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Gnome Limit Soldier with Wesley Robinson
309 Plays10 months ago
This week, a long and winding road of a chat with illustrator, Gnomecore Godfather, and jovial dude, Wesley Robinson. We talk about the 90’s English skate scene, Green Day, metal, skinheads (traditional, not racist assholes), growing up in a multicultural place, having your team around you, the creative process and loads more.
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Transcript
Introduction & Humor with Wesley Robinson
00:00:00
Speaker
Today on the show, a guest who is, quote, all about the he said, she says bullshit, end quote. A man forever indebted to the nookie, but he is no chump. Our next guest came packing a chainsaw and boy does he like to break stuff. Pour out some hot dog flavored water for this chocolate starfish. We bring you the inimitable illustrious illustrator, Wesley Robinson.
00:00:25
Speaker
Yes, yes, we actually wrote it. There's not too many Limp Biscuits. I have no idea.
00:00:36
Speaker
But you happen to have the same name, first name only, as Westland. We are so deep in our research, my God, we must have linked up so many different things to know this about you, that your first name is Wesley.
Music Influence: Drum and Bass Metal & UK Skate Culture
00:00:56
Speaker
It shall.
00:00:59
Speaker
this one deep um solution didn't walk out right yeah yeah mic drop leave interview yeah don't worry um my um sentiment to goatee metal rap is pretty like poor at best really yeah yeah same same anyway anyway yeah let's move move past that all right yeah
00:01:26
Speaker
Roland, Roland, Roland, Roland, Roland. Right, we are Roland. What? Oh my god, damn it. How's it going today, Wes? It was.
00:01:36
Speaker
It's all good. Just on that subject, I was in a drum and bass metal band around that new metal scene of the time in the UK. I was very much on the drum and bass side of the metal band. I think I was kind of solely trying to supply the drum and bass element. Okay, got it.
00:02:01
Speaker
Yeah, I was I was deep into the scene at that period. But anyway, yeah, there you go. As a side. No, that's that's fantastic, because like, we'll still hang on. Were there new metal bands in the United Kingdom or was it a American phenomenon?
00:02:21
Speaker
It was it was a weird one. It was like there was a there was a kind of a fledgling well, not fledgling skate. It was a skate scene in the UK. Sure. And, you know, Green Day were kind of ruling ninety seven, ninety eight. And then I kind of.
00:02:41
Speaker
all these kind of like new metal bands started to come through and some of the skate kids took to that new metal scene and that's what kind of carried through to the early noughties so we had things like ozfest you may have seen recently on instagram a lot of photos of ozfest like turn of the millennium oh i did go i did go to ozfest
00:03:08
Speaker
Okay, not the Milton Keynes one or were you in the UK? No, no, no, I was in I was in the US. I was okay. We had the odds fest and it was at Milton Keynes, which is famously described by the comedian Bill Bailey as Satan's Levi.
00:03:25
Speaker
which is a pretty accurate description of Milton Keynes. But yes, it's in those photos for Milton Keynes' bowl at that time. But basically like the kids that I was hanging around with, I never went to Ozfest because I wasn't really deep down a metaller. But you know, I was more into my hip hop and
00:03:47
Speaker
other stuff. But yeah, that is the look. That was the look of the UK. If you weren't dressed like that, you were dressed in Burberry and you had a Nike cap and you were trying to kind of somehow intimidate those new metal kids. That was basically the setup of that time. I just have to say, my memory from Ozfest is this, and I'll be brief.
Cultural Identity and Upbringing in High Wycombe
00:04:11
Speaker
It was like 100 degrees.
00:04:14
Speaker
and they were charging $8 or $10 a bottle for water, you know? Jesus Christ. Yeah, it sounds like writing. They just wouldn't give it away. Yeah. I'm like in middle school and I'm like, excuse me, I know for a fact that it is a Maryland law, you must dispense water. Yeah. You must dispense water if there is a bathroom, which there is.
00:04:38
Speaker
don't give me the water anyway we're in the pit i don't know who's playing it's like uh the chariot or one of these bands you know they're really going at it and this guy is in the circle pit in a black leather duster with like a gas mask on yeah that's not in circles yeah he's going he's going he's going and then he just like
00:05:02
Speaker
drops to the ground this enormous man and like the pit like stops and everyone you know it's a nice mosh pit everyone is like okay man he doesn't get water he just keeps going oh man that's us we may have been a hardier breed back then yeah geriatric millennials i was smoking benson and hedges cigarettes 100s god you were disgusting vile
00:05:33
Speaker
I have to say, I have to preface the statement by saying, I know we just brought this on ourselves.
00:06:00
Speaker
But I really hope that this is the only amount of new metal discussion that ever happens on this show I was having to do the whole verse from Roland on It was very good who Fred you bet you bet
00:06:22
Speaker
I definitely am better than Fred Durst, but I think that I think that everyone we've had on has been better than Fred Durst. Yeah, fair enough. He was the first. I can certainly, I can bring it back round later to the Osiris D3, if you want to kind of make that connection later on. Oh, I like this. I like this. Okay, cool. Right. I'll get into clothes mode.
00:06:43
Speaker
Yeah, well, that's only the tangential thing about the show. Anyway, Wes, dude, where are you from and where do you live now? I am from a town called High Wycombe, which
00:06:58
Speaker
is so if you imagine London it goes London Greater London which is like the suburbs of London then you get like maybe 10 minutes of grassland or greenbelt where they try not to build anything and then you get all of like the
00:07:17
Speaker
towns that kind of satellite towns around London that begin. And High Wycombe was kind of famously a town that rehoused a lot of the worst families or worst areas of London kind of post-war.
00:07:36
Speaker
So it's a town that was historically been there a long time, but a lot of housing estates were built up in the post war period. And that's kind of where my family found themselves. And this is public housing in America. Yeah, yeah, big housing states. And I'd send you those photos sharing.
00:07:57
Speaker
There was a guy called, um, oh god, I haven't even answered your second part of that question. Yeah, so it's okay Yeah, no, it's okay. Because we were hoping we were hoping to get into it. Okay, cool Well, so yeah, I'll talk about high working for a bit because it is an interesting place in that It's probably one of the most multicultural places of that time in the uk There's a big west indian community and in there and it was kind of
00:08:27
Speaker
I don't know, there was growing up in it, I didn't really realise how, what experience I was getting growing up. And Highwickham is an interesting place, so the estate which my parents grew up on and my grandparents lived on until they passed,
00:08:47
Speaker
There was a guy called Gavin Watson, who's a photographer. He's quite famous now. He's worked for some big names in terms of people to hire him for his photography. But he got a camera when he was a young kid, probably around the time that I was born.
00:09:03
Speaker
And he just started shooting photos of his friends on this estate who all happened to be skinheads. The actual skins, not boneheads. I mean, it was, I suppose it was still skinhead revival because the true skins really were the kind of, you know, Xperia 69 skins.
00:09:28
Speaker
But then by the time you get to late 70s, early 80s, you've got skinhead movement as people probably imagine it now. His friendship group was multicultural.
00:09:48
Speaker
you know, and there was West Indian kids who were skinheads. And yeah, and it was very much a kind of a music driven scene and a style driven scene. And so yeah, Watson skins, his photos incredible. And like, you'll see like my nan's house in the background. Oh, that's awesome. You know,
00:10:09
Speaker
Yeah, and it's like I would have literally been that is like the world I was born into. You know, I would have been like a kid being pushed around in a pram while those photos were being taken. Yeah. So it's nice. Like I don't really have much
00:10:25
Speaker
Like, I don't wish to ever really go back to my hometown, like maybe, you know, to see my friends, but there is something about seeing those photos and seeing the UK in that time, it's very, I can get quite nostalgic about it. Oh yeah, that's awesome. And I've said to Gab, I've messaged Gab and, oh, I've got an error come up. Are we good?
00:10:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think it might just be on mine. So I get I can get a bit nostalgic for that. And like I've said to Gavin, you know,
00:10:58
Speaker
for whatever it means to you about his pictures. For me, it's like really captured a time that kind of... I don't think I'd have any connection to Highwick if it wasn't for his photos in a way. Because I've got a few family photos, but he kind of captured the time and the place where I was born.
Exploring UK Subcultures and Music Scene
00:11:24
Speaker
um just part of his kind of hobby. Totally. You said that you were or you said a couple minutes ago like you were a geriatric millennial uh so I'm assuming that we're probably around the same age but like was there any part of that like skin you know punk whatever scene that was still existing there when you were you know when you came of age?
