Good old Greene street down in Soho. Big ups to the brother Mike and Hyun from LTD who run this block with an iron fist similar to Stringer Bell from the great television experiment known as the Wire. Going to be stirring up a ruckus with those two blokes sooner than later. Rasta Monsta!
You’re all very familiar with this character, one of the many partners in crime. Demetri’s headphones never leave him these days. Which reminds me, I’ve never had an iPod my entire life. What sort of travesty is that? It may be for the better however. I think that if I actually walked around with music in my head at all hours of the day I would actually never speak to anyone. I’d get far too carried away with the music, and me singing Patrice Rushen on a crowded Subway at full lung capacity is probably less than desirable for anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot.
Me explaining something of utmost importance. (It’s strange captioning yourself.) Most likely concerning hobbit hole construction.
Back to the center of this story-the mission to find the lost ARMY NAVY shop I stumbled across a few weeks back. After wandering around and finding a bunch of other worthy destination we finally came across the small canvas-green hole of vintage military goods sandwiched firmly between a deli and a 99 Cent store. It’s actually pretty easy to miss if you’re walking quickly, that is if the sight of 60 assorted patches pinned to a board doesn’t immediately make you stop in your tracks and being salivating like a small dog. If you can muster up enough strength to walk in the door without fear of being laid out by a veteran like the guy on that Oakland bus a week ago then you’ll find what is basically a glorified closet of insanely cheap priced military surplus goods. We call that waxed canvas and cotton gold folks.
For those of you in New York, you definitely want to give the shop a quick look see. The small Asian women who owns the shop along with her husband asked why we were taking photographs. I immediately tried to explain the concept of a “blog” to the small sixty year old woman who came up to my torso before realizing that it may be a lost cause. When I explained to her that it might send more business her way she said, “Oh great, more work for me,” in a voice dripped thick with good hearted accent. So because I don’t want her to have to do more work, I’ll just say for you NYC heads that take a stroll around the Reed Space area and you’ll be in luck. Some nice finds if you take the time to look around.
That’s about it for this evenings recap of the daily happenings. It’s 2:17 AM and I am going to be leaving for Los Angeles in less than 24 hours. What? Did he say Los Angeles? West Coast invasion, the funk will be spread my friends, the funk will be spread. I have to figure out how to pack clothes and a 21″ iMac into two backpacks alongside a bunch of hats. Speaking of hats, see that nice little fitted above? Courtesy of the good folks at Mighty Healthy. Go check out their Pop Up Shop if you’re in NY you crazy blokes, good deals for days. Click HERE.
Award Tour family in LA you folks need to holler! West Coast, lets get acquainted.
Stay Safe-Phil.
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Oh yes, it feels good to be home with a camera. That fourth picture? Someone let the blokes of the universe know that I’m back.
If you haven’t downloaded Erick’s latest mixtape, improve your life and do so now by click here.
Stay Safe-Phil.
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Turning the corner into our humble on campus apartment and the first thing you will be met with is the impressive bull horns which rest triumphantly above the threshold of my room. These bull horns are 100% authentic. I wrestled them from the bull myself. Although that is a complete lie (the wrestling part), the impact of these bull horns is not lost. A truly grand welcoming mat for all who enter. Not the authentic but pretty awful Haitian painting and Pabst Blue Ribbon tin hanging on my door. Though I do not drink I am not one to front on great design, and that tin is a perfect example of it.
Let’s move on, walk with me on this awkward beat like Giggs. I guess it’s important to mention that my room will only look like this for a few more weeks. About every three weeks or so I get sick of the set up and change the entire room again. Granted there isn’t much room to work with in a 11×15 ft. room but every month we seem to find a way to create some funk in here. As for the wall? All of that nonsense is highly necessary. Everything from Mexican blankets courtesy of the girlfriend to posters stolen from the walls of my parents living room at home.
Music is incredibly large part of my life, this is no secret. Record covers coat more wall surface in my room than the paint does. That’s a Thriller cover next to the Tribe, Rolling Stone, and some Haitian band known only to older Haitian Aunts and Uncles called Tabou Combo. I have no idea what that means but the cover is incredible.
More of the same on walls opposite. To the right you can see the now infamous Shepard Fairey Obama poster. Well to be honest with you, I’m not a particularly enormous fan of Mr. Fairey or that poster, so I got bored one day and attacked with with a silver paint marker and a Sharpie. I think the poster looks much, much better for the record. I give big man Barry O’ back his essential cool.
