On New Year’s Day, Ty Evans announced that Pretty Sweet will be his final video with the Girl family. It is unclear whether he is moving on from skate videos entirely, but it makes sense for a dude who directed a Super Bowl commercial to seek creative opportunities that do not involve chasing 20-year-olds down stair sets.
Despite all the bitching and moaning on behalf of nitpicky skate nerds everywhere, be it about excessive slow motion in the past two projects or just too many high fives, there is no denying that Ty Evans influenced skate videos more than anyone else in the past decade-and-a-half. His work propelled skate videos beyond bro-cam status and gave meaning to the concept of professional skateboard videography. With Evans “venturing out,” we are looking back at Rhythm Skateboards’ Genesis video, one of his earliest projects.
Released in 1997, Genesis was Rhythm’s first and only video. It was a follow-up to an eight-minute Rhythm montage at the end of Silver, the Planet Earth video that Evans made a year earlier. (Does anyone know if Silver was his first video?) Many hallmarks of future Ty Evans projects were already there: synth-heavy music supervision, female vocals, art direction based on staticky nineties technology (which would re-emerge in Transmission 7), and yes, occasionally a good bit of “lifestyle” filler between each trick.
Genesis is a somewhat “forgotten” entry in Evans’ catalog. After being online for three years (the entire video is available on Skate.ly, minus Chany Jeanguenin’s part due to forbidden music rights), Richard Angelides’ section is the only one with significant YouTube views.
Angelides’ opener is the best in the video, if not one of the most underrated nineties skate parts altogether. While switching between Adidas and Converses, he provides a guide to all the right tricks to do on ledges — one of the earliest adherences to what would come to be known as the “Trilogy Rule.” And is there a mid-ninties part more influential in accelerating the progression of switch frontside tricks down handrails?
Ryan Bartsma and Danny Montoya skate to the video’s two songs that were most likely to be played at raves during the time of its release. Both pay proper homage to switch variations of the frontside 5-0 shove-it, an underutilized maneuver by today’s nineties nostalgists, who prefer the frontside half cab noseslide shove-it. Jeff Taylor’s grunge haircut makes you assume that he was the token dude on Rhythm who didn’t vibe with electronic music, and Felix Anguelles may be the first person on record to successfully defeat a knobbed handrail.
If you need another name for the “Europeans Snubbed by the American Skate Narrative” list, write in Chany Jeanguenin. Everyone traces Furby’s and David Gonzalez’s lineage to Muska, Jamie Thomas and Pat Duffy, but people tend to forget Chany’s part of monster 5050s and that it predates Muska’s two rail skating benchmarks (Fulfill the Dream and Feedback.)
Genesis fits as the sole skate video in that small canon of late-nineties rave movies. Ty Evans’ work would soon drift away from its inklings of rave culture, but regardless, Genesis was definitely any MDMA-experimenting skateboarder’s favorite VHS tape in 1997.
Good luck and all the best for the future, Ty.
(Sidebar regarding female vocals and synths…pretty sure most kids who are in their twenties now discovered what electronic music was from Harsh Euro Barge.)
Harsh Euro Barge and beware of the Flare get me so hyped.
Ty’s work at rhythm and then transworld is some of the greatest in the actual skate video format. Grew up on genesis and transmission seven. Actually read that Ty hates transmission 7 for some reason. Feedback reason and module were killer too. Was interface a Ty production? That montage with hiero contains some killer mike Carroll footage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qRS41Tghp8
Angelides’ is about the only watchable part in the video. Not sorry to see Ty go. I’d argue a variety of equally influential skate videos (influencing skaters rather than other videographers) have been produced by other guys in the last decade and a half, who realised the focus of their subject matter was skateboarding – not themselves and their own technical expertise.
Technically Rhythm made another video – the shared video they did with Planet Earth called “Hiatus”. And a sidenote, Jerry Fowler’s footage in the Rhythm industry section in 411 might be a collection of some of the most perfectly executed tricks ever. Literally immaculate.
Safe to say he picked up where Ternasky left off. I wasn’t that impressed by Pretty Sweet, but much respect to Mr. Ty Evans for everything he has done. He will rank up there with his contributions AND NOBODY CAN DISS OR TAKE THAT AWAY, it’s hard to top a masterpiece like Fully Flared. As us 30+ year olds can contest, times change and along with that, the creative influences that counter balance those times-especially in the fickle “skateboard world”. It’s 2013 and it is what it is. BTW Feedback, Modus and The Reason are un fuks wit’ able-that’s a fact.
He kinda “let himself go” after fully flared. Nothing he produced after that was all that great. It was all very…commercial.
Not every influence is a good influence. I think Ibiza has said it best. Ty Evans is just too commercial. It’s too slick, it would seem, for most skaters. Yeah, he no doubt captured a lot of incredible skating and I’m sure he was a catalyst for many a skater he worked with to push those limits, but there’s little, if anything, that I find relatable in his work.
it says a lot when a part is still good now, and those black and white shelltoes with the back toecap and sole bring back a lot of memories of visits to the nordstrom rack at the mall to find cheap skateable shoes.
http://butteryunit.blogspot.com/2009/04/dead-flowers.html
GENESIS……another review
Philly’s filled with characters like the Fish, funniest shit in a minute. Jesus fucking christ, only thing better is Freddy’s interview. QS4LYFE son!