Mushroom Magick

Arik Roper

Monday Mayhem

RIP Michael Jackson

Two new designs

Hopefully they will get a release in the not too distant fvtvre.

Wednesday Miracle

A doyle from Hartlepool.....

...moves to Florida 'n that!!
My mate Johnson has a new blog documenting his new to be life in the states. He is from my hometown and we have been mates for years. Brought together by similar humour and taste of music, DJ'ing, 80's movies, John's not mad and alot more.
He's moving for good to good old Jacksonville Florida in a few months time and his blog keeps you updated with this move and his new life.
I know where I'm going for me future Jolly's.
Check it out here
Nice tee shirt by the way Jetssson

Manic Monday

Sturban Clothing...

...have just received a small amount of the Retreat X Bode Squadron tees. This is the only store which will be stocking them.
Click here to goto their site.

Friday Fun

Iz the Wiz RIP

Photo courtesy of Martha Cooper

Amazon Women On The Moon

Amazon Women On The Moon - 1987

If you're at a loose end and fancy a laugh check out this old 80's movie - Amazon Women On The Moon.

It is a series of unrelated spoofs and sketches designed to resemble an aimless late night of TV channel-surfing, and the targets include grade-Z science fiction films of the 1950s, sex films of the 1930s, hospital soap operas, and Playboy video centrefolds.

Anyone who has spent an evening surfing the channels can relate to the hysterical formatting of each skit. The crazy sketches include "Mondo Condo," starring Arsenio Hall as a victim of his own apartment; and "Blacks Without Soul," which features B.B. King making an outrageous plea to help the black people in the USA born without soul.
David Alan Grier plays Don "No Soul" Simmons. A black man that only knows how to sing white music. Don "No Soul" Simmons returns a few sketches later with a record album commercial. He turned a personal affliction into a recording career. He sings classics, like Tie a Yellow Ribbon Around the Old Oak Tree, Honey, and Gypsy Rose. In my opinion David Alan Grier plays the sketch with such sincerity that he is perfect. I think the Carlton Banks charater in The Fresh Prince series was based on this character?

Throughout the movie there are a series of hit and miss commercials which include, Silly Pate, First Lady of the Evening, and Art Sale (Where everything in the museum must go.) And a pointless sketch called Video Pirates, which IMO is essentially a waste of a sketch.

All in all it is a funny movie which is packed with celebrity performances including Rosanna Arquette, Carrie Fisher, Michelle Pfeiffer, B.B. King, Steve Allen, Steve Guttenberg, Arsenio Hall, Rip Taylor and many more.

Vaughn Bode tees now available...

on the online store
Go ahead and buy one. Only a few left

Monday Montage

FYI - Vaughn Bode X Retreat tees should be available on the online store either later this evening or tomorrow.

The War of the Worlds

I was first introduced to Jeff Wayne's musical version of The War of the Worlds by my dad when I was a young kid. It was always playing in the background in our house, particularly on a sunday and was a favourite of my dad's when we were in the car.

I rediscovered the album when I was around 19 years old at college. My mates and I chose this as our soundtrack to listen to whiles we would partake in certain substances.

The record is basically what it says - a musical version of the H.G Wells science fiction novel of the same name. The story is basically about an invasion of late Victorian England by Martians from Mars using tripod fighting machines.

I decided to take my dad to watch the 30th anniversary live show which was a truely spectacular night. With Jeff Wayne conducting a full orchestra and band, we had the priviledge of listening to the whole album live, which included added sound effects, awesome visuals, animatronics and many of the original artists including Justin Hayward - The sung thoughts of the journalist, Chris Thompson as The voice of humanity, and also included Brooksides Jennifer Ellison ( I must admit I was surprised, but in a good way)as Beth and Alexis James as The Artillery man.

What made the evening extra special was the whole event was narrated by the late Richard Burton.
This was done by computer CGI, and involved mapping an animated model based on an image of Richard to follow the actual movements of an actor who was impersonating Richard Burton whiles miming to the original dialogue.
Sounds impressive doesn't it. The final hologram image was not just life like, but it just added to what was a perfect evening.
Two thumbs up from myself and Ray Sid.


If you haven't come across The War of the Worlds I'd recommend you go out and buy the CD and take a listen.