I’m still debating on whether I should give him a 60’s-esq Black Power afro or a Kid N’ Play high top fade. You tell me.
This picture signifies the part in MTV Cribs where said celebrity walks into their bedroom and says, “This is where the magic happens,” or something to that effect. The desk and the iMac that rests upon it is the center activity in the dorm room and the center of operations where all things Award Tour are concerned. (That is unless we are off camping somewhere in the woods. In which case life in general is much more the center of attention.) Those vinyls against the wall believe it or not are Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get it On,” James Brown “Ain’t Funky,” Jimmy Cliff’s “Follow My Mind,” and Young M.C.’s “Principal’s Office.” All classics in their own right and sadly being misused as decoration due to the fact that I broke the needle on my last turntable. A bit of freshmen year art there on the walls as well courtesy of yours truly. Every once and a while I finish a painting.
As for that half way epic Award Tour poster resting quitely up near the cieling? Yeah those never made it into mass production, didn’t know how we would feel about being hung up on people’s walls. It’s a little strange but I have to admit that it looks pretty good up there on my own wall. Hell, maybe it’s even weird that we have ourselves on our own wall. Oh yeah, check out that Club Soda bumper sticker. Grand.
I could probably go on all day about all the nonsense that’s on my walls. This is just about half of it. It’s funny I intended this post to be some great statement on the necessity in living in an environment that inspires you at all times. Well that quite obviously didn’t work out as planned. Hopefully the message somehow still leaked through. Don’t settle for living amidst normalcy. This summer my brother and I are building a hobbit-hole in our backyard. You don’t think I’m 100% serious? Oh lord. Never question the work ethic once an idea is laid down on paper. More to come on that later.
Stay Safe-Phil.
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I’m back.
-Phil.
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No particular reason for this photo to be here. Just the most grand Award Tour image ever.
With that being said, there ARE going to be some refunds for the Girard beanies. So many people checked out with those beanies in their carts at the same time that Paypal allowed more than a few to be oversold. So prepare yourself for that, the refunds will go out tonight/tomorrow morning early.
For those of you that missed out this time around, I have some good news for you. I’ll be dropping another few beanies at some point next week. I saved some and stashed them away on the side for the second rounders to have a chance. I also hopefully have all the beanies out by Monday. I’m striving for a new fast shipping method here, we’ll see how it works. Enormous thanks to everyone who supported. Due to your madness I’m going to be sitting around staring at Paypal for the next 24 hours sorting it all out. But I suppose I can’t complain. Thanks again.
Stay Safe-Phil.
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Nothing dramatic here. Product releases are sort of fun because it gives me an opportunity to participate in some lazy blogging. I can throw up this picture here which is doing little else besides taking up place and showing off some artfully crafted and applied patchwork and act like I’m doing something in the world. A truly grand thing for a Thursday afternoon. Long John Beanie release tomorrow at 6:30. Get your index finger ready, it’s sure to be a fast and slightly ridiculous frenzy of purchasing come dinner time tomorrow. Best of luck.
Stay Safe-Phil.
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America (Red/White/Blue), Girard (Maroon/Gray), Knicks (Orange), Packers (Green/Yellow.)
I don’t even think we need too many words for this one. As far as The Award Tour goes, it doesn’t get any more classic than the Long John Beanie. The knitted cap popped up in the first “full” Award Tour collection, that would be all the way back in the Cold Winter days. These days, Long John has gotten a nice little update. Same old 100% Made in America knit construction, in four stupefyingly grand colorways. “Stupefyingly” is actually a word, and that’s actually how it’s spelled. How great is that?
Buttery ribbed-cuff goodness.
Not to mention the fact that the America (Red/Blue) and Knicks (Orange) colorways also came through the fire and emerged with a brand spanking new, heavy duty ribbed cuff that is oh so beautiful to be completely honest. Just like their predecessors, the Long John Beanies will keep you warm in the coldest of weather. My brothers went skiing this past weekend with their original release beanies and still have all their ears to show for it. If that’s not testament to warmth then I don’t know what is. Protect your neck.
Big Ups to V. Piccone and J.Shwaz on the photos.
No more words needed. The Long John Beanie is back and with only 120 beanies made, once they’re gone, they’re gone.
The Long John Beanie will release at 6:30 PM EST this Friday, February 19th.
Stay Safe-Phil.
