As many already know the book CRYPTOPUNKS: FREE TO CLAIM that I worked on most of last year, which is being published by Phaidon, is currently at the printers. As far as I know it should be in people’s hands in early December. I may or may not have seen a copy already, and in either case I can attest that it turned out beautifully. This thing is a brick, at over 800 pages it truly is an epic piece of work. It’s substantial in every way. Beyond just a catalog of all 10,000 CryptoPunks, it’s filled with thought provoking essays and insightful commentary. Interviews and assessments. And it’s put together in such a way that you can pick it up, flip to a random section and spend a few minutes reading and walk away feeling like you gained something from it. It’s not a cover to cover read, but a collection of powerful stand alone work. I’m deeply honored to have played a role in helping shape this from idea to final thing, and will be proud to have it on my shelf, and delighted when I see it on others.
Which is inevitable due it’s size and color. I mean, look at this thing:
You might think being this thick, it’s 100% all encompassing. In our initial talks that’s certainly something we aspired to. The end all be all, totally comprehensive book on CryptoPunks. And in many ways it is, but also–it isn’t. As we got into it we realized how this is a living thing, changing day to day with new stories being written and old stories being revised. While working on it we kept having to change something because something else happened, a big sale, new information uncovered, etc. At some point we had to say “this is the cut off point” otherwise it never would have been sent to the printer.
I also concede that there’s a level of information many people will find interesting and then another level that only the super nerdy dorks like myself even care about. Where possible, this book sticks to the things that are most interesting to the most people. Don’t get me wrong, it goes deep. But not too deep, if you know what I mean. And I think it’s stronger for that. I’d be remiss if I didn’t send a massive thank you shout out to Stone at Yuga Labs and Belle at Zak Group who were my constant and often daily contacts obsessing over this thing as much if not more than I was.
That said, I am a super nerdy dork and I admittedly go too deep all the time, as any number of blog posts here can illustrate. Which brings me to the next point – I realized that I regularly find myself sending people links to things I’ve written on the subject, or hear from someone that they read one of my older pieces and that sent them of on a search of their own. There’s also been a few interesting things that have happened since our self imposed cut off date. So I decided I might as well go ahead and pull all that together, update old things, document and explain some new things, and put out an unofficial companion to CRYPTOPUNKS: FREE TO CLAIM. I floated the idea to a few people and the response was an overwhelming yes, so that’s what I’m going to do. So I present: PUNKS NOT DED.
This one is not for everybody, but it’s definitely for some people. I’m pulling things together and deciding what new to include right now but thinking this is going to come in between 60-100 pages. I’m matching height dimensions as best I can so it’ll look nice on the shelf next to it’s larger sibling. Full contents forthcoming but this will include previous blog posts, expanded wiki articles, some updated and expanded history as well as some new events. Depending on how it works out I might dive into some closely related derivatives a bit more too, as part of the larger conversation, but that’ll kind of depend the page count I land on and what I need to fill it. I’m thinking there will be a few different versions of this.
Semi-limited Softcover. Unsigned. Print run to be determined by preorders, plus a few extra. Available now.
In the meantime, if you haven’t ordered CRYPTOPUNKS: FREE TO CLAIM yet make sure you do so you get the first shipment. It’s available from Phaidon as well as on Amazon and everywhere else near you. I can’t wait for everyone to get this thing in their hands, it’s just worth it.
A few inquiries lately so figured it was time for a check in / update. As I’ve noted in pervious years – where I am, specifically the weather where I am, has a shaping influence on the basic set up. I’ve been living in Vancouver now for going on 4 years which is much cooler climate wise than Tokyo and that’s reflected in the modifications I’ve made since then – though if you read my last update this one is probably predictable.
