Mid-week Swag Adventures and Other Tales of Glory

Ok, so the title of this post might make you think that me and the boys in Ann Arbor were out here killing swag dragons (known to some people as swagons) this week.  We weren't, they've been extinct in Ann Arbor for a long time as brave swag knights have been valiantly slaying them forever, but we were doing the next best thing.  We hit Motivation, where swagons would be if they still existed, and copped some swag. Some of it was freeeeeee! So we'll start there, cus free swag is good swag.

Skullcandy representatives were in town to pass out free headphones and ear buds and one of the guys there actually worked at Supra too so just about everybody there got to grab a free t shirt as well.  If you've ever got a hold of any skullcandies you know how nice their sound is and I was also runnin through headphones like Donkey Kong in a jungle of banana trees, so in the words of Roscoe Dash, I upgraded to ham from bologna (sorry, I had to do that just once, but I promise to never paraphrase Roscoe again).  The tee wasn't as badly needed as the ear buds (although laundry is getting low around here, anybody wanna help out with that? No? Oh well, it was worth a shot) but I'll take free Supra stuff anytime.  Anyway, the free stuff tour is headed out further in the midwest, so if you live in Michigan you missed it but otherwise you can peep this to see when they'll be in your area. Tell them I sent you, it won't get you anything other than strange looks, but it'll still be a good call on your part.  Also, head back to skullcandy at some point in the near future and find their blog if you can (I can't, so hit me up if you find it) you may see some familiar faces in their pics and vids, ignore my beard though.

Anyway, on to the non-free swag...

Yea, that's the motivation wolverine again, this time on a crew-neck (normally I wouldn't buy a sweater at the end of March but this year winter is interminable and I've already discussed my laundry situation).  I don't think I still have to discuss why the wolverine is swag again, but a wolverine rockin' a swag hat and a swag crew-neck, while posing on the front of a crew-neck, means that the swag level of this sweater is over 9000.  To celebrate my new swag acquisition I'm gonna put you up on some more swag, call it a celebratory swag lesson.

The first thing we'll examine is another motivation piece in the classic University of Michigan (woot woot!) color-way.

   Yea that's the wolverine again, sorry to be so redundant but it really is swag on another level.  Ignore the writing around the wolverine on there, normally I'm against defacing swag, but if I get this that's getting blacked out for sure.  But overall the pennant with the motivation cursive script is a really good look.  Another great aspect of the shirt I want to highlight right quick is the arm patch. You can sort of see it on the left arm in this picture but take a closer look:

That's a sort of motivation seal with the ornate M (SWAG) and the classic motivation catch phrase, "A dollar and a dream" (DOUBLE SWAG).  That's the seal of a true swag knight right there so take notes, or a snapshot if you want.

The second recommendation is of the Mishka variety

You can get it here.  You may be giving me that skeptical look again for the pinkness, (please stop, I really don't like that look) but this shirt is on its a game as far as swag.  The Mishka bear is one of my favorite brand characters anyway but this artistic combo of the Mishka bear's normally 2d head with the new body is just a solid concept overall.  Again we have the swag animals motif, and this swag animal just so happens to be wearing a crown, so double the awesomeness.  As an added bonus, they have this shirt as a tee, in case you aren't living in a perpetually frozen world, and they have it in different color-ways if you really aren't comfortable with the neon pink.

The third crew-neck is by booger kids, yea, just ignore the name and embrace the swag:

  Again we've got a swag animal gettin down on this sweater and the duck has a hat! (If you couldn't already tell I'm particularly big on animals with hats).  The duck is also drinking out of cup(s?). So yea, swag.  But really I don't have to go into the finer points of this sweaters swag because this is a bit of a cop out recommendation, what I'm really advocating is that you head over to karmaloop and check out their stuff because they have an excellent selection.  That's right swag padawan, I'm giving you the keys to the swagmobile for a lil minute and, using the swag guidelines, I trust you'll make the right choice.

