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Vacation is going okay. I haven’t seen anyone in three days, and I have gotten a very minimal amount of work done, but I have been waking up early in the morning and I have been getting a reasonable amount of sleep. I cleaned my room a bit and submitted some photos to a web project. Still, I have really have not accomplished much. I think that if I can keep this waking up early thing going on, I will have no choice but to get some shit done this weekend. Tonight I am going out, hopefully I will see you guys at Rebel as I need a little bit of adventure. Then it is back to solitude through the weekend. Anyway, I keep watching this video of Burt and Ernie rapping to M.O.P. so I guess you should probably watch it too… at least once. Ante up motherfucker.
My friends Day By Day are getting ready for the second season of their show Stupid Face. They just posted this new music video called “We So Broke”. Evidently, poverty is the new bling.
Converse seems to be reaching out to us downtown hipsters. First Bronques shot their ad campaign and now they have pasted posters all over downtown featuring people like Kid Sister, MGMT, Santogold, and my VA brothers N.E.R.D. Santogold, N.E.R.D. and that dude from the Stroke’s even teamed up to write a song for Converse called “My Drive Thru”. On top of that they asked hipster promoter extraordinaire Andy Shaw to get them a list of people to send free shoes. As the amateur sneaker head that I am I could have not been more excited to have made that list. Not only am I getting free high tops, but my existence has been validated because for once I am getting free swag that is not pornography DVDs. (Not that I mind the porn… Thx Eon!)
So yes downtown, we are being marketed to, and I love marketing. And I love free stuff. And since the whole point of sending out free sneakers is that they can get them in the hands of “early adapters” and “connectors” and other exciting marketing terms like that. So I figured I would do them one better than just wearing the shoes in public, I would blog about them, cause that will make them happy and maybe it will make them so happy that they will want to send me some of the Kurt Cobain high top Chucks that I would have murdered someone for in 1993. And if not it will still give me a chance to blog about shoes, which is something I would do a lot more if I could afford it.
Anyway, I have never owned a pair or Converse shoes that were not Chuck Taylors. But from 1992-1999 I am pretty sure I wore nothing else. I had all sorts of crazy colors but I pretty much only wore black high tops. I wrote A and V on the tips of the shoes representing Alexandria, VA my home town. After a few months, everyone I knew was rocking the AV. I once saw a girl I had never seen before and she was rocking the AV’s, but they were facing her, instead of facing away. I mentioned this to her and she got in my face about it saying I did not know what I was talking about, which was an amazing thing as the originator of said brief trend.
I have always been a brand loyalist. I have pretty much only worn a few types of shoes my whole life. I started out in Roos, moved on to Nikes and Jordans when I was a kid. Once I grew out of child sizes my parents wouldn’t buy me Jordan’s anymore. From 1984-1994 I played soccer so I wore a lot of Adidas, mostly Sambas. My first Chucks were all blue and I wore pretty much nothing else until after high school. For a while I flirted with skate shoes… Airwalks, Vans, and Etnies even SOAPs, but I never had more than a couple pairs and I was still rocking Chucks at the same time. I have even considered tattooing the Converse All Star logo to my ankle so that I could wear low top Chucks without socks and they would look like highs. That is not even a joke (although the idea of me rocking lows, or not wearing socks is).
In 2003 Nike bought Converse and I had a pretty strong punk rock ethos at that time and I was pissed. I thought they were going to ruin the shoe. Fortunately, Nike tapped into what Converse already knew, and made even more crazy designs that were even more collectable. At this same time I started managing a dance band and got further and further away from my punk rock ideals and returned to my love of Nikes. After I bought my first pair of Dunks I was hooked on the shoes that I grew up on. You are hard pressed these days to find me out of Nike High Tops, be they Jordan’s, Dunks or my favorite: Nike Vandals.
