In the words of a skate buddy of mine, “Skateboarding allows for a new way of thinking and being because you’re no longer looking at the world as a domain that restricts you, but rather, one you can play with as you please.” A divot in the sidewalk or a waxed curb can turn a commute into a playground, and a fresh set of wheels can turn a lazy afternoon into a day-long trek from one side of the beige-walled suburb to the other.
Shane, a.k.a. ‘Smig,’ comes from a suburb in Florida. The Floridian moved to San Diego chasing a girl, which he describes as “the dumbest thing I ever did,” and spends his now-single days lurking at Shockus skatepark in Ocean Beach. Smig recounts his teen years as complicated, but spotted with mischief. “As teens, me and my friends were ‘lurkers,’ that’s what we called ourselves. Not loitering, not hanging out, just lurking around and trying to find a line,” Smig said.
Adolescence and boredom is a potent combination, and nothing captures that angst-fueled fury like the band FIDLAR on their 2013 debut, self-titled album. Smig suggested it because of how it helps him get in the zone when he’s skating. “That’s some wake, bake, skate [stuff] right there, before they got cool from GTA radio. That’ll get you cranking.”
FIDLAR is an LA-based skate punk band; the name stands for ‘F*** It Dawg, Life’s A Risk.’ The opening track and the album’s single, “Cheap Beer,” is a celebration of, you guessed it, cheap beer. The band engages in a destructive booze-cruise down Alvarado Street, drinking bottles out of brown paper bags and doing blow. The track starts with feedback, ends with feedback, and the singer’s voice sounds like feedback because it’s so angry and distorted.
Simply put, they don’t care what anyone thinks. The refrain is, “I drink cheap beer, so what? F*** you!” The second track, “Stoked and Broke,” is more of the same: “I don’t care if you think it’s cool / F***** up and I’m ditching school.” But the lyrics in this song have a different edge to them. There’s still that celebration of self-destruction, but something about it feels…sad? Or a little off? “Smoke weed until I die / I don’t ever wanna get a job / ‘Cause I’m f***** up today and nothing’s wrong…There’s nothing wrong with living like this / All my friends are pieces of s*** / Busted chin and a bloody nose / And I’m covered in dirt from my head to my toes.”
Due to the tone of the delivery, the lyrics have a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ quality. The guitars are loud and heavy, the cymbal smashing is ferocious and the lyrics are chanted with the vigor of a national anthem. There’s no time to think about the words when they’re interspersed with guitar solos that would give Marty McFly a run for his money.
On track three, reality starts to creep in. It’s the same ripping guitars and riddling drums, but the lyrics read like a protest song: “Got no job, got no money, got no place to be / So they said they’re gonna make a man outta me / Got no job, got no money, got no place to be / Took me out, set me up, sent me overseas.” As the tone of the album darkens, the shadows reveal a challenging reality for many young adults born and raised in the suburbs. The cookie-cutter houses, gray or white sedans and minivans: all of that represents a version of success, but for anyone not subscribed to the idea, it feels like a hollow, economic trap. For many of us, the only way out is either life-long student loan debt or joining the military.
In this environment, skating thrives as an outlet for physical and mental escapism, but due to its counter-culture nature it can also be accompanied by destructive influences. Before Smig moved to San Diego he had his fair share of troubled times. “I was thuggin, selling weed; 100 lb garbage bags full of it man. Eventually I cleaned up my act and joined the Navy. Spent five years in the South China Sea and here I am.” When faced with lifelong retail employment, life-long debt, or the military industrial complex, the choices made available to you can suddenly make you feel claustrophobic and looking for an easy way out.
Welcome to the downward spiral, which FIDLAR describes perfectly. By track four, the listener can start to pick up that, despite the celebratory sound, not everything is alright. “I feel, feel like a cokehead / I feel, feel like I can’t get drunk no more / ‘Cause I’m on the floor looking for some matches just to cook up a score.”
The lyrics feel parallel to blues in structure: a solemn woe, repetition and a solemn resolution. It’s just difficult to notice when the singer is screaming like an Army recruiter is knocking on his door. As the album progresses, the narrator’s condition deteriorates. He’s pushing away the people who love him, like on the Lou Reed-inspired “W****” or “Blackout Stout,” which describes a nightmare of waking up drunk on Skid Row.
The downward spiral hits rock bottom on the final track, “Cocaine.” The first half is a punk banger about the festive effects of nose candy, but after a minute of silence, a second, stripped-down version begins: a moment of clarity. The singer admits to the listener that they’re spending their life wasted and they don’t see a way out: “I’m spending all my cash on cheap cocaine / And I’ve been wasted every day / And I don’t know what to do / It kinda sucks being 22.”
On their debut album, FIDLAR is juggling the tension between ‘celebrating the little things,’ finding meaning in suburban banality and the self-destructive risks of societal alienation. Born unsuitable for the reality of 21st-century American society, the band expresses their dissatisfaction through whatever means they can: skateboarding, punk rock, drugs or just lurking around the neighborhood.
Avery Pringle 
Tessa Balc