1986 - Eyes & Ears Open

Sometimes Hollywood's cheese cash-ins end up opening your eyes and ears to the underlying subject in a way that you wouldn't have been able to so by yourself. Back in 1986 one of the biggest film influences in my life came out, 'Back to the Future'. I'd been skateboarding for a while but it had been low key, just tootling around with my friend Jim. After the movie came out not only had it opened our eyes a lot more to the possibilities on the wooden stick but the huge boom in skating after that swept us up in to it like a wave probably has provided the momentum that means i'm still skating to this day.

In the same year a film called 'Crossroads' also came out. Staring the guy from 'The Karate Kid' and Joe Seneca as Willie Brown it focused on a kid isolated by his musical loves and subsequently going on a (film cliche aproaching...) voyage of discovery both mentally and physically as Willie Brown takes him down through Mississippi hunting for Robert Johnson's lost song and ultimately challenging the devil to win back Willie Brown's soul that he too traded at the crossroads. The film isn't the best but what it did do was open my ears up to Blues music. From that movie I started to not only seek out the music but it helped me appreciate the music I already loved at the time that stemmed from it, principally The Rolling Stones, Cream (who covered Robert Johnson's Crossroads) and loads of other blues based rock and roll. In the same way as Back to the Future the film triggered a love of something that still exists today.



Cream 'Crossroads' 1968