Depending on who you ask, Rushed Goods is the first real Terrible Company video. In my eyes, it isn’t (because I count any video made by me as a Terrible Company video, and my first one was in 2003). I think people feel this is the first one because it was the first one that permeated beyond my small group of friends and got the attention of Jim The Skin at Ride, and other prominent heads in the Cov scene. It is also the first video that set the formula for what these videos would become.
Between 2006 and 2008, there were 3 videos that came out from the blog – all 3 were trying their damned hardest to copy another successful video of the time. Rushed Goods is an ode to Baker3, Corrosive Materials is an ode to Enjoi’s Bag Of Suck, and Storybook is an ode to Blueprint’s Lost & Found. The comparisons may not be obvious, and my efforts pale in comparison to the legit videos I was copying, but this was largely reflective of the place the blog was in. I was trying to give to Coventry what these large companies were giving to the skateboard industry at the time, just without the means and skill to do so!
The best thing about Rushed Goods is that it retains the “bunch of mates having a laugh” feel that was there from the first video I made. It showcases a select group of locals who frequented the Memorial Park skatepark at the time, and it marked the first appearances of Chris Mander and Ralph Cooper in a Terribleco video: two people who would be incredibly important and help me find a voice within skateboarding, and films made around it.
Considering the amateur and low budget nature of the video, there are still some surprising bangers to be seen throughout the runtime. The video actually ends with Ralph clearing the monumental Yellows loading bay gap in Coventry with a hefty ollie, which I think at the time was an NBD. It’s since been shut down with various flip tricks – some of which are captured in Get Lesta videos – but at the time Coventry was a bit of a dead zone for skateboarding which barely had visitors from out of town, so seeing an ollie at this huge gap seemed like the raddest thing to close the video out with.
Baker3 was not the only influence on the video, either. Rosko’s 2 song section was heavily inspired by Billy Marks’ similarly structured part from Toy Machine’s “Good & Evil”. I used to say (especially in those early years) that Rosko was Coventry’s answer to Billy Marks, so the inspiration for this part was fitting to say the least.
It’s also worth calling out Ross Warner, who was a “one and done” Terribleco video part – he shortly quit skateboarding to play guitar full time after this video came out, which was a shame because he was genuinely bloody good at skateboarding. Heavily influenced by Jamie Thomas and any skater on the Zero team, his part in Rushed Goods was probably only a fraction of what he was capable of on a board, and just before he quit he showed promise of becoming really good. He had that Andrew Reynolds lanky big pop, perhaps drawing the Baker3 comparison even closer.
Hey, listen – this isn’t the best video (but honestly none of mine are). What it captures is a certain point in time for skateboarding in Coventry. It’s most definitely the first video I would call a “Coventry scene video produced by The Terrible Company”, and for that reason it’s an interesting watch.
The Terrible Company 
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