The Chances of anything coming from Mars...

....are a million to one he said. Full write up will be in a day or so.

Retreat X Vaughn Bode Squadron Collab tee

The collab t-shirt has finally been completed by our printer and I must say it looks amazing. Limited to 30 pieces with no reprints.

First of all I want to say an almighty thank you to Mark Bode and The Bode Estate. Having been introduced to Vaughn's work when I was younger, and being a fan, it's such a honour to be given exclusive permission by his son to adapt an existing classic piece.

For those of you unfamiliar with his inspiring work, I'd recommend you at least get on google. Here's a quick write up.

Vaughn Bode was born in Utica, New York in 1941. The self-proclaimed "cartoon gooroo" was one of the most influential American cartoonist of our times. His style inspired animated movies such as Ralph Bakshi’s cult feature WIZARDS, as well as the look of the graffiti art that began in New York City and spread all over the world.

Best known for his character CHEECH WIZARD, which appeared in National Lampoon between 1971 and 1975, Vaughn Bodé was an incredibly prolific artist. His works include COBALT-60, DEADBONE, JUNKWAFFEL and MACHINES.

A Fart for the Stick King

Review time again. I feel like Barry Norman.
Today I thought I'd do a little write up on one of my favourite martial arts flicks -Drunken Master.
It's one which was bought for me when I was around 8 years old, and it's one of those movies which I can watch over and over again and never get bored of.

The film stars Jackie Chan who plays Freddy Wong, a prankster who lacks discipline. When he over steps the mark by fighting with a relative (unknown to him), his father is disgraced by his behaviour and sends him to his wine guzzling uncle to train. His uncle is known to cripple his students.

Desperate to escape this brutal regime, Freddy flees but is confronted, humiliated and beaten up by a hired assassin - Thunderfoot, played amazingly by Hwang Jang Lee.
Angry, ashamed and wanting revenge, Freddy returns to his drunken uncle to continue with his training which includes the 8 drunk God technique.
Freddy later confronts Thunderfoot when he hears the assassin has been paid to kill his father.

Drunken Master - 1978

The film is typical of early Jackie Chan movies - amazing choreography, dare devil stunts and light hearted slapstick comedy. My uncle once said he wasn't a fan of this type of comedy / kung fu combination and always favoured Bruce Lee, but why compare them both. Both are amazing in their own rights but completely different.

The screen shots above show the original subtitled versions but I must say what makes these movies for me is the dubbed versions. Hilarious. I never could figure out where these accents came from but I guess they only had a few actors as you can recognise them on all the movies which were released at the time and some of the distinct voices have been sampled by the likes of The Wu Tang Clan.

A must see if you're a fan of Jackie Chan. Nevermind Rush Hour and all his latest US blockbuster attempts.
If I were to recommend two of his movies to watch - make it this and Snake In The Eagles Shadow.

Tuesday Views

33 today

Saturday shots

A Bathing Ape / BAPE

I thought today I would write a little about japanese cult clothing label A Bathing Ape. I'm not sure exactly why I chose this brand as my topic of conversation and I feel I have to choose my words carefully without offending any fans out there reading this.

Not that this post is in anyway a negative one on the brand (well, maybe a little), but apologies if anyone thinks my views and thoughts are a bit harsh.The Company was founded in 1993 in Japan by Tomoaki "Nigo" Nagao (above). The guy on the right picture is Shin AKA Sk8thing who is Bape's Creative Director and responsible for the genius camo head design.

I believe Nigo started out printing low runs of his tees from his Nowhere store, based in the Harajuku district of Tokyo, and would sell half of them and give half away to friends and peers including japanese recording artist Cornelius.
I was initially made aware of the brand after seeing a picture of Ad-Rock from The Beastie Boys in a "Very Ape UK" tee in around 1997. This was followed in about 1998 when I started seeing people like James Lavelle, Ian Brown, Damon Albarn and Bobby Gillespie wearing various early pieces. The brand looked fresh and exciting and at this point I didn't even know what the brand was or where you could buy it from.

