These two were never meant to be together. The only reason they stayed together was because of you, but they didn’t love you enough to fix themselves. Now that you’re 12 you’re grown up enough to understand that dad needs to go live in a studio apartment in the part of the city where all the murders happen, and your mom will keep the house. Well, the good news is they are going to try to win you back on Christmas, so you get a skateboard and “Nervous Breakdown.” If this is your intro to punk, then you have an amazing starter pack so far, and you will make these bands your entire personality for the rest of your life. Thanks Foundation, and thank you to America’s high divorce rate.
Tony DaSilva: Minor Threat “12XU”
Let’s take some inventory. So far we’ve had Black Flag, Slayer, and The Clash. Now we throw Minor Threat into the mix? Pinch me I’m dreaming. Minor Threat only existed for 3 years and had just 26 recorded songs , but they are one of the most influential bands of all time. As much as I love Minor Threat (I have two Minor Threat tattoos), this is their worst song. It’s one of three cover songs in their discography and was originally performed by Wire, who were a post-punk band out of London. The original version is slower, and the song just works better in its original form. But, the worst Minor Threat is still better than 99% of all other recorded music, so we are still coming out on top here. This part is underrated, Tony skates really fast and has an interesting trick selection. The only thing that could possibly improve this is picking a different Minor Threat song.
Toebee Parkhurst: The Faction “Let’s Go Get Cokes”
The Faction features skateboard legend, and noted Islamophobe, Steve Caballero on guitar. I was introduced to this song when Alex Chalmers skated to it in “Sorry,” but here we are, a full 3 years before that video, with Toebee Parkhurst skating to it. This is the type of punk music that 12-year-olds absolutely cream their dungarees over. It sounds fast and aggressive, but it’s about drinking soda, and when you’re 12 soda is the fucking best. So yeah, this song works, but we could do so much better. We’ve already heard from truly legendary bands in this video, and then we have The Faction, a band I don’t think anyone actually listens to. Did you ever have a friend who owned an album by The Faction? No, you didn’t. And if you did you would have thrown it out when you moved out of your parents’ house because you would think “This takes up too much space, I don’t want to pack it.” The same does not apply to Black Flag, The Clash, or Minor Threat. You keep those albums forever.
Jon West: Nirvana “Downer”
I’m shocked that Nirvana isn’t in more skate videos. Part of it has to be people thinking, “I’m not good enough to skate to a Nirvana song,” and they are probably right. Maybe it’s because it’s tough to clear rights for anything after 1991, I don’t know. But god damn, I love having Nirvana paired with skateboarding. I think the best use of a Nirvana was a 411 commercial for their website that has no actual skating happening. Anyway, Nirvana fits perfectly with this part. It’s lots of handrails, big ledges, and gaps. Jon isn’t doing nollie backside heelflip manual shove out on a small manual pad. He’s skating fast, he’s going big, and if Kurt Cobain were alive when this part came out I’m sure he would say something like, “I think my wife is trying to kill me. If I turn up dead please know that it was not suicide.”
Friends/Tour: Metallica “Trapped Under Ice”
I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I think the video messed up here. I love this song, early Metallica is great and I think using it with the right skater can elevate a part. However, when it comes to the “Friends” section of a video, it’s time to lighten the mood. We don’t need Metallica played over parking lot demo and indoor skatepark footage. It looks weird. I’m bringing up 411 again, but the best song ever used over lots of footage of demo skating was Pixies “Gigantic” in volume 26 over the Hook Ups Shoes Road Trip section. That’s the vibe you want, something fun, something light. Metallica should be reserved for an absolute ripper of a part where someone smith grinds a 72 stair handrail, or they slam so hard that their head falls off, and then someone runs up and tries to put the head back on the body, but his hands are too slick with blood. He can’t get a good grip on the head and then the guy starts puking and shitting himself. Sick song, wrong part. Tragic.
