RECOMMENDED READING

My time management is weak this evening, so this is a blog update for the sake of blog updates. I had something to throw up here, but an embargo deaded that plan. There’s plenty on the internet at the moment that’s better than this blog. First up, this Wall Street Journal piece entitled ‘Made Better in Japan‘ is very good — it did the rounds the other day, but the talk of Spanish napkins at a tapas bar, baristas barred from foamers or espressos due to inexperience and Hitoshi Tsujimoto of the Real McCoy’s owning around 100 Warhols makes it amazing. My friend (and one of the reasons I have the job I have now) Mr. Chris Aylen’s Trash Filter site has an excellent interview with Futura 2000 to coincide with his ‘Expansions’ show in Paris. It feels like a well-executed sequel to the old Spine Magazine (I really, really miss that site) interviews from the early ’00s that made me want to enter this whole miserable subculture in the first place. Now it’s considered remarkable to offer up content that could be in print online, but back in 2000, Spine was doing that. I think a proliferation of cornballs (and in a preemptive answer to any “Was that aimed at me?” emails or Tweets, yes it was) dumbed things down to the point where it seemed novel to offer real writing. Salutes to Spine and props to Chris for resurrecting that style on Trash Filter.

On the Futura subject, was I the last to notice his work in Heavy D & the Boyz’ ‘Now That We Found Love’ video from 1991? I knew Lee Quinones was involved, but Ernie Paniccioli’s snapshot of Lenny with some video vixens on set and watching the video again reveals a substantial input from him too. I’m also late to the party in studying Steven Hagar’s (who wrote ‘Hip-Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music and Graffiti‘ which trounces David Toop’s revered ‘Rap Attack’ and ‘Art After Midnight‘ on the East Village art and music scenes) blog, which contains some fine hip-hop trivia. Mr. Hagar is selling both those long out-of-print tomes as ebooks for $2.99, and they’re worth your time. What’s even better, is THE ENTIRE FUCKING SCRIPT TO ‘BEAT STREET’ FROM WHEN IT WAS CALLED ‘LOOKING FOR THE PERFECT BEAT.’ That’s the script Hagar sold that was altered significantly, resulting in the much-loved but tacky cinematic rap classic. I’m assuming that might be of interest to a few of my fellow nerds out there.

I’ve let you down on the word count today. Two other things of interest are a UK Blu-ray release for Monte Hellman’s sparse and deeply influential road movie, ‘Two Lane Blacktop’ courtesy of EUREKA!s Masters of Cinema series. It isn’t as extensive on the extras as the Criterion DVD was, but it’s Blu-ray and you need to admire Warren Oates’s knitwear (my second favourite selection of Oates outfits after his inappropriately light suit for the dirty duty of severed noggin retrieval in Peckinpah’s ‘Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia’) as well as a beautiful scenery. ‘Drive’ proved that there’s still mileage in unnamed drivers — word to James Taylor. This 1970 ‘Rolling Stone’ article is another recommended read. I don’t own it, but I’m deeply jealous of anyone that recieved the (camera phone image retrieved from Soldiersystems.net) Arc’teryx LEAF V.I.P. pack at the SHOT shooting, hunting and outdoors trade show a few weeks back. Arc’teryx Moleskines look good, but the Cordura Brand fabric t-shirt, made from the same material that lines the Talos Halfshell jacket and the Arc’teryx LEAF GORE-TEX camo iPad cover are my kind of giveaways. Mr. Charles Morgan put me onto this action figure of firearms instructor Chris Costa that’s got a scaled down Arc’teryx Hyllus jacket (and an Arc’teryx hat on one variant) in addition to his other brand-name garments of choice.

HORROR FILMS, SKATEBOARDING & FREEBIES

It’s CT party time tomorrow, so this blog got updated early. At my usual Sunday blogging time, hopefully there’ll be some puke stained streets in east London and I’m anticipating the usual wave of negative tweet feedback over the 6pm queues. It’s over ten years since the first Crooked event (for the launch of ‘Cavemilk’) at the Great Eastern Hotel in January 2001 that was pleasantly decadent, debauched and an introduction to freeloading for me. There’s some stuff that the Nike/CT crew’s cooked up this time that should generate some positive hype.

Today I’ve been preoccupied with Dr. Martens, Hermès, Japanese mooks and horror films. Before you go any further, read this piece on Hermès and the rumours of LVMH interest, complete with CEO Patrick Thomas’s shots at LVMH as he tells the Wall Street Journal they’re not compatible because, “Hermès is a human experience.” Between that and Rei Kawakubo‘s, “I don’t feel too excited about fashion today. People just want cheap fast clothes and are happy to look like everyone else” quote, WSJ was heavy on the fashion soundbites last Thursday.

Nobody told me about this Dr. Martens video from last year (late pass please). Usually I avoid brand-sanctioned videos because they seem to play out like marketing duties rather than offering much insight — the process of brand managing out the interesting stuff rarely helps either. I was surprised at how this one didn’t shy from naughty words or the far right associations that the boots amassed, and through that honesty it elevated my appreciation of the brand. Impending projects from the brand sound interesting, but if you want some extra sub-cultural Dr. Martens material, I recommend FRANK151’s DMS issue from 2008 (available through their site as a PDF) and this phenomenal blog post on the relationship between Dr. Martens and skateboarding.

Linking tenuously to that ’92 ‘Thrasher’ shot of Matt, I’ve been pondering old skate publications and this 1997 ‘Big Brother’ interview with Fabian Alomar is one of the gnarliest things I’ve read. Fabian went to prison for eight years a few years later and got out in 2010. This Crailtap interview from a couple of months back is an anecdotal goldmine that also includes an amazing Gonz impression.

If you’re a horror film fan (you might have guessed that I’m quite keen on the genre), you owe it to yourself to invest in Kim Newman’s ‘Nightmare Movies’ — the greatest tome on a single cinematic genre ever written (though ‘Destroy All Movies’ is still astonishing). Operating as a series of flawlessly written essays on the many facets of the celluloid scare and as a film guide via the index and the time Newman takes to dissect a film, it’s the best source of recommendations too.

While Kim bloodily impales some perfectly good b-movies in the process, he’s taken the time out to write post chapter notes that expand on each subject and incorporate a second half of the book made of entirely fresh material called ‘New Nightmares’ that clocks in at just under 300 pages, just in case anyone was looking to conquer Newman’s crown as the subject’s true guru. It’s the volume of video shop cheapies that Kim lists that really piqued my interest in the topic all those years ago, and I still spot gems in there that even the most ardent z-grade flick torrent-heads haven’t uploaded. Even the geek’s paradise that the internet offers can’t match the content here.

Now that cereals throw freebies in the bag as incentives because they’re a choking hazard, it’s down to those Japanese magazine book catalogues (mooks) to offer the giveaways that matter. Umbrellas, Moschino bags, wallets and some awesome crap accompany these publications, but have to concede, that despite suffering tote-irritation, I like the A.P.C. camo bag that accompanies their effort (with the ladies in mind rather than the men). I wonder if it’ll end up in a rap video like the Supreme towel from book #5 did in that ASAP Rocky video that led to free towel beef between him and Left Brain. This blog lists a lot of these mooks and their giveaways and even has a poll: “Do you think unauthorize ripping open of Japanese Mooks or Magazines should be tolerated” (93% said no) — serious business.