With the amount of attention I devote to what I listen to, you wouldn't be surprised to know that what I wear is the subject of a considerably lesser degree of thought. In fact until recently, for a few years, I had two identical sets of grey sweatshirts and blue jeans between which I alternated (until it drove me fucking insane, grin) However, in spite of spending less time devoted to it, I am fairly particular about what I wear, and of course the kind of decisions we make about (for instance) our footwear are (arguably) essentially motivated by the same concerns which affect our "consumer choices" when it comes to music.
That might sound both superficial AND narcissistic, well hear me out! The day before yesterday in Glasgow I bought a pair of Converse All Stars, and it struck me that this was quite a significant purchase for me. While the archetypal shoe threshold many people cross is the one in which they abandon trainers (your youth) and don black shoes (get a job), I'm sure that many Woebot readers' lives are measured by a multiplicity of "shoe-shifts." What prompted me to buy the Converse was an old Jesus and The Mary Chain publicity shot which recently caught my eye. Yeah, I thought they looked pretty ace on the Reid Bros, and whilst you could argue about the merits of their music, they had their look down pat. I guess with the decontextualisation of Converse All Star from its skater/west-coast-scruff source into the neo-goth/indie arena they played a pretty nifty style card. Somehow buying the shoes in Glasgow, home of the JAMC, and dance-music death-zone seemed exceptionally apt.
Walking up Buchanan Street my mind underwent that wonderfully psychedelic remapping it does when you get new shoes; grey matter in the saddle. My fading smelly Nike in the bright clean shoe-shop bag. Nike represent dance music in excellcis don't they!?! That pair, which I've worn solidly for a year and a half, were actually an Old Skool revival design. That's pretty much how I've felt about thrusting myself back into Grime over the past couple of years, because between 1996 and 2002 I abandoned trainers. I was picking up the tunes (interest in Garage dieing out sometime in 2002), but didn't really engage with the same level of intensity. It's quite ironic to think that when I went down to Eskimo Dance I was obliged to wear the smartest black shoes I own, a pair I bought for my Dad's funeral.....
My epiphanous burn-out point with dance music came in 1996. I guess, on reflection the heat went out of Jungle, the last Rave music underground, at roughly the same time. This particular timeline posits UK Garage as already a caesura of a kind, a withdrawal into the pre-existing club circuit. Though we talk about Grime as not being dance music, Garage was already not Rave. At this, my aphelion of immersion and insanity I was wearing Nike Air's.
I've always thought the symbolism attached to the Nike Air range is one of pure dis-substantiation. You're walking on air for christ sakes! When the starry dynamo was working at full-tilt and I was being crowded in on by sublime coincidence this suddenly felt of intimate import. I had been hanging out with professed Space-Time Magician Ken Downie of The Black Dog, some of whose insights finally pulled the carpet out from under my feet and sent me spiralling loose into a void of zero reference. One of the first things I did when struggling to grip onto reality was ditch the Nike Air's. I remember the name of the next shoes I wore was incredibly significant to me, a bland black rubber and natural leather brand called "Rockport", with all it's attendant poetic associations of doors in the earth plugged with granite batholiths. From thence I had a brief dalliance with Timbaland boots, trading up to a fragile detente with "street". It chilled me to the bone at the time that Nike's next range turned out to be modelled on Goat's hooves! The Lord of the Air! Devilish stuff!
The Converse feel really nice, you'd be delighted to know. Maybe they signal some kind of shift in my listening patterns/tribal alignment?
Posted by Woebot at April 10, 2004 04:33 PMyou're going all indie rock emo on us?
well at least in America that would be the significance, with maybe a twist of grunge in there. Unless they are blue low tops with blue laces in which case you are a gangsta from LA...
coincidentally Psychocandy has been massive rotation in this here iTunes for the past week...
Posted by: Abe at April 10, 2004 05:57 PMtried a couple fab new pairs of boots (I'm usually fashion-challenged) on recently - Ecco's and Mephisto's. first thought and comment was: "ah, so this is why people rob banks"
Posted by: Paul at April 10, 2004 07:16 PMyou reminded me that i'm due for a good ol fashioned shoe fix myself! must go shopping a.s.a.p. ! :)
Posted by: mishie at April 10, 2004 07:20 PMget them in 'office', matt?
they got a nice new range of chucks in, in fact. brown, army green, red-stripe-through-black, grey with yellow threads, etc ; )
Posted by: cozen at April 10, 2004 08:10 PMdunno why I'm winking, I love that shit.