If you look at the above picture to the extreme right - That picture is of me 10 years ago and my effort to recreate by hand one of the first Bape tees I'd seen as worn by James Lavelle in the middle picture. I didn't have a clue where to buy a tee from so thought I would make my own.
It didn't exactly turn heads in Hartlepool but I must admit a few people would compliment the tee in London.
I remember buying my first tee from Camden in London. The tee had the original Oneita tag still sewn into the tee as these were the blanks originally used by Nigo.
I must admit I haven't bought a piece of Bape since around 2003 as IMO the appeal and exclusiveness of the brand died. I still own a few pieces, some are shown above but I foolishly sold the majority of my collection, which I'm guessing I made a loss, as I owned quite a few rare pieces.

For me personally I lost all interest in the brand when the NYC store opened and all the hip hop artists started wearing it. To be honest I was gutted. I've been a massive hip hop fan since the late 80's and one of the reasons I connected with it is the way these artists truely believed in what they were doing, and knew what they were doing would eventually be heard and admired throughout the world. From The way RUN DMC pioneered the adidas tracksuits, the way The Rock Steady Crew rocked the Puma tracksuits looked wicked. And acts like Public Enemy truely saying something important, trying to change the world and not just trying to be stars.
But since the mid 90's I've felt that alot of the hip hop acts aren't doing what they do for all the right reasons.
From the content of their vocal messages to even their style. I feel alot of them seem to jump on the fashion bandwagon. I saw it with Carharrt and Ben Davis, and much later Bape.

I always felt The Beastie Boys were always one step ahead in terms of music and clothing, and although not completely a hip hop band, they still fall into this category. They were wearing Ben Davis shirts in the very late 80's and I don't think it caught on with the likes of Dr Dre, Ice Cube, Onyx etc until mid 1990's.
I'm not really having a go at this observation. At the end of the day that's fashion I guess. There's always going to be those which strive to lead the way, looking for that exclusiveness which no one else has yet discovered.

But this level of exclusiveness is what I admired in hip hop (the way a DJ had to have that latest 12", covering up the label on his records so no one knew what it was) This is what I loved about the whole movement, but in terms of fashion, more so of late, they haven't led the way.

I guess Nigo seems happy with the direction of the brand. I mean he's raking in the money. Although he recently stepped down as President and Director, he still owns the majority of Bape and BBC.
Part of me thinks though he has lost his hunger and passion for creativeness. When I see pieces released these days, the feeling I get is the same as when you see old Rock bands reunite. It's never because they truely have the desire that they feel they need to express themselves. The fire is no longer in their bellies, but it's done purely for the money!!

I sometimes have thoughts of Nigo and Sk8thing sitting back laughing, coming up with ideas and saying things like "I know what, let's release a hoody in the style of a batman costume with bat ears on the hood, and let's see how many people actually buy it".
How much longer before Sk8thing takes a picture of Nigo's turd in the toilet and puts this on a future release??

Damn, I think I've rambled too long on this post. To wrap it up I can't take anything away from what has become of Bape. The amount it must turnover a year must be approx 50 million so good on Nigo and his team.
But for myself, once it blew up and was labelled as a "streetwear" brand it lost alot of it's credibility.

Take a look at the following two images.
Who would you prefer to wear and represent your brand??

VS

I know who I would!!

David Carradine 1936-2009

RIP Grasshopper.

Thursday bits and bobs

Built to Last?

Well I'm afraid all good things come to an end. The above quilted jacket is one I have owned for approx 6 years and although I rarely wore it in the beginning, I wore it most winters for the past 3 years.

The jacket is by japanese brand Invisible:man and the style is like a take on the classic diamond quilted jacket, only with the diamonds replaced by the 5 pointed star. it is also reversible, but I'll admit the red side didn't really get a look in.
What I liked about it is it kept me warm and has discrete embroidery and little branding which I like.

The down side to the construction of the jacket, and what has basically been the only cause of the wear and tear is the fact it has velcro fastenings under the zip. I knew this would be an issue from day one and always questioned the need for them when a zip alone would be fine.

Ah well, time to look for a new winter jacket and this one has gone to a new home. I say home it's more of a basket (the dog's). I hope Navigator will appreciate it during the winter months as much as I have.

Vision Gonzales

One of my old old decks. If my memory serves me correct, I think this was Mark Gonzales's first design. Released in around 1986?? Memories!!
It was in mint condition until the little one discovered it : )

Jolly's at the Lakes