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Misfits/Danzig X Skate Video Tribute

As Halloween is almost upon us it seemed the perfect time to resurrect our Music X Skate Video feature and take a look at sections scored by the godfathers of horror punk, The Misfits, as well as Danzig’s solo efforts. Obviously this involved some quality control – after the band acrimoniously split Jerry Only took the name and dragged it through the novelty-pop-rock mud while Danzig, after Samhain and a couple of decent solo albums, decided that playing industrial metal badly was the way forward. As such, the sections here involve strictly songs taken from Danzig-era Misfits and the first two Danzig albums.

Luckily these eras were productive enough to offer up plenty of dark, heavy and overall brilliant music for skate video editors to choose from, so get watching below for Evil Elvis scored ripping from Erik Ellington, Jamie Thomas, Mike Maldonado, Ali Cairns, Grant Taylor and more…

Ron Whaley in SMA – Freedom of Choice (1992)

Ron Whaley keeps it strictly BPSW in the SMA video Freedom of Choice, with Danzig’s ‘Twist of Cain’ soundtracking a selection of lanky-steezed late flips and obscure tech variations.

Mike Maldonado in Toy Machine – Welcome to Hell (1996)

‘East Coast Powerhouse’ pretty much sums it up for this one – Mike Maldonado handles his shit here to the Misfits’ ‘London Dungeon’, with the section still standing up to today’s standard with ease. The ollie at 1.42 and the following boardslide footplant are mental…

Josh Kasper in Scarecrow Wheels – Disturb Not The Sleep of Death (1997)

Josh Kasper always seemed like an anomaly on the Scarecrow Wheels video Disturb Not the Sleep of Death, and chucking benihana’s over handrails for the Kasperholics to the Misfits’ ‘She’ compounded the surreality of this section. You can’t fuck with the 360 flip ender though…

Various skaters in 411VM (1997)

Back before the internet we had 411 Video Magazine, who in 1997 decided to raid the recently released Misfits box set for all it was worth. This was a productive meeting of cultures which saw Jim Greco slappy grinding to ‘I Turned Into a Martian’, Adrian Lopez hitting handrails to an early recording of ‘She’ (the one with the vocals and bass pushed to the top of the mix) and Justin Reynolds enjoying Vic Reeves singing in the club singer style. Micah Matson keeps it the most topical to this post, skating to ‘Halloween’ and throwing himself off a frankly terrifying drop to close.

Jamie Thomas and Adrian Lopez in Emerica – Yellow (1997)

Emerica’s ‘Yellow’ bought together some of the best skateboarders of the era, offering up a whole bunch of rad shared sections topped off with Adrian Lopez and Jamie Thomas closing proceedings to Danzig’s ‘Am I Demon’ – and, to be fair, you’d probably have to be on some ‘Robert Johnson at the crossroads’ type shit to skate handrails like that…

Brian Sumner, Ali Cairns and Jeff Lenoce in Birdhouse – The End (1998)

Probably one of the highest budget videos on the list, the ams section in The End saw Brits Ali Cairns and Brian Sumner alongside Jeff Lenoce skating to ‘Night of the Living Dead’. I struggled over whether to include it, though, due to the dubbed in skate sounds which plague the whole video and make for a strangely distracting watch.

Chris Cole in Transworld – In Bloom (2002)

Looking back this is a pretty Zero-heavy list, with two of the most iconic skull logos in their respective cultures making for a solid combination. Here Chris Cole puts together his usual mind blowing selection of technical tricks on gnarly obstacles to ‘Die, Die My Darling’ – however, after the intro voice-over discussing his music tastes, I would definitely like to see this section remixed to Pat Benitar.

Erik Ellington in Emerica – This Is Skateboarding (2003)

Danzig II: Lucifuge was in my opinion the Evil Elvis’ post-Misfits high point; the band was tighter and more focused than on the first record or previous outfit Samhain’s output, with a solid groove running through a freight-train-heavy blues rock sound which is perfectly encapsulated in the song ‘777’. The moment when the menacingly melodic intro hits its crescendo and, after a momentary pause, the slide guitar kicks in, is probably one of the best moments in guitar based music ever. While Danzig may have struggled to reach this musical peak with later releases, Ellington is still just as gnarly as he was when Emerica released ‘This is Skateboarding’.

Jhovany Vidal in 1031 – Bleed for Me (2006)

It would have sucked not to include a 1031 Skateboards on a post about Halloween – luckily Svitak’s short lived brand made it easy for us by scoring Jhovany Vidal’s section in their first release ‘Bleed for Me’ to the classic ‘Hybrid Moments’.

Down Right Evil – Halloween 2015

As we discussed this article the other day, we happened by circumstance upon this new section from Downright Evil jumping the gun on Halloween. Their eagerness worked well for us, because it meant we could close this article with Grant Taylor, Justin Brock and a load more heads shredding to Danzig’s ‘Possession’. Happy Halloween…

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