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London to California (via Brixton)

This past week I've been in California to meet with some of the brands I work with at Out Of Step.

The first part of the trip took us down to Palm Springs for Brixton's Fall 2014 presentation. Normally the meetings are held local to the brand's home-city of Oceanside, so this marked a first time for them as well as for me.

The whole event took place at the PS Ace Hotel location, a roadside motel that had been done up in the Ace's typical boutique styling, still keeping a lot of the original character intact. We grabbed a bite in the restaurant and called it a night at a fairly respectable time after 20 hours of travelling.

Two days of presentations, meetings and activities kicked off with an opening reception the following day. I'd never met any of Brixton's other distribution partners before, so this presented a a chance to get to know the guys we'd be spending the next couple of day with. The Canadians were my favourite, don't tell anybody.

As is usually the case with these things, the first day was a pretty solid run of product discussions and marketing plans topped off by a little celebration. Fall '14 product is looking great, particularly when it comes to outerwear.

The Plug Uglies, a band made up of Brixton's founders Pete, Dave and Jason along with Nato - long time friend and vocalist for The Drowning Men, performed at the party in the evening. Commitments to the brand meant The Uglies had to be put on hold 8 years ago, but it was clear that the guys had an absolute blast performing again and I hope it wasn't the last time I'll get to see them play.

Heavy heads all-round (well, for the most part) meant that the second day got off to a slightly slower start. Following the morning's presentations we broke out in to focus groups and individual meetings to discuss plans for the year ahead before packing up and heading back into LA for the next leg of the trip.

I really enjoyed the chance to step inside the world of Brixton and really see how the brand ticks and I'm looking forward to kicking off Fall 14 in a week or so when I return home.

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Things I've eaten in LA

#foodporn etc

follow #theveggieoption for more

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Some stuff from last week

After a fairly quiet start, last week ended up bring pretty busy on all fronts. Thursday evening's usual meander around Shoreditch lead me to AnyForty's low key exhibition with illustrator UltryFry and the release of VNA's 24th issue (grab one here), before stopping at Goodhood to get a closer look at their new collaboration with Soulland. Their Melton Wool coach jacket was an easy pick and it was fun to see Social Distortion skeletons make an appearance. I managed to catch Brooke Candy perform in a bikini-suit-of-armour at Diesel's #DIESELTRIBUTE launch before heading out too which topped off Thursday night in out of the ordinary fashion.

I wasn't sure what to make of Night Tales, the latest pop-up addition to Dalston, when the hype began to flood in, but I'm glad I paid it a visit. Smokey Tails' peppery smoked Mac and Cheese alone made it worth the trip - I didn't get a picture, but what it lacked in presentation it made up for in taste (and quantity). I followed it up with "crunchy peanut butter and organic jam" french toast from Le Petit Paris which was also met with thumbs up all round. NT lacks the number of dining options you'll get at something like Feast, but the 5 or 6 stands there represent the best of London 'street food' and accompanied by a few well stocked bars and DJs playing into the night they made for a really good evening. You can visit every Thurs/Fri/Sat until the 14th December. I'll be back.

I was also lucky enough to attend this year's ATP World Tour at the O2 to watch Nadal comfortably pass Tomas Berdych despite a slight wavering in the second set. Thank you to the very kind people at Lacoste UK for inviting us to come along.

On Saturday I made my way to Brighton with Boyce and Maisie for the official launch of my good friend Paul's new AONO Barbershop. The space was packed with all three chairs spinning the entire afternoon as the guys and girls got sharpened up by Paul, Josh, Brad & co with help from Uppercut Deluxe. It's been amazing watching Paul's business grow over the past few years and I know that's only going to continue in the new space. It was also a great chance to catch up Dan, head honcho at Urban Industry, where coincidentally you can grab a whole range of Uppercut product, and meet Murdock/AONO barber & fellow Vans admirer Matt and the good people behind Be Street.

Sunday is brunch day, which meant a little visit to the Clapham Breakfast Club venue and a chance to catch up with a long time friend before heading home with a festive Red Cup to catch some Sunday Night Football. Very happy that my Jaguars family got their first win in a close game against Tennessee and that the Seahawks continued to trample the opposition to go 9-1.

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10/11/13

We'll give this another go. Thank you to those still following despite the drought.

Adam

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All I Need is a nice AZ Iced Tea...

