Behind the music

Thrasher Magazine, June, 2002 by Michael Burnett

When watching VH1's Behind the Music, it's easy to be critical of the stars who continuously hit the same pot-holes on the road to and from super-stardom.

"OK, here come the drugs," you think, not that it's much of a surprise knowing the general theme of BTM as well as the constant forecasting and perfectly cued crisis music.

Announcer: "He was on top of the world, but later...would descend into the depths of hell."

And it's hard to feel sympathetic for the bassist from Whitesnake, or whoever. Because if you were in a band like Whitesnake, with hit after hit, beautiful fringed leather jackets and Camaro-loads of hard-rockin' fans (not to mention, eager gals in every town--not bad for a dude with an especially pronounced forehead and underbite), you'd be satisfied with that. You'd enjoy your good fortune and not rock the boat, err, waterbed. Sure, you might treat yourself to an occasional Ferrari, but you wouldn't let things get out of hand. Would you?

Current marketing would lead you to believe that skaters are the new rock stars, and in some ways, it's true. Though the cash is only there for a select few, the tie that binds professional skaters with their heavy-riffin' (or rhyming, for that matter) brothers and sisters is the incredible amount of free time at their disposal--and more distinctly, the way in which said time is disposed of.

And boy, did we dispose of some time in Australia. I went for two weeks to Melbourne with a small brigade from the top-notch Emerica team--Chris Senn, Donny Barley, Aaron Suski, and Mike Manzoori. As the days progressed, we got up later and later 'til we eventually set a new world's record for a Saturday skate-day departure--five pm.

We'd be in the van in front of the hotel, and inevitably someone would be missing.

"I think he's in the shower," someone would say.

Now skaters are notoriously poky, especially in times of tour, but in this case we didn't have a team manager type stoking the fires of responsibility, no demos, and the other usual drill captain--the photographer--was me. And, well, after the first week I was feeling as poky as the rest of them.

"100, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95," Mike would start counting down. At first, the count down was just for comic effect, but as the tardiness grew, we eventually started leaving people.

It's not like there wasn't hella rippin'. There was--hella. It's just that, like Whitesnake, we sometimes didn't get rockin' 'til later in the day.

The trip started off with a bang, as everyone was in town for the Globe World Cup World Championships of the World.

When looking back at contests past, nobody ever talks about what place people got or even how much money somebody won. Rather, the only thing that makes it from a typical contest weekend into the collective skate consciousness is when something goes wrong, someone flips out, or somebody gets smashed. The Mile-High dead cat toss, Congelliere's mid-run pants wetting, or the Munster Masterships vert ramp deck collapse--these are the kind of incidences that make it into the "Remember When" column of the dreaded back-in-the-day talk. So regardless of who did what at the Globe World Championships, all anyone will ever talk about is that crazy girl who smashed her first-place car on the floor of the street course.

On the subject of the street course:

"How the hell do I get speed for this thing?" Eric Koston asked me.

"There," I said, index finger extended and quivering, "Double Trouble!"

While many skaters, including Eric, were a little put off by the extreme-style double camel-hump blaster, Double Trouble was the precise obstacle that allowed 12-year-old crowd-favorite Ryan Sheckler to blast past Supercock and into fourth place in his premiere pro event. Young Sheckler, seen for the first time without his trade-mark full-pads kit, put Double Trouble to the test, unleashing melon tweakers, the benihanna and the spectacular Shecki-air, a Christ-air style kickflip indy in a style not seen since Patch's X-Games glory days and indicative of the cross-training snowboard big air fervor all these skateparks are bringing to a boil.

Other stand-outs include Dan Drehob! who jumped Double Trouble backside to fakie and with a frontside 360 and then unsuccessfully tried a bone-up to fakie into the whiplash corner, missing the tranny and taking the whole of the impact on his lower-back area. Rick Howard showed up and blew out the box with dazzling manual variations. Koston skated tough and Tony Trujillo rocked the house with amazing lines that no one else could step to. In the end, Rick McCrank won. Bucky won vert. As top points earner, Bucky also won a truck.

So we get to the meat of it--they gave out cars. Bucky won a Ford F-150, complete with steering wheel on the right. The winner of an Aussies-only event won a weird Subaru Brat-looking thing and Amy Caron, the girls' contest winner, received an updated Ford Festiva-type car for her excellent efforts.

They brought out a Ford representative who handed out keys and handshakes from the pyramid-turned-awards platform. Amy was first and, after pressing the flesh, was cajoled into climbing behind the wheel of her new ride. No sooner was her ass planted than the Festiva roared to life! It hitched and bucked like a moderately-priced Christine and then lurched forward, sending balding TV camera men and assorted other well-wishers scrambling! Someone really could have been killed if not for the fact that the devil car's kamikaze path ended a mere four feet away--jamming solidly into the bumper of the Aussie champ's Brat.