CONCRETE

Salutes to Charlie Morgan for putting me onto Jenkem’s post that highlighted the YouTube appearance of Concrete Jungle — a lost documentary on the link between hip-hop and skating. I’m sure I saw this on IMDB a couple of years ago and had a fruitless Google hunt film assuming that it would appear officially one day (I’m still holding out for the Harry Jumonji documentary too). But suddenly it’s online. Concrete Jungle feels like a more commercial companion piece to Deathbowl To Downtown, and where Deathbowl had Chloë Sevigny on narration duties, this one has her Kids buddy Rosario Dawson talking the viewer through proceedings.

Directed by SHUT and Zoo York co-founder Eli Morgan Gesner, and executive produced by QDIII (Quincy Jones’ son), it’s part of the lineage of straight-to-DVD releases that began with Tupac documentaries, the compelling Beef series and some genuinely insightful work like The Freshest Kids, Infamy and the Christian Hosoi bio, Rising Son. Sadly, QD3 Entertainment seemed to end in 2011, leaving Concrete Jungle in limbo. Beyond the unnecessary motion graphics and Gangland style anonymous hip-hop beats, there’s loads of good stuff in it — I would argue that more New Deal and Underworld Element talk (seeing as a mohawked Andy Howell is in it), some Menace, extra Chocolate, and Mike Carroll in conversation (who really joined the dots for me in Virtual Reality) over a little too much talk of the Muska Beatz album would have been a better move. But here’s the thing about critiquing a documentary like this — keeping everybody happy would be nigh-on impossible, and getting a dream roster of talking heads to sit and break it down would be a hellish ordeal of timings and shifting equipment from state to state. Plus the thing is supposed to appeal to the person who doesn’t know who Sal Barbier or the Fu-Schnickens are anyway.

Concrete Jungle really finds its form (and to judge a documentary’s pacing based on a rough cut would be unfair) as it approaches the mid-way point, when the early Zoo York footage appears and there’s some good information on the Tunnel’s legendary half-pipe. It’s a testament to the speed that things have evolved (see Wiz Khalifa’s recent ownage at the hands of Supreme LA’s staff) and the rise of Odd Future, Yelawolf (who can actually skate) and co, plus Weezy’s admirable but faintly doomed determination to be respected as a skater, that this documentary seems deeply dated in many ways — a good thing, because skateboarding is so multiracial and rooted in rap right now that, after just 8 years since filming wrapped on this project, its seems weird that it would be seen as anything different. In a world where Rick Ross and DJ Khaled might make a Vine appearance teetering on a skateboard in a You’ve Been Framed style tipsy dad on a Variflex one Christmas afternoon wave, things definitely done changed.

On the documentary subject, The Decline of Western Civilisation has been discussed here a lot — Wayne’s World director Penelope Spheeris’ trilogy is pretty much perfect, and part three is a perfect companion to Martin Bell and Mary Ellen Mark’s Streetwise (which I urge you to watch — especially after Mary Ellen Mark’s recent passing). Different generations of Los Angeles musicians and hard-living kids make it a set of films that are amusing and disturbing in near-equal qualities. For nigh-on 15 years, thedeclineofwesterncivilization.com has been promising a DVD release. I gave up hope, just as I abandoned the idea of Dr Jives’ webshop opening after four years of a holding page. But at the end of the month we get to watch Darby Crash and a tarantula, Black Flag before they became their own tribute band, Claude Bessy ranting, Chris Holmes from W.A.S.P. disappointing his mum while floating in a swimming pool, plus this absolute bellend, in Blu-ray quality. Part III (from 1998) is a rawer affair that’s been tough to track down, but Shout! Factory and Second Sight are putting it out as a boxset. When BBC2 showed the second film in late 1989 as part of Heavy Metal Heaven, hosted by Elvira (which also included Guns ’n’ Roses Live at the Ritz, a lost Zeppelin show and a show about thrash metal), it changed my life for the better. The prospect of bonus footage alone makes my hands shake enough to spill orange juice like Ozzy.

FACT CHECK

I may have gone on record here telling those who won’t stop talking about 1993 as the cut off point for great rap to shut up — and I stand by that sentiment — because I loathe the “this is the real hip-hop, not commercial pop bullshit like Drake and Lil Wayne” repetition in the comments of every great rap video as well as cheap promos for the anonymous throwback crap that seems to believe it’s keeping some torch aflame for those who want things to sound like they’re on Grooveattack circa 2001. But I learnt a lot from staring at the fold out covers encased in transparent tape-shaped plastic just over 20 years ago and I’m a fiend when it comes to rap gossip — in fact, gossip far supersedes beatboxing and breakdancing as one of the scene’s key elements. It’s pivotal to skateboarding too, where knowing who dicked over who is some serious message board currency. I’m ravenous for trivia and Brian Coleman’s Check the Technique Volume 2 has a lot of information in it — revelations regarding the real producers of records, beat jacking and beatings abound when it comes to more talkative subjects. I’d never even pondered the genesis of the Beatnuts name, but now I know (though I’d like to have seen them discuss their first album too), that DJ Polo once had 15 prostitutes employed compared to Freddie Foxx’s six and who the girl who enquired as to who the governor of Campania during the Herculonious period was on that Gravediggaz skit. Even in this era of increasingly popular podcasts proving that there a significant market for back in the day tales from cult characters, there’s room for a 500-page book to present it without the small talk — just the facts. Track by track notes are addictive and Coleman’s project seems significantly more likeable than Rap Genius.

It’s been featured here before, but the none-more-early-1990s Funkee Phlavaz cable show that transmitted in the Beverly Hills area has now uploaded been uploaded in its 17-episode entirety. As high school projects go, this one was particularly accomplished and because we’re unlikely to see personal favourites like Y’all So Stupid’s Van Full of Pakistans (also discussed here before) or Illegal’s The Untold Truth explored in a Check the Technique book, both acts on Dallas Austin’s Rowdy label acted as presenters on a 1993 episode of this under seen show — you even get the obscure 85 South promo. Of course, both acts undersold commercially, because there wasn’t room for hyperactive goofs in Vans or murderous kids like there is now. Still, 1993’s idea of poor sales on an album was the kind of numbers that would have an act running to the car showroom in 2014. Ya’ll So Stupid rocked Real tees and dressed in skate gear decades before that seemed to be a thing to do if you weren’t the Beastie Boys or, to some extent, the Pharcyde. The connection between Austin and Andy Howell during their time in Atlanta is documented in the superb Art, Skateboarding and Life, and with Ya’ll So Stupid hailing from that city too and group member H20 working as a designer, the skate connection isn’t too unlikely. Some things are still too geeked-out to get their own chapter in a book.