00:11:48
Speaker
Well, the really cool thing about High Wicker is that it had a big alternative scene. It had a strong music scene, had a strong local music scene, even going back to my parents' generation. It was one of the places where
00:12:04
Speaker
the stones and the Beatles and then later, you know, Sex Pistols. I think the owner of the local music venue nearly managed the Sex Pistols, but they were too much for him and he gave them to Malcolm McLaren. That's the reason. So that was an egg's head and I think Howlin' Wolf played there and it has a big blues loft kind of history.
00:12:28
Speaker
so these are the kind of places that were around me and still survived and So we would go to a place called the White Horse, which was a new metal night scar-punk Meth you know like full-on kind of metal But then like it was like the place where Kings of Leon had their first UK gig and this was like kind of a crappy
00:12:53
Speaker
pub that underage kids could get into and there was like a strip joint upstairs. It was a funny funny place but these were like the places we were going to was like teenagers and it was great in a way. So you could go down there on like a slightly kind of punk leaning oi night or something like that and it would be filled with like the old skinheads all week ago to like a
00:13:24
Speaker
like a northern soul knight. Oh, fucking. So like all the old skins and then all the northern soul guys would get the talc out and do the dancing and the people who actually photoed in the book skins were my friend's older siblings. That's fucking sick.
00:13:42
Speaker
say, yeah, you'd like meet those guys from that book. Probably this is a time where I wasn't, I probably owned the book, but I wasn't so invested in it because I was still kind of young. But you kind of knew, you knew this, the character of the town and the people who had kind of their identity was stamped on them, like they weren't going to not ever not be skins anymore.
00:14:11
Speaker
Whereas now we might rejuvenate ourselves every 10 years. Yeah, it was a great place in that respect. Like my love of music.
00:14:21
Speaker
This is like hearing this because I have been obsessed with like traditional skinhead culture since I was like 15. Don't really ask me why I've never been, I've never identified it as a skin, but like I've been, I've been seeing photos from this book for the better part of like 25 years of my life and like hearing, hearing stories about it and like this, this weird connection
00:14:47
Speaker
that somehow happened through clothing is like my platonic ideal of what this shit was about. Well, it's about working class cohesion, right? Isn't that the whole point of the skinny? I think romanticize it. So that is at the outset what it was about, right? Was working class culture banding together?
00:15:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think the temptation to do that, especially if you're looking to bring cohesiveness where we're lacking it at the moment, is to romanticize it. But I think what you'll find is that, like with everything, it's a bit confused in itself.
00:15:30
Speaker
So you might find that going back, I'm not going to talk on behalf of anyone because I don't not skin myself. I've never been involved in a skinhead scene and my knowledge of it is second, third hand at best.
00:15:50
Speaker
But I feel what I've heard from other people is it was quite a confused time. There was racism in the UK, even back in the 69 era. And then moving forward into the 80s, there was still a thing of
00:16:09
Speaker
There wasn't a lot of social cohesion, just kind of generally, I guess. But what was happening and what happened in, say, that estate and High Wycombe generally was that people were just becoming friends with, you know, second generation immigrant families. And that was like whether it was through schooling or work.
00:16:36
Speaker
and then relationships. So whether you're a skin or not, the working class people were intermingling and finding their own kind of voice with each other. And obviously Jamaican music was so powerful. It just was attracting anyone really. And I think that was making the way that West Indian people were
00:17:08
Speaker
beginning to live in the UK meant that they were open to white people coming into their nights and going to their house parties. The whole scene grew from that.
00:17:28
Speaker
So Reggae for me, like my first memory of music is kind of the Israelites. Oh yes! Becca, like you know like Reggae is so infused in the music I love which went on to be like kind of hardcore drum and bass jungle music.
00:17:50
Speaker
And going even into the dance scene of the UK, there was a big cohesion of identities which were not for many years getting on too well together. And then by the time you come around to the rave revolution and the dance music revolution of the late 80s, again, Slough, High Wycombe were the epicenters of this because there was such racial mixing anyway.
00:18:17
Speaker
from the working classes. So and even Gavin Watson then went on to document the rave culture. Right. So I come from a place which is really steeped in subcultures, working class subcultures and music revolutions, I would say.
00:18:37
Speaker
It was a bit of a dive, but it did grow a lot of interesting movements and always part of those larger movements.
00:18:49
Speaker
Because I think I have said before, like diversity is the answer, right? I mean, diversity is what spawns a lot of, as you say, creativity, all sorts of stuff. Well, the US is a prime example of getting the best brains from around the world and then becoming probably the most kind of, I want to say powerful nation. But, you know, look at all of
00:19:16
Speaker
I mean, I know it's tricky with America because its past is so checkered. Right. But that is a very diplomatic way. And the thing is, it's like,
00:19:31
Speaker
None of us, none of the people, we're all, none of us made decisions that have put us where we are. We appeared for the best part anywhere between 30 and 40 years ago into a situation which we had no prior input in. And a lot of people are trying to,
00:19:55
Speaker
consult what's happened previously. But the thing is, if you look at all the countries which have been open to a lot of other cultures coming together,
00:20:10
Speaker
They've either been very good at creating cultural movements or technological revolutions. So there is a lot of good from that. And you know, a society has to be cohesive in order for it to work. So, you know, you can't turn back the clock. And if you're going to move forward, then you have to work out ways of, you know, building bridges. So
00:20:40
Speaker
you know, whether whatever your political leaning, we all kind of want to get on in our lives, you know, it doesn't mean you have in each other's pockets, but you just you kind of just have a mutual respect. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, I've kind of made my peace with that part of my thinking, if you know, I mean, total. And I mean, it sounds like it sounds like identity.
00:21:07
Speaker
You know, it sounds like as a proper actual adult, you have like, realized, you know, as you said, a few minutes ago, you didn't really like understand your upbringing while it was happening. But like you, you know, it's a pretty special one. It kind of seems like. Yeah, I mean, I was friends with my best friends. So
00:21:29
Speaker
By the time I was school age, we moved just outside the town into a village next to a big military base.
British Menswear and Cultural Influence
00:21:38
Speaker
So I was kind of schooled on the military base, even though my parents aren't military. And my best friends were two brothers and their dad was Indian and their mother was English. But to avoid any issues, they told everyone they were Portuguese.
00:21:57
Speaker
You know, and I later found out another friend I had who was Portuguese was, you know, Indian, Anglo-Indian background. So, you know, you think of there being good cohesion, but people are still hiding their racial identity. No, I'm not saying it made it into a perfect place. Oh, no, no, no. I thought that was the idea of that.
00:22:21
Speaker
subculture basically was that the working class should kind of unite. I mean, of course there are racist elements in that technically, right?
00:22:30
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I think it was like, you know, the West Indian guys could be getting on really well with the native white British guys, but then they both might really not get on with the, you know, the guys from not so much, I don't know, like the South Asian community might not be getting on or, you know, and
00:22:51
Speaker
Like my friend Simon, we always make a joke because, you know, we, you know, we've got childhood memories together. His, you know, his dad was Indian. And we talk about High Wycombe and we we kind of reflect on race a lot differently now than this generation.
00:23:10
Speaker
And like our joke to ourselves is like in high Wycombe, you couldn't racially profile people. You couldn't do it on race because everyone was a threat or everyone could potentially be a threat. You're more likely to get mugged by a crew of white guys than you were anyone else just by the fact that, you know, there was more of those guys predominantly in town. So, you know, you didn't mark people by their by
00:23:38
Speaker
those markers, racial markers, didn't work. You had to kind of see people for who they were and their attitude they were giving off. So it was an interesting time and it was an interesting place. And the 80s and 90s was really overshadowed by kind of casual violence just going out.
00:24:03
Speaker
I mean, it might be the same now for a lot of kids, but back then for us, it was, you know, there was always the threat of casual violence on a night out. I was so surprised by that in Swansea because like I live in Baltimore and I, you know, people were like, Oh my God. Well, that's the thing I'm saying, like, hello, like,
00:24:29
Speaker
Do these people have weapons, you know? And they're like, no, no, nobody has any weapons. It's just flouncy. It's like, it does not work that way where I am from. Yeah. It's part, it's a strange identity we have in the UK, I think. I don't know what it is. It's just a lot of violent undertones, which just don't seem to be there so much anymore, which is, which is a good thing.
00:24:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Tony, he you've had on Tony Sylvester. It's nice in a way he's a bit low. He's a few years, few years older than me. But we can kind of get nostalgic about life in the 80s and 90s. Like he grew up very close to where I grew up. Oh, that's fucking cool. And and have kind of similar backgrounds like so I found out recently that my grandmother was born in like a woman's refuge in Marlboro.