This may be why my first impressions of the free shoes I got were a little mixed. Converse sent me a pair of re-released Pro Team Weapons that they put out for their 100th anniversary. When I pulled them out of the gold box, I dug them instantly. I put them on and they fit right away and were super comfortable. I really liked the look of them from the sides. The only problem I have is that when I look straight down at them, I am so used to Nike’s that they look a bit weird to me. They look almost too much like basket ball shoes. And yes, I understand the irony in that, since all the shoes I wear are basketball shoes. Still, I have worn them three days in a row now and as long as they stay as white as they are, I will keep rocking them. (They did get covered in fake blood the first day I wore them, but that came off pretty easily.) That is my second, and only other problem with them… I fear white shoes. Scuffed white shoes make me really sad, so I try to avoid them at all costs. But these were free, and I have gotten some compliments, and they are super comfortable and I think I could pull off wearing them to a wedding. They will remain in my shoe rotation for sure.
Lastly, I wanted to know a little about the shoes I got so I sent a picture of them over to James Martin at The Converse Blog. He didn’t know a lot about them but here is what he did say:
I don’t know a great deal about them, other than they are re-issued shoes from the 80’s. I am pretty sure they were released after the Weapons, but I am not 100% on that. Your pair seems to be a deluxe edition with better leathers and other materials used compared the general release of the Pro Teams in that colorway. Also the box looks to be pretty cool too, I haven’t seen a gold box with the Converse Century design details.
After talking to James I looked at the Converse website and the shoes are available on there and don’t seem to be any sort of limited edition or anything… so I think he is wrong about that, but they are still very fresh. The box he mentions is similar to the Nike ID boxes that slide out and are a really nice touch. The gold converse box is probably my favorite box since the second generation Ice Creams I have that came in a box that looked like a carton of ice cream. They may still do that, but the new Ice Creams are so damned ugly that you won’t catch me in a pair.
Okay. That was an insanely long post. I did not mean to rant like this, but I don’t often have the chance to talk shoes… or marketing, so I have to get my hits in where I can. So yeah, if YOU have some free shit you want to send me, please do, and maybe I will write an epic blog about your swag too. <3 Swag.
Okay, okay; Check out the shoes for yourself and then download the Pharell/Santogold/Julian Casablancas converse track below:
N.E.R.D., Santogold and Julian Casablancas - My Drive Thru:
A bunch of my friends, including BA girls Apathy and JessieLee were in this weird hair metal show called Stairway To Hell. I missed the first 15 minutes but from what I gathered it is about a hair metal band who has died and they are in purgatory and they are trying to impress Satan so he thinks they are cool enough to get into Hell. They are called Wartog and they spend the evening doing tasks for the devil such as corrupting their slutty high school teacher to biting off the head of a bat to ripping out jesus’ spine. Lots of fake blood and fake cocaine and lots of short hair metal covers. When I first got there I was pretty much embarrassed for all of my friends involved, but about 15 seconds into their first Motley Crue cover I had come around and was snapping photos and having a gay old time.
The show takes place every Saturday in July so you should check it out if only to enjoy the after party which mixes Rebels bottle service/Meat Packing District crowd with aging hair metal fans. It is pretty fucking hilarious. Lil Wayne in one room, Def Leopard in the other. If you stand by the bathroom in the middle you could probably get some sick ideas for your newest Mash Up mix tape.
One could probably consider this set Not Safe For Work… that is if you consider Satan ejaculating from a 3 foot long anthropomorphized demon phallus not safe for work.
The lighting situation was less than optimal and I probably missed more shots than I got, but there is some pretty funny stuff and a few sexy ladies. So you should probably check out all the photos.
Minor update: Apathy mentioned in the comment section that she is no longer a BA, but she is still a Gods Girl I think…. Either way, if you click one of those links and sign up, I get money. So do that. See tits, give me money. Thanks.
So I just switched to the newest version of Word Press. So far I am not really happy with it, it takes me longer to upload photos and yesterday it deleted half a post, which may not have been its fault. Not sure yet.