Kicked off my trip to New York City yesterday. I'm here for a few days for work, and meetings with The Hundreds, Mishka and 10.DEEP. I've been fortunate enough to travel to NY a few times in my life, but this trip will be something totally different.

I've become so used to long train journeys in the past year, that a 6+ hour flight passed with ease. We flew with American (although we booked with BA) and it was a pretty average service. We got through the airport without too much stress, took off a little late, but we made up for it time-wise in the air.

The cabin was filled with morons, as expected. People seem to lose all sense of themselves while airborne and become these invalid types with too much to talk about - most clearly had never been taught the 'sit down and shut up' lesson. Anyway... I passed the time with VNA 15, the newest SneakerFreaker and The Daily Street mixtapes on my iPod, and it was over before I knew it.

This is Brewer, my companion for the trip. It's his first time in New York, and as you can see, he's obviously quite excited.

We arrived to a reasonable, 18 degrees, NYC, glad to be breathing some air that hadn't been recycled in a cabin all afternoon. We hopped on the Subway (after around an hour and a half at customs) and made our way to our hotel in Brooklyn.

There isn't much to say about our place of residence, but it's got a bed, air con and wifi which is really all I need. It's in what I imagine to be the heart of Brooklyn, not to many shops or bars, just grocery stores and chinese take outs. We won't be spending much time here anyway. Here's the view...

We were both pretty exhausted from traveling all day, so we grabbed some food from the store down the street, went back to the hotel and passed out pretty early. First thing I had to do was grab a 'tall boy' of Arizona Iced Tea - a year or two ago it would have been Mountain Dew, but the poor UK substitute has sort of dampened the excitement I once had for it. 99c for a 680ml can of perfection.

Today is our first day of meetings in Manhattan with The Hundreds. I'll report back. Seee Yaaa.

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A few of the bits I've managed to add to my collection over the last couple of weeks.

Nike Destroyer Jacket

King Apparel 'East London KING' Starter Snapback Cap

HUF x Skate Mental Wall Clock

Dickies White T-Shirts & 182 Slim Chino

Zombie Dunny by Triclops from the 2010 Series

Air Jordan XIII 'Playoff'

The Hundreds Floor Mat

Thanks to my friends at Nike, King Apparel, HUF, Skate Mental, Dickies, Kidrobot London, Triclops, House of Hoops, The Hundreds, SoleHeaven and Chimp for this lot.

Full review of the Playoff XIII's coming soon.

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Scored some new reading for the train for my birthday. Burning Fight is a collection of first hand accounts of the hardcore scene in the 1990s, and looks at politics, straight edge, animal rights and spirituality. It also delves into the careers of some of my favourite bands like Earth Crisis, Integrity and Unbroken. I firmly believe that the hardcore scene is one of the most interesting musical subcultures ever to have existed. The fact that such 'simple' music can carry with it all the complexities that can cause someone to take a look at their life and re-evaluate their position on drink, drugs, animal rights, politics... And cause the same people think about social change and even a spiritual way of life astounds me, and I always want to know more about it. This is about the 5th book I own on the subject and I'm still discovering more. Thanks sis!

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Last night's Secret Wars semi-final battle was insane. The Brum team smashed it, they meet Amaterdam in the final, coming soon!

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Today's cops...

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RE: JOURNALISM

I have been battling with a certain feeling of unease over the past few days, specifically relating to my place in the world and which particular box I should fit into. It's a topic which has been present within my mind for longer than the few days since Mr. Warnett's blog post on GWARIZM (even this little viral had a part to play), but his essay brought my past uncertainties flooding back to the forefront of my consciousness, and recent responses from Steve Monaghan, Eugene Kan and Jeff Carvalho have only continued to strengthen its presence there.

I struggle at times to find the correct term for what it is I do on a daily basis, and I will openly admit that when asked that ominous question, "What do you do?" I have, in the past, referred to myself both as a 'journalist' and as a 'writer', followed by a split-second wince as I would wait in agony for the sarcastic comments or side-eyed glances that often followed. This question and its various responses were never met with anything but an uncomfortable feeling on my part, as even to this day, despite the numerous contributions from my peers, I am still unsure exactly what it is I 'do'.