00:25:30
Speaker
which is like not a glamorous start for anyone. That's like a little place in London.
00:25:35
Speaker
And his great-grandmother, I think, was born in similar circumstances in Soho. So it's kind of like, we're two kind of guys who mirror a lot of interests, but also mirror quite a similar upbringing. But he was raised slightly further into the suburbs of London. But we can kind of really get caught up into the nostalgia of 80s and 90s UK and just
00:26:01
Speaker
really get into that what it was like to live at that time which you know it's only now that if you can kind of stand back and see what it was and how kind of
00:26:13
Speaker
not, you know, just like the threat of violence around every turn. It's so weird, it's so alien to me now, in a way. Right, right. But it was the UK culture. But what came from that was the subcultures as well, like, violent fashion subcultures, like Mod had its own rockers was a violent subculture, Teddy Boys was a violent subculture.
00:26:36
Speaker
skin obviously a violent edge to it and even like you know when you go up to like chabs and and that scene of the early noughties again a very violent scene although like
00:26:52
Speaker
the only kind of stopgap that ever happened in that was like the kind of rave culture and everyone kind of getting into fields and taking ecstasy and barriers dropping down. But as distance passed, I suppose that was our kind of like hippie time. But you know, like, I hadn't drawn that line, but you know, the North came into the 90s and
00:27:15
Speaker
Yeah, like, I don't know. The UK is a very interesting place. It truly is. How it connects with fashion and music, which I feel is slightly lost now. There's not so much connection with fashion and music. You can get like menswear guys that are all looking really smart and turned out, but they've all kind of tattered up and listening to like hardcore, but it doesn't necessarily reflect
00:27:42
Speaker
The menswear, the luxury menswear scene, you know, scare the crap out of most guys that might go down the road. But then, you know, you can't judge people just because they're into like classic menswear. You know, everyone's going to come at it from a different angle. But also, it's also the status quo. Right. Like classic traditional menswear, whatever you want to call it, is like the clothing.
00:28:11
Speaker
For, yeah, for, I think, again, I think Tony has a good way of thinking about it. It's like, if every, if every area or, you know, every country has its kind of like, its cuisine, you know, then
00:28:29
Speaker
The British cuisine in terms of clothing is classic British menswear, and it went on to inform a lot of other menswear in the world. You could say it's kind of like the first floor of menswear, but then equally, we live in a much more global society now. That's kind of changed. You get companies that push
00:28:57
Speaker
kind of classic Arabic clothing like jabs like that's a company that do hijabs but also do like kind of streetwear and stuff like that so yeah it's a little I don't know I'm gonna say it's dated because I think it's still important that
00:29:15
Speaker
the UK is recognised for classic British style. It's funny now, isn't it? Because there's so much wealth in different parts of the world and they'll have their heritage and what they feel is a clear representation of what menswear should be. But for us guys, where we live and
00:29:37
Speaker
our kind of history, you know, those tailors on Savile Row are, you know, if you're interested in menswear, that's, that's where you go. And that's what you kind of fanboy over or Italy or, you know, what I just mean, like, in terms of accept acceptability, I guess, like,
00:29:58
Speaker
You can be wearing a suit, for the most part, anywhere in the world, and you'd be fine. People would be like, oh, there's this guy in a suit. That person is fine. Whatever. Whoever is looking at that person is not concerned about that person. We'll be wearing suits, I promise you, for my 25 years of retail.
00:30:21
Speaker
want to know where yeah all the like yeah like anyone dressing in that way just you just don't even clock them like it doesn't it doesn't set off an alarm it's like uh it's like an invisibility cloak to borrow something in a weird way like i understand the angle of what you're trying to say now and i would 100 agree and i think
00:30:45
Speaker
maybe that's why it when you especially men come of a certain age where they feel like they want to kind of engage now in kind of respectable society, they will start to look to menswear as you know, especially when they become more professional. They'll well in a lot of places, you're forced to wear that clothing by your work stress code. Yeah, exactly. And then you don't want to
00:31:12
Speaker
I think that's a good time then for you to know what you want from menswear because if you're suddenly told you have to wear it and you know that you really don't like wearing a suit but you don't like wearing a suit because historically you went into a shop and it had like built up shoulders and you look terrible with built up shoulders.
00:31:31
Speaker
And then, you know, it would only be through your research that you would find, oh, there's a natural shoulder. Oh, actually, if I put this jacket on, it's like unstructured and it feels comfortable. And, you know, I don't look like I've got these like massive shoulder pads on there and, you know,
00:31:48
Speaker
So you'll find all the different languages of menswear and all the different histories of menswear if you feel so inclined to. If you don't, you know, you'll just follow whatever fashion is and you'll be passable in what you're wearing for your job, but you might not feel at home in it.
00:32:07
Speaker
So I think some people maybe think, okay, I've got to wear these clothes, but I want to feel me in them. And then they'll explore kind of menswear and tailoring and find what is me in that kind of language, which is what I did to a degree, but I think I'm still too casual, really.
Artistic Style and Creative Process
00:32:30
Speaker
It comes and goes.
00:32:32
Speaker
But I know, you know, I've sold menswear, I've fit, I used to do formal hire for like events, I did like ask got hire, you know, I used to dress in top hat and tails and do like, kind of wedding fairs and stuff. I mean, I like, really? Yeah, I've fitted people for like some of the
00:32:52
Speaker
poshiest, biggest weddings, you know, like Versailles, like, you know, I've been engaged in that high-end menswear and ready to wear, not so much like the Spike, but ready to wear the high-end, like, you know, I've worked in that area.
00:33:12
Speaker
So it's good in a way because I feel like I know it all and I've lived it and I've experienced it and I've owned nice suits and I've worn nice clothes. But at the end of the day, I probably wouldn't reach for a suit to manage with you. I'm in the same boat.
00:33:26
Speaker
I've worked in that for a long time. Really. You've seen the sausage being made. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it's that necessarily, but it's fun. But unless I have to wear it at this point, I'm just kind of like, I'll throw on a flannel, a hoodie, and some work pants and boots. And that's where I live.
00:33:52
Speaker
Yeah. And I would say as well, it was really appealing at a time because it was accessible. It's become less accessible as time's gone on, especially in terms of the secondhand market for menswear. It was very easy to pick up a lot of Ivy stuff and I could get Ivy stuff from
00:34:15
Speaker
from the US sent relatively cheaply to the UK. And then over the last 10 years, that's just become harder and harder. Yeah. Yeah. It's just gone crazy. So a large part of my menswear story or being into menswear has been adapting to kind of, you know, what I could afford, what was available and what I kind of thought worked for me or what I thought, you know, reflected me.
00:34:45
Speaker
But it changes over time and you get in different like I think someone like me who's creative, I like to explore different ideas and different looks and things like that. And it's like I wouldn't say that I ever feel like I'm.
00:34:59
Speaker
acting i'm just kind of bringing to the you know to the front different aspects of me really um so i think maybe that's why my output's so varied as well is because i don't really lock into necessarily one or subscribe to one kind of church i guess
00:35:19
Speaker
That was the funny thing about going through your Instagram was that like it was challenging to pin you down, I guess, like they were all all of the work was varied. All of the work I like you could tell it was you, but it was still varied enough that it was like, how does he manage to do all of this? Yeah, I think
00:35:47
Speaker
I often think of that as being like a negative because when I see the people that become very successful in what I do, they have a very defined style and a character base that they just, they repeat. And I kind of admire that for two reasons. It's very disciplined and it works in the world where
00:36:12
Speaker
Because there's so much going on like the best way maybe to Like make your stake your claim is to repeat something
00:36:23
Speaker
with variation so that it's a consistency and then people get hooked to that little consistency in their day whether it's kind of like that guy from Barstool reviewing pizzas or someone drawing the same character in hundreds of different outfits but it's still basically the same drawing with the outfits changed. It really helps in a world where there's so much information
00:36:52
Speaker
Yeah. And it's not, it's not, it's not, that doesn't make it good. Oh, yeah. But what was popular and what's good is sometimes the same and sometimes not. But it's not, it's not even a trick. It's, it's part, it's a sales technique. You know, it's about, it's about branding and recognition. It's all capitalism driven.
