Synths, Irony & Robots: A Chronicle of Daft Punk Music Supervision in Skate Videos

daft punk griptape

Image via Street Piracy

Every skate site was obligated to have a “Dill & AVE Off Alien”-post, and every website on the entire internet is required to mention the new Daft Punk album. Combined with the release of Kendrick Lamar’s debut last fall and next month’s Kanye album, we are in an eight-month rut of opinion onslaught from an unholy trio of annoying fanbases.

…but even skateboarders are talking about Daft Punk! Skaters previously only acknowledged electronic music when posting “wtf iz with dis song?” comments on video parts that dared to use it. And now they’re interested in dance music? Instead of giving an opinion about Random Access Memories like everyone else on the internet, here’s an abridged history of how Daft Punk, and in turn, electronic music as a whole, achieved acceptance in skate videos.

olson daft punk

[Much like how Europeans are more sexually liberated than Americans, they also have a deeper history of accepting electronic music in their skate videos. So, please note that this is a North American timeline. Accounting for European usage of electronic music adds another dimension entirely. Frozen in Carbonite wrote about French house, French Fred, etc. back in 2011, so read that for a more worldly take.]

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Weekend Viewing: Rhythm Skateboards – “Genesis”

genesis

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.

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