Socks – I’m about 50/50 between Stance cotton socks and Darn Tough wool socks. You’ll recall that one of the things I loved about Darn Tough was their 100% guaranteed no questions asked replacement policy which essentially means you buy them once and then for the rest of your life if your socks wear out you can replace them for free. One of the things I’ve learned about Canada since living here is that there’s a bunch of exceptions for everything. I’ve been told a lot of this is due to panic that foreign companies were going to come in and take over the market, so there’s a bunch of laws and policies requiring business goes through Canadian companies which has led to some obnoxious monopolies and a bunch of “exceptions” to policies that apply globally, but not in Canada. Darn Toughs policy is one of those. So rather than just sending them in and them sending you new ones, you have to send them to their Canadian distributor with a note explaining what went wrong and why and they will then decide if they replace them or not. In the last 4 years I’ve sent in 4 pairs of socks, one was rejected because I didn’t buy the socks in Canada, one was approved but it took 3 months to get the replacements, and two other pairs just disappeared, and Darn Tough hasn’t responded to any of my inquiries about them. So if the goal was to make the policy too painful for anyone to take advantage of, consider that a success. As a result I’ve been getting Stance socks instead, which are very comfortable but not really as durable so I just know I’ll have to buy replacements next year.
Underwear – David Archy Bamboo Boxer Briefs. Bamboo is such a great fabric for underwear, so comfortable and more sustainable than whatever synthetic blends most “tech fabrics” are made of.
T-shirts – Reigning Champ mid weight standard. These are great and I prefer them over everything right now. One of the selling points of wool shirts was “wear them for several days without worrying about washing them” and while cotton isn’t as forgiving, these are solid enough that they can easily be worn 2 days in a row without any concern at all. I really like this cloth weight and build quality. If I could get this exact same thing in Bamboo rather than cotton it would be my dream come true, but so far Bamboo seems to always be much thinner and not as structurally rigid. I hate thin t-shirts and that ended up being part of the deal killer with the Outlier wool shirts, they were either so super thin that I felt like my nipples were going to rip through them or so thick that they couldn’t be worn anytime outside of the dead of winter and took days to hang dry after washing. Also the ethical trade off was no bueno.
Pants – Still on my Iron Heart Japan jeans kick. I’ve got 4 pair of various weights, 14oz, 18oz and 24oz. Iron Heart repairs these for free in Japan too, so as they’ve worn over the years I coordinate dropping them off when I’m in Tokyo and they mend them in a way that seems unheard of outside of Japan. They don’t just slap on a patch, they re-thread seams and darn the denim so when I get them back it’s like thy never had a hole or rip. It’s incredible. I hunted all over Canada to find anyone doing repairs like this, and no one even comes close. The Russian seamstress at the tailor down the street from me almost ripped my head off for asking if they could repair without a patch. I prefer black pants, the 24oz ones only come in blue. So I attempted to dye them at home with some RIT dye which was kind of successful? For a few months anyway, then it kind of washed out and was a bit messy in the process. That said, I do like the black so I’ll probably dye them again.
Most of the time I’ll add a crew neck sweatshirt or sweater because I’m running a bit cold these days and prefer long sleeves. If it’s hotter I’ll swap to light hoodie or track jacket zip up thing.
Shoes – I realized the toe box on some of my smaller profile “skate” shoes were cramping my toes and starting to hurt, so I’ve switched back to Adidas shell toes almost entirely and with their new official vegan versions I don’t have to hunt for all synthetic models as hard as I used to. The big toe area is much more comfortable and they are fairly water resistant too which is good here where it rains so much. I have some Gore-Tex Adidas cross/hike shoes that I’ll use if we’re going out into the woods, but I don’t love them so not going to specifically recommend.
Shane MacGowan is dead. He was 65. If I’m honest I’m equally surprised he lasted this long, and that he didn’t pull a Keith Richards and live forever in spite of it all. As far as I’m concerned Shane was the greatest living Irish poet, which would put him high on the list of greatest contemporary poets period. He would argue that poetry and songwriting are the same thing and I wouldn’t argue with that.
His songs were simultaneously beautiful and horrific, heartbreaking and lustful. From The Nips, to The Pogues, to The Popes. Glorious. Disgusting. The picture that he painted of life, from the down trodden to the rebels to the lovers to the adventurers, was more vivid and authentic than anything his peers were doing at the time.