The one thing I do like is the Mp3 widget that lots of blogs have been using but for some reason I could not get to work on my old version of WP. This is nice. I like it. The one problem is that it went and automatically converted all my linked text mp3s to these little flash things. The problem with that is now on all mp3 posts previous to this one the MP3s are not label. Other than that, it is great.
Okay, so now we get to the point of the post. I wanted to post an Mp3. I have been listening to the new Girl Talk album a lot and it reminds me about how when I first saw Girl Talk play with the Gaskets in 2004 or something at the Delancey I immediately thought about this Bit Meddler song Shitmix 2000 which was just this giant mash up of all these late 80’s early 90’s songs. Then when listening to his new album I heard his song Like This it again reminded me of Shitmix.
So yeah download both songs and spin them at your party.
Often when I have asked a dumb person what kind type of music they like, they have said “I listen to everything but country” or “Everything but rap”. Unfortunately for those people these worlds are colliding. With the Snoop song “My Medicine” he give shout outs to Johnny Cash and the Grand Ole Opry plus Willy Nelson appears to be doing back up vocals. Fucking awesome. The video though is still not my favorite Rap/Country mash up. That has to go to Trace Adkins bewildering country video (Honky Tonk Badonkadonk?!) that is shot and produced like a rap song, and features similar content to classic hip hoppers such as 2 Live Crew and Sir Mix-a-lot.
Am I the only person who still wants to bang Amy Whinehouse despite that she is a crackhead and you know… not hot? I just have a thing for damaged women and fucked up teeth. Click the photo to see her nipples.
I have seen pretty much every blog on the planet post the MUTO animation by the extremely talented artist BLU. Every time I see it I am reminded of a video by The Gaskets that is done in a similar style of painting and then panting over to create animation. The Gaskets video is not nearly as impressive of course, but I love it and I figured I would post them both back to back for a nice Sunday throw away post and then I am off to shoot some events for the VillageVoice.com which I am pretty excited about. See you at Trash Vs. Rated X tonight at Don Hills?
As discussed before things like the Weezer Pork And Beans video is a sure sign of the Apocalypse. The internet will colapse on itself and then the four horsemen will arrive and end times will be upon us. And it will be all River’s fault.
I had some of my photos from South By Southwest posted in this months BPM Magazine. Actually their new issue might be out by now or something. I picked it up a week ago or something, but just got around to scanning it. Two of the photos I did not take and are strangely credited to me. I took several photos of Danny Masterson (aka MomJeans aka that dude from that 70’s show) but not the photo that is in this spread. I also did not take the image listed as Matt and Denise. But what can you do? Click the image below to see a large version of it.
On the site note. Not only do I not have any time to blog, but I am having severe problems with my gallery uploading software. I am not sure what is going to happen with that.
I am staying in tomorrow night to work just on the site and figure things out and catch up on sleep. So just hold your horses until then. I will get us up to speed some how. I love you tenderly.
When people ask me my ethnic background I have been known to say that I am 1/4th Swiss, 1/4th Scottish and 1/2 Texan. I am not quite sure of the hillbilly roots on my fathers side, but its a pretty reasonable guess that his family was living in Texas between 1836 and 1845 when Texas was known as The Republic Of Texas and was in no way part of these United States. And since I don’t really know what else I am made of (I have heard rumors of French, Irish, Dutch and German) I just consider myself part Texan. My father spent the first 20 sum years of his life living in Denton, TX a small one horse town suburb of Dallas. My grandmother still resides in Argyle which is a 0 horse town which is pretty much a suburb of Denton. (Full disclosure, my grandmother owned at least one horse and at some point in my life it tried to buck me off and I held on because even at 9 years old I was a bad ass.) My grandmother is also pretty much a bad ass and she proved to me that living in a trailer home is not as bad as it is made to seem in the movies. She also retired from her job when she was 70 in order to become a truck driver with her husband who taught me to shoot a gun when I was like 7.
