DC's HubPaper N°6

The HUB Paper A journal about creation initiated by DC Shoes

Issue 6 - Summer 2015

The HUB Paper Issue 6 - Summer 2015 - A journal about creation initiated by DC Shoes

ATMOS p.4 MOĂœSE. p.6 DENNIS McGRATH p.12 BRANDON SPIEGEL p.20 123KLAN p.24

The HUB by DC Shoes 15 rue Montorgueil, 75001 Paris, France

dcshoes.com - facebook.com/dcshoes thehub@dceurope.com

Front cover by Dennis McGrath Back cover by Brandon Spiegel

ATMOS Atmos is a Tokyo based fashion store specialized in sneakers. It is globally renown for its very curated selection of shoes, and the rarity of their products. This spring, DC teamed up with Atmos to develop two monochromic Manteca skate shoes, exclusively available at Atmos in Tokyo and Off The Hook in Montreal. atmos-tokyo.com

We wanted to introduce to Japan sneakers that were only sold in the USA at the time, and this became our point to show our fashion image to the Japanese customers. A few small sneakers shops were developing when we started, and we tried to make it all happen together with them.

I believe competition is sometimes good to help a trend grow. I studied in Philadelphia, Pensilvania, and graduated from Temple University.

In the USA, I only saw small sneakers shop apart from Foot Locker. I used to love Foot Locker’s exclusive shoes selection !

When was Atmos started ?

We started Atmos in 2000. We are very happy to celebrate this year our 15 years anniversary. The way we operate is based on a trading company in Japan. Our role is to import and export garment. We used to deal with many young apparel brands, and I eventually figured out that I had chances to do some business with sneakers.

At first, it was a bit complicated to picture the image of a sneakers store, as there were not any in Japan at the time.

It took me a while to find the correct image, because I wanted to pick up too many shoes brands.

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Can you speak about the DC Shoes x Atmos Manteca ?

Do you see sneakers as a culture or more of a business these days ?

It is a very basic shoe, and I feel that this is the future.

Customers are able to wear that shoe both to skateboard but also to wear in town in a more regular way. Many DC fans already know that this is a basic style. I think many skateboarders know about the Manteca. My goal is to work for regular customers who love sneakers and understand what a good shoe is.

To me, sneakers are business items, because I make a living out of selling them. However, I tended to see along the years that sneakers became one of the parts of a certain « fashion and sport culture », which has grown a lot. We need passion and love, as well as beauty of course, when dealing with sneakers.

What is sneaker culture to you ?

Sneakers built a culture. Sometimes it is about a trade, sometimes it is just communication between sneakers lovers, friends. For me, sneakers culture is my life. I sell sneakers, but I only pick the ones I like to be in my stores.

I love the sneakers that we are not able to see. This is my sneakers culture. They are sneakers that we are not able to see, but that we are able to feel. They allow us to show ourselves, and to me this is what is different from other retailers. We build a community. I am very happy to see everyday my staff work hard, and working hand-in-hand with vendors who help us.

Do you think skateboard shoes tend to evolve to a more lifestyle look these days ?

I think so, yes, because only a little part of the skateboard shoes customers are actually skaters. The lifestyle is changing very quickly and many customers are starting to mix styles sports. It is a new approach to sneakers.

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MOÜSE Mouse is a California based artist, whose second passion has been skateboard for many years. For the Summer of 2015, Mouse developed a collection with DC shoes. In June 2015, Mouse will be a guest artist at The HUB in Paris. mousemovement.com

What is your background ?

What were your influences growing up ?

I’m born and raised in Oceanside, CA and I have been skating longer than I’ve been painting. I had a couple tagger homies and thought that was cool, but wasn’t good at it. One of my older friends Steve showed me stencils, and it intrigued me. I began spraying shirts, skateboards, grip-tape, and everything in between.

My parents weren’t artists, but they encouraged me to do what I wanted in life. That allowed me to explore the shit I was interested in .

