PERSEVERANCE from WWW.REVOK1.COM on Vimeo.

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Frank’s Chop Shop, in collaboration with New Era Caps, has released their Summer 2011 Collection, including 3 new snapbacks.

Washington D.C. based DURKL presents the first delivery of their Spring/Summer 2011 collection. Some of the highlights include the waterproof Ripstop Jacket, the High Quality Low Standards Varsity Jacket, and new 14oz Selvedge Denim. The line also includes a great mix of hoodies, plaid poplin buttondown shirts, snapback and camper caps, tees and more. Contact info{at}triplebeamdist.com for Australian stockist details

Europe 2010 from Gravis Footwear on Vimeo.

NB574.com | Jimmy Bliggs | Part 1 from NB 574 on Vimeo.

New balance have started a video series on 5 creative australian, check out part one of grand scheme founder jimmy bligs.

The Durkl lads just released a series of hats specifically for the Holiday Season.  These Aztec Campers are to good. Cop online at http://shop.durkl.com.  very limited.

I stumbled across this write up about one of our stockists “Rad store” today at Thslfe.com

I really like what Justin and Cal have done with Rad and wanted to share there interview with you, Thanks Ben (Thslife.com) for letting me re post (steal) the interview, here it is:

The second installment of The Culture Vault see’s us catching up with Justin Lees of Rad Store. You will see a lot more of this sort of stuff coming under The Culture Vault heading, we are working on building a database of the freshest stores and labels, not only in Aus and NZ, but around the world, so where ever it is you find yourself, you’ll know where to hit up when you want to deck your shit out!

I suppose you could say Rad Store is among the new wave of stores that we are seeing (or becoming more common) here in Australia, if you chopped up a little bit of skate, a little bit of street,a little bit of boutique and mixed it through with a whole lot of style, culture, art and conceptual idea, then packed it in and rolled it up in to one big, fat, juicy, sticky…Store, you’d have Rad.

Check these guys out, you can find them at Shop 5/185 Darby St. Cooks Hill (Newcastle)

Firstly, thank you so much for your time, what’s been happening?

No worries. Well most of my time is spent between home with my daughter and my girlfriend, who is pregnant with our second child and at the shop. So I haven’t been doing much lately, although I did manage to duck off to Sydney for a night for the Vans Bowlarama and to catch up with a heaps of mates from Sydney and Melbourne which was awesome. I actually went to see Gallows & AFI on Tuesday night, that was real sweet. I would really love to see Gallows in a small venue.

For those who don’t know, can you tell us a bit about yourself and what it is that you do?

Hi I’m Justin and I’m a gambler. In my spare time I help run RAD into the ground with Cal, paint, graphic design, take pictures but most of all I’m a father.

What were you doing before Rad, and how did that lead you in to what you are doing today?

I was running my own label for around 6 or 7 years. Then I went OS for a while, travelled around the US and Europe. Then came home moved to Melbourne to further my Graphic Studies and work a General Pants then moved back home to Newcastle to be with my girl and our little girl and open up this shop with one of my best friends.

As for Cal, he’s been doing retail for a while now, working a few places around Newcastle and then he lived in London for a while and when he came back we just got to chatting over a couple of beers and I mentioned I wanted to open up something when I came back up to Newcastle and he was keen so we just started on it and finally got it up and running.

I guess Rad is part of a new wave of stores we are seeing in Australia, what’s your vision for Rad?

Remember Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash and the NWO, yeah that’s sort of like us. We have massive plans, hopefully we can open up a few more stores around, I wouldn’t mind doing a concept gallery in Newcastle, sort of like the Monster Children gallery and maybe a chain of brothels, who knows. There’s heaps of other stuff we want to do. I personally want to open up like a real cool piano/rock bar and keep it clear of dickheads. We’re also gonna keep doing our limited RAD tees and throw in a few hoodies and crew necks for good measure, maybe some basketball shorts.

What’s been pumping through the speakers of late?

In the shop we’ve been throwing down to AFI, Angels and Airwaves, Gallows, Brand New, Thrice, The Manzingers Lil’ Wayne, Jay Z and a bit of Slipknot. I’m always down for some 90’s lovin’. Heaps of Pop-core too, SYG, FYS and the likes.

Who is your typical customer at Rad?

A lot of our friends come in and shop there and they’re all RAD. Other then that though we haven’t really found our usual customer yet, being a very, very young shop but from what we’ve seen so far it’s the people like their shit fresh and I know every one wants something that no-one else has. Of course we get your die-hard Vans fan in all the time too.

What’s in your pockets right now?

Drivers licence, My phone, Cash cards, The Newcastle Police and a couple hundreds bucks.

Why “Rad”?

Ever seen that movie RAD about a young BMX hopefull who gets a chance to go up against the best in the world but has all the odds stacked against him? He gets the girl while ‘Send Me An Angel’ plays in the background and a lot of the soundtrack is made up of John Farnham songs that you’ve never really heard. It’s probably the best BMX movie ever made, yes better then BMX Bandits, I said it. Well we chose the name RAD because it’s a cool word and how many times do people say it? Nothing to do with the movie, I don’t even think Cal has seen it. I have, I really love it but can’t find it on DVD. Someone send me a copy care off the shop.

Do you find it difficult owning and operating a store with the brands you carry when the economy is, to put it simly, up the shit?