Contrast “A Pair of Brown Eyes” with “Boys From The County Hell” with “Old Main Drag” with “Sunny Side of the Street” and try to find that musical and topical range anywhere else. I dare you. Shane could write in a way that made a homeless drunk sound glamorous and aspirational, effortlessly bouncing between politics to religion to sex to every other aspect of the human experience. Poppy upbeat songs about the broken underbelly of it all right into slow beautiful songs about lost love. He could make straight edge kids want to drink whiskey with a song. God I fucking loved this guy. His ‘Friends of Shane’ is the only fanclub I ever joined, and in hindsight regret how many times I wrote in asking if Shane had been to a dentist recently.
I was introduced to The Pogues with “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” and it shattered my entire idea of what punk rock was and could be, and set me off on a journey that would lead to from Gainesville Florida to decrepit pubs in the back alleys of Cork, and basement record stores in Dublin. It’s possible that I may have taken some of the same roads that I did if I’d never heard of Shane but I think it would have been far less likely. I have all of his records, I hunted them down long ago and have listened to and sung them all a million times. I know all the lyrics by heart. And this has lead to wonderful moments like hearing “Sunnyside of the Street” in a random car commercial, delicately edited to make people think buying a car will make them happy, but knowing that the song is actually so much darker.
“Seen the carnival at Rome. Had the women and I had the booze. All that I can remember now is little kids without no shoes. So I saw that train and I got on it, with a heart full of hate and a lust for vomit. Now I’m walking on, the sunnyside of the street”
I was going to embed the perfectly recorded album version of the song, but decided this 1990 live version, at the height of his wreckage was more fitting. If you think punk rock is leather and spikes and mohawks you haven’t seen anything. There’s a tin flute in this motherfucker:
I could spend all day talking about his different albums and the songs and the impact each one had on me at different points, like the best writers he touched me with his words and imagination and helped me understand and see things in ways I never would have. This is what poetry should be. This is what punk rock should be. But I think some of that is meaningful only to me, and should stay that way. I will just take this moment to say say Goodbye Shane, and thank you for all the beauty and chaos you brought into this world. Your legacy will live forever.
Long live Shane MacGowan.
“Cram as much pleasure as you can into life, and rail against the pain that you have to suffer as a result.”
One of my favorite bands played in Vancouver last night. I’ve had tickets for the show since the day they went on sale 6 months ago. I was so excited about it, but as the date grew closer that excitement gradually turned into fear. I didn’t go.
Maybe I let the anxiety win. Maybe I’m feeling sorry for myself. Maybe both, but that’s where I am right now, in my head, one way or another. I was going to write about the band – Quicksand (for anyone who didn’t get the title reference, and naturally Gorilla Biscuits before them) and what they meant to me, the impact they had on my life and moments/memories they will forever be attached to. But as I thought about it, the band itself is kind of irrelevant in this whole story. Mostly. It’s more a me thing.
This tour was the 30th anniversary of the release of the first album. I tried to remember the last time I saw them play, I’ve seen them so many times, all these years later the shows kind of blend together in my mind. The feeling anyway. Packed in a crowd, surrounded by friends, all of us singing along to every word. This is something about growing up in the hardcore/punk that there’s no way to explain to people who didn’t experience it. As kids we didn’t fit in. We were outcasts and rejected by most similar aged peer groups, but it didn’t matter because with punk we had each other. Friends became family and you knew, no matter what, that they were there for you. It was the Cheers thing – a place where everyone knew your name and was always glad you came. Oddly important is that a lot of these situations were incredibly violent, but that’s probably a story for another time. The point is that we all gladly opted into a dangerous situation because it felt like home, the only feeling of home some of us had ever really had. It was a scary place, but it was our scary place.