As an extra little bit of swag advice on crew-necks, I would warn you to get measurements of the sweaters as they can fit a little tight.  The best thing to do is try them on, but if you order online make sure you know how big you are in comparison with the sweater and don't trust the sizes like S,M,L, etc as these sweaters can be a bit small if you order it in the same size you wear t shirts in.

watup doe

This post isn't really about anything, but then again not much is poppin off in Ann Arbor tonight and I'm super duper tired (so obviously I'm blogging instead of sleeping right?).  So we'll discuss a lot of nothing, first off a heads up on some new swagggg. That's right, I said swagggg with, count 'em, four g's. This is because there's multiple items of high swag to put out there, so obviously more g's are needed.

Tokidoki just dropped a ton of hats. Tokidoki's stuff is always cartoonie (or is that spelled cartoony? I really have no idea) and obviously this stuff is no different.  They've also been putting out a lot of Marvel stuff (can't DC get some love tho?) and that stuff has been largely successful as far as sales, you can find a ton of hats at lids, and you can find a ton of tees at tokidoki's website.  Unfortunately, the hats pictured above aren't at either of those sites, although they may be shortly, but if you're looking to cop them now head here.  I don't wanna ruin your hat purchasing, but just so you know, I'm on that boxer swag all day, everyday. 

The next little update I have for you is Big Sean related.  He was in Ann arbor last night for a show (I missed it for a party which turned out to be reasonably lame, the life of a swag king is hard sometimes) but that isn't the extent of the update.  The rest of the update is that the video for his collab with Chris Brown just dropped.

"one time for the westside!"

I know you're over here like "Word? Chris Brown again, really?" but don't worry about it, you're not supposed to focus on Chris, you're supposed to listen to Sean. And, it's a reasonably dope song with a pretty good storyline for the video as well.

Also, as a side note, the visuals for Big Sean's "Hometown" dropped a while ago. It's not recent but I thought I'd post it as it made me pretty nostalgic for the Motor City.

A note for sensitive ears: you probably don't want to hear either of these songs, although the first is "edited" the subject matter may not be appropriate for small children or geriatrics.

still back/ swag lesson/ swag achievement!!!

It's been kind of a busy week in the world of swag and it's only Wednesday, if it doesn't feel like Wednesday to you don't worry, it feels like Monday of last week to me so you're still good. Getting right to it, I've grabbed a new hat and a new t this week and we are gonna show case them in another swag lesson combo post because of the way in which the world of swag is exploding.

Starting with the t-shirt, you've got the design right above this sentence, and it's called the "don't care bears".  I didn't post a picture of the whole shirt cus I don't actually have it yet and cus the model wearing it on the web site might scare you (it's at threadless tees type in "don't care bears" and you'll see what I mean, but don't say I didn't warn you).  As you can see, the design clearly fits the "swag animals doing swag things rule", and it gets extra points for irony.  Anyone who was ever abused with the carebears as a child (thank you gracious sister for your help in this area) probably said the phrase "I don't care" a number of times to counter their mantra of  "WE CARE, WE CARE... WE CARE".  The children that grew up with this abuse should love this shirt as I do, and if you are one of those children I give you permission to go get this shirt, even if it bites my swag a lil bit.  For more recommendations of similar swag, threadless is actually a great resource; it's not street wear but if you sift through the hipster shirts you'll get to the gold, probably at a good price too.  This means you should avoid shirts that say "geek" and have words making ironic historical jokes; instead try to stick with the awesome animals rule, it has never failed me. Some threadless suggestions:

"monkey business"

"da noize"

"electric jellyfish"

I've purposely shielded you from the models on the website but if you do go there remember not to judge them; they don't mean anything by their weirdness, they just don't know any better. Also, shout out to dbthecoolkid for puttin me up on threadless.