00:37:20
Speaker
Yeah, goddamn capitalist and it is and so it's like for me to say to you my god You're able to do all these different styles and to have you think This is a negative
00:37:34
Speaker
because you are not doing the same thing as everyone else is doing is like, this is a problem in our world. Yeah, yeah, I know. But I have good people around me who I can have my doubts to and then they just kick me up the ass. You know, it seems to be working because you have done a lot of impressive work. Thanks. Like, you know, if you are like keister kick powered,
00:37:58
Speaker
You got it. They're powered by kicking. Kicking. Yeah, but you know, that helps. That's why what you'll find. I think what I found with creatives is they can they have like a little they'll always have a little group of their team around them. So even if they're working as
00:38:19
Speaker
you know, lone wolves, like I don't really work with other people, beginning to now, but I don't really work in teams of people, I'm just hired as an individual, but I'll always defer any doubts I have outside to
00:38:35
Speaker
a few people. Yeah. And who typically work in the industry too, but are creatives who I trust their judgment more than I would kind of anyone else, including myself. But like in the same way that you can't see your own head, you know, and you can't smell your own nose, you can't sometimes see your own work. I don't know what my work, I can't even, you know, unless it's put like a number on it, like I've got X amount of followers or
00:39:04
Speaker
I've got X amount of likes. I don't have the objective distance on my work to really judge it. So I just kind of do it. I try not to think about it too much and just let what happens happens. And what happens with brands is they'll come to me
00:39:23
Speaker
they'll want to work with me and I can already see from the beginning that okay like this style is not going to work with this brand I need to adapt my style a little bit so it's with their handwriting so in that way it really is a collaborative process because I'm really
00:39:39
Speaker
adjusting myself to fit the brand that approaches me. And, you know, I'm sure other people do that as well. But to whatever degree, I don't know, like they'll probably adapt by saying that they're one trick or whatever you want to call it. I don't want to dismiss that because that's what I'd say is actually that's a disciplined kind of
00:40:01
Speaker
work or craft a person that can do that. But for me, like maybe my attention is deficit is too high to like feel like that's going to motivate me to work. Whereas I like kind of newness and discovery. So I'm more interested in when a brand approaches me, I'm like, cool. Right. What can we do now? You know, yeah.
00:40:27
Speaker
Well, it's kind of up in the air, you know, and you have to have like a quite a, you know, if a brand approaches you and they're investing a lot of money in something and you're kind of like,
00:40:38
Speaker
out there, they don't know 100% what they're going to get. It can be a bit of a gamble, but I've never kind of necessarily failed to a great degree in delivering what a brand wanted. There's been a couple of times where maybe something hasn't been used, but
00:40:57
Speaker
I suppose that was earlier on where I was more inexperienced and couldn't adapt so well. But nowadays I just feel like I'm ready for the challenge of whatever comes my way really.
00:41:11
Speaker
But yeah, so for me, it's too prone. Like I do feel like you do need to adapt when people come and ask you to do stuff. And I enjoy that. So I don't mind changing up my style to fit what's needed. But you know, it could have cost me in light lights and followers, but you know, it's my profession. I can make a living from it. So I'm kind of happy.
00:41:38
Speaker
Yeah. How long can we do the stupid intros? Do people like them? We don't know, but we do them anyway. I'm looking at your Instagram again now, Wes. I'm sorry to interrupt you, Matt. So there are these portraits, a bunch of randoms, which it's not the same style as your normal art.
00:42:04
Speaker
but they are still really good and like really interesting. You could tell this grandparents one with the yellow glasses is just wonderful. So,
00:42:18
Speaker
Yeah, good on you. That's what I have to say. I just feel like more and more, the whole thing with doing anything is just getting out of the way of yourself. There's so much neurosis in a creative person's mind anyway. You don't really need it. I think if you just get into a space where you just create, like for me, I just put on music.
00:42:47
Speaker
Or I'll put on like Alan Watts and he'll tell me that...
00:42:51
Speaker
everything's, you know, not real anyway, so don't worry about it. Or, you know, you can just get into a headspace and what they would technically call a flow state, I guess, which is really difficult to do when there's a lot of pressure on you. But what happens is your muscle memory gets so good for drawing. You can kind of switch off and you go into autopilot, you know, and then you present something and then someone will tweak it or ask for you to tweak it. And then it can get a bit tricky because you're
00:43:23
Speaker
taken out of your flow state and then you're given direction. And then you have to get back into your flow state whilst adhering to a list of changes. Because if you don't, the work's going to suffer for it. The direction is probably correct. But then if you come out of that space and go into a more box ticking state, you'll slowly see the work lose its character and lose its punch.
00:43:52
Speaker
So you have to learn, I suppose, like an actor, you have to take direction, but then still give the kind of effortlessness of being a good actor, if you see what I mean, or the effortless effortlessness of being a good being a competent kind of illustrator or artist. But yeah, it's interesting. I mean, it's an interesting job. It's it's a bit of a crazy one as well. But it's like,
00:44:19
Speaker
It's like all of the, so whenever I post my outfits, which I do often, right? And your legs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They, they upset people, but, uh, they, uh, some people they don't upset. So.
00:44:36
Speaker
I'm saying the outfits that get the most as you were talking about earlier, like, um, approval that I know of through the likes are the ones that I just like did not consider. I like put no thought into whatsoever. And I just like, or even I was like, this looks horrible, but I'm going to leave the house anyway. And then people are like, dude, what a good outfit. So fire man. And so it's like,
00:45:04
Speaker
It just is that way, I think. Yeah, I'm quite lucky because out of all of the father-in-laws I could have ended up with, I ended up with one who's worked predominantly as a creative their whole life. Oh, fuck. Oh, nice. Face and face. That's really nice. The demand of being a creative. What
Music, Art Synergy & Abstraction
00:45:26
Speaker
does he do? Do you mind? No, he's a really good musician. I was wondering if he was an illustrator also.
00:45:33
Speaker
No, my my father was a designer. But my father-in-law is a musician and he had a lot of success in the 70s. He went on to working in the record industry and he was kind of good friends with the Steely Dan guys and stuff like that. And so he hung around a good crew of musicians and professionals. And
00:46:02
Speaker
he's very into like the creative process to the point where he's like like you're saying you what you think's mindless isn't mindless it's just you're not aware of it and you're in your flow state right yeah yeah your best decisions like i get caught up in theory a lot
00:46:21
Speaker
because it kind of occupies me when I'm not drawing to focus on different theoretical approaches and stuff. But you can't have them in your head when you work because it just interrupts your creativity in a way. So it's surreal, not surreal. It seems absurd that you should care so much about theory, but then have to forget it.
00:46:41
Speaker
in order to do anything any good. But what I'm trying to say, to bring it back to what you said, is you are making lots of critical judgments probably as you throw stuff on, but you're just not aware of it. And because you're giving into more instinct, good theory is just good instinct.
00:47:02
Speaker
Bad theory makes for bad results. And same with bad instinct. Bad instinct makes for bad results. But good instinct and good theory hopefully makes for good results. So don't doubt your intuition, really, when you're doing anything.
00:47:23
Speaker
And clothing is good. I find that I can I really think these colors go together, but You know, they go they go together so well that it looks obvious and then it kind of like oh you look like you've tried, you know Yeah, that is a fine line Between like looking like you didn't try and looking like you tried way too fucking hard
00:47:47
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, dude. LDP stuff said to me like this is your greatest outfit in recent memory. And I like was wearing a tweed jacket and a flannel shirt. Like I was like not doing anything. And then, you know, like you got to think about.
00:48:07
Speaker
You can aim to dress like other people, but ultimately with any kind of endeavor or creative endeavor, you're just trying to find, you're trying to line up with your, yourself. Do you know what I mean? So, you know, maybe I want to take it to the max. Basically, I want it to be the most absurd that it can be. And that's why that's like, that's the thing. There's no,
00:48:31
Speaker
It's so easy to judge other people by your taste and standard, but I try not to do that anymore. I would judge someone by, and it's difficult because you don't know everyone really as themselves, but you can kind of see when something lines up like their features, their color palette, their attitude, you know, when that all goes into sync, you know, and that's what some of the most popular people are like.
00:48:57
Speaker
Kevis, Kevis Manzi, I don't know if you know him, he does a lot for Ralph Lauren. I think he works for Ralph Lauren, but then he models, he's lived in Paris, and he's so like, is. I can't explain it, like when he puts his clothes on, he is so them, like it never looks out of place in his style, and it can be quite eccentric in terms of, you know, like how Ralph Lauren is, but it always suits him.