I was influenced by the punk rock scene and skating growing up. I was also into the 80’s style, the neon colors. I wasn’t as much influenced by other artists as I was by the world around me. There are artists that appeal to me like Ron English and Banksy, of course. They are legends. It’s inevitable for the street art to bombard the fine art scene. Galleries will show what sells, and artists want to make money. Supply and demand.

What are your first memories related to art ?

Can you tell us about the products you designed together with DC Shoes ?

I wouldn’t say there is a specific moment that marked the beginning of my art career, however I did realize from a young age that I saw the world differently than other people. When I started painting with stencils, I began developing my own unique style. Then I decided to paint my artwork on skateboard grip-tape to reach the masses. I feel that through my grip art, people picked up on my style and started supporting my art and me as an artist.

I used Abduction, a graphic I usually paint on grip-tape, to be the focus of the Mouse x DC Shoes. I chose this graphic for the shoe because of the bold and vibrant color scheme. I’ve always been into aliens and I have the graphic tattooed on me. I used the pattern of the rays on the in-liner of the shoe, and went with a neon orange for the bottom of the sole.

Putting my art onto clothing is just a natural progression for me.

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I’ve actually been painting shirts for my homies and myself longer than I’ve been painting on grip-tape. To have the opportunity to work with DC on this shoe has been epic ! I’m psyched on how their translation of my vision for this shoe, I really like how it came out ! I’m hyped to collab with a company that’s been in the game forever and I’ve supported since I was young.

What is next for you ?

I’m going to stay on the grip-tape diet for a while, but I also have a bunch of new, exciting collaborations in the works with other artists and companies. I can’t talk too much on specifics, but keep an eye out for new Mouse art and goods.

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DENNIS McGRATH - HEAVEN Dennis McGrath is a legendary photographer, most known for his career capturing skateboarders since the mid-1990s.

For about 20 years, McGrath followed one skater in particular, Lennie Kirik. Shooting Kirk along all these years led to the Heaven project, a book about the life of a wild skater from North Carolina who had made his way to California to live his passion. DC Shoes collaborated with Dennis McGrath to publish the book Heaven and a series of tee-shirts and shoes which came out in April 2015. Portrait by Mike Blabac - Photos taken from Heaven by Dennis McGrath dennismcgrath.net I had heard of the Gonz and he was a famous street skater or whatever, then going up on the platform of the vert ramp that night and he did a boneless over my head and over the channel. The Kahuna, that ramp was gnarly for back then, one of the first vert ramps that was 12 feet tall, 10 ft trannies, 2 feet of vert. So anyway, seeing that a few months after I started skating was amazing…. Just being able to witness the whole scene in person....

Watching Christian blast back to back 10 foot airs.... The thing I always tripped out on about Hosoi was where he would land when he did a 10 foot air like an inch below the coping, it still doesn’t make sense to me. Houston had a great skate scene and it got my brothers and I out of our area and exposed us to different kinds of people. My parents didn’t really understand it. My Mom was always supportive because she understood how much fun it was for us. Before I skated, my Dad had me playing baseball, tennis, golf, etc.... Things white people do in the suburbs.

I was always good at sports so to me skating was just another form of athletics really.... But skateboarding turns into more of a lifestyle, especially back in the 80’s when it sure wasn’t cool or anything.... Maybe in California but not in Texas or on the East Coast. Living in Houston we were targets for hicks and cops.... Skate or Die! coming from every truck that drove by.... Or worse. I’ve had a gun to my head more than once for skating in Houston. Cops in Texas can be harsh.... Just stay away from them. But as I said being a skater in Houston was rad, we had a good park, some good pools around town and downtown was one of the best I’ve ever skated, some of the best bank spots ever. As well as cool ass people. Getting the fuck out of Kingwood — the subdivision we lived in — was so important for my brothers and I, expanding our horizons and thinking for ourselves more….

