Affordable chic clothes for men

I have always been jealous of the fact that women don't really have to spend a whole lot of money to look good. While I don't envy that whole leg-shaving, bra-buying, eyebrow plucking and other scheduled maintence AT ALL I do kind of resent the fact that a man has to shell out serious duckets to look polished and put together--a nice sport coat is going to set you back at least $150, $200 bucks, easy--a woman can look hot with little more that toilet paper and tape. (Not kidding.)

Sure, there's Target for a suit, but frankly the clothes aren't constructed and cut as well for guys as they are for women, and they often lack pizazz. Of course there's always H&M, but everyone shops there and anyway, I'd personally rather not look like I'm in Kid Cudi's alternative-rap army. (We're going to keep Topman our little secret for now.)

So I'm really hyped about this new line, Company of We. Everything here is stylish, relatively inexpensive and just cutting edge enough without threatening to make you look like a mallrat trendazoid who woke up this morning and piled on on every possible cliched trendy piece -- keffiyeh! skinny jean! wayfarer! suspender! ironic tee! fedora! -- you could possibly maneuver in and out of your car with successfully.  

Some of their pieces are truly sickening, including these harem-cut pants arriving at my door any day now, a steal at $72.00

 

and this superbly cut navy blazer, which has a modern, slim and elegant cut to it that I'm digging. Not cheap, but still affordable at $198.00

 and these sick pleated shorts, which remind me of what Philip Lim has been doing on the ladies side for a minute. (You know, of course, that men should avoid pleated trousers at all costs, so these are for the truly adventurous dude.) Very reasonably priced at $78.00

Of course, this aesthetic won't appeal to every man--these pieces are subdued, a bit forward but still quiet and refined. The line is not trendy at all, which is exactly why we love it. Great clothes for the male tastemaker, not follower, on the cheap. We likey!

Get into Company of We here...

 

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U2 is now officially on the road, and we are giddy

(pic from core77, which I urge you to visit to see more shots of this truly amazing set.)

 

Some details of U2's 360 Tour, which kicked off in Barcelona last night, and hits C'Ville October 1st:

-  The band opened the show with Breathe, a track from their latest No 1 album No Line On The Horizon and went on to dedicate Angel Of Harlem - originally inspired by Billie Holiday - to the late Michael Jackson.

- The 360° Tour features a round stage positioned on the stadium floor with the band surrounded by their audience, the natural progression of their previous tours. By elevating the sound and lighting equipment, the walls that traditionally obscure performers from their audience are removed. This has also allowed greater capacity and a lower general ticket price.

- Advances in technology and digital communication have allowed long time collaborator Willie Williams to create an overhead expandable cylindrical screen made up of 500,000 pixels.

 - Constructed of stainless steel and aircraft aluminum, the display is made of 888 LED screens, with 500,000 pixels spanning across them, providing concertgoers with clear and visually stunning images. It has a screen area of 3,800 square feet, and weighs approximately 120,000 pounds.

- the set is " a fusion of architecture, stage scenery and extreme technology" stretching upwards to form a 7-story cone around the band, displaying footage directed by the Irish artist Catherine Owens.

 

You know this show is going to be sickening!  

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Don't stop til you get enough

Hours after Michael Jackson was dead, I thought to myself, 'I really need to go out to a club and dance to 'Wanna Be Starting Something' 'Off the Wall,' and shoot, 'Can You Feel It?' right now.

And yet, to my mild surprise, I haven't heard much about any tribute parties. I do know some of the areas best DJs, including Joe Fu and Jeyone have done tributes during sets while out on the town; Jeyone has an MJ mix floating about, as does DJ Bee, a mix you can download here; Big Dose of 105.3 told me he did a five-hour MJ tribute set on air. (Sidebar: I told him I didn't believe him. Five hours is a long time, I said, and there is no possible way you can do a FIVE HOUR set of Michael Jackson music just playing hits, without repeating the same song twice, and without simply playing forgettable album cuts. He said he could, and did. What do you think? ) 

Anyway, that mixing and what not is well and good, but I've been looking for the Michael theme party. I need to see his face on a flyer, which should also suggest or even mandate showing up in some sort of Michael-realted attire. I need to hear nothing but Michael and Michael-sampled songs (slip in 'It Ain't Hard to Tell' why dontcha?) all night, maybe even a sincere moment of silence.

Of course, these kinds of events sprung up almost overnight in hubs like D.C. and New York, where Beverly Bond (mmmmm, Beverly Bond) was one of few female DJs to do a 'Ladies Love Michael Jackson' event: free admission with Michael attire.