00:49:23
Speaker
But then you'll find other people who have to dress in a much different way That equally suits them and I couldn't ever say that one's better than the other but what you would find if someone tried to dress like Kervis or dress like said a different example and It didn't see them then it wouldn't work. So it's just like it's just those people that find their voice and
00:49:49
Speaker
and it's a true representation of them and it all lines up, then they become almost like, you know, legendary or mythical or have like an archetype about them. That can be, I wouldn't say that's the end game of menswear, but I think it's what you should be looking for in menswear is finding yourself.
00:50:11
Speaker
And you should be a journey into discovering what you like and what works for you. And, you know, I like to play around. And I think that's the thing with me, like in the way that I can be quite versatile with how I draw, I could be quite versatile with the way I dress. So it's difficult. Is it just drawing? There's painting also? It's all digital.
00:50:33
Speaker
Okay, so digital. So I just refer it to drawing. No, no. Yeah. And there's a question in here too, about nomenclature, which I made into a pun because of gnome core from later. Where
00:50:52
Speaker
Do you think about your work, like if there is a spectrum of cartooning at one end, right? An illustration at the other and people are like, my stuff, these are not cartoons, like this is an illustration. I was just wondering like, are you so you it's drawing? I would honestly say that, and Dick Carroll would probably disagree with me,
00:51:22
Speaker
I would sometimes say, I would say like Charles Schultz and Peanuts is as good as Van Gogh. But that's so funny, Matt. That's what Matt said. Isn't that what you said, Matt? Yeah. Not in those exact words. What created you unknowingly? Not entirely. But when we were like working on the template of questions and things,
00:51:45
Speaker
I had the thought I was like, which prompted this question, I was like, who would not consider Charles Schultz an artist? Like who would simply regale him? Right, right. I mean, I guess I'm talking like modern day, like, you know, yeah, the peanuts are so revered at this point. Like, where is the difference?
00:52:12
Speaker
I say, I think if you attended an art school, you'd quickly find out. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. That's what I'm saying. The snobbishness is so rigid. Yeah, but then that all comes down to cultural gatekeeping. And oh, yeah, it's like I think anyone who truly invested in the visual arts
00:52:37
Speaker
can probably see the greatness in any kind of area of it, if you see what I mean. But getting back to what the difference is, painting is a bloody hard thing to do. To balance a painting is
00:53:01
Speaker
It's hard. The prospect of what happens when you cartoon is you simplify a new abstract. It's almost like how well can you simplify an abstract and maintain the quality of what it is you're trying to
00:53:18
Speaker
And that's kind of what Picasso ended up doing with his work was that he was, through his abstractions, he was, you know, what's the minimum kind of effort to represent that, you know, how do I make that into an icon? Yeah, that's really interesting.
00:53:38
Speaker
abstraction is really interesting if you actually get into it. But cartoonists are just kind of doing that anyway without even thinking about it. But then, you know, there's a commercial aspect of it. So you couldn't necessarily say that a comic is high art, but then a graphic novel could probably become high art.
00:53:59
Speaker
But it's whoever wants to put the boundaries up, whoever wants to gate keep, whoever wants to defend their little part of the world. And I wouldn't say that they all do mind the same skill set because they're so varied in their skill sets.
00:54:17
Speaker
ultimately what makes it good at the end of it is like saying that someone's just lined up all these things in a row which then make something that's kind of cohesive and perfect and that can be a painter, it can be a cartoonist, it can be someone doing some weaving, whatever, you know,
00:54:39
Speaker
but fine art has got since the invention of kind of conceptual art has been changed massively so conceptual art isn't necessarily first
00:54:52
Speaker
caring about the aesthetic. And you kind of can't argue with that either, really. You just have to let that be and let it be its thing. And except that's part of kind of our culture, our art culture as well. So, you know, you can get snooty about it, but I think ultimately everyone's just executing different things to different degrees of kind of skill, really. And you can recognize that if you're into it.
00:55:19
Speaker
Do you have like a first drawing illustration piece of art that you remember being like incredibly proud of? Well, that's the weird thing as well. I kind of draw through compulsion and I rarely actually kind of just maybe like a handful of images I actually feel or any I feel any kind of like satisfaction with.
00:55:47
Speaker
But like a true artist. Yeah. But then it's honest, you know, if I was like, really up my heart, so I think like everything I've done was great. And that would be shitty. Also, that would be shitty. Also. Yeah, exactly. Before the other way, nobody needs to be that hard to know. No one.
00:56:07
Speaker
you know, well, I'm sure there is, but well, they're normally deluged. I think the problem is, it's like, Oh, my God, I was gonna get into it. But there's so much. I think that takes a lot of delusion to be a creative and an artist. And then finally,
00:56:23
Speaker
you catch up with your delusion and realise, oh wow, I was a bit deluded there. So whether you delude yourself into thinking you're terrible or delude yourself into thinking you're great, ultimately you're probably just in the middle of somewhere and you're competent enough and you can create the work.
00:56:38
Speaker
The thing for me is I just drew from such a young age that I never thought of it really as being anything special or anything that other people couldn't do. And I just feel like sketchbooks from a young age with just like faces, you know, just like drawings of faces almost like I was sat in front of I was put in front of like, you know, recordings of Charlie Brown from like a young age.
00:57:04
Speaker
and you know like anyone's stay in front of cartoons but the language of kind of kids cartoons for me as a child was just kind of obvious like I don't know I just felt like I could understand cartoons and I would copy
00:57:21
Speaker
you know, Disney cartoons and later kind of Garfield and stuff like that. And it was just like, I don't know, it was just something I did and I didn't give any thought to it. You know, and your parents might go, Oh, that's nice. But I don't necessarily think I was trying to satisfy anything other than just the itch of wanting to draw and
00:57:39
Speaker
kind of recreate what I enjoy looking at. So I was, in retrospect, I was quite impressed because my mum found a drawing the other day I did, and I must have been super young, of like Goofy. And I was like, I couldn't even draw that now. Like, it was really like decent. And I was like, are you sure? Are you sure this isn't just like something I coloured in? You know what I mean? Did I do the line work on that? And she's like, yeah, you just drew this as like a kid.
00:58:08
Speaker
And I used to be able to draw like manga really well. Me and my friend Simon were obsessed with manga when we were like 11, 12, 13, and we would draw manga all day long. And I could draw really good like manga. I couldn't do it now. I don't know where that went. So I just had an ability to, I would copy like Chinese ornamental plates and stuff like that. Like, I don't know, you've just had a compulsion to do it as a kid really.
00:58:37
Speaker
But then I found rave music and drum and bass and jungle music and I just got obsessed with music and I just forgot about my art really and just got into music in a really big way but unfortunately I didn't have the natural kind of ability with music even though I've kind of loved it more I guess.
00:58:57
Speaker
Well, does your musical taste inform your art? I feel like that's a pretty obvious point. Yeah, I think I've learned that it does, actually. I did wonder about that. I have synesthesia, so whenever I listen to music, I kind of see it in my mind's eye. Oh, shit, okay. Wait, hold on. Say what it is one more time. It broke up.
00:59:23
Speaker
there's different types of synesthesia and I can't remember what the technical term for mine is but it means that when I listen to music I will get like a abstract like visual space in my mind that's kind of animated along with the music so it can be like shapes and colors
00:59:47
Speaker
It kind of looks like a kind of a kind of a screensaver, I guess. You know, it's like classic screensavers where all the lights. That's what I'm talking about. Just like fractals bouncing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like I I know that you really have it also because this is the first mention of it.
01:00:08
Speaker
Right. Because I feel like there are people with it straight away. Yeah. Yes. There's a man with the initials KW, who is extremely effusive about his synesthesia. And I do not suspect that this KW has it. But yeah, just since you're just mentioning it, I think for sure, as a doctor myself, forget about it. I think when you've got it, it's like the first time I realized I had it was I was in band practice for a band I was in. And I was like,
01:00:39
Speaker
So basically as the track started playing, obviously we started playing the track, it kind of goes along like on a convey about and it's all placed out in my mind, like all the cues and everything like that, all the music. And I just reflected on a band mate. I was like, I don't think it does that. And I kind of described it picture to him. He's like, what are you doing? I was like, oh yeah, but it doesn't look like that. And he's like, yeah, but it doesn't look like anything. It's music. What are you on about?
01:01:08
Speaker
Notate it. It doesn't have a visual cue. I'm like, oh, right. Well, I see it all in my head and they were like, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I would remember songs visually. I wouldn't remember them. You were quite a talented musician. I'm sure you will not say as much, but I bet that you were. Well, the thing was, I came to being a musician late, so I never got the technical qualities.