This was my whole life. The music, the message, the people. Almost 40 years later and I’m still in touch with many of those people today, the bonds run that deep. In Florida and in Chicago when I’d go to shows I knew everyone. Literally. Every single person in attendance and in the bands and working the venues. I knew them all. We had grown up together. I moved to Los Angeles at 26 and didn’t really know many people in town, didn’t know what bands were around or where they might be playing. I remember several times that first few years feeling an overwhelming sense of disappointment when I’d hear, usually a few days later, that a band who I knew had been playing in town and I’d missed it. I felt like this hugely important part of my life was slipping away.
I eventually figured it out and started going to shows again but it was different. I didn’t know everyone anymore. I knew some people and that was great, but most of the people were strangers to me. It was weird because this thing, this place that had always been my briar patch didn’t quite fit anymore. It was like a favorite shirt that shrunk in the wash. So I’d go, and enjoy it, but also have this sinking sick feeling. And I went less often because of it.
That was multiplied by a million when I moved to Japan. The only way I could square it was when I knew the band or someone in the band and could go with them, so I felt a part of it somehow. I’d take pictures and hang out before or after the show with them and it was a wonderful way to feel like I still had some connection to this thing I loved. This thing that made me. But I’d also look at the audience, recognize what they were experiencing and at the same time know that I couldn’t experience it with them. If I was in the crowd rather than on stage, I’d feel surrounded by strangers rather than friends. I would always be an outsider. That was a hard one to reconcile let me tell you.
(Terror, Tokyo, 2019)
Over the last many years there’s been a handful of shows that I’ve bought tickets for and gone to on my own, alone. The last Murder City Devils show in Los Angeles stands out in my head as an example. I went. I danced. I screamed my heart out. I even broke a rib when some dude hit me at just the wrong angle. I loved every second of it. I also left feeling depressed and lonely. I didn’t know anyone there. I wasn’t going out after the show for food with anyone. I remember thinking about it as I drove home, weirdly that hurt more than my ribs.
So I’ve lived in Vancouver for over 3 years now and I’ve never been to a single show here. I barely know anyone in this whole city. 100% of my friend circle is online, in other places, far away. Friends I’ve known forever and love like family, and friends I’ve only just met through various shared interests. All impossibly distant.
And also, a lot of them are still together. Not all, some have drifted away to other lives and others didn’t survive this long. And sure some of this can be chalked up to social media posturing but I see my friends, people I love, hanging out together and having a great time. I buy records from various bands and see that my friends are doing guest spots, singing or playing on songs. I hear their voices and it makes me smile. And simultaneously bums me out. To be clear I don’t regret my choices or the direction I’ve gone, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss the routes I didn’t take. And given the chance I wouldn’t do anything differently, so this isn’t a wallowing “gosh I wish I had a do over” or some bullshit like that. It’s just an observation of melancholy. I’ll avoid the infinite sadness joke.
So last night, as much as I love this band and these songs, I knew going would have been depressing. I would be a stranger. It would be a room full of people that I should have connections with, but don’t. The band on stage would be a friends of friends, but not friends. Know what I mean? In a different situation completely approachable with countless stories and friendships to share. But here, entirely out of reach. And a harsh reminder that I’m not a part of this thing I love anymore. That I’m now an outsider.
Of course not going is depressing too. So it’s not like I avoided that by not going.
I talk about punk rock and how we made our own world all the time, it’s an important part of my origin story and I apply the lessons and learnings from that to almost everything I do to this day. And there’s no simple narrative here, that world still exists but is also different. We aren’t kids anymore, and a bunch of old guys sitting around talking about their glory days gets obnoxious real quick. Nostalgia has it’s place, but it can’t be everything. You (and I mean me) still need to look ahead, to what is next, not just what came before. I think about this often when I’m playing guitar alone in my bedroom because I’m an almost 50 year old who still does that. But I’m not playing old cover songs, partially because I don’t know how, I’m trying to do something new. And that helps.
