Diamond Supply Co. x Maybach Music Group Online Release

The highly anticipated Diamond Supply Co. x Maybach Music Group tee is releasing online on Tuesday, January 19th at 12 noon pst. The tee is limited to 144 pieces and the hat is limited to 100 pieces, don’t sleep.

PT. 1: SORRY FOR THE DELAY BUT: TIME IS MONEY SO I THOUGHT I WOULD GIVE YOU THIS!!!!

Over the past few months I have taken a job at Diamond Supply Co. I am the new sales manager for them and I am very excited for my upcoming adventure in the world of skateboarding. If you have been checking my blog for new releases of head wear I apologize for not being able to do so. So here is a memory of 2009 that I will share with you. Its all about music which is a big part of my daily life. When the sun shines you listen to certain tunes.

This is a picture I took in Hawaii in 2006. And this is what you listen to on a day like this.

And when it rains

it POURS: MARIN COUNTY BAY AREA REPRESENT

THE BOX TOPS

Original incarnation (1967-1970)

The Box Tops began as The Devilles, who had started playing in Memphis in 1963. As the band’s personnel changed from time to time, so did the band name on occasion, which at one point became “Ronnie and The Devilles” and then later changed back to “The Devilles”.

By January 1967 the group was composed of founding member Danny Smythe (drums) (born August 25, 1948, Memphis, Tennessee), along with newer arrivals John Evans (guitar, keyboards, background vocals) (born June 18, 1948, Memphis), Alex Chilton (lead vocal, guitar) (born December 28, 1950, Memphis), Bill Cunningham (bass guitar, keyboards, background vocal) (born January 23, 1950, Memphis), and Gary Talley (lead guitar, electric sitar, bass, background vocal) (born August 17, 1947, Memphis). They were soon renamed a final time. They changed their name to “Box Tops” to prevent confusion with another band recording at the time with the name “The Devilles”.

As the Box Tops, they entered the studio under the guidance of producer Dan Penn to record Wayne Carson Thompson’s song “The Letter.” Though under two minutes in length, it was an international hit in mid-1967, reaching Billboard’s number-one position and remaining there for four weeks. The record, produced by Dan Penn, sold over four million copies and received two Grammy awards nominations. The band followed up “The Letter” with “Neon Rainbow”, another tune penned by Thompson and produced by Penn. An album called The Letter/Neon Rainbow appeared in November, 1967 — The Box Tops would actually release three albums over a nine-month period from late 1967 to mid-1968. Some of the Box Tops’ instrumental tracks were performed by session musicians like Reggie Young, Tommy Cogbill, Gene Chrisman, and Bobby Womack at American Sound Studio, and by future Chilton producer Terry Manning at Ardent Studios. However, the actual group members performed on a number of their recordings including their first hit, “The Letter,” and on all live performances.

The hits continued through 1968. “Cry Like a Baby” was a major hit in 1968, peaking at number two on Billboard, and has been covered by such artists as the Hacienda Brothers and Kim Carnes. “I Met Her In Church” and “Choo-Choo Train” were smaller hits released later that year. Towards the end of 1968, the band switched producers, with Dan Penn being replaced by the team of Chips Moman and Tommy Cogbill. This team was responsible for producing the band’s final 1968 hit, “Sweet Cream Ladies, Forward March”, and all the band’s future releases.

By January 1968, John Evans and Danny Smythe returned to school, thereby avoiding the draft. They were replaced by bassist Rick Allen (born January 28, 1946, Little Rock, Arkansas) (from The Gentrys) and drummer Thomas Boggs (born July 16, 1947, Wynne, Arkansas, died May 5, 2008, Memphis, Tennessee) (from the Board of Directors).

Wayne Carson Thomspon’s “Soul Deep” was the group’s final US Top 40 entry in the summer of 1969. The follow-up single, “Turn On A Dream”, would peak outside of the US Top 40, but would be a #29 hit in Canada.

Cunningham left The Box Tops to return to school in August 1969 and was replaced by Harold Cloud on bass. But eventually, the group’s tolerance for the disrespect and fleecing they had endured as teen musicians from managers, lawyers, and promoters came to an end. According to a 2004 article in Puremusic.com by Talley, a December 1969 British tour was cancelled by the band after arriving in London to discover that instead of respecting the rider agreement, the local promoter insisted they play the tour with the opening reggae act’s toy drums, public address system amplifiers (instead of proper guitar amplifiers), and a keyboard with a broken speaker.

Finally, in February 1970, the remaining founding members, Talley and Chilton, were ready to move on and disbanded the group. However, the Bell record label kept releasing new Box Tops singles through early 1971, using material that had already been recorded by Chilton and company. February 1970’s “You Keep Tightening Up On Me” scraped into the US Hot 100, and was a slightly bigger hit in Canada. Two further Box Tops singles failed to chart nationally in either the US or Canada, although the band’s final single “King’s Highway” (another Wayne Carson Thompson-penned track) was a regional hit in Dallas in the spring of 1971.

James Jirat Patradoon “Yours the Demon”

Running through January 7, 2010, Yours the Demon exhibits new drawings from James Jirat Patradoon. The pieces are a change for the Sydney based screen printer and illustrator. Rather than focus on the multi-color superhero subject he’s known for,Yours the Demon takes inspiration in the Gothic. The pieces are large scale with a little nod to secret societies.

The work is up at Kinokuniya Gallery, Books Kinokuniya, Level 2, The Galleries Victoria, 500 George St, Sydney, AUSTRALIA.