01:01:38
Speaker
Who cares? That's the boring part about music anyway. Who cares about time? I know. I know. I've been around enough pompous lead guitarist. Yeah, I play music, but I don't know how to do it. I can sight read tabs. I mean, that's pretty good. That's decent way to interpret music.
01:01:54
Speaker
Yeah, like music, musicians are a great bunch of people. Like I love hanging around with musicians. I love to talk music. All my best friends are obsessed with music. Like it's just the underpinning to my life. And then visual culture just sits on top of my love of musical culture. And, you know, and finding those now that I feel like music had a real down point where it just wasn't having much cultural impact.
Fashion Trends and Nomecore Movement
01:02:24
Speaker
probably like it always has a cultural impact but it kind of lost its way for a long period but i feel like the generation beneath us really kind of fell in love with music again and built up cultures around music and um well there's i mean much to discover right yeah i mean yeah nirvana for example if you haven't heard a nirvana song in your life and you hear a nirvana song you're like holy shit
01:02:48
Speaker
Yeah, I really love that. I feel like Gen Z's approach to cultural kind of signifiers reflects so much more with how I feel than I did with my peer group who are typically a bit younger, like the more than your peer group I didn't really gel with.
01:03:11
Speaker
I'd much rather hang out with some Gen Xers who knew all about the 20th century's musical output, the millennials who were into that early kind of noughties. Weird. I don't know what happened in the noughties.
01:03:29
Speaker
I kind of wrote it off as a decade ago wearing like skinny trousers and I was like I don't know what's going on. I kind of just tapped out for 20 years and then all of a sudden kids are listening for like Nirvana and drum and bass and jungle music and I'm like oh right okay cool yeah I know where we're at now and yeah and I'm like yeah hoodies got baggy and I'm like yeah yeah okay I know where we're at and
01:03:53
Speaker
I feel like, okay, I feel comfortable again in my cultural grounds. I come out of the hardcore and the punk scene in the late 90s, early 2000s, that was my shit. I have music, as I think someone said, music is my life's blood.
01:04:16
Speaker
still to this day. But I've had this conversation multiple times in the past few months about the newer generation took all of the cool shit for me, like in this particular scene. They took all of the cool shit from when I was young and into this and merged it with the cool shit that came before me that we somehow forgot for a while.
01:04:45
Speaker
and is back to being like it's like incredibly diverse like super political and like you know just just such a good representation of what that ethos is and like I love telling people that and like have have gotten more into you know going out to see a local show or a show in general in the past like nine months and like it's it's so heartening because I did disappear for a while because it just got boring
01:05:16
Speaker
Yeah, like I wouldn't have listened to anything for a long time that would really have made me want to go to a gig. And the other day I was listening to a band called Clown Corps and even Pigeon Order and it was so exciting. I was like,
01:05:37
Speaker
You know, I live quite a long way away from London now in terms of like, you can't just nip into London, you kind of have to plan the journey. Right, right. And they were playing like, that night, I was like, do you know what, like, if I didn't have the responsibility of, you know, having a family, I'd be like, right, I'm getting on the train, because this music is so exciting, right? I kind of need to be what, you know, and that's kind of probably like, what kind of style? Sorry.
01:06:04
Speaker
Oh man, I can't pigeonhole it, it is insane. It's kind of like breakcore with like, like free jazz breakcore, thrash, um, gabber, ambient. It is nuts. And the musicianship is so, it's just a drummer and a saxophonist and, and they kind of play keyboards. Like a lightning bolt, a lightning bolt set up.
01:06:30
Speaker
Oh, it's mad. And then yeah, they're cool. Yeah, I will definitely check that out. But just to kind of go on what what you're just talking about, it's like I'm finding music again now.
01:06:46
Speaker
It's not exactly what I'd listen to in my formative years but it's referencing it and it's adding and it's just really exciting again. Whereas for such a period of time that wasn't the case but then in fashion I'm finding that as well you know like I'm seeing stuff now where it's like it's not my
01:07:06
Speaker
It's new. Like, OK, you might be referencing the 90s or whatever, but it still is. There's something added to it. There's a take on it. But I think like, again, like Tony and me were talking and he's like, everything cyclical. It's not like time doesn't just go in a straight line. It kind of goes around in a spiral and points in time line up. You know, so you would find like a fashion from like 1700s.
01:07:34
Speaker
sit with punk music and then you have like Vivian Westwood kind of referencing, you know, there's like new romanticism or there's punk romanticism, you know, so you've got the romanticism of the 1700s, 1800s lining up with the romanticism of the 1980s.
01:07:51
Speaker
You know, and then you'll find that will probably pop up again at some point in our lifetime. And that's just a line running through the ages, but the archetype is true all the way through. So, you know, as the clock turns, you're like, well, I don't know where I'm at. Like nothing's resonating with me. And then, you know, it's 12 o'clock. It's your time and everything lines up again. You know, so you'll love the music that's out there now. You'll love the music of like.
01:08:19
Speaker
20 years ago, you know, I listened to Bartok and crazy serialists like Schoenberg and it all kind of lines up because it's all just like crazy experimental music, kind of avant-garde, you know, art, it all kind of just then lines up again and you get that kind of epoch, I guess. So I'm all for hip-hop.
01:08:46
Speaker
to me, right? I mean, the whole of that genre of music has been sampling and remixing and homages to other... Yeah. I can't explain to you the impact of hip hop in the UK and my life. The UK was at the time that hip hop landed. I was a little bit younger, but by the late 80s,
01:09:15
Speaker
The UK was such a gray and dull and boring place. And then like you hear public enemy and you're like, it's like, you know, it's like a riot going off. And this, you know, so you hear, you get that kind of wave of late eighties rap. And then we get like the nineties commercial rap, like came through the success of the late eighties rap. So, you know, he'll be like,
01:09:42
Speaker
I wouldn't sell it into vanilla ice or anything like that, but you'll have all of that kind of empty hammer vanilla ice stuff. But then underneath that, you would have like Eric B and McKean appearing on the NBA VHSs I used to get.
01:09:57
Speaker
So I was hearing all this like rap music and I was obsessed with basketball culture. And that was just it for me, you know, up until I kind of got into skating. And then that was again, a slightly similar kind of, yeah, those worlds collided in our like formative years with like Kareem Campbell and, you know, the
01:10:21
Speaker
Yeah, the kind of like more. Yeah. The more like the more flow type of skating that, that eventually just led to, in my opinion, like I'm not a skater. I tried, I sucked at it, but I appreciate it. But like that, that whole thing has like, once again, kind of culminated in a subculture in the 2020s.
01:10:48
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. It's great to see it as well because it was such a rich time. It was such a great time. The only thing that this generation would be lacking is the reference that it was like a wasteland of ideas or
01:11:07
Speaker
your life is that reference, right? I mean, that the early 2000s. Yeah. But like, just going back, like, I know, previously, you asked people, like, memories of like, their first purchase, or, you know, first thing away from their parents, or something they've decided for themselves. And
01:11:30
Speaker
I was just thinking the other day, I was like, I do remember two items I bought or asked to have bought for me because I was too young. And one was like this, like from, so I lived near a town called Watford, which is like, again, another kind of good example of a bit of a shithole, really. But rave culture,
01:11:54
Speaker
What happened like rave culture spawned a lot of these independent clothing shops. And you'd get a lot of like you get a clothing shop that would sell like rave clothes and like rave music like jungle music or hardcore music or whatever. And it was all these it was a whole network around the country of these independent shops.
01:12:16
Speaker
and they might sell Stu C or they might sell like Carhartt and I remember going to one of these and buying this like really loud almost like a Peter Blake esque abstract illustration on like this hoodie and it was so bright but it was like to me it was just like it just set off like my kind of synapses and I was like yeah I need that
01:12:38
Speaker
And then in equal terms, I saw the Reebok Pump Twilight, which was like the neon yellow and black and white Reebok. Yes. With the with the pump. I was like, can I have them? And my mom was like, I wonder what the original what the the original person who made the pump up idea is doing. Well, because there is very radius. Well, I expect that they're not as rich as they ought to be.
01:13:08
Speaker
Well, yeah, anyone that knows like the painting is owned by the company, isn't it? Right, right, right. There is a good, there's like on Instagram, you find a lot of old footwear designers who did all the classic kind of footwear that we kind of love, just kind of like kicking about kind of, most of them are just into like hiking now. Right, yeah.