I think of myself as a community person, and there are all these communities I used to spend time in, and for one reason or another I don’t anymore. Mostly because I’m no longer physically near them, and I wonder how the next generation of people who grew up with friends online rather than in person will view things kind of thing. I often think about how when asked about why he left the Bujinkan, an old martial arts instructor of mine Charles Daniel replied “Who says I left? Maybe I just graduated.” I don’t know that I agree someone could ever “graduate” but I also liked that way of thinking, he was still doing “stuff” it was just different “stuff” and he brought with him everything he learned up to that point, the old stuff forever informing the new stuff.
So in the end I didn’t do something that I knew I’d enjoy because I knew it would also make me feel bad, and the next day I find myself wishing I had but also knowing why I didn’t. Sometimes everything makes sense, more often it doesn’t.
I am an art collector. This is a confession and a point of pride. I love art, I love seeing art and experiencing art and being surrounded by art. It’s inspiring and makes the world a better place. Here are some observations I’ve had recently that, while unrelated, somehow fit together…
One: I have been collecting art for over 30 years. When my family and I moved to Tokyo from Los Angeles, we put it all in storage with the intent to have it crated up and shipped up once we got settled long term. Visa struggles and what not, that didn’t end up happening so we never shipped the art. Then we moved to Canada and thought we’d get it then – but COVID and border closures threw a wrench into those plans. Now we’re not sure how long we’re staying in Canada so the thought of spending a bunch of time and effort to move art here seems perhaps ill advised. The result of all this, is that the vast majority of our physical art collection is sitting in storage in another country, and we haven’t seen any of it in almost 7 years.
Two: Being an admitted art collector, over that time I’ve continued buying art from artists I love. Many of these pieces were shipped to me rolled up and as any art collector knows you do not want to keep flat art rolled up for too long. In the old days, when I co-owned an art gallery, I had flat files as a safe and secure place to keep unframed art. I no longer have flat files and have committed to framing work so that I can hang it and enjoy it. I recently took about 10 pieces to a local framer and while the results look amazing the multi-thousand dollar bill was a reminder that everything about collecting art isn’t always fun or easy. This print by Sean Higgins looks amazing though.
Three: Once I got those pieces back I had to find room to hang them. In some cases that meant moving other pieces around. This is fun, but also not fun. It’s hard to explain but if you have made a habit out of hanging and rehanging and rearranging art, you know what I mean. If you have any kind of ADHD then you really know what I mean.
Four: When art collectors get together a very common topic is “how do you find new artists?” and earlier this month while I was in Tokyo hanging out at Bright Moments this topic came up a lot. The answer to that question, time and time again, was Deca. I’ve had an account there for a while now but I confess to not really understanding it. After that trip I spent some time exploring and playing with the galleries that you can create, curating collections and art into many different easily browsable pages and I easily made some little galleries showing off some of the photography and generative work I’ve collected, as well as separate galleries for artists like Derech, Piv and Crashblossom from whom I have many works, among others. It’s also incredibly easy to browse around and see what work other people are putting into galleries and quickly find curators or groups you want to follow because you have similar tastes. I’ve really enjoyed looking through the genart group for example. It became very clear to me why collectors are spending time here.
Five: Deca isn’t the only way to show off digital work, I’ve long had a gallery space in Voxels and have enjoyed looking through galleries others have created in OnCyber. I have some OnCyber galleries myself but haven’t had the chance to update them recently. There are at least a dozen other gallery platforms people are using as well. Point being, people are spending a lot of time building ways to curate blockchain based digital art, and collectors are dedicating just as much time to showing off what they have.
Then it hit me.
If I’m out, anywhere in the world, it’s very easy for me to pull up an online gallery and show off artwork that I love. It’s very difficult for me to show off physical work that is hanging in my house (or worse, in storage). If I move (as I’m known to do) it’s very easy (and free) for me to bring my digital collection with me. It’s very hard (and expensive) for me to bring my physical collection with me. Worse if it’s international.