Gary Robinson: The Melvins “Lexicon Devil”
Ok things are about to get confusing. The first time I heard this song was when The Freeze covered it on their “Token Bones” comp. The Freeze was a smaller punk band from Cape Cod who were regionally popular but broke out briefly with the song “This is Boston, Not L.A.” Back to Nirvana for a second, in 1993 Pat Smear joined Nirvana, and anytime he was on TV I was like “Who is this fucking weird guy smiling, and grooving behind Kurt?” Well, Pat played in The Germs, and they originally wrote this song. So now we have it being covered by the highly influential band the Melvins, and it’s fucking sick. The cover is great. If you were a kid who watched the credits of videos to discover bands then you would have instantly gone to check out the Melvins and been introduced to an entire new world of music. And that’s what skate videos are for. I’m honestly not sure what became of Gary Robinson, he doesn’t seem to pop up again after this video, so I’m going to do the reasonable thing here and assume he was killed in the 9/11 attacks.
Daniel Shimizu: Jawbreaker “Housesitter”
I’m embarrassed to admit I missed the boat on Jawbreaker for years and years. I was just never exposed to them in a meaningful way, it wasn’t until I was in my late-30s that I was finally like “I should check out this Jawbreaker band everyone is raving about.” And yes, the hype is real. They are another band that should be in way more skate videos, Dinosaur Jr. gets all the shine, and Jawbreaker is over in the corner watching from the cuck chair, jerking off their indie rock dicks wondering why bands like Built to Spill are eating their lunch in the skate world. Daniel Shimizu is effortlessly cool, amazing at skating, and skates to a cool song. My one and only note is that this song seems a little quiet in the mix compared to the noise of the skating. Other than that, this is solid from start to finish.
Brad Staba: Beck “Cyanide Breath Mint,” Sonic Youth “Silver Rocket”
I always thought Brad Staba looked like Beck, so it’s no surprise he skates to a Beck song. Lots of skateboarders choose their music based on having a passing resemblance to the artist. It’s why long-haired hesh guys always skate to Black Sabbath. Brad Staba is another dude I never appreciated. I think it’s probably because I’m a dumb guy, and Brad seems like the type of dude who goes to museums and reads books. When I go to museums I end up looking at the vending machines and being like, “Damn, they are charging $1.50 for Peanut M&Ms here? That’s steep.” But lets talk about the music, we have two songs here. But they are not equal. If you treat the Beck song like an extended intro then I think this works. If you consider Beck the “first song” then I think the song choice is a little weak. Then we transition into Sonic Youth, which is the music of choice for all art school kids of this era. And of course, this fits well with Brad’s skating, look he already looks like he’s dressed as a tiny Thurston Moore for Halloween. Sonic Youth seems like an easy choice here, but I’m not against it. Easy isn’t always bad, and this video is chock full of starter pack bands, it doesn’t hurt to throw another one in there for the hell of it.
Credits: Syd Barrett “Octopus”
Ok I guess we are going back to Syd Barrett, if this song was used anywhere other than the credits it would be a miss. But anything goes here. Would I ever listen to this song again? Absolutely not. In fact, if you ever kidnap me and want to torture me for information, just go ahead and play this song on repeat. After the fourth or fifth play, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. So yeah, this song is a pile of warm crap, I hope I never have to hear it again. But the credits really don’t matter. We’ve just watched a video layered with punk classics, why not close it out with something that sucks? Makes sense to me.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Black Flag, Slayer, The Clash, Minor Threat, Nirvana, Metallica, The Melvins, Jawbreaker, Sonic Youth, I mean come on. The only true miss of a song is from Ethan Fowler’s part, and what else do you expect from a racist? You expect racists to have terrible taste. If he had skated to “Hybrid Moments” by Misfits then this would be the highest rating I’d give any video, but he doesn’t because he’s so fucking “cool.” I could see him being like “Oh yeah, punk music is cool, if you’re 12.” No shit moron, go listen to your psych folk alone in the woods somewhere. But let’s focus on the positive, shall we? This video made me want to go on Napster and download Minor Threat “Straight Edge” (high quality) immediately, then after it downloads I discover someone pranked me and it’s the “Seinfeld” theme song. So then I look up their user name, track them down, and beat them senseless in front of their family for pulling that dog shit move.