01:13:33
Speaker
Living these kind of really cool, well, I would deem as being cool lifestyles in America, and they've got this like legacy of creating all this amazing footwear, but they just seemed like really kind of anarchic designers who have not really invested in the American dream and live really kind of. Removes in quite cool, humble lives, really. 100% in support of these guys.
01:13:59
Speaker
Yeah, I love it actually. I noticed as I've kind of got to meet people who are quite high up in the corporate world, especially in the creative corporate world, they seem to be the most kind of anarchistic kind of like, I don't know. Some people might think of them as being hypocritical, but
01:14:22
Speaker
They just, I suppose they just saw whatever talent they had through to the end and then didn't invest in the kind of smoke and mirrors of what it means to be a success in a kind of capitalist. The rat race. Regime. Yeah. So, you know, they kind of won the game and they got their freedom to some degree and now they can kind of tell you how ridiculous it is.
01:14:46
Speaker
as a concept, but you know, it kind of takes success to be able to do that, I guess. Or otherwise, you're just a man screaming on the street. Right. Right. You're the guy. You're the guy holding the end is nice sign on the corner of his intersection. Yeah. Yeah. You put two options if you're that character. Well, so speaking of success, we had
01:15:12
Speaker
I guess an unveiling on this show, an untoking, as I said earlier, we know that you have something you want to get off your chest or off your head. Yeah, well, I don't think it's had the cultural impact that deserved that introduction, but thank you.
01:15:31
Speaker
Well, that's the whole fucking point of the show. Yeah, that's why we got you on. God damn it. Yeah. No. Well, the thing was, I love clothes and I'm really into, like you say, subcultures and music. And my Instagram was just becoming so work orientated. I felt like I couldn't really explore much else and not ruin my kind of branding, for want of a better word.
01:15:58
Speaker
And again, people like people I talk to like Tony and Dick and we just just talk like random crap for hours because we're all self-employed and we're all at home and we're bored trying to do our work.
01:16:17
Speaker
Yeah, so most of my life is kind of coming up with puns and stuff with Tony about anything. Sounds like a fucking dream. Yeah, it's probably the part of my job I enjoy the most, really, is just talking to other kind of self-employed people in their workday. Oh, buddy, I'm going to annoy the shit out of you.
01:16:38
Speaker
Normcore, obviously we all know. And I think like Die Workware coined Nomecore like ages ago, but I never knew that reference. It's only when I started to, after I literally made the site and I started to research the name, did I find that other people had used it. So I wouldn't even necessarily say it's my joke. But you know, we all have that anti kind of hipster thing.
01:17:05
Speaker
where we don't like people wearing beanies up high above their ears. For me, like, I mean, there is that element, but then there's also like, I loved how people wore their beanies up really high in the 90s, you know, get good acrylic hands up. It's that like big, it's that big L beanie, like, hell yeah. So I just kind of clocked that,
01:17:32
Speaker
gnomecore was beginning to become a thing because people were kind of referencing a lot of psychedelic stuff again. So like the mushroom was returning quite a lot to clothing. And, you know, in my time in the 90s, there was a lot of references to drug culture in the rave where
01:17:48
Speaker
And, you know, the psychedelic hands were coming back in like the tie dye. Thanks to Covid, everyone was tie dyeing because they had no reason to leave their house. So let's just tie dye some socks. You know, there was the Mr. Mort with his like dead head. Dead styles. Yes. Oh, yeah. There was all these things kind of coming together, which I do not like the grateful dead, but I do like tie dye. I do like the grateful. Yeah. So there was always some
01:18:18
Speaker
And that's like, right. We're a divided house, as ever, on the Grateful Dead.
01:18:23
Speaker
I think I can gladly make you a list of my favorite Grateful Dead tracks, but I couldn't like do a definitive rundown of... Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm not completely... I'm not a dead head, but I enjoy it. It's the fans that spoil it. I don't want to listen to someone who I love play music for five hours.
01:18:52
Speaker
But you know, it's like, let's do this in two hours maximum. Fair enough. But then I suppose the concept of time kind of when you take that much psychedelic substances, the concept of time kind of evaporates away. So you are left with like a six hour kind of very pro drug use. Right. OK. Extremely pro drug use on this show. We know this. But I just like.
01:19:21
Speaker
I don't know. I mean, I don't want to like, what I don't want to do is go stand somewhere while I'm taking acid.
01:19:30
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, again, there, though, probably wasn't quite a lot to do in kind of like small town America, as the Grateful Dead came up. So, you know, probably why people followed them around the country, kind of in car parks, getting absolutely ruined. Because America wasn't giving them much else, really. So fair enough. But yeah, so
01:19:57
Speaker
with knowncore all i literally did was like i was like right i don't want to um this isn't about me nothing i've posted has ever really been produced by me i do some playlists um i invite people to do playlists and i use other people's um uh footage or not footage or you know um photographs i asked them if i can post it if i can't get hold of them i just post it and wait for someone to be angry at me i try and kind of
01:20:25
Speaker
That's forgiveness, not permission. Yeah, exactly. I just wanted to express a part of fashion or whatever, clothing that I was interested in. It didn't really sit with what I was doing as a professional.
01:20:44
Speaker
But I was interested in it and I just wanted an outlet for it. I wanted to celebrate it. And I loved the kind of the ambient music scene that was kind of came up around the look as well. And I just thought, you know what, I'm just going to set up a page with this. Nice. And it just went crazy.
01:21:02
Speaker
you know, like GQ interviews, like people trying to get like a video out of me. But I think we ended up selling that to like airmail or something like that. So and the whole thing was like, I didn't want it by me. It was nothing really to do with me other than I was just compiling. You got to get you got to get like a hype man, man. You got to get somebody telling you like you are the fucking shit. Like go do whatever you want. Well,
01:21:31
Speaker
That would be nice. The thing is, if you get some success, and that success you've been really interested in getting, and it does come, I know it's a bit of a cliche, but it often feels quite empty, and then you pine for a time where what you were interested in wasn't tied to success, or getting paid, or
01:21:56
Speaker
you know, anything like that. And you kind of yearn for like a simpler time. So for me, like Namecore was a simpler time where I would have just been that person who was just posting up on the internet stuff they loved and enjoyed and not looking to get anything back from it. And then like, there's been times of like, should I commercialize this group? Should I do some merch? And everyone's like, yeah, do merch. And I got really close to do a match. And I've always kind of stood back from it and thought, actually, no, do you know what?
01:22:23
Speaker
like, I can keep, you know, I was like, Oh, this is growing really quickly. And then all of a sudden, I'm like, Oh, I'm back in the game. I'm back in the rat race. I'm trying to grow this group. I'm trying to, you know, looking at monetizing all the things I was like, didn't want to do by starting this group. And now I just treat it very, you know, summer wasn't like a huge time for wearing knitted clothing, unless you want to kind of quickly dehydrate. I will say, I will say,
01:22:53
Speaker
Plenty of people still rock the fucking beanie in the summer here and it drives me absolutely up a wall. Well, I bought a cotton beanie because I wanted to be true to what I've set up.
01:23:07
Speaker
And even if Boston Beanie had me like dead. Yeah. I don't know how they do it. Like I'm a, I'm a hat person. I wear a hat literally every day of my life. But Jesus Christ, it's 95 degrees and you're wearing a fucking beanie. Like.
01:23:25
Speaker
What the fuck are you? Best dedication. Matt, you gotta suffer for fashion. No, no, not in this way. You do that better than most. I don't... Yeah, no. I mean, sweating, sweating for anything bad. I don't suffer for fashion. It's just bad. Like, I'm gonna... I live in fucking Atlanta. It's gonna be 9,000 degrees, and I'm gonna sweat my ass off whether I'm wearing a t-shirt,
01:23:52
Speaker
Uh, or a very light outer layer that keeps you from getting sunburned. So, so you might wear a toke, just throw a cotton toke on. Okay. Fucking putting a beanie on like I'm already hot as shit. That's just going to like, like wearing a cotton hat. Know what I'm getting you for Christmas. Yeah. You've got to be sensible with your fashion choices. And I would say the environment dictates a lot of that. Yeah, totally.
01:24:22
Speaker
Anyway, yeah, so it slept for a few months and I didn't really do much of it. And now, like, Beanie Weather's returned, so I'm just trying to turn my hand back to promoting it. And there's a lot of fashions coming through, which are very much leaning into that kind of look. But, yeah, it just comes to a point. And I thought of just, like, ending the group, maybe just turning it into, like,
01:24:49
Speaker
more of like a forum-based thing. So it wasn't me leading it. I just felt like I just wanted to break it up into let people kind of just have their fun of it without me kind of being like a gatekeeper to it or anything like that. But I'm lazy to do that. So I've got a few more playlists that I just need to put up and put through, which people do for me. And we'll just see how it goes.