What can you tell us about your time growing up, from the East Coast to Texas ?

I was born in a small town in New Jersey — a suburb of New York City — and grew up there until I was 13.

I think growing up around NYC had a huge impact on the way I looked at the world since it’s such a huge place with so much going on.... The first time I remember going to Houston it seemed so small and kind of backwards....

The first day of school, kids were calling me a Yankee ?!

Big time culture shock to say the least. Every summer, we would go back to New Jersey to stay with my aunt and one year my friends were all skateboarding, they showed me The Bones Brigade Video Show around the time it came out in 1984 and that was it…. I had maybe seen some photos of skateboarding but I will never forget the way I felt when I saw the video for the first time. I remember being so completely blown away that they could fly up in the air and actually land and ride back in ?!!! Steadham doing railslides around the bowl at Del Mar ! So mind-blowing. I went back to Texas and all my brothers and I wanted were skateboards, so the following year my brother Jon and I got boards around my birthday.

The first Rob Roskopp with the arm coming out of the target. I got a white one and Jon got a hot pink one. Our lives changes so completely that day.... I also remember getting an issue of Thrasher that day with a Neil Blender interview. Lucky for us we lived 20 miles from the Skatepark of Houston where they had some of the best vert contests back in the 80’s called Shut Up and Skate.

I remember seeing Mark Gonzales doing street plants and ollies on flat ground and just tripping out on how he did what he did....He had leopard spotted hair and was wearing these dirty overalls, he looked so raw and coming from the Clean White suburbs I was so influenced by the individuality this all represented.

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From there I worked for Slap for a few years then Big Brother. In 2002 I got offered a job to work for Element and shot for them for 2 years…. By 2005 I was pretty sick of shooting skating and it was becoming more of a job than anything so I decided to step away from it. I had always wanted to do more documentary type of work so that’s what I decided to do. I have always been interested in the photo book. When I first saw Teenage Lust by Larry Clark, all I kept thinking was I wish I had a camera when I was a teenager, and that’s what he says in the book too. It was the first time I saw legit photography of people that were like me and my friends. It is what struck me, when I was in school we were looking at all this high art type of shit I couldn’t necessarily relate to. Or I just wasn’t mature (or intellectual) enough to understand it quite yet.

Tobin had met Larry years before and was influenced to shoot his skateboarder friends by Larry so he had all this rad stuff I could relate to, he was shooting all these pro skaters not just skateboarding but hanging out smoking weed, drinking beer.... The lifestyle of being a young kid with no parental figures around. That’s the beauty of being a skater, you do what you want. The one thing I miss about shooting skating is the type of trips you get to go on. For the most part with friends doing what you want. A demo or a signing here or there but just being on the road skating. Kenny Hughes and I used to spend summers in Barcelona, it was fucking great!

Element would rent us a flat and dudes would come in for a week or whatever. Some of the best times in my life.... The last trip I went on in 2005 was with I Path to Japan.... Two weeks all around Japan, took ferries, stayed in a hotel built over a hot-spring up in the mountains, with friends I’ve known for 20 years.... Not many people get to live like that Ever. Some trips sucked too though….

For whatever reason, but mostly it’s good times. As far as photography being an art, I have a great quote from the famous conductor James Levine “It’s a science to a certain point, then it becomes an art”. I have a hard time calling myself an artist. I think it sounds pretentious.

What are your first memories shooting skateboard ?

I got a camera when I was 19 to shoot photos of my brothers skating. Which I did at first but then lost interest.... Then a few years later I had a few friends who were rapping and they needed a photo for something they were doing and asked if I would shoot it. I did and a few of them ran in a local newspaper and that just got me hyped. So I decided to go to art school, which was also an excuse to move to San Francisco to skate. In January 1994 I moved to SF, I was 24 years old. School was going pretty good, going to art school was a blessing, it was the first time I actually remember being genuinely interested in what I was studying. I met Tobin Yelland around this time and he had a darkroom at his house so I started going there and hanging out which was good for me. At the time Tobin was one of the most prolific skatephotographers and his work had a huge influence on me. He also introduced me to Larry Clarks work. Tulsa and Teenage Lust are two books Larry made back in the 70’-80’s that have had the biggest influence on me photographically.