Why am I telling you all this? It's not simply to bemoan a lack of creative thinking among Tidewater denizens (ahem), but to tell you that thankfully, some creative people have their thinking caps on. Tonight The Fuzz Band and DJ Bee are doing a tribute to MJ at Time Lounge. This should be good not only cause last time this DJ and band collaborated, I heard the results were great.

And, I mean, it's the music of Michael Jackson, which is kind of like making scrambled eggs: really hard to mess up.

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What a tribute to a rich and proud heritage

 

The devil is alive and busy y'all.

I've just now stop trembling from bearing witness to the you-know-what awards Sunday.  (I stil can't even bring myself to utter its name into the universe; unlike you tragic pop culture victims, I refuse to give it power and dominion over me.)

Boy oh boy. Your cousins and 'nem really put on a quite a show huh? I mean, there was even a jug of Kool-Aid on stage, courtesy of Ving Rhames-- a true class act, that one. All that was missing was a dominoes game and a fist-fight over the last piece of chicken and my soul would be worth exactly a penny with a hole in it right now.

As my friend Kaveen Scott said on Facebook, that thing is "the swine flu of awards ceremonies" and I co-sign 1,000 percent.

Guns is Michael Jackson!

And so what comfort doth the universe offer me like a balm in Gilead? The lineup for the Umoja Festival, announced yesterday. I'm happy to learn that Jagged Edge--great act--will be there, Sept. 19, along with Heads of State, which is basically everybody from New Edition OTHER than Bell Biv Devoe. And that of course includes Bobby Brown. Lord have mercy! If God, as it's often been said, has a sense of humor, then this is his version of the Kings of Comedy.

Indeed, when I think about living artists who embody the grace and strength of Black History, one of the first people that pops to mind is Bobby Brown. I'm serious. His contributions have been so varied and everlasting: the Gumby; the show stopping tactic of humping a floor; the unparalleled ability to turn a grand performer like Whitney Houston into the neighborhood crackhead searching the sidewalk for smokeable Newport butts in a few short years. Now that's power.

You know I kid, I kid. Booking Bobby is actually smart: everybody loves a comeback, and you know as well as I that there's a certain schadenfreude-based curiosity in seeing someone like Bobbaaay back on stage. We want to know if he's still got it, if he'll pass out, if he'll stop and do a line right there on stage.

There's only one way to find out huh?

Say it with me: Guns is Michael Jackson!

 

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Hampton Jazz Fest rolling right along

Had the pleasure of hitting up the Hampton Jazz Fest last night--the landmark event that's in its 42nd year.

Soul singer Ledisi opened; you might have heard her song "Alright" and, if that's your only introduction to her, might so may be inclined to believe she's a smooth jazz singer with not much range. Wrong! She tore the house down with some powerful wails near the end of her set, and her band was stellar.

After her performance, went to chat with her a bit; she's lovely. She talked a lot about believing in self and going for dreams...then Jonathan Butler entered the room, and they laughed and joked and may in fact have initiated a concert together in South Africa right then. It's always great watching musicians interact with one another; I swear they are attuned to a different energy plane than the rest of us.

As I was leaving, Ledisi said, 'If you get another one of those Michael Jackson buttons, hook a sister up!" I was wearing my vintage MJ pin, which featured the icon in all his Jerhi Curled glory in about, oh, 1984. I took it off and gave it to her. When would I see her again to have the opportunity?

Back at the show subsequent acts, including, Jazz Attack, George Benson and living legend Babyface were fantastic too, setting the tone for a great event. Looking forward to Michael McDonald tonight and Patti Labelle Sunday...

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Farewell

Like you, I was stunned yesterday. Just, wow.

To be fair, I hadn't been the hugest MJ fan in recent years. I loved "Butterflies" and "Rock My  World" from "Invincible" but frankly had become less concerned about what he was up to musically. I hadn't bought a ticket to the shows in London. Buzz that he was recording with Teddy Riley and Akon and will.i.am elicited little more than casual interest. Nostalgia aside, in his later years, Mike's music had become less innovative and his dancing stiff and compromised.

But, what you can't deny is that Michael is, hands down, the most influential musician of the 20th Century. The man personified superstardom and global media domination in a way that only Madonna has and will for a long, long time. No pop artist today doesn't borrow something from Michael.

Watching his videos last night I remembered being frozen as a kid when they came on. He had a way of penetrating your psyche with his presence and visual presentation. They are still some of the most compelling pieces of commerical pop art we have yet to see.

Michael, do remember, was the first black artist MTV dared to play on TV. Watching this glamorous, free and sensual creature move and dress like he did had unspeakable impact on nearly everyone, but tremendously so, I think, for black boys. He represented a paradigm shift in cultural thinking; he was another crack in racial and cultural barriers. He was the possibility that you could be anything: he was fantasy, magic, charisma, sex, commerce and bling.

