West Coast

Most of you are probably familiar with Jason Schwartzman's acting work in such films at "Rushmore", "The Darjeeling Limited" and "Shop Girl." But I bet you didn't know that he used to be in the band Phantom Planet. He wrote their song "California" which was the theme song to the teen drama "The O.C."

For a number of years Schwartman stuck to acting but last year he released his own solo album under the name Coconut Records. He recorded it in just a week at home with help from friends like Kirsten Dunst and Zoey Deschanel. The record, "Nightiming", isn't terribly revolutionary but it's cute and fun.

This is the only music video for the album, for the song "West Coast." At first I thought that it wasn't the official video, but it turns out that Schwartzman got permission to use Mark Gonzales's 1998 skate video footage.

I had never heard of Gonzales before, but it turns out that he revolutionized skateboarding. He and Natas Kaupus were the first skaters to skate on handrails. He was also one of the first people to skate in "switch stance."

Gonzales has also created a parallel career for himself as a fine artist.

I find it interesting that Schwartzman opted to use old skating footage instead of making his own video. But the song is "West Coast".. and skating is inherently California esque. Then again, he released the record on his own label, and likely doesn't have the money to shoot his own video.

Also noteworthy - Schwartzman's brother is in the band Rooney.

What do you think of the song and the use of the skate footage? do you think he's a good skater?