I feel like that’s how I grew up, having sex on the backseat, sniffing glue in the woods. Teenage Lust really had a huge impact on me since my life was just like that when I was 16. Tulsa not so much with the more hardcore drug use. But it’s a beautiful piece of work. So one semester I dropped a class and got a refund for $800.... I remember Tobin saying go buy a fisheye lens and start taking skate photos. So I did, it was $750 for the lens and that’s where it all started. I was learning so it was rough trying to get people to shoot with me but I lucked out and met Grant Brittian and he started sending me film! He would send me about 15 or so rolls of slide film every few months and that’s how I learned, always grateful for that, Thanks Grant! Otherwise it would have been expensive to figure it out.... A roll of slide film back then was $10…. Plus developing. Sometimes I would send it back to him and he would develop on the Transworld account which was nice too. So my first photo was in Transwolrd, in a photo issue in 1995, a wallet sized pic of John Deago doing a 360 flip down a set of stairs in Walnut Creek.

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So I wandered away from the shop craze and walked into a book store and picked up a copy of Stepping Through The Ashes by Eugene Richards, which is a dark and dismal but incredibly photographed account of the aftermath of the World Trade Center neighborhood post 9/11....

It made me feel like I knew I had to do more with my photography so that was where it started — the motivation to move on at least…. So I contacted Jim to see if I could come hang around his sets and shoot behind the scenes documentary photos and he said yes.... I was living in San Francisco then so I used to rent a car every month or two and spend a week or two in LA shooting. It was pretty fascinating to be around in general, I feel like I learned a lot about my own sexuality in ways from being around that environment so much for a while. As much as porn can be dark at the end of the day, it’s an alternative way to make a living and for the most part, the people doing it are enjoying what they do for a living. From my experience, I saw some crazy shit and it’s all documented.... I want to do a book of that stuff someday. I met a lot of cool people too. I haven’t been around that stuff for a while now though…. The past few years I have been focused on Heaven mostly.

How did you take your photography outside of the skateboard world ?

In 2001, I was working at Big Brother Magazine in Beverly Hills which was owned by Larry Flynt at the time.

So I ended up meeting people in the adult industry and was invited to visit the set of a porn video being shot up int the Valley. I went and it was pretty surreal, we walked into this big sprawling house up in Chatsworth and hear a girl wailing.... Walk into the living room and there, a full porn production going on…. At first it makes you feel a bit immature, giggling…. It was so interesting all I kept thinking was ‘I gotta come back and shoot this’.... The director that day was Jim Powers who played in a punk band and skated back in the 80’s so we hit it off. He gave me his card and said to hit him up anytime. I got busy with skateboarding, traveling.... I just thought of something I should say.... From a few years earlier....

In 2003 I was on an Element trip and we were doing a signing at a shop in Naperville, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Bam was with us and Jackass was huge on MTV at the time so these things were crazy fiascos sometimes....

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but Lennie’s strong belief in the word of God proved to be a distraction for him and he lost his focus on skateboarding. By the late 90’s to early 2000’s, he had lost all his sponsors and was living on the street in SF robbing people with a sawed off shotgun. It was around this time I started thinking this might be an interesting story. He went to prison in 2002 for the first time for armed robbery where he served about 4 and half years.

Since then he has been in and out of jail for various offenses.....until he just got sentenced to 13 years in 2013. I started to compile photos and ephemera and so forth probably back around 2002 when he first went to jail.