Posted by: cozen at April 10, 2004 08:12 PM>emo
abe! lol! I think that the JAMC Converse thread might be a diff one (dear lord I hope so) also I picture Wiley in them...even if he wears dunlop or some such shite.
>red-stripe-through-black
cozen! bullseye! they're woebot-endorsed.....
>
Posted by: Matt Woebot at April 10, 2004 08:42 PMnext thing you know we'll be able to hold our own in a trainer chat with ol' Skinner hisself
Posted by: Paul at April 10, 2004 10:39 PMI recently switched from a 10 yr long Adidas-only trainer ethos to Nike. But that was only cos I couldn't find any Adidas in my size, now I'm living outside London.
Posted by: don at April 11, 2004 12:42 AMdis-substantiation
batholiths
caesura
aphelion
??!!
matt- when he's not yelling bo at eski dance hes at night school learning new words
BO! BO!
shi...ugar! I bought just the same type last week, matt! for travelling to atp. where thr were the most converse per square mile ever in the world.
Posted by: cozen at April 11, 2004 10:12 AMi regularly dissed people for wearing cons for many years. indie herd schmucks, etc., so forth. i strickly rocked the cheap black shoes look. particularly proud of wearing ripples (even the removalists commented on how out-of-time/out-of-touch i was.) i've never been a shoe fetishist like many of my mates.
but what the fuck happened a few weeks ago but i was clothes shopping (my personal addiction right now, being a clothes horse n'all [groan]) and i was struck by a pair of cons. chocolate brown i do believe. "mmmmm, they're lovely" i thought. then went and flailed myself for several hours for such an impure thought.
so, do we get a photo of the matt-bot in con style?
>to Cozen
spooky dook! such taste and acumen fella!
>to Jon
hilarious stuff jon! never pictured you in black shooz, possibly cowboy boots! ha! the thing about london, and maybe this is just moi loife, but there is no indie scene to speak of anymore. maybe thats what youre experiencing in oz too!
the thing about the black shoe thing, and ive been there myself(!) is that (speaking personally) the non-engagement with kulcha that they imply is, well its kind of alienating... go on dale buy a pair!!!
------
shoes are funny, cos they represent a kind of underlying musico/taste decision thats almost more fundamental and permanent than the kind of tunes ones picking up. all of which completely manages to avoid the subject of the semiotic significance of the DM Boot, surely to Indie what Nike is/was to Dance! i wonder if Prof. Reynolds and Dr. Stubbs were wearing DM Boots at the Melody Maker?!?
Posted by: Matt Woebot at April 11, 2004 07:03 PMi used to wear chucks out of a non-leather and cheap kind of reasoning. But I stopped wwearing them out of a 'they last 3 months and my feet get wet' reasoning. Plus i stipped being vegan and decided that constantly being on the edge of having a cold wasn't really worth wearing non-leather shoes.
Now I have five different pairs of addidas, and i love em! But the point about musical taste is worth noting, because i started wearing 'trainers' when i stopped listening to hc punk exclusively and started listening to more hip hop and drum and bass. So maybe that's why I really gave up the addidas...
Posted by: nick at April 11, 2004 11:21 PMthe thing about the black shoe syndrome is/was (i do imagine it'll be changing soon), it was very much about buying cheap shoes so that i can re-direct maximum income to the music budget. sad, isn't it? i guess i'm more of an upper-body guy (heh), more of a shirt fetishist (ie. if you wear a check shirt, there's no hope for you.) so the black shoe was more about a certain POVERTY... "b-b-but i live off a student grant! i can't be buying birkenstocks every other month..."
cowboy boots? well i AM wearing black desert boots at the moment. i'm looking into steel caps, becuz it's always good for shoes to have a bit of HEFT to 'em.
those brown cons are tempting me though...
jw dale in cowboy boots is something I would pay good money to see! Perhaps next visit to Sydney( after I hide the check shirts)?
Posted by: jbs at April 13, 2004 05:31 AMjust back from stateside where the converse is back bigtime...even in training camp (rza commended trainer shop see new york times 4/4/04)...conversely interesting to note you taking fashion tips from teenage french girls...they are everywhere in paris too...is this an indication of franco-yank detente??
Posted by: Rupert Halliwell at April 13, 2004 07:37 PMwhat else could you afford after blowing all that $ staying at Mel Cheren's B n B when you were in NY?
Posted by: Peter M at April 14, 2004 04:40 AM