On to our next matter of business: the hat. Remember that Michigan hat I told you about in that previous swag lesson? The one in which I said that if you didn't get it soon, I'd have it first? Well, unless you got it before 5 o'clock today, I beat you to it.  If you forgot what the hat looks like it's here:

We've already been over the specs so I don't have to do that again and I've already made my recommendations... so yeah, not much to say here, other than that the white part of the hat feels really cool (don't hate, I don't usually feel up hats, this one is just very touchable).  Also I would love to say that this is my last snapback purchase, especially as it is not a new era, but I cannot make this promise. I've heard it from reputable sources that motivation will be dropping some new snap backs with the raging Wolverine in a new design that looks too good to pass up. So I'll try to refrain from snap backs, but in the mean time I'll defend myself with examples of swag luminaries wearing Michigan/wolverine snap backs:

1. Big Sean: the snap back king from the D is probably the most credible source out there for snapback swag, peep his choice of hat in this vid

that's right wolverines (woot woot!)

2. Chris Brown: I know what you're thinking "first he's defending snapbacks, now he's using Chris Brown to justify his cause tisk, tisk" *quizzical look you give to crazy people*... Well first of all, don't give me that look, and second of all, in this video Chris rocks the throwback Petway bball jersey to go along with a smooth hat, I'm contractually obligated to admire him for that.  Also, the song isn't terrible and his collab with big sean was pretty hot too, he's getting better (or maybe that's just the side of me that likes his hat talking, we'll never know)

    3. Bun B: That's right, I redeemed myself from the Chris Brown fiasco with a pic of Bun B himself rockin a wolverine featured snapback that I recommended earlier.  It's almost as if he read my mind or something

 but really tho, there's actually a ton of big names who have this hat including Bun, Wiz Khalifa, and Mac Miller (photo evidence can be found at the motivation blog).

But all this talk of wolverines and rappers has brought me to the fast rising wolverine rapper P.L. He's one of Ann Arbor's finest and reps the whole state of Michigan quite well with his unique flow. He's already dropped a ton of singles from his upcoming album and here's a free style on "Bill Gates" that will only serve to raise his profile (he's also done a "black and yellow" remix called "blue and yellow" so you know he's got my respect) check out his block M tattoo as well:

Anyway, that's all from me, peace swag world, happy swag trails.

I'M BACK!!!!

So I've been slacking with the blog, my apologies.  A lot has happened since my last post.  First and foremost, Michigan (woot woot!) won some more basketball games!!! The mighty Wolverines beat Illinois in the Big Ten tournament, and then smacked Tennessee in the NCAA tournament, and then beat Duke on top of that!!!!! Ok, we didn't actually beat Duke, but it was close and their mascot is the devil, so I'm claiming the moral victory here.

Zack Novak being a boss. No, this picture doesn't have anything to do with anything, I just like it

          
But anyway, that's probably not what you came here for so we'll talk about some developments in the world of swag.  The first of which is that Big Shan dropped a new mix tape.  I know what you're thinking - "Sir Swag Don't Stop, don't you mean ya boy from the D, Big Sean, just dropped a new mix tape?"- and your confusion would be understandable.  But no, avid reader, I meant Big Shan, another pretty dope rapper from the D.  Don't worry, Big Shan isn't tryna jack Big Sean's swag; they're cool with each other and have worked and performed together.  The mix tape is called "The Fresh Prince of Detroit" and has some great tracks, including my favorite "I love U", to go along with it's great name (although c'mon Shan, everyone knows that I'm the real Fresh Prince of Detroit).  The cover for the mix tape is pretty swag, especially the maize high top, and you can download it here.

Sir Shanimal himself             

The next bit of swag news is that motivation had their spring drop which included 3 new snap backs and a ton of new crew neck sweaters and hoodies.  Now normally I'm not a big snap back fan, so I was hoping for a new motivation fitted or something like that, but the snap back that they put out was just too good to pass up and, if I had time, would certainly be the feature item in the next swag lesson.

  As you can see, the hat is pure swag (there's also two other color-ways of the hat if you are a hater and don't like maize and blue for some unknown, but clearly sinister, reason).  I shouldn't have to explain why this hat is swag, but I will anyway.  The two tone hat is a pretty swag thing all on its lonesome, but the fact that it has the most awesome animal on the face of the planet (the wolverine of course) only helps this hat.  We've already discussed what an awesome animal can do for your swag, and now we see the classic University of Michigan Wolverine with a motivation twist on his little sailor hat thingy (which also makes this hat cool, awesome animal +awesome hat on animal= extra awesome hat).  So yeah, even though this is a snap back, this hat is swag. In fact, the whole snap back genre is kinda (not really but sorta) growin on me.  I don't have any real reasons for this other than that the University of Michigan seems to get a lot of love in the snap back game.  So in an ode to snap back swag I'll make some recommendations of the University of Michigan variety:

This one's a mitchell and ness that's over at motivation for only 25 bucks!!! I've been told that there are about 20 left so there's no rush to grab this, but if you don't get there fast I'll probably have it before you, so get a move on!