Anyway, I could write many paragraphs about my father’s life in Texas before he quit eating meat and became a sell out corporate lawyer and bought me this Mac Book, but that is not the point of this blog entry. The point is to show you this NY Times article my dad sent me this morning about the Denton, TX rock scene. The article talks about how Denton is the new Austin and the hipsters are leaving Austin because it is too commercial and trendy. Now I have spent a good deal of time in both Denton and Austin and I will tell you this: Denton is pretty much the town that George McFly grew up in in the first Back To The Future… Austin is not. The funny thing is, that the NY Times article said almost EXACTLY that about a decade after I first thought it. Denton has like one record store and 3 bars and this amazing hardware store that my dad told me has not changed since he was a kid in the 50’s.
There is a college there UNT, of which my father is a proud alum. He briefly played on the same football team there as Mean Joe Green and he played clarinet in the school marching band. That is not exactly living the rock and roll dream but I do now own a copy of the UNT marching band’s record, which is exactly one more records than I have from his surf rock band who’s dream of fame was horrifically ended when their lead singer was run over by a motorboat and killed. But these are the things you have to deal with when you are living in Texas.
Anyway, next time I am in Denton, I am going to have to check out this so-called rock scene. It sounds fun.
Download:
For more Free Denton music check out Anyone’s Guess.
I managed The Gaskets for 5 years and during that time I probably took over 1000 photos of them… maybe more. I have had a ton of those published in all sorts of magazines and weeklys and such. In a recent article on the band for Richmond, VA’s Style Weekly I was asked for a photo of the band. I sent them what is probably the best photo I took of them (at least best live photo) in all those years. Style’s art director thought the photo wouldn’t print well and we argued back and forth and eventually I photoshopped the hell out of it until Teddy was glowing, and he accepted it. Unfortunately, he was right, it printed way too muddy and didn’t look great. Luckily, you can see the original here. The published image is below. Click that picture to see the full article in it’s newspapery form.
Before my party at Trash the other night I shot the opening of the new roof deck at Studio B in Greenpoint. It was supposed to be headlined by Spank Rock but he was in the hospital so it was just the Brazilian Girls and Chester French with Roxy Cottontail and Eddie IXL Djing. I had to get over to Trash so I had to miss the Brazilian Girls, fortunately for me we have mutual friends so I got their number and arranged a mini photo shoot in their dressing room. I had to go, and they had to get ready so I really only took like two shots and they did not come out that well, but at least I got the coverage. I also got to hang out with my friend Chrissy who joined me and I think it is the first time I have ever seen her one on one, so that was nice even though I was working. The roof deck at Studio B is pretty amazing… although getting up there would be a huge pain in the ass with out my media pass. The line was insane. Anyway, the place was really getting packed right as I left so I am sure I missed some of the best shots as well as seeing the Brazilian Girls. I have so many friends who love them, so it is a shame I had to skip out. I still got some pretty good shots though, you can see them here on the VillageVoice.com.
So anyways, Greenland goes on after Prabir. They have a new member now who happens to be from India which led Prabir’s keyboardist to remark to me “Hey! We had an Indian in our band first! That’s not fair!” I thought that was pretty brilliant. South East Asia is so popular these days. (Remember I said that when I post half naked pictures of this insanely hot Indian girl I met a few weeks ago… we have a photo shoot planned!) Anyway, Greenland were sweet. Jamie from Greenland’s cousin and childhood best friend (Peter) were there. I hadn’t seen either of them in years. Peter had never seen Greenland before and he and his little brother (who I have not seen since he was like 4 years old) were totally rocking out. Good times were had by all. Anyway, I mentioned in the last post that I have been experimenting with band photography. I have shot Greenland a bunch of times and I am sure I will shoot them again, so I was just fucking around with LONG exposures.  At first it was just like 1 second, but midway through their set I started shooting with 4 second shutter speeds which ended up being pretty weird. I think I got some cool stuff, although I am not sure I want to keep doing this, I missed a lot of good stuff in the process. Anyway, check it out and maybe let me know what you think in the comments.