Once he started getting into trouble is when I started thinking of this in terms of an interesting story. As much as this is a tragic story about a pro skateboarder who had a lot of potential, I really think it’s just about being human and how it’s not easy.... We all suffer in our own ways but for some life is even harder to deal with. It’s about the human condition.

Can you tell us about the Heaven project ?

I met Lennie back in the early 90’s, he was a friend of my younger brother Jon. In 1995, they both moved to San Francisco where I was living at the time. That’s when I started photographing him, I was just starting to shoot skate photos at that time. Lennie was just getting sponsored at the time and skating really good. In 1996, while filming for Alien Workshop’s Timecode video, Lennie hit his head and ended up in the hospital with a major head trauma.... This had a huge influence on his personality. Then about a week later he was literally run over by a van skating in downtown San Francisco and walked away from that with no injuries ! That night he called my house preaching about Jesus and the Bible, from that day on he was “born again”..... His skate career was taking off at the time as well as his belief in God. He had a groundbreaking video part in the Timecode video in 1997 and things were going well 17

How did DC participate in the Heaven story ?

What is next for you ?

I had an interview in Kingpin Magazine about it a few summers ago and Jeff Taylor read it and called me out of the blue to see if I’d be interested in talking about DC possibly sponsoring the project. We met and came up with a plan and so forth. I came up with the t-shirt ideas for the most part and they designed some shoes and I agreed on a few.... It was a fun process…. I am super stoked on the way it came out.... The shoe box itself is really cool. It was nice to work with DC on this in order to do it right in a sense. The whole process of making the book has been so much work over a long span of time, it was nice to have some support for once. I also feel like it’s a good fit since Lennie used to skate for DC and he’s wearing DC stuff in some of the more profound photos in the book.... I’ve always had a good relationship with DC since Mike Blabac and I are close friends and I have known Jeff Taylor since we were kids as well. Also having a platform like DC to launch off of and really fire it out into the world helps.

All I have been thinking about lately is doing some commercial work which is funny because I never really thought I’d be that interested in doing that but I feel like it’s a natural progression for me. To be a working photographer again, the past few years I have been consumed with the book stuff. But I will still be working on personal projects as well…. Other than the adult one, I want to make a book about how I’m afraid of sharks, how my brothers and I were influenced by hip hop back in the 80’s, all sorts of stuff I have in mind.... A skateboard related book too. Like I said, I am obsessed with the photo book and plan to keep making them....

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BRANDON SPIEGEL Brandon Spiegel is a Los Angeles born and based artist. Together with DC Shoes, Spiegel developed a collection of apparel and accessories, as well as a pair of Switch S shoes, using the reference of his drawings series « SETS ». The DC x Brandon Spiegel collection released in the spring of 2015. brandonspiegel.com What is your background ?

How did you get introduced to art ?

As a kid I was into skate, surf, snow, music, art / graffiti, and the outdoors. Raised in the foothills east of Los Angeles, I explored & skated the hills behind the house I grew up in. Built a half pipe in a homies backyard one summer that lead to some epic memories and fails.

Around high school, once people started getting cars, the early morning “dawn patrol pilgrimage” became a regular thing. Went to shows at a local venue called “Glasshouse” in Pomona, CA. Mostly post hardcore shows and anything punk related that was current, but any show was a good time.

I have always drawn and made things, because I enjoyed the process and challenge. In college, I studied art and design and was exposed to the works of Sol LeWitt. There I met the late Karl Benjamin who inspired much of my early painting concepts. In 2007 I lived in New York going to art school, skating, tagging, and getting my hands on all the city had to offer... which sparked a lot of my interest in graphic design and apparel. When I got back to finishing up school, I started working a mix match of design / art positions. I began making work outside of that mostly for myself, small group shows, and for zines. I think this period of making, doing, and exposure to a lot of different things pushed towards the concepts and mark making you see today.

