VitaminTHICK

I’ve been on this wild video tip as of recent; no exaggeration. Over the last two weeks I have been making an effort to get through at least three every morning upon entering the studio- if only to enjoy with my V8 Fusion and my sugar-coated grapefruit (get on my level: Hale Groves ships direct to the crib.)

Like many I was blown away by the stop motion mastery of Coraline last year, notably the most elaborate stop motion animation ever made.  I’m sure a number of you remember the “Coraline” Dunk that Nike dropped some time back too…

But the other night, while marking up Summer samples with tack tape (yes, sampling takes forever) I caught this bit on the tube about the making of the movie. It’s titled, “It’s Alive”. Really interesting.

Around 1am I finished up, and crashed. The following morning I headed into studio for my morning video showcase to kick my day off, and sheer coincidence: I came across another absolute knock-out stop motion video by a group Nobody Beats The Drum. Have you heard of them? Me neither.

Peep this music video:

So dope! I was so enchanted *slash* enthralled by the experience I trashed the other two videos I had planned to watch that morning along with my grapefruit, and went for their second piece, one documenting the making of the vid:

I’ve just got this feeling that this isn’t the last we’ve heard of NBTD. I mean, if their breaks/hiphop/electric inspired, sweat out all of your bodily liquids- type jams aren’t enough to jettesen them into mainstream blog circulation, at the very least, “Grindin’” is a banger of a stop motion piece.

Maybe we’ll see them in the FADER with Animal Collective and freak, sensational vids like “Pon De Floor” video:

Major Lazer “Pon De Floor” from Eric Wareheim on Vimeo.

Til’ next time,

In tough economic times like these, the phrases “do you” and “hold your own” have taken on quite the financial significance.  For too many Americans, the opportunity to contribute to great causes monetarily is limited because they are forced to fend for themselves just to get by.  The silver lining to the cloud, however, is that people are finding other ways to make a difference, through avenues such as volunteering and personal time commitments.  One of those individuals is vitaminTHICK’s good buddy Ramon Diaz.

This past summer I met Ramon through our mutual friend Bobbito Garcia.  A fellow sneakerhead (yes those are OG Xs from 95) and writer for playground basketball’s unofficial voice Bounce Magazine Online and Cleveland based urban culture blog eighty81.com, Ramon is also a junior at Columbia University in NYC.  He is currently taking the year off to pursue several different humanitarian endeavors.

This March, Ramon is hoping to fly down to Argentina to teach english to underprivledged children as part of the Villa Soldatti Community Project.  Being bilingual himself, Ramon hopes to provide kids with the chance to improve their english skills that they would otherwise be hardpressed to receive.  This mission is unaffiliated with his school; it is simply Ramon trying to pull everything together to make it happen.

To fund the transportation and expenses for this project, Ramon has been raising money through various sources, and he is well on his way to reach his target amount that will allow him to get down to Buenos Aires.  He is not quite there yet though… but this is seriously a situation in which every last bit counts.  To learn more about Ramon’s Road to Argentina and ways you can contribute, click HERE.

We wish you the best Ramon!! One Love!

Capsule has traditionally been held in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in this eccentric, old, cathedral-style building on Norfolk street.  The trade show is organized by New York’s creative agency BPMW, who puts on 4 (CAPSULE) shows annually in the U.S and in Paris. The show itself was conceived as a forum for contemporary, independent directional fashion and super premium street-wear labels to gather and show off their collections to the fashion world (but mostly to buyers at Saks 5th, Bloomies, Nordstroms, Barneys…etc.)

We’ve been a couple times now as attendees to walk the show, chop it up with designers and sneak some peaks at what the larger brands have been cooking up.

This year was much larger than in previous years and exhibitors had to be split between two locations; the original spot at 172 Norfolk St and a second location at 295 Lafayette St.  If you missed the Men’s show on the 18th and 19th of this past month, you’ll have to catch the catch the next showing in Vegas on the 16th and 17th of this month, or wait til next Fall.

Pictures by: Freshness

Keepin’ you up on things.

Til’ next time,