I find owning a shop difficult full-stop. Fun at the same time. It hasn’t really affected it that much I guess. Although we are just coming out of Feb which is always a bad month for retail at the best of times but it can’t be affecting it if everyone is opening a shop these days, it is the cool thing to do…right Nev

Favourite sales pitch?

Buy that shit or I’ll get the Ultimate Warrior to come around to your house and gorilla press slam you.

How does a typical day in your life unfold?

Wake up and play with my daughter, have a coffee and som
e breakie then shower. Open up the shop and sit on chatroulette, hoping to come across some of our friends sitting there with their swords out. Maybe pay some bills, update the blog, twitter and facebook and all that. Look at a few different blogs and labels to keep up with things. Maybe do a couple of designs for RAD tees. If need be work out a few orders and check to see if we need any re-stock on vans. The good thing about us is we don’t re-stock tees once we sell out of it thats it. Quality over quantity! So I never have to worry about that but always looking for a new label thats doing something we’re down with or something fresh from one of our current labels. We actually found a label, Pass Port, we’re about to stock through here, so thanks for that.

Usually Cal and I will split our days in half which is good so if I get a chance I’ll go and shoot a couple of photos or try and fix up something around the house. I’m thinking about getting into gardening.

What are your views/opinions on the World and Society today?

We could be here forever so I’ll keep it short. Religion fucking blows, stay GODFREE. Stupid drunk violence is causing the loss of a lot of great things, for example the closing of the Tote in Melbourne and soon to be the Arthouse, two great live venues and the ironic thing is these places never actually have violence happening there. More and more people are becoming followers pretending to be these people that don’t give a fuck. Bands like 3oh!3, millionaires, short stack, yes I’ll jump on the hate short stack bandwagon for a minute, and the like are trying their best to ruin music, thank fuck for Gallows, the Bronx, Bad Religion, Fucked Up, Brand New and young local bands like The Hollow, 50 lions, and Amity Affliction who are keeping shit real. Then there’s the people that get tattoos because it’s the in thing or seen as tough, these are the same people I’m sure we’re going to see at getting them removed in about 5 years. There’s a lot wrong with society. Jim Lindberg said it best, “Society, we all know there’s something and we’ve known it all along”

Name 5 things you always take with you on your travels.

iPod, iPhone, Lappy, Underwears, Thongs for the car or plane.

Any up coming projects or happenings that we should know about?

Ummm we are having a good friday BBQ out front of the shop, haven’t fully decided on the details yet. We have a couple of new RAD tees coming out soon, hopefully get some friends of mine Andy Murphy and Nate Gamble to do a design or two. Over Surfest we have a thing going where if you spend over a 100 bones or 150 bones you go in for a chance to win a one of a kind surfboard by our friend Jye Byrnes who owns Surf Factory, www.thesurffactory.com.au, Cal helped design the board and I will be doing the graphics on it. We also have some sweet stickers coming out that pretty much say fuck Cal and Pugga. Oh and we will be stocking Nudie within the next month or so which means we will be the smallest account in the Southern Hemisphere, I think thats something to be proud off.

Word association, you know the deal, say the first thing that comes to your mind when you read the word.

Australia – Racist

Kevin Rudd – HumptyDumpty

America – Kevin Bacon

Obama – Fading Hope

Religion – Godfree.

Time – Flies

Greed – Money

Humanity – What?

Peace – War

Freedom – Furniture

Art – James Drinkwater.

Rad – Badass.

Life – Scott Herrmann

Happiness – Daughter.

Rad Store Crew Says:

Praise be to Kevin Bacon.

Where can people follow what you’re up to and view your work?

We have numerous social networking things going on, www.wearerad.tumblr.com is our blog. www.twitter.com/radstore is our twitter account. Both Cal and I have our own personal blogs, www.hopelessinutah.tumblr.com and www.puggashiv.tumblr.com and we have a fan page on facebook which you can find here, we have a 4 star post quality, we rule.

Hopefully we’ll have a proper site sometime soon where you will be able to buy direct from.

Last words, shout outs?

Come in and say hi to us. Maybe bring us a coffee, although Cal will have a de-caf, I’ll have a white with one.

Must say thanks to both Cal’s family and mine, my girlfriend Leah and our little girl Nikki and Leah’s parents. Adam Della-Grotta for standing in while we go to showings, Scotty Herrmann for his life guidance, Drew Hamilton for his one and only shift, still waiting on that report you wrote. Travy for his half day shift and modeling. Maso, PJ and the boys for the help building shit. Ryan Nix for being an incredible human. All the crew with RAD tatts. Mel at Down Under Tattoo, Franck at Aces Wild Tattoo. Dane Tutty. Mike “seawolf” Galvin. Nick Sullivan for the couch and advice. Al Hawkins, Boxy and Jason at DC. Cam at Vans. Dan at Rebel 8/the Hundreds. All our other brands and the people we deal with, have made it very easy for us. Tim and Tiff at Abicus. Robbie at Drift Bikes Newcastle, Dan Kish, 1ovakynd, Brook and Greg at Sabre and everyone that has helped us out.

Callan Lynch refused to take part in this interview due to his religiou
s beliefs.

*Callan Lynch is not the slightest bit religious.

To read more goodness go to thslfe.com

I’d also like to give a big shout out to Justin and Cal for driving up to Briso for the Grand Scheme launch party. Respect.

Man this cracks me up.