Six: Another thing that became apparent to me in Tokyo while visiting several galleries is how quickly the “digital canvas” products are improving. Currently Whim and Grail and other digital art displays are quite pricey, but Infinite Objects frames are super reasonable and satisfy the object lust thing quite well. And truthfully when you consider professional framing can cost $400 for a single piece, a digital canvas that shows your entire collection being $4000 isn’t insane, it’s steep for sure, but that price will come down over time as well. And as we more museums exploring ways to show off digital artists like Refik Anadol people will continue to get more comfortable with this idea of real art on screens.
Just to argue against myself for a moment, for more than 20 years now I’ve had friends telling me the wonders of dumping their CDs, DVDs, Books etc in favor of digital libraries & streaming. I’ve largely resisted, and while I’ve mostly transitioned to a digital movie library to be honest it’s not the same. I miss scanning the spines of DVDs and being reminded of a favorite film I want to watch again. This is why I still have all my books and vinyl, I can’t imagine not browsing or holding the objects in my hands. But yes, this comes with a cost – both in space around the house and a monetary one if/when I move. Not to mention the stress. But it’s worth it, because if I don’t see these items, if I’m not accidentally surrounded by them, I don’t experience (and enjoy them) the same way.
As someone who has been buying and collecting physical art since the mid 90’s, and loves looking at the texture and process in physical work, I assumed my position would forever be the same here too. I’m not saying it’s changed, but I’m more open to it than I might have been before. I was never opposed to digital art, don’t get me wrong, but I see a much larger use case and adoption potential now than I did say even 5 years ago. Consider these bits of conversations I’ve had recently:
“I never cared about art until 2 years ago when someone gave me an NFT, now it’s all I think about and I’m buying new art almost every week.” – An accountant
“I used to spent money on 5 digit wine, now I buy jpgs.” – A lawyer
“A water pipe broke and flooded my basement, at least 10 large canvas pieces were ruined” – A collector
“I used to go crazy when I was away from the studio, I had ideas and no way to move on them. Opening myself up to working remotely with my iPad, I can’t imagine ever being so locked down again.” – An artist
That last comment piqued my curiosity and it didn’t take long to find out that Procreate, the most popular professional iPad illustration app is primarily used by “younger artists” with official recommendations that it can be used by kids as young as 8, and unofficially as young as 4. While artists today might have a hard time learning new tools (and honestly, they don’t need to), looking ahead 20 years from now, artists who grow up with them aren’t going to think twice about it. They will be making natively digital art already. Qubibi is an artist I learned about in Tokyo and immediately bought a piece from, this is work that couldn’t exist physically.
The problem with digital art has always been provenance – if all copies are the same then where is the motivation to collect an original, of course NFTs and blockchains solve this (as well as many other problems artists have had like attribution, royalties, etc) and again this next generation of younger artists are growing up with this knowledge inherent. While the old people, the “thought leaders and influencers” argue and fret about it, the young people are embracing it and moving forward. The old people will die and the young people will take over, just as always.
And to be clear I’m not arguing for a move from physical art to digital art, I’m just observing that I think the adoption of digital art is going to be massive. As an art collector I’m always excited to walk into someones house (or office) and see an original piece of art and I think in the very near future people will have displays showing off their bad ass 1 of 1 (or small edition) digital art collections. And to people who might worry about the new wave of digital artists putting the physical artists out of work – that’s nonsense. First of all many artists who have successful careers making physical art have easily integrated digital into their world, just as they did prints or any number of other things before. I think the world is big enough for all kinds of art in various formats, and I think the ease and access that digital art provides is going to introduce way more people to art than we could have ever anticipated. I’m also so excited about new opportunities for artists and collectors – for example I’ve been lusting after the hardware customizations by tachyons+ for over a decade and their work inspired a lot of what I did with CMHHTD, recently I learned they were not only making hardware but also now selling digital art produced with their own devices and I was able to buy this piece. I love it, and might have to get an Infinite Objects frame for it.
I’ll always have physical art, I’m not going to pretend otherwise, but if I’m honest, I think it would be pretty amazing to be able to swap out all the art in my house with with a different “exhibition” from my collection with a single click. Lets see where the future takes us.
