On September 23, BAMcinématek wraps up Skateboarding Is Not a Crime with an ultra-rare screening of director, writer, and star Robert McGinley’s gonzo Seattle skate punk rock opera Shredder Orpheus. For the occasion, McGinley dug out from his garage the only existing 35mm print of the film; he’ll appear at BAM for a Q&A following the screening. We spoke with him about some of the wild backstory behind this truly singular curio of skate cinema.
Could you tell us about your involvement in Seattle's skate, music, and art scenes at the time, and how this project came about?
During the 80s I served as On the Boards' founding artistic director and had a blast developing OTB's new performance programming, which included utilizing the space for punk rock shows (Dils, Dickies, Dead Kennedys, Sub Humans, etc.). I had a brief stint writing reviews for the Seattle rock magazine The Rocket and covered a lot of local new wave and punk music, so I knew my way around the scene. Around 1987 I co-produced a skate punk band called Agent Orange (they sounded a lot like a precursor to Green Day) that tore the theater/dance floor apart (by the way, it was a challenge cleaning up the sweat, puke, and urine after these shows before dance class the following morning, not to mention a Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane show the following weekend!).
If I wasn't doing a show I would meet my skate buddies downtown, sneak into parking garages, ride the elevators up 12 to 14 stories, and skate the ramps down—kind of like urban snow skiing on skateboards. It was insanely fun (sick), not to mention illegal, so the added danger of avoiding arrest by police and/or security ramped the adrenaline high. We were chased a lot but somehow we avoided getting caught.
