OLD MUSIC

Forget a pop-up store or concept “space.” In 1986, they were shifting Air Jordan 1s from DIY stores. Lightbulbs, a grass trimmer and some cut-price metallic swoosh AJ1s were all available in one Sunday afternoon shop. No queuing needed.

After What We Do Is Secret and The Runaways turned out to be quite good despite my skepticism, I should be optimistic about CBGB. Crap poster aside, Malin Ackerman looks the part for Debbie Harry and there’s a slew of regular-looking folk playing some iconic degenerates, but I bet it’s not close to being as good as Times Square was or that scene in the otherwise abysmal The Beat where The Cro-Mags play at the Ritz. Not looking forward to the Evening Standard putting a model in a Television tee, studs and Chucks around the time of its release though.

I’m hyped for this mysterious Soulland and Goodhood collaboration project, right now — definitely keen to find out what it is. I’m also hyped for any footwear that uses retroreflective sheeting in excess at the moment. Scotchlite can improve most footwear just like GORE-TEX does. A flash test can make middling shoes excellent — a case in point being these Cris Carter Nike Free Trainer 5.0. Break out the flash and the speckled 3M weave is an atomic blast that the Vikings colourway completely conceals. Sports shops should unleash random flashlights to reveal this kind of thing.

On the 3M topic (in so far as it has a mention of a shoe with a Scotchlite tongue), catching the 3rd Bass reunion show made me feel deeply old and reminded me to be careful what I wish for. Rappers who made it look effortless in 1990 need to make more effort 23 years on, but these guys look like they’ve been chanted up during an office Christmas party. Daddy Rich still seems to deliver, but I wish this had happened around 1999 when Ichabod’s Cranium was on the cards. Shit, I think I liked it when it was all patchy 1992/93 solo albums and threats. Is there any footage of them performing at Andy Hilfiger’s birthday party anywhere online so I can pretend that was the last live performance from them? I choose to remember them like this: a Jordan V clad Serch presenting Keenen Ivory Wayans with a Shirt Kings likeness of himself on a white sweat and Pete lurking around that stage in a tan suit while Jim Carrey looks on. Where’s rap’s Bruce Springsteens who can just deliver a better show with age? That downtime can make you into rap karaoke. Still, I bet I’d be beating my chest like that NWA dude when the 21st century 3rd Bass performed Brooklyn Queens. If you’re gonna be older and revisit past glory, you need to come correct like this.

1990:

2013 (via Grandgood):

TIMES SQUARE

This blog entry is approximately 27 hours late and an affront to my OCD inclinations. The real kicker is that it’s both tardy and pretty poorly thought-out too. In fact, the majority of it is given to images from an already well documented book that are — to add insult to injury — heavily watermarked too. What can I say? I slacked this week. I’m keen to get my hands on a full copy of Powerhouse’s ‘The Forty Deuce: The Times Square Photos of Bill Butterworth 1983-1984’ because it seems to be laden with strippers, pimps, b-boys and girls and plenty of other characters from the era. I grew up obsessed with b-movies from the time (as well as the classic ‘Times Square’) that depicted the area as a very scuzzy spot indeed, usually laden with offensive stereotypes of Puerto-Rican gents, complete with flick knives and bandanas and hookers berating the stray innocents who wandered into the area Butterworth depicts. Think ‘The Burning’s opening setup, ‘Fear City’ or ‘Basket Case.’ And while it looks grindhouse sketchy in Bill’s photos, there’s an evident sense of unity between crews, whether it’s sex shop workers, drag queens, dancers or anyone else who hung around there. The portraits are strong and the outfits are pretty spectacular, with plenty of posing. You know your swag is at a trillion when you can stunt in front of racks of gay porn (apologies to one-handed surfers who just found this blog through those words and were assailed with paragraphs, shoes and other geeky things) and still look gangster. That couple next to the ‘Beat Street’ (and ‘Strange Invaders’) display? Incredible. There’s plenty more information and imagery right here.

One of the few things that marred my pre-teen years as much as Belial in ‘Basket Case’ was David Lynch’s ‘The Grandmother.’ I always found that short infinitely more nightmarish than ‘Eraserhead.’ Lynch has a habit of tapping into the hallucinatory, claustrophobic essence of a nightmare situation. The car crash scene in ‘Wild At Heart’ troubles me deeply, but Robert Blake’s appearance in ‘Lost Highway’ is utterly unnerving. Blake’s real-life antics give his nameless character extra edge and the whole film remains underrated. Just as I found myself preoccupied with watching the film again, I wandered into Uniqlo and was faced with a ‘Lost Highway’ t-shirt as part of their David Lynch collection. Then I got the news that Universal are putting out pretty much every David Lynch film as a Blu-ray around June 4th. ‘Wild At Heart’ includes ‘The Grandmother’ as a special feature and I want to know what the “Four Intervalometer Experiments” that are on the ‘Lost Highway’ disc are. Even ‘Dune’ is part of the rollout. All this sudden activity around a film I hadn’t thought about for at least half a decade didn’t throw me as much as Bull Pullman talking to a man face-to-face who’s also miles away in his home, but it caught me off guard a little. Now Robert’s eyes and laugh are embedded in my mind all over again.

Retro isn’t going anywhere — right now somebody’s probably being kicked to the ground for a basketball shoe from 1997 — but the new wave is wildly on point. I’ve loved Nike’s Lunar pieces but the Undercover GYAKUSOU collection has done a good job of introducing me to shoes I wouldn’t have paid much attention too until they got some Terra-esque makeups. Zoom Structure+ 15? A serious shoe even though I hadn’t looked at Structures since the bestselling Structure II back in the early ’90’s. I loved the Lunar Elite+ but the Zoom Elite series looked like one of those ranges that was made for serious runners who’d sneer at anything aesthetically pleasing for its fanciness. Suddenly, with that transparent overlay and almost 180 style forefoot, the Zoom Elite+ 5 is a thing of beauty and this version highlights every key feature. The Terra Humara style colourway elevates these significantly and like the Structure choice, there’s a sense that Jun Takahashi isn’t hunting the hype vote with his footwear picks. Shouts to Nike UK fam for these — all I need now is a health scare to encourage me to run. All the gear, no idea is a mantra I live by.

Many blogs are either too frantic or too earnest for my tastes, but I really like The Obviously Uncommon. That’s because the man behind it, knows a lot about a lot of stuff and had a Doublegoose way before I ever did, but also because it celebrates the bargain hunter. There’s so much emphasis on matters of flossiness and conspicuous consumption, but shelling out full price or an eBay markup is a fast track to a hollow purchase. Bargains come with tales of exploration, disbelief and triumph. £25 Pendletons, wear tested Stone Island coats, Air Max Lights found in garages and 50p hats that are inexplicably big make this site my new favourite. Salutes to the enemies of RRP out there.

TEEN FILMS 1979-1981

Old blog entry from February 2009.

Teen films fell off. It isn’t just because I’m getting old. At least I don’t think so. Eccentricities gave way to whimsy, Black Flag on the soundtrack was surpassed by My Chemical Romance to attract the dispossessed. Nearly everything that ever exits a studio is whitewashed crap. Remember when horror flicks got all self-referential and contemporary Shakespeare adaptations were the thing? Dark days. Bullys and Doom Generations were condemned to arthouses. Bad times. Things never did get back on track.