First, a bit of background... My first experience at stringing sentences together, with the intention of them being read by others, outside of an educational context, was in founding The Daily Street in the Summer of 2009. With TDS, it was always our intention, to provide a similar level of product based content to many of the other blogs out there, but with a UK focus, covering products available in the UK market and providing information specifically targeted at consumers in our country. There was one element however, that remained at the front of it all, and it is that which is particularly relevant to this discussion. As a voyeur of blog culture for a number of years, I had grown tired and frustrated with the regurgitation of press releases, which only ever dictated the information that the brand or PR wished to convey, rarely any element of opinion and often without regard to the factors which had gone together to make the product in question, actually of interest, such as it's history or cultural significance. A year or so ago, it was not unusual to see the same product blurb, word for word, across numerous blogs, accompanied by the same product photos and the same despondent approach to each release.

With The Daily Street, we sought to correct that which we thought was wrong with the 'blogosphere' by coming up with our own approach, extracting all that was good and disposing of those elements which we disliked, in the hope that we could create a format that others, like ourselves, could appreciate. We made it our aim never to simply command+C, command+V (apple talk, see how modern we are?) a press release, but to spend time digesting the information, allowing us to write an informed article on a product, injected with our own thoughts, opinions, knowledge and experiences.

It is for this reason that I begrudgingly describe myself using the term 'blogger', for, selfish as it may seem, I wish not to be tarred with the same brush as those who simply re-blog or re-hash the work of others. Perhaps I am wrong, as, in the simplest of deconstructions, a blogger is one who blogs, and that is what I do. However, if I am right to seek a pigeonhole outside of the one marked 'blogger', where exactly should I be looking? As my peers have already pointed out, perhaps the term 'journalist' should be reserved for those who have studied a degree in the subject, which I of course, have not. Since founding The Daily Street, I have been blessed with the opportunity to provide full pieces of editorial, featured in print on the pages of National magazines RWD and Front, but, without that piece of paper certifying me as a journalist, where exactly do I stand?

I agree with Gary that the term 'writer' should be used only to describe those who have spent years slaving over their craft, traveling to the far corners of the world and spending days without sleep in order to create the perfect piece of literature. I'm sure that the likes of George Orwell would be more than a bit peeved to find someone like myself, who spends a few hours a day bashing out short bursts of copy to be uploaded online immediately, was trying to climb into their box and find a seat amongst Kerouac and Hunter Thompson. Perhaps it was naive of me to use this term to describe myself without proper thought, after all, I struggle with the same predicament of being boxed in with those who I believe I should be separated from, but this still leaves me with the same dilemma.

I have written this article not to contest what others have said, but to ask their advice on which box I should find to call my own. I look up to people like Gary, Steve, Eugene and Jeff; both their proficiency in the written word, and their individual accomplishments are of huge inspiration to me, so it is with bated breath that I prepare to (somewhat cheekily) enter their shared discussion. I do feel that my practice and my achievements over the past year warrant more than just the badge of 'blogger', but I do not quite feel ready to reach for the box marked 'journalist', and further off, 'writer'.

Thank you for taking some time to consider my predicament. Your thoughts, as always, are welcomed.

Email

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My boys @grizzleemcee and @synamatix down at the Professor Green album launch party. Party's pretty rammed and Pro's sipping hot lemon suffering with a bad throat. Hard Night Out!

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Just me and the boys hanging out with a couple of German girls at the Tony Hawk & Friends show. Notice how Grizzle gets parred hard and cut out of most of the photos. Sorry dude!

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A few more from the trip.

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Some photos from our week in Berlin...

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While doing what we do best, not worrying too much about how cool we look and acting like fools, we thought we'd bust out some tricks on the mini fingerboard park set up in the Airwalk stand at Bread & Butter. It's just as well we didn't care too much about acting like idiots, as Hypebeast decided to pop by and take a picture.

This pretty much sums up how ludicrous the trip was, not to mention how much fun we had.

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grizzlegetsfresh:

On a recent trip to Berlin to attend Berlin fashion week i had the pleasure of meeting the guys behind the popular brand The Hundreds. Bobby Hundreds kindly snapped me and Suffocake and included us in his blog post about his own Berlin experience - which is amazing to be included in so thanks Bobby!

Check out the full blog post here. 

Me and my boy @grizzleemcee got snapped up by @BobbyHundreds while at the Bright show. Was cool to meet some of my streetwear idols in such a chilled environment. Bobby was kind enough to put a link to The Daily Street with the photo on The Hundreds blog, which was met with a pretty decent response. Thanks Bobby, Ben and the rest of The Hundreds crew!