JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE & BARKING IRONS

BARKING IRONS is very proud to announce our latest collaboration with Nashville guitar-picking man, Justin Townes Earle. Kin to the legendary Steve Earle, Justin will make believers out of every audience he encounters with his exceptionally crafted early country-blues sound. JTE is extremely well-versed in American music and folklore; he is a student of American roots and it shows brilliantly in his ability to craft original songs that sound like they were penned in 1919.

Upon our first meeting, Barking Irons was smitten with this strange character and his funny-sounding guitar as we chewed the fat over Civil War stories and the tales of American infamy.
It wasn't long before we decided that our respective minds would collaborate on something bound-to-be-great.

Barking Irons created this super-soft, vintage quality tee for JTE's Nov-Dec tour with Dan Auerbach. It is titled, "Holdin' Smoke" which came from old bluesman slang for someone whose stylings just cannot be touched by another. Only 200 were produced and that will be it for this particular style so get them while you can: available on JTE's road show.

"JTE Holdin' Smoke" on Dusty Black, by Barking Irons (2009)

MB is proud to be reporting on this masterful collaboration between two kindred spirits with penchants for sartorial excellence. JTE and Barking Irons have just nicked the surface with this one, stay tuned for more cool exciting things happening on this front.

Check out some JTE tunes

HISTORY "CAPTURED"

Last night MB witnessed an enthusiastic screening of the new documentary film, "Captured" in an event space on the Bowery. The film chronicles the life work of LES artist and consummate man-of-many-hats, Clayton Patterson, who tirelessly etched scenes of pre-gentrified Lower-East-Side life into a vast compendium of photos, films, and art for over 30 years. Like a modern day Herodotus, Patterson labored, often risking life and limb, so that us future generations and revelers of the L.E.S. could witness the blood that was spilled on this ground before our time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxUZSIf5yjQ


Clayton is victorious as a Lower East Side hero and the film does a good job of picking through his vast collection of divisive if not outright disturbing video footage, but the PBR guzzling audience seemed to walk away unaffected by the woes of lower-east-siders of the last generation. At one point rioters raid the lobby of a upscale apartment building on Tompkins square -a mere neanderthal to today's Avalon or Ludlow monstrosities - in a gesture of angst toward upscale gentrification, but how does one expect the current inhabitants to react to this? As you might expect, the tragedy felt by the LES dwellers of the 70's & 80's was lost on more than a few.

The precious footage that Clayton has rescued from anonymity however, is CAPTURED's greatest gift. The LES as ghetto; a lawless, shameless, bubbling miasma of crime, art, newness, fear, and infamy. MB has often wondered what New York might have looked like during the 1863 Draft Riots and the tapes of the Tompkins Square Riot might be just about as clear a window as we can get into what happens when peace in our city takes a holiday.

KINGS OF LEON TEES BY BARKING IRONS!

The brothers Followill, proud sons of Tennessee, may be hitting their stride in 2009 with a breakneck touring schedule, a string of huge singles, and more fan power than ever before.

On Thursday, the Kings of Leon will take on a sold out MSG -their biggest US show to date and the buzz is palpable here in NYC.

In July, the KOL dropped in on the Barking Irons Bowery digs (as reported by MB) to discuss some new art work that Barking Irons had made expressly for the Kings of Leon. After the guys happily approved the work, Barking Irons set out to produce a limited edition run of three ultra-soft, beautifully made t-shirts to be sold on tour with the band. It is MB's distinct pleasure to showcase them here now:

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<<< align="left"> YOUNG LOVERS - ONLY BY THE NIGHT

Each tee was produced on a super soft washed cotton picked by Barking Irons and sported an artful inside neck label for ultimate comfort and an added graphic punch. The KOL by Barking Irons tees are available for $34 at the Kings of Leon webstore and on tour only.

The whole band was super thrilled with the final outcome. Some joker even caught Nathan wearing TRICERATOPS on his day off (alterations his):

In addition to wearing their own gear, every now and then the Followill boys will end up on stage wearing one of the original Barking Irons pieces that they picked up on their visit to the Bowery.

We wish these boys the absolute best. Believe it or not, the KOL were an integral part of the founding of Barking Irons when back in 2003 their album "Youth & Young Manhood" fueled many a late night of screen-printing in the Bowery basements. Funny that...

Stay tuned for more KOL / Barking Irons collaborations to come.

KINGS OF LEON @ BARKING IRONS

Preeminent rock band Kings of Leon dropped in on the Barking Irons Bowery digs last week to pick up some of our latest spring wares and to discuss a potential partnership with the Bowery Boys -more details to come.

As the band rifled through racks of t-shirts, woven shirts, accessories and more they found special interest in the various Civil War relics that populate the Barking Irons showroom. Caleb & Nathan Followill walked away with fistfulls of t-shirts and other Bowery paraphernalia.