01:25:17
Speaker
What it was for me was like an escape. And then that escape became a prison again. I was like, oh, Christ, you just can't escape your destiny. But I really enjoyed it. Like the first kind of few months of it was great. Like it was so kind of novel, but but grounded in a kind of a movement.
01:25:37
Speaker
it was really really fun and it was nice to see that that can happen and the internet is great for that and you know it was so inclusive like it was a movement and it is a movement if it is a movement it's a style that is so inclusive and so
01:25:57
Speaker
Like it was like, you just don't bring anything to other than yourself and how much you want to reference a name. Like it's, it's painfully simple. Um, but you know, you can do it in a kind of a catwalkie fashiony way. You can do it as like a mum in a kind of like crafting way. You know, there's no limit. There's no limit. No limit soldier motherfucker. You know, yes.
01:26:27
Speaker
Exactly. There's no limit. It's going to be a good night. Now that we've got that, I mean, what more is there to say? No more. There is no more, yeah. So it's a pun-based fashion movement largely. I thought I would get like official mailing for that. But I guess I have to weasel my way in.
01:26:55
Speaker
Well, anyone's welcome as long as you adhere to- You guys don't discriminate. There's very little discrimination. I would discriminate against anyone bringing bad vibes. That's about it, really. And I think I've had to block one account.
01:27:11
Speaker
It just doesn't seem to attract any bad vibes. It's just really, really like everyone seems to be interested in Nomecore. It's just a delight to kind of converse with in the DMs and stuff. So yeah, I have a good time of it, but I just get busy. So it gets down in the DMs with the Nomecore. Are you getting like
01:27:34
Speaker
suggested DMs about the nerves? No, I've not reached those. You're not up there yet. No, and I hope not to. The sky's the limit, truly. Oh, yeah, no, I, it's good in a way because you just feel like it's grabbed the imagination of people. And I've met a lot of, again, like musicians are into like the ambient
01:28:00
Speaker
like i think it's called fourth world music but i just call it like ambient and then we call it namecore um say there's like acts like patricia wolf and greenhouse and oh man there's just loads of really good artists and musicians out there who are creating either like
01:28:19
Speaker
clothing or music that all kind of just without any kind of direction, just all kind of lines up so nicely in this kind of scene. And I just try and use it to promote those people. I don't take freebies. If I do a giveaway, it's not like because someone's paid in to do a giveaway or I haven't promoted anything because I get any money from it.
01:28:41
Speaker
It's just literally if I've liked it and I just felt like I wanted to post it and I've pasted it. I suppose it was like in the original spirit of the internet that I tried to maintain that kind of sharing and not monetizing. No, that's interesting. We talk about that here too. We talk about that. Because it's not like that anymore. As you were saying just now, the struggle to
01:29:12
Speaker
to not monetize shit. My sister, Alison, does a ton of work. She does a ton of art outside of her job. And people are always like, well, you could sell this. You could go to this market. You could do this. And she's like, I don't want to do that.
01:29:25
Speaker
I'm doing this for myself. Like I'm doing this because this is like healing to me. I made a conscious decision to try and monetize my drawing because I had no other sustainable skills. And I didn't want to work and read. And yeah, against it. But I'm saying there is a there is a there are cultural forces. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Make it more or less non option. And you have to take into account that like,
01:29:55
Speaker
You know, Wes, with you particularly, the Noam Gore thing is like, it was something fun that you started. It was something that like brought you joy. You don't need to make money off of every single thing that brings you joy. And like, that you, like every outlet and creative thing, like your art pays the bills and that's fucking fantastic.
01:30:20
Speaker
But yeah, like the idea that in the 2023 culture that you have to like only do things that make you a profit is so fucked up.
Side Hustles and the Reality of Success
01:30:32
Speaker
You need a side hustle. You need to grind all the time. Yeah. I do feel sorry for us. I think it's good. I think like I wouldn't have been able to do what I did probably 30 years ago because there was so much kind of gatekeeping. There was so much luck.
01:30:52
Speaker
Whereas now, when Instagram was well behaved and would show people your work, it was really easy to grow. But then Dick disagrees with me. He still thinks it's easy to do it. It's just people go off the board and blame the internet or something like that. But I do think largely the internet, how it is, or that whole idea of
01:31:15
Speaker
having a side or growing something, you know, it's great. But if every moment of your life is, is kind of given to that. And like you're saying from the experience of having success with that, and then realizing it didn't really give me anything other than like a month or two where I didn't have to worry about my bills, there's not really much past that. And you can lose sight of, of doing something because you love it.
01:31:45
Speaker
You can find that again in the commercial world. You can love what you do and be commercial with it, but it takes a lot of lessons to be learned in order to become that person, I think. And ultimately, you know, if you are doing anything for the love of something, I love hobbyists. Like my favorite people are like musicians, but hobbyists as well. Hobbyists are great because they just love something and they don't care if it
01:32:12
Speaker
what it brings to them other than the joy of doing that hobby and you know I'm very much of that spirit I love I love a good hobby and for me like clothes and music and my hobbies you know and now they are my work as well so or police drawing is
Podcasting, Hobbies, and Community Connection
01:32:29
Speaker
so yeah i mean this is our hobby basically like this is not a money-making enterprise i mean yeah it doesn't show in the production valley oh thank thank holy shit that that might be the best compliment that we have had thank you we're it's a running joke that we're just constantly trying to sound better because
01:32:51
Speaker
We have definitely had episodes to sound like absolute dog shit. But this is the whole like I listened to the first episode and I'm like amazed that people listen to pass that. This is the challenge that recording a all remote podcast is. But we love doing it. You know, love talking to people like this one lets us talk to people across the ocean. Right. This has been fucking great today, dude. Thank you for coming on. Yeah, this is amazing.
01:33:21
Speaker
Yeah. No worries, guys. Yeah. I feel the fatigue of like a film that's gone over. It's it's a lot of time. So if you guys are feeling that too. No, I did. We could talk. I don't know if anyone will listen, but we didn't do like we didn't do like more than half of the questions that we
01:33:43
Speaker
But it was fantastic. We have plenty. Yeah, it was amazing. This was like really, really good. I think this you want me, you don't have to call it time now or it's up to you guys.
Self-employment Flexibility & Social Media Presence
01:33:55
Speaker
But I'm happy to go on because I am I'm self employed. So it doesn't really matter what time I wake up in the morning. It just means that we'll have you back on in the not so distant future.
01:34:07
Speaker
And we can talk more about it. Yeah, we could have we could have we could have Tony Dick West. Oh, that would be fucking fantastic. Yeah, I mean, those guys, like I've met a lot of people in fashion and clothing and whatever men's wear without like getting up their rear ends too much.
01:34:32
Speaker
like both really considerate guys, both very helpful guys for no reward to themselves at all. No kind of like you'll meet people and you think you're friends with them in the industry. And like, everyone's got their own trajectory. But like some people just hang around and you end up with those people that just kind of love clothes for the sake of clothes.
01:34:57
Speaker
And that's what those guys are. That's why they're so interesting to listen to when they talk about clothes because they love it on that level.
01:35:04
Speaker
Yeah, this is, that's the whole, anyway, those are the people we want to talk to. Yeah. And, you know, and it's nice because I think, like you're saying, I listen to your podcast and you find those people and you get them on and then I listened to an hour and a half of their experience of clothes and it's completely different than mine, but it all kind of all goes to create the, the culture of it. So good work you're doing. Thank you. All about the fucking culture, baby.
01:35:34
Speaker
Yeah, it is for the culture. It's for the culture. Yeah. Wes, we always like to give a guest a chance to shout out what they want to. So have at it. Well, I've only got an Instagram and most people know it.
01:35:53
Speaker
But you should still say it. I would promote my stories over my Instagram feed. I really put a lot of time into my stories. You'll see photos of the Great British countryside. You'll hear some very progressive breakcore music if I've decided to post that.
01:36:14
Speaker
skateboarding, snowboarding, and a little bit of kind of menswear, all in my stories. It's underscore Wes, underscore art. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, and then we'll post that. Of course, of course.
01:36:34
Speaker
Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah. And thanks for having me on, guys. Of course. And I will continue to talk to you in our DMs, but keep it very unsorted. It goes down in the DM. It goes down in the DM. It goes down in the DM.