Cinéclub Podcast #22 is a conversation with Neil MacDonald and Dan Magee about skate videos. This is a topic that’s been on my wishlist of episodes for a long time. When I first started Cinéclub as a blog, I wrote a two-part piece entitled Video Days and Memory Screens: Skateboarding on video on film. The idea was certainly not to present myself as some sort of scholar of skate video history: I zoned in on videos that seemed significant or were personal favourites, but omitted many more, either because the piece was already getting very long, or because of my own ignorance. More broadly I was interested in exploring the distinctive grammar of skate videos and the central role video plays in skate culture, but in that piece, I only considered American videos. When it came to shaping my own understanding of skateboarding, videos produced closer to home were far more influential.
So, when I saw that Neil Macdonald was releasing a book on the history of UK skateboarding, I thought he’d be a perfect person to invite to revisit this topic and shift the focus onto UK skate culture. Happily we were also joined by Dan Magee who, as you’ll hear, contributed so much to that story, but also made some of those influential UK videos, including Waiting for the World in 2000, First Broadcast in 2001, and Cover Version in 2019.
We discuss why video is so important in skate culture, the importance of music in skate videos, the footage in these videos that isn’t skateboarding, how skate videos and skate culture more broadly have been affected by platforms like YouTube and Instagram, and much more.
You can also find this episode on…
I will no longer be uploading podcasts to Spotify and have removed all previous episodes of the podcast from that platform. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for ages, because Spotify is a transparently evil company that delights in ripping off musicians, promoting AI slop, and enabling genocide in Palestine.
Show notes
Info on Neil’s book, Elsewhere: The Story of UK Skateboarding, 1987-2002
Some suggested skate shops to buy the book from
Dan Magee’s videos
Waiting for the World (2000)
First Broadcast (w/ Adam Mondon, 2001)
Lost and Found (2005)
Cover Version (w/ Kevin Parrott, 2019)
Other videos mentioned in the podcast, in the order they are mentioned
Questionable (Plan B, 1992)
Zoo York Mixtape (1998)
Eastern Exposure (1993)
Mind Field (Alien Workshop, 2009)
Public Domain (Powell Peralta, 1988)
Footage (Gordon & Smith [G&S, 1990])
Unapromo (Unabomber, 1998)
Headcleaner (Unabomber, 2001)
Ban This (Powell Peralta, 1989)
Art Bars: Subtitles and Seagulls (Foundation, 2001)
Memory Screen (Alien Workshop, 1991)
Mosaic (Habitat, 2003)
Photosynthesis (Alien Workshop, 2000)
Endless Beauty (Sci-fi Fantasy, 2025)
Cherry (Supreme, 2014)
Blessed (Supreme, 2018)
The Sixth Sense (Transworld Skateboarding, 1998)
BOBCBC (Quasi, 2025)
Untitled (2022)
My two-part article on skate videos, Video Days and Memory Screens: Skateboarding on video and film
Buy issue 2 of the Cinéclub fanzine
44 pages w/ articles on Conrad Rooks’ bizarre, star-studded countercultural artifact Chappaqua, some shorter pieces on punk and film, and an essay linking Bertrand Tavernier’s 1974 film The Watchmaker of St. Paul (also known as The Clockmaker of St. Paul) to Paul Vecchiali’s La Machine from 1977. DIY and sold on a not-for-profit basis at a cost that just covers the cost of printing: £2.50 plus postage. Shipping internationally.
Issue 1 is also still available, and you can buy both as a bundle.
