Haha I wonder how my obituary would read as well. Your response largely mirrors exactly how I feel. We’re at a point where a blogger in our industry is (still in my opinion) not a super desirable status. I think in some ways we still want to play the cool guy and leave the term blogger to the tech-industry to revel and embrace. I have noticed that through your personal blog GWARIZM you touch very profoundly on some for lack of a better term real niche and underground shit. I sometimes force myself to Instapaper your articles cause I figure it’ll be real good to learn something out of it. How does a personal blog and platform fit in and compliment all your other mediums such as Crooked and Dazed & Confused?
Yeah, at the end of the day, you can play cool guy, but we’re all just pushermen for the brands. I keep the blog – which is just some hobbyist self-indulgence, totally separate. It works on three tiers; that blog is at the bottom, free from the world of corporate dough, and keeps me sane. Crooked is next up, and for us it’s still a labour-of-love, but it’s also a business, and thankfully it’s doing well. I guess we all have to tow the line – that’s why you’ve got this site too isn’t it? But obviously we have to be diplomatic while giving the loyal readers what they want.
I would never slate something straight-up when we could be praising something else, but we try not to hyperventilate too much, or copy-paste press releases. No disrespect to those that do – many, many sites update a lot more than we do. And who actually reads copy beyond the nitty gritty? I guess we’re kind of quaint in that regard. Today we had a great meeting and chat with Gourmet – a brand I’ve got a lot of respect for, which makes me realise why I love this industry, but then we got an angry phone call from another brand who thought they’d been dissed in the news section. I guess some brands are more than a little insecure – with good reason. When I started writing for the site I knew Steve who was doing a lot of the news text was critical of weak retros, bad quality control and all that, so I decided to imitate that stance which is really born from bonafide passion for the subject matter.
It’s nice to have stepped up retail to the point where we can put money where our mouths are and buy what we’re feeling. That way we can link retail in without any insincerity. So yes, towing the line is a motherfucker. But I think we’re still more vocal than the majority of other sites, which is something we’re proud of. And everyone lives in fear of “sell out” barbs, but honestly – the second you’ve said something good to benefit a big corporation you’ve pretty much sold out. I’m comfortable with that. The site’s never been built on advertising, so the retail side is our bread and butter. If it wasn’t for that, I doubt Crooked would be around. I know it wouldn’t seeing as it was pitched as an online store to start with.
At the top, repping a total extreme, pieces for Dazed have been largely advertorial based, and in the footwear zone, but it’s nice to give smaller brands or more oddball releases some shine too. I get a fair amount of autonomy, and the folks there are dedicated to their craft. The ends justify the means, plus I like Dazed as a UK institution, and the styling is always outstanding in that publication.
I love print. I declared myself a writer one day and ended up reviewing Hip-Hop for a load of titles that folded, as well as SpineMagazine.com in 2000, which obviously birthed Crooked later that year. I was pretty terrible – super sycophantic. I got reprimanded for that by a magazine editor, and it was the most useful telling off I ever got. Maybe it birthed a monster. I skipped from music to sneakers as my target freebie of choice – you can’t YouSendIt download a shoe. I’ve probably Tweeted it before in a feeble attempt at humour, but if music journalists are all failed musicians, sneaker journos are failed music journalists.
Back on the the blog topic, be careful Eugene… I’m always amending those blog entries when I find an omission or that I’ve got something wrong! I treat that site like a fanzine. Editing a WordPress entry is easier than breaking out the Tippex for typos. I actually only found the spellcheck about a month ago. Going back to blog entries I did on TMI in ’08 and Slam and Black Lodges last year, I found I enjoyed writing about stuff that gets me hyped. So it’s a hype blog of sorts. I hope some of the enthusiasm rubs off. Movies and hip-hop are my main loves, so they’re present. I also regret some of the earlier entries that were a pale imitation of A Continuous Lean and the Selvedge Yard – though to be fair, I see a lot of that. Remember when Hypebeast knockoffs were all over the place? It’s the same with wack sites telling me that wearing some jeans and a Woolrich jacket looks quite good. Really? No shit Sherlock! I just want to create the kind of crap I’d be pleased to discover while aimlessly Googling.
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