Yea so my photo shop skills suck, but imagine you only see the maize and blue hat with the block M in the picture, cus that's all that's important here anyway. This is a vintage hat at burn rubber, that has the burn rubber logo on the side for extra swag, I'm not sure if they still have it in store as I haven't been there in months, but if you're in Royal Oak you should check for me.  They also had a reasonably swag lions hat that released with these other vintage snap backs but that may also be long gone.

  Again, I have no idea if these are in stores still, and you should feel free to look at me with a heavy dose of skepticism now that I've posted two Tisa snap backs from Revive in Birmingham.  I'm not a big fan of revive (although they can come up clutch with their custom fitteds) and I usually can't stand Tisa, but even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in a while.  Here Tisa and Revive (two blind squirrels) have combined to find two acorns!!! So even though these hats will be hideously overpriced, the Michigan logo makes them worth it... Also it would be really cool if a hat company would make a fitted with a blind squirrel finding an acorn, cus that would also apply to the "awesome animal doing something that said animal could not do under normal, non-hatworthy circumstances" rule.

Remember how I didn't know if those last two hats were in stock or not? Well I know that this one is no longer in stock over at Motivation but I decided to post it anyway as it is the original hat that piqued my snapback interest.  This hat was a special anniversary hat done by Motivation in collaboration with Mishka (hence the Motivation Wolverine on the left opposite the Mishka Death Adder on the right) and only came out in limited quantities.  The design was pretty popular and this hat has actually been sold out for a while but you may be able to find one on the interwebs somehow (if you could find two and would give me the second one we could definitely be bffs). 

Anyway, this has been a Michigan update/ new music gift/ swag lesson; you just got three posts for the price of one, congrats!!!  

   

WOOT WOOT !!!!

This post may seem out of character from my other posts but I just had to share some of my joy with you about The University of Michigan's victory today in Basketball!!!!!! When I say share my joy with you, I don't mean to do so in words, because words can't describe this kind of joy (and the words I might try to use would probably be considered trash talk) so I'll do this with a combo of pictures and videos, hopefully they can convey some of my Euphoria but they will probably fall miserably short.

3 stars of the game:

1.  Tim Hardaway Jr.

2. Darius Morris

3.  Evan Smotrycz

One more thing: IT'S GREAT TO BE A MICHIGAN WOLVERINE!!!!!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!

Swag Lessons

Today we'll be discussing swag lessons for anyone who is swag challenged or just wants to get up on some new swag.  Admittedly, I don't run the swag school in Ann Arbor, that's run by a friend of mine, but I can offer a few lessons about what swag looks like, especially in today's topic of hats.  We'll actually be discussing my most recent hat purchase and how it offers examples of swagdom in hatwear.

 That's the hat, or if you prefer a crispier, less on Carter's head look, check below

Anyway, as you can see we have a LRG fitted here in gray and black with a giraffe skateboarding on it.  What you can't see in this post are two things I really like about the hat: 1. the texture of the material (I have no idea what the material is called but I wish I did because it feels amazing, like a combo of suede and felt) and 2. That inside the hat there's a feature I've never seen before on a fitted, a little pocket, which is awesome but not really practical.
Anyways, this hat can show us several things about swag fitteds. The first is that the symbol is important, as is the brand.  This symbol is cool for a number or reasons: giraffes are cool, skateboarding is cool, giraffes do not normally skateboard and therefore a giraffe skateboarding is extra cool.  The brand, in this case LRG, is also reasonably cool to go along with that and is much cooler than your average skateboard related brand (I'm looking at you DC).  The second thing this hat reflects is the importance of a good color scheme, gray and black isn't the greatest (in fact a hater once hated on this color combo, but like David Cone (a Michigan QB woot woot!) once said, "if the haters aren't hatin on you you're doin something wrong"), but it's better than say brown and orange.