Many beers were consumed in a relatively short period of time which eventually led to some unsteady picture taking (above). Occasionally, the band would incidentally drop a hint pertaining to their new album due out in October.

This is the second time that the Kings of Leon have come hunting for those rare Barking Irons goods -not currently available in Tennessee- however, this time was a much more spirited encounter as the band had a few days to kill before jetting off to Europe.

The Kings of Leon will be appearing at the All Points West Festival this August at Liberty State Park, NJ along with Radiohead and many others. The KOL continue to be a leading force in homegrown gritty rock'n'roll and they are proud friends of the Barking Irons gang. Stay tuned for more great things...

BARKING IRONS BLIND TIGER SAMPLE SALE

Last friday, the good old boys at Barking Irons kicked off an entire weekend of amazing deals & steals with an evening of jazz-age pomp at their hauntingly beautiful loft space at 161 Bowery. The news was spread by Thrillist, Urban Daddy, Time Out NY, Daily Candy, and a host of independent bloggers (thanks). Apple-tinged Dark & Stormy cocktails flowed throughout the affair while old time Dixieland jazz quartet brought down the house.

Shoppers were escorted to the 4th floor in a rickety old manuel elevator by a short, disheveled-looking operator called "Mr. Moy" who speaks nary a word of english, but is quite wise beyond his years.

Once safely landed on the fourth floor shoppers were drawn into the jumpy rhythms and flighty clarinet of the jazz players and a lively bunch of lower-east-siders picking through all manner of fine sportswear including copious t-shirt styles, classic hoodies & flannels, and dashing Fireman Pea coats, all laid out like a feast. The smell of rum & ginger hung in the air and the evening rollicked on in the tempo and grandeur of a speakeasy of the roaring twenties.




But there may be no need to speak-easy about this affair. With the resounding success of this sample sale, Barking Irons is considering keeping the retail set-up throughout the holiday season so folks from California to New York Island know exactly which pit on the Bowery to stumble into when in need of some fine threads & a grand ole'time!

visit http://www.barkingirons.com/

THE BOWERY NOUVEAU

First off, kudos to the Bowery Hotel and its creators Sean MacPherson & Eric Goode for creating a truly exquisite vision of the Bowery 'gone Continental. We have always believed the Bowery to be a distinct calling card of New York City appropriate for out-of-towners or visitors from abroad. Much like New York, it is an entity onto itself having a colored history that is commonly set apart from the development of the rest of the city. It has always been boldy unashamed of what it is, for better or for worse.

During the 19th century the Bowery was the shadowy low-brow theatre district; birthplace of the American minstrel shows (the first form of American popular music); tap-dancing, the New York dialect, and later epicenter to the vaudeville theatre era. The Bowery was a constant thoroughfare of the carnivalesque; it may have appeared dark & dismal but it was a place that was alive with deeply American inventions and cultural fermentation.


The creators of the Bowery Hotel have taken this "aesthetic idea" of the Bowery as dark & cozy, mysterious, cave-like, ragged and well-worn, and married it to a vision of almost European grandeur. Granted, the interior of the hotel is probably far more elegant than anything that ever lived on the Bowery, but we can appreciate a tasteful appropriation of style when we see it. All the tapestries are tattered like ancient Medieval art, the furniture shows bruises and homely dings & tears in non-obstrusive places, in one hallway there is a glass showcase of Barnum-esque oddities, and surrounding the lobby is a smoky, painted panorama of a river-scape opposing the dusty streets of the old Bowery. Everywhere this dude is speckled:





Bowery B'hoyo

He is their logo & leprechaun and he is friend to Barking Irons. We know the Bowery is in transition and that's all well and good, but first, a tip of our hat to the Bowery Hotel for honoring a legacy in pursuit of new riches.

In contrast to this tasteful homage to the history that is the Bowery Hotel there is the newly constructed New Museum on Bowery, which, along with the new Whole Foods ushers in a new era of Bowery development that breaks unabashedly with the shadowy past of our humble thoroughfare and its lowly fore-bearers.



The "New Museum" on Bowery

Now, I am not one of those who is staunchly opposed to the rising tide of development or one to lament the passing of old, decrepit buildings -this destruction/creation process is part of the life blood of New York, if it did not exist it would truly be something to lament- but these fancy pants architects need to call a spade a spade. This is an excerpt from a recent interview:

Question: How does your design address the context of the Bowery—the thoroughfare itself, the beginning of Prince Street at the site, the surrounding of smallish buildings of different styles and conditions?

Answer: We wanted to be as consistent as possible with the scale of the existing surroundings. However, our building has to accommodate a much bigger program than its neighbors do. By shifting the different levels of the structure in relation to one another, we are also diminishing the bulk and establishing a more effective, dynamic relationship with the buildings in the area. On the other hand, because this area is in transition, we believe the New Museum building should have a strong identity of its own in order to survive, especially on a street as tough as the Bowery.

