The Amelia Hartley Award for Best Music Supervision: Mason Silva ”Peace”

First off, what the hell is this feature? Well, Amelia Hartley is the genius behind the music choices for Peaky Blinders and I thought, who better to honor when sharing examples of skateboarding and music that come together to create something truly great? I would’ve called it something more simple but I didn’t want to bite this too hard and I’m bad at naming things (see HALIFAX, The MVA or anything I’m involved in).

Anway, this week’s winner is Mason Silva’s part in PEACE (Element, 2018) directed and edited by Jon Miner with music by Unwound and Mogwai (but we really care about the Unwound part).

There’s a lot of songs Unwound songs that seem like they’d work for a skate video part, like, I’d love to see somebody like Jon Sciano or Pedro Delfino, somebody just brutal, skate to “Murder Movies”. But, one song that I couldn’t even imagine would work is “All Souls Day” (off 1994’s New Plastic Ideas). I think its the back and forth between the verses and chorus and just how dramatic that is. But filmmaker Jon Miner knows what the hell he’s doing and it announces Mason Silva’s curtains part in Element’s “PEACE” video in a big way.

Miner’s editing throughout is masterful—the melodic intro paired a with a photogenic FS 360 showing that Mason looks damn good on a skateboard that bleeds into the feedback-laden math riff (is there a technical term for this style of playing?) that introduces the intensity of his all-around assault—but never hits Ty Evans levels of melodrama* (aside from the lining up of the crew’s cheers with Unwound vocalist Justin Trosper’s “I won’t pray” scream which is great and only happens once).

The rest of the editing is subtle but intentional. For example, Trosper’s guitar solo at 2:11 soundtracks a barrage of mostly flip-in rail tricks that segue into classic stuff done clean (and big) as the guitar hits a single note repeatedly. And never mind the ender (both the clip and the editing).

They slow the pace down for the 2nd half with Mogwai’s “Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home” and a visual emphasis on space — mostly long shots of Silva hauling ass into huge stuff. Most of these tricks also get a second angle and it works. The first view captures the trick but that second one shows how extra Silva goes. The feeble to gap out at 4:51 looks insane from the low angle shot.

I was trying to think of a way to describe how the enders are almost undermined by the music (like this has the craziest wallride ever and its just kinda happens as the song peters out) and I realized it reminded me of Heath Kirchart’s Stay Gold part (watch it below). You have this amazing high-speed line but a very chill Joy Division song (“Atmosphere”) and they both just kind of… I don’t know, roll on? A very similar vibe here (and also worth nothing, both were produced by Jon Miner), almost like a joke to the viewer: “You know that this was really f**king hard but lets make it feel like it was nothing.”

I hadn’t actually watched a Mason Silva part before this but Jon Miner got me on board as a fan.

*see all of Pretty Sweet

Heath Kirchart. Legend status. Also it took a lotta tries for him to get all these tricks.