I saw him perform several times. My father worked for Pepsi in the 80s; I saw the "Victory" tour in D.C. in 1984. I saw him during the "Bad" era. I had a cutout life-sized poster of him in my bedroom; I would recreate his performances by flicking my light on and off and shooting talcum powder into the air. I had the glove, the shoes, the button...I once tried to give myself a Jheri Curl before school with Vaseline. (worst.spanking.ever)

He was the man.

Weird, yes. Possibly criminal, no doubt. 

But still a hero, a legend and someone who impacted the worls changed music forever. And for that, I take my hat off and pay my respect.

 

 

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My faith in humanity is now officially shattered

 

On the real, this has been a rough week a brother's Zen.

With people dead in an awful train wreck,  another political revealed as a lying cad and Iran and North Korea tripping, I feel like all we need now is an outbreak of pigeon hepatitis or something to truly making living on Earth right now more trouble than its worth.

Which is exactly how I feel right now watching this video of Hurricane Chris perform "Halle Berry (She's Fine) at the LOUISIANA LEGISLATURE. 

As a matter of full disclosure, I kind of like "Halle Berry." It is a song so unbelievably stupid, so unrepentantly ignorant and low-class that you have to love it, though of course with a dose of high irony. I mean, you have to love that a dude who looks like the "BEFORE" on an evolutionary chart could crawl out from under a ditch and, in his best pidgin English, sputter out, "She fine, Halle Beraaaay, Halle Beraaaay."

I mean, it's so dumb even Halle herself danced to it, rather than sue. I guess she figured, Why bother? This dude probably couldn't read the court docket or open the door to the courthouse unassisted-- let him get his Newport and hot wing money! It's a recession!

But what has slayed me like the last dragon today is how the legislature in Louisiana decided to honor this guy for his musical achievement. You seriously have to watch this, if only so your soul can be as corrupted as mine is now. It is unreal. Watch how this starts off like any boring C-Span video, and then how "Ms. Dartman" introduces Chris--who I must say looks great in his suit, no shade--and commends him, basically, for finishing high school and doing something other than going to jail.

(Wow. Way to set that bar of achievement real high, lady. It's like Chris Rock says in this (expletive heavy) monologue: you supposed to finish high school and stay out of jail!!!)

I died a little bit watching this, seriously. I might never be the same again.

Don't they have anything else better to do?

I need to lie down...

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Tidewater's summer hip-hop show lineup is now complete

A few months back --that's years in fabulous age, boo, FYI -- we lamented that the summer concert schedule was woefully lacking in the hip-hop department. Despite awesome acts in other genres--Def Leppard, Kenny Chesney, Santigigold and dude, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan (still can't get over that) --there was a minute there where the most promising and comprehensive rap experience was limited to Snoop Dogg at the NorVa.

No more. You know who's coming to the nTelos Pavilion July 10th?

Nas! And he's here with Kelis Jr. Gong. I see you nTelos! Welcome to Jamrock indeed.

By now you know that Lil Wayne (this guy is still touring?), Drake and Soulja Boy are doing the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater August 2; you know the rap metrosexuals will be serving you expensive sneaker and skinny pant fierceness (sigh) at the 88 Keys, Kid Cudi and Asher Roth show at the NorVa the very next day.

(Don't forget the Wayfarers, boys! Sure it'll be dark in the venue and you're likely to walk into a pole but some risks come with the territory of being an uber-trendy mannequin, no?)

The lesson? Be patient. It works itself out, no?

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American Music Festival lineup announced...

Thoughts?

 

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Cheap Jimmy Choos, just in time for Christmas

(Jimmy Choos for H&M!)

Ladies, if you have prayed to the Fashion Gods (and they do exist -- how else do you explain me getting $350 Paul Smith driving shoes this weekend for $70, huh?!) that you might one day be able to afford a Jimmy Choo heel or handbag, the universe and Santa have conspired to make your Park Avenue fantasies come true. Yes, the brand with the shoes that retail anywhere from $500 to thousands of dollars, is collaborating with H&M for a line of handbags, shoes, accessories and clothing.

I know, I know. Breathe.

The collection comes out Nov. 14th, which means some lucky ladies will be finding some Jimmy Choo for H&M kicks and bags under the tree.

Insane! Genius!

No word on whether or not this will be hitting our area but if not, a TRUE fashionista (or amazing husband/boyfriend/pimp) would definitely plan for this opportunity by traveling to D.C. or New York on Friday to do battle over these pieces come Saturday morning.

Like, training now with protein shakes, pushups and hand-eye coordination exercises.

Fashion Olympics drills. Believe it.

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