If this isn't blowing theoretical smoke up our asses, I don't know what is. Your building is by no stretch of the imagination at harmony or in context with its surroundings, it sticks out like a sore thumb and that's exactly what you wanted it to do. And what does "diminishing the bulk" even supposed to mean?? Does it mean diminishing the crappiness?? If so, well done. But we're not so bitter, we know that its par for the course and thats how come your pants got so fancy, so welcome to the Bowery... I guess.

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

Running a business from the Bowery is somewhat of a task in itself it seems. Its not the occasional drooling Meth addict outside our door from the clinic a few blocks away. I actually like the reality of their company. Or the Bowery Mission and its perpetual crowd of loiterers outside its doors. Its the Bowery itself, with its many mysteries and omnimous presence that I think creates friction with the world around it. For instance, there is one phenomenon that I cannot rightly get passed in our days at the Barking Irons HQ. Quite often we get the innocent question about our address, “Bowery what?”. It baffles people that a street doesn’t have a surname. “Bowery Street?” they say? “No, just BOWERY” we counter. Time and time again it is a problem. We’ve even had couriers pause shipment because of this. Of course none of these people are from New York. However it brings up the question of why the Bowery is so mysterious to people. Better yet, what is the Bowery? and what does it mean today?

You may say that its the lack of the surname that excludes the Bowery from other streets. Then again, Broadway doesn’t have a surname. Or is it because it has the word “Way” in it that it may be excused from such trials? It is however true that the Bowery had a surname prior to 1807, where it was then called a Road and before that a Lane. But to know why Bowery is called simply Bowery is to know how this road to perdition became such a mark on Manhattan in the first place.

Bowery and Grand St. with the old 'L' tracks casting shadows for theives to hide.

Bowery or Bouwerij in the old Dutch spelling was, the little country road to Peter Stuyvesant’s farm established in the 17th century. Bouwerij literally meant farm or farmland. Peter Stuyvesant was the patriarch of New York. A peg legged dutchman who single handedly purified young New York from the sins of an unruly colony of farmers and feuding dutch traders.

Later on, in the 19th century, Bowery became the poor man’s Broadway. It was filled with Museums, Theaters and Flop Houses of the day. Song writer Stephen Foster died on the Bowery, George Washington drank on the Bowery and legend has it there has never been any Churches built on the Bowery. That fact can be claimed by no other main artery of Manhattan. Perhaps that is a clue to the Bowery's true identity. For Bowery was never a safe road (until Whole Foods opened).

The Bowery’s fall from grace began almost at the same time that it gained notoriety. Covered by a giant ‘L’ in the mid 19th century (which explains why the street is so wide today), it was cast in a dark shadow. This, no doubt, aided its mystique and its violence. Many gangs roamed the Bowery. From the Atlantic Guard to the Slaughterhousers to the Bowery B’hoys, each new decade brought more infamy. Then during 70’s and 80’s the Bowery was born again. It was the famed birthplace of punk, some might say. A baptism occurred, as the Ramones took the stage for the first time in 1974. Located at 315 Bowery, CBGB’s became a mecca for the new punk scene. But as worshipped as CBGB's was, it was not the church of the Bowery.

The secret church on the Bowery exists in the most obvious of places it turns out. Getting back to the origin of the Bowery I found that it doesnt necessarily have a church on it, but it actually leads to a church. The Second Dutch Reformed Church existed where St. Marks Church exists today. Right on the old Stuyvesant farm and rightfully at the top of the Bowery. Why is this so significant to New Yorkers? Well as a church it may or may not be, but as the final resting place of Peter Stuyvesant, it should be the holiest of grounds.

The MULBERRY BEND welcomes you.

Here's a little story:

In the old-timey days of New York's Lower-East Side 'down near what is now Federal Plaza, Mulberry Street used to bend leading you directly into the depths of the Five Points. Well-to-do city folk considered "the bend" to be the cut off, or point of no return as it were since beyond that elbow in the street a man might expect to lose much more than a pitiful rookerful of change.

Photographer/police blotter, Jacob Riis became obessesed with the terror and inhumanity that swarmed below the Mulberry Bend. The Five Points was the intersection of five streets (Mulberry, Worth, Little Water, Baxter, Bayard) and was said to be the deadliest intersection in the world. Riis, an immigrant and well on his way to becoming self-made, championed to cause of erradicating the Mulberry Bend, and he did!

Until now.

Even still however, the Five Points was one of the most fertile cultural places in New York -an offshoot of the Bowery- it was the neighborhood that introduced tap-dancing, and the rough & tumble New Yorker, its own particular New York dialect, and a original and unpretentious style of dress. Writers such as Horatio Alger, Stephