Personally, I feel that Slave would be a better name for a German company composed entirely of white rastas. That way they could truly get in touch with the oppression of their people. But, as it stands, it’s a name representing a collection of dudes I’ve been mostly unaware of occupying the third string at Black Box.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume Jamie Thomas had little to do with the production of their new vid Radio Television. I don’t know who made the thing, but right off the bat you’re hit with a wall of stock footage that pulls you away from the clip clip bang bang Zero style that spilled over into Mystery and Fallen video productions. Slave brings their own unique brand of brand identity to the table, but I don’t know who they’re trying to appeal to specifically. California scumlords? Next generation all terrain hammer babies? Old dudes who like a little tranny with their stair jumping? Fuck, I dunno.
Complete lack of titles here. Do I know who any of these people are? Maybe, but probably not. Pat Burke breaks off the safety conscious middle aged bicycle enthusiast with proper gusto. Although it might not be sound advice to play dead when you encounter a bear, when the bear is wearing a helmet and you just kickflipped over him, playing dead might be the best option you have going for you. Burke might squeal like an excitable retard when he lands a trick, but his looseball zeal and proper frontside heels are hard not to enjoy.
A bearded goblin with freckles. What will they think of next? If Frecks is around long enough, I anticipate an eventual personal backlash against his own nickname. Kevin Long, Brian Hansen, I don’t know what Frecks’ real name is, but if I was him I’d demand people address me as Mr. Frecks.
One thing that becomes obvious real quick with this vid is that instead of the ultra fast edits typical of the traditional Black Box output, Radio Television gives you a lot more runup and a lot more rollaway. This makes it much easier for my slow gears to process. I’m only half ADD addled at this point, so a little bit of context before the images travel from my eyes to my noodle is much appreciated. Probably why this video is twice as long as say, Misled Youth, but I’m fine with that.
Matt Mumford footage is almost nostalgic at this point as I haven’t seen anything from him in ages. He’s still gnarly, his style is still pretty awful, and he still has the tendency to look like a mannequin standing on a skateboard when he sticks his arms out.
Self styled gearhead Jon Allie blows doors with a banger of a tune and a back to back flip to board rail combo just so you know he still can. “Let me tell you what melba toast is packing right here. I’ve got four-eleven positrack out back. Seven-fifty double pumper, edelbrock intake, bored over thirty. Eleven to one pop up pistons. Turbo jet, 390 horsepower. We’re talkin some fuckin muscle.”
Jon Goemann of Birdhouse fame (is there even such a thing as Birdhouse fame anymore?) closes out the video with some largeness and that’s that.
So, what do you get out of the whole thing? Despite the faux-VHS quality, Radio Television probably won’t adorn your shelf of classic vids, but with a decent bag of not so obvious tunes and a surprisingly unobstrusive cache of greatest hits newsreel clips, it’s a pretty decent watch. Would watch again. One and a half thumbs up yer bum.
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