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Haiti Relief ROUND TWO tee’s will release at 6:30 PM EST on Monday February 15th. Purchase HERE at that time.
(*Note: The shirts will say “SOLD OUT” until 6:30 tomorrow, no point in emailing me or trying to buy them early. Thanks folks.)
Stay Safe-Phil.
]]>The joy didn’t end with the snow though folks. That fluffy deluge from above left students from grade school to college rejoicing in the ultimate freedom known simply as a snow day…and when I am taking part in a snow day, well I like to encourage everyone to go a little above and beyond the call of duty. With those fatal words, I introduce to you an igloo to remember. The Snow Dome.
Photos by J. Brogna.
Regretably I did not sleep in this monstrosity. I had no sleeping bag, no snow pants, and not enough Bear Grylls in my veins to last a night in the frozen living room. All props, big ups, and accolades in general must be given to my roomates and girlfriend who lead this massive charge. Grand proceedings.
Haiti Release Tee (Round 2) & Long John Beanies Release information tonight!
Stay Safe-Phil.
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It was some absurd time like 3:45 in the morning a few weeks back and I was scrolling through some sites halfway asleep but not quite ready to attack the pillow. That was when I ran across a trailer for a Ricky Powell documentary on Hypebeast. I don’t even know why I watched this video, I couldn’t even list five facts about Powell despite the fact that I know he’s an “legend,” but something said to stop and watch the whole video. Watch the video for yourself, especially somewhere around the three minuet mark and see if you notice anything.
Did you catch it? At about three minuets into the movie, graffiti legend, STAYHIGH 149 comes strolling into the picture. Underneath that winter jacket there’s an interesting mixture of screen printing ink on top of cotton that may be a little familiar. I’ll let Demetri illustrate how familiar that cotton and ink mixture might be circa an Award Tour lookbook shot Spring 2007.
Check Meech out circa 2006-2007. The Fonz inspired cool. Hilarious times. All we can do is look back and laugh at ourselves.
So now put yourself in my shoes and ignore for a second the fact that I have an absolutely awful, awful, pair of blindingly turquoise jeans on in the background of the above image. For those that don’t know, graffiti was the absolute sole concern of my exsistence for about three years before I heavily got involved in design and Award Tour. I literally consumed anything and everything to do with writing with every free hour of my days and I attribute that complete obsession to my now somewhat fine tuned ability to draw things now and again. After a little introduction to the United States system of Law and my local police force however, I dropped graffiti and got more focused on other “artistic” outlets. Back to the story at hand, despite the fact that I left graffiti “behind” years back, I still read and to a large degree obsesses over the culture. My room is packed with graffiti books and if you sit next to me in class it’s more likely that I’m practicing letter form than taking any kind of notes.
So for me to see STAYHIGH 149 somehow showing up in a video wearing a t-shirt that I made…well it’s absolutely surreal. (For the non graffiti heads out there, let’s put it this way. You cannot read a history of graffiti without STAYHIGH being mentioned, period. His tag is synonymous with graffiti, they go hand in hand like Snooki and the Jersey Shore.)
Some lines go crazy when celebrities are seen wearing their clothes in videos and so fourth. Well, to be honest I’ve had the opportunity to have that happen, and I passed. It’s not real to be if I have to have the clothes placed on these people. STAYHIGH 149 is the kind of person I lose my mind over when I see them wearing something I created. These are the “celebrities” to me. Authentic people who mean something to the movements and reasons that actually inspired the creation of Award Tour, and people who organically on their own accord are wearing the garments.
Stay High back in the day with the infamous tag, and modern day courtesy of Frank 151.
I want to apologize for going all graffiti-geek there for a moment on people. I really tried to restrain myself, I know most of you could care less what this shirt this guy is wearing but I guess I had to explain how amazing of a look that was for me. At the same token it’s no less of an experience when I see any one of you blokes on the street representing the fine combed threads of an Award Tour shirt. It’s all love and greatfulness all around when support is shown and it’s always an absolute pleasure to see the funk being spread.
I’m going to go hide in a corner and laugh at myself again for those turquoise jeans. At least they were being worn a full year before all the streetwear lines started releasing their own versions. I remember custom dying white jeans to make them that brilliantly bad shade of blue and all I can do is laugh and shake my head now. Good times back when we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. To be honest, things have only changed slightly since then, and we’re still sitting around laughing.
Stay Safe-Phil.
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