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So when approached about the collection I was stoked and inspired by their classic silhouettes. The DC X Brandon Spiegel Collection features a textile print developed from the “SETS” series as well as some collaboration specific designs. Use of soft hand inks, tonal color palettes and sewn in trim patches accent the collection throughout. The result is a classic skate collection, that I am excited to have my name on.

Can you tell us about the products you designed together with DC Shoes ?

SETS is a series, concept, or system for thought, that has become an ongoing exploration of space, shape, form, and line. The repetitive line drawn systems are designed to evoke the concepts, metaphors, or subject of the work.

The SETS systems is inspired by a freestyle approach of developing and exploring unknown forms, dimensions, and languages.

Each drawing is developed freehand of permanent raw marks rather than sketched and permeated, using Krink for it’s permanence and fluidity from mark to mark. The result includes over 1000 drawings at this point, and has built a small psychedelic world which continues to grow and inspire new work and ideas.

What is next for you ?

I have some new work and concepts I have been working on, including a few sculptures.I am working towards a more interactive show for the future, and possibly some travel, murals, and connecting with people. Also made a new online shop this past year which has added an exciting new element to the studio! I have a lot of personal goals in the work itself, which is always the main focus.

Skating in the 90’s, DC was the chunky shoe I shredded to pieces.

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123 KLAN French duo 123klan created their creative studio in the early 1990s, developing illustrations and logos for various clients.

Masterminds of the street culture, 123klan collaborated with DC Shoes on a series of tee-shirts and caps for the Spring 2016 collection.

123klan.com

What is your background ?

What are your first memories related to art ?

What were your influences growing up ?

We are Scien & Klor. We are originally from the North of France. We founded 123klan in 1992, which was at first our graffiti-artist name and eventually became our creative studio title. We are specialized in branding, mostly in street wear and sportswear. We grew up listening to the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy and Run DMC. We are very much children of the Hip Hop culture. We are now based in Montreal, Canada, still doing graffiti, design, exhibitions and talk shows around the world. We are also developing our own street wear brand BANDIT-1$M.

We are not sure if graffiti writing should be considered as an art, but it has had a huge influence on us, and it still does. What we like the most about graffiti is the freedom and wildness we find in it. It is a way to express yourself purely, without any established rules. We also love graphic design, probably because the typeface is so important in it, together with the compositions and the colors. As far as Art — in a more common term — we have been influenced by artists such as Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein or Andy Warhol. These artists had a very graphic and minimalist approach to what they were doing. By the end, we find that our artistic style mixes graffiti and graphic design.

Back then, we considered ourselves underground not because we were seeing ourselves cooler than others, but because what we were what, we liked and what we represented was totally unknown by the mainstream.

Rap music was not really broadcasted on radio, even less on TV. We were — and still are — listening to a lot of Hardcore music. Bands like Suicidal Tendencies — only their first album — or Minor Threat, MDC, Bad Religion, 7seconds, Operation Ivy… Artistically, we only had “Spray Can Art”, a book gathering pieces from the best graffiti writers from that time, from Europe and the US. This is what our creative landscape was like when we were 15.

No internet, no social medias, no computer, no iPhone.

What we had were mixtapes by our friends with all the best tracks of the era. We were skateboarding, doing graffiti, emptying our energy in hardcore concerts and hanging out at friends’ listening to rap music while working on our black bocks for our future productions.

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Can you tell us about the creative process behind your art production ?

Our style is very organic. It has actually evolved being together. There is no Scien style or Klor style. It is our style, together, combined. Our process is very simple. We come up with an idea that we develop in different ways and styles. Graffiti, stickers, posters, tee-shirts, snapbacks… We never take it too seriously either, and we are usually very sarcastic about it. Let’s say that we design or we paint just like a skater will go skate. We don’t give a f**k, all that matters is that we have fun and that we move forward.

What is next for you ?

To be honest, we believe that the best is not to have goals. At least you don’t feel failure. Again, we really want to enjoy our time as much as possible. There is no time to be lost.

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Brandon Spiegel for DC Shoes