Diamond Supply NY Pop-Up Shop & DLNY Collection

The Diamond Supply Co. Pop Up Store opened its doors on December 17th, 2009 at the Prohibit NYC retail space on the Lower East Side Of New York. The Pop Up Store will be open until the end of the year and showcases the 2009 Diamond Supply Co. Holiday line alongside an impressive selection of exclusive DLNY (Diamond Life New York) items such as varsity jackets, hoodies, tee shirts and laser engraved skateboards. An opening reception takes place Saturday, December 19th from 5pm-9pm with music from Christian Rich and MeLo-X.

Black Scale x Fitted Hawaii

Black Scale does not seem to come to rest these days. The San Francisco brand has just last week presented their collaboration with Android Homme. Today we can give you a first look at their work with Fitted Hawaii. Together they worked on a black leather New Era cap, featuring a raised 3D “Greed” embroidery over the front panels. Matching the cap they worked on a red t-shirt. Look out for a release soon.

Mister Mort for A Continuous Lean New Era Caps

New York’s man about town Mister Mort cooked up a fresh batch of bespoke (read: custom embroidered) New Era fitteds for A Continuous Lean’s online shop. In addition to the “O’Snap” and “BLAH” caps pictured above, there’s also “ACL”, “FeDoras” and “MISTER” variants. All caps are made in the USA and available now from ACL.

Clarks Spring/Summer 2010 Footwear Preview

Clarks has always offered some very solid styles in their collection, of course with the Wallabee and the Desert Boot being the stand-out classics that one can go back to every season. Today we take a look at their Spring/Summer 2010 Collection. The Desert Boot comes in nice brown and beige suede colorways with check linings. Most interesting in the collection is probably the collaboration with Fox Wool, consisting of three pin-stripe Clarks shoes. The collection can now already be pre-ordered from Hanon.

Ellen von Unwerth, Fraulein

Before turning to the camera, Ellen von Unwerth was a model. The background lends well to her chosen subject, beautiful women (being one herself) and Fraulein is testament to an unquestionable skill set.  15 years of work are collected in the book, some of the images previously unpublished, and feature a veritable who’s who of super models. Complementing the imagery is an essay from Ingred Sischy, Contributing Editor for Vanity Fair.

Stevie Nicks

One of the best female vocalists if not the best singer in all of time. I recently was able to see Fleetwood Mac at the Oakland Colesium in luxury. Thanks to my good friends from knoxx lifestyle. Shout out to Damon Gee you the man!!!

Biography:

Stephanie Lynn “Stevie” Nicks (born May 26, 1948, in Phoenix, Arizona) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her work with Fleetwood Mac and an extensive solo career, which collectively have produced over forty Top 50 hits and has sold nearly 120 million albums. She has been noted for her ethereal visual style and symbolic lyrics. In the early 1980s, and after a hugely successful first solo album, Rolling Stone deemed her “The Reigning Queen of Rock and Roll”.^[1]

Nicks was invited to join Fleetwood Mac in 1975 after Mick Fleetwood heard “Frozen Love”, a song she had written and recorded with her boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham. Initially, Fleetwood only intended to hire Lindsey Buckingham, but Buckingham told him: “We’re a package deal.” Fleetwood Mac’s second album after the incorporation of Nicks and Buckingham produced four Top 40 singles and it remained #1 on the American album charts for over 30 weeks. With the commercial and critical success of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album in 1977 (which sold over 33 million copies worldwide), Fleetwood Mac gained international fame.

Nicks began her solo career in 1981 with Bella Donna, and she has produced five more solo studio albums to date. Overcoming cocaine addiction, dependency on tranquilizers, and chronic fatigue syndrome, Nicks remains a successful solo performer. Nicks has been nominated for seven Grammy Awards, and, with Fleetwood Mac, won the 1977/1978 Grammy for Album of the Year for Rumours. As a member of Fleetwood Mac, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. Nicks has a contralto vocal range.^[2][3]

Nicks was born at Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona to Jess Nicks, a corporate executive, and Barbara Nicks, a homemaker. Nicks’ grandfather Aaron Jess Nicks, a struggling country music singer, taught Nicks to sing, performing duets with her by the time she was four years old. Nicks’ mother was very protective of her, keeping her at home “more than most people were” and fostering in her a love of fairy tales.^[4][5] As a young child, Nicks had difficulty pronouncing her given name Stephanie, instead pronouncing it “tee-dee”, which became the nickname “Stevie”.^[6]

With the Goya guitar that she received for her sixteenth birthday, Nicks wrote her first song called “I’ve Loved and I’ve Lost, and I’m Sad But Not Blue”. She joined her first band “The Changing Times” while attending Arcadia High School in Arcadia, CA, a suburb of Los Angeles.^[7]

Nicks first met her future musical and romantic partner Lindsey Buckingham during her senior year at Menlo Atherton High School.^[8] She attended a Young Life social event, saw Buckingham playing “California Dreamin’“, and joined in with the harmony.^[9] Buckingham contacted Nicks a few years later and asked her to join him and his bandmates Javier Pacheco and Calvin Roper in a band called Fritz. Fritz became popular as a live act from 1968 until 1972, opening for popular musicians Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, among others, in the San Francisco Bay Area.^[10] Both Nicks and Buckingham attended San Jose State University in Northern California, where Nicks majored in Speech Communication. They dropped out in 1968 and moved to Los Angeles together to pursue a career in music when Nicks’ family moved to Chicago.^[11]