So where does that leave us? Well when establishing your own swag collection you don't want to bite my swag and buy my same hat, so you have to take the advice this hat offers (swag animal, swag brand, swag color scheme) and apply it to your own purchases.  Here are some recommendations: you could find some way to get to Brazil and cop the hats pictured above (if you do this and bring me one back I will love you forever and ever). They are swag and exclusives, so they may be impossible to get and I'm not sure they're out yet.  Or you could hit up the LRG section of a number of sites, including karmaloop and hatclub to purchase hats such as the ones pictured below.

Until next time, this has been a swag lesson

IMU

The last place I wanted to talk about in my first day of blogging isn't technically a place.  This is because the IMU clothing line really only has a website, not a physical store. Never the less, their product is swag and can be found here.  The Store really only sells IMU stuff, although they do have a pretty interesting collab with NYC good wood, but the IMU stuff more than stands on its own.

 The website tells the story of David Merritt, a former U of M basketball player (Woot Woot!!! sorry I had to do it) and captain of an NCAA tournament team, who wanted to create a clothing line that made a difference.  To reach that goal David put together a company that makes various shirts with an inspiring or loving message (IMU stands for I miss you) and also calls people together to do work in their communities.  IMU doesn't just put out comfortable and stylish clothing, it also puts together many community service events and just cool stuff for people to do (I, for one, got to go see a free screening of "The Social Network" that IMU put together).  On top of all the other great stuff about IMU, David Merritt is a really friendly and personable guy, so if you're ever in Ann Arbor during an IMU even be sure to go have a word with him and see what I'm talking about.

Burn Rubber

Another place I wanted to talk about early on was Burn Rubber, out in Royal Oak, where the swag hath come home.  Again they run a pretty good blog ( in the blog roll) and they have Cliff Skighwalker running a blog that also does a pretty good job of putting out all things Burn Rubber related (also in the blog roll).  Burn Rubber is a lot more shoe oriented than Motivation, as the name might suggest, but that doesn't mean that they don't know a thing or two about snap backs, fitteds and tees.  They sell a smaller variety of brands than Motivation but their in-house stuff is top notch and their shoes are pretty ballin too.  The store is run by a rapper from Pontiac named Ro Spit (who is a big U of M fan Woot Woot!) and who puts out a pretty good set of tracks to go along with a great clothing line. You shouldn't hesitate to stop by their web site or, if you live in the Metro-Detroit area, stop by the store in person, you might meet Ro himself or just some cool kids who happen to stop in there from time to time (the cool kids know who they are).

Motivation

One of the first places I wanted to talk about on here is Motivation, a boutique in Ann Arbor on the beautiful campus of the University of Michigan(!!!).  Motivation is a pretty awesome shop, with an equally awesome blog (check the blog roll), that sells high end street wear and has a ton of brands.  Very rarely do I have to look anywhere other than motivation to find the best apparel, and when I do it's usually because they don't sell the in-house apparel of other brands (Burn Rubber, Upper Playground, etc).

Anyway, Motivation is co-owned by Dj Mick Boogie and Motivation Mike.  Mike is a U of M grad (Woot Woot!!!) and owned a mix tape web site before opening Motivation.  Because of the stores connection to such a prominent dj (view his website here) Motivation puts out some pretty solid mix tapes and often does in store meet and greet events with prominent artists (Mac Miller, Wix Khalifa, etc).  A long with their music oriented stuff, they have some sick products as part of an in-house brand that is sold world wide (Ann Arbor, Paris, anywhere you want to go) that includes various new era fitted hats, some snap backs, and some really nice tees (one of which is pictured) and sweatshirts.  So, you should check out their blog and their store site and if you're ever in Ann Arbor you should definitely come visit me and then go see them too.

Welcome

Oh hai there, welcome to swag tales, where the swag doesn't stop. The blog is boring now but I'm working to rectify that situation.