Recently Boris asked me if I had any updates to my Personal Uniform. Longtime readers will know that for more than a decade now I’ve endorsed a kind of “find one thing you like a buy a bunch of them so you don’t need to think about what to wear” policy which I call a personal uniform and I’ve written about it over the years updating and refining as needed. I told him a didn’t as I’ve basically not left the house in 2 years. But it got me thinking and that’s not exactly true. I last updated in 2019 and looking back at that now I do have some revisions.
Pants & socks haven’t changed except for the addition of some Stance socks. I got a pair in a gift bag a few years back and they were pretty good and recently picked up several more in a simple design during a sale and am liking them quite a bit. They don’t have the “lifetime guarantee” like Darn Tough does but they are also a little more causal. Underwear has consolidated 100% into the David Archy bamboo boxerbriefs. I can’t really recommend merino underwear or T-shirts anymore, I like them in theory but in practice they just fall apart – especially the lighter weight stuff – and the environmental trade off isn’t worth it. Never say I don’t challenge and test my own positions from time to time. Shirts/tops where the most revision has happened and I’ll explain how that happened.
In Tokyo I would often go by the Adidas store in Shibuya on the everlasting hunt for vegan Superstars, but also to check out their small run collabs and test products. A few years ago I picked up Japanese made loopwheel hoodie that was a joint venture between Adidas and Reigning Champ. I remember reading into it at the time but it didn’t really stick with me beyond knowing that RC was a small boutique brand attempting to make the perfect example of classic athletic wear, overspec’d in everyway. As Gibson fans know this is the quintessential Japanese fashion brand thing to do, but to my surprise RC wasn’t a Japanese brand, they were Canadian. I really liked the hoodie and still wear it regularly, through Amazon Japan I ordered a crewneck sweatshirt for Bujinkan classes and was equally impressed with the production and quality – though the price kind of hurt. I think with conversions and such at the time it worked out to be around $300.
After moving from Tokyo to Vancouver I was pleasantly surprised to learn there was a RC store a few blocks from my house and decided to revisit the brand. I learned that it was started by the same person who’d created Wings+Horns, a brand I’d learned about many years previous from an excellently made collab they’d done with the Ace Hotel. If you think this is starting to feel like reading liner notes on vinyl records to find mentions of other musicians to check out that’s exactly how it felt to me as well. I was also delighted to find that buying locally in Canada was much more reasonable in the pricetag department than as imports in Japan.
Last year I picked up a couple of “lightweight” t-shirts from them and have been wearing them pretty regularly. The build is A+ however the material was a bit too lightweight for my taste and the collar a bit too wide. I like a tighter neck. So I stopped into the shop recently to see if they had a more mid-weight option that would work better for my own personal quirks. The guy at the shop gave me two really solid options – their new “copper jersey” which is kind of exactly what I wanted, with the bonus of having copper infused in the cotton which fights off odor and bacteria – I got a few of these in my standard Large size. He also told me about their mid-weight standard t-shirt which is cut a bit larger, so given my preference he recommended a Medium. This worked incredibly well, I only bought one but I like it so much I’m probably going to swing back and pick up 2 or 3 more. I think the copper jerseys are probably a summer specific piece, while the mid-weight Ts could be a year round thing. They will be a nice contrast for the insane super heavy duty Iron Heart Ts I picked up in Japan just before moving which classifies somewhere between a short sleeve sweatshirt and body armor.
Anyone who has seen me recently knows that I’ve grown partial to classic track jackets. Don’t get me wrong my normal black crewneck sweatshirt is still the goto, but switching to a simple Fred Perry or Puma track jacket works well for most social occasions and temperatures.
Amusingly perhaps only to me, my “style” hasn’t really changed all that much in the 12-ish years I’ve been blogging about this, or the 10 years before that when I was talking about it – brands have shifted a bit, perhaps jointly because I can afford more than what happens to be on sale this week at Wal-Mart and because craftsmanship and simplicity of classic designs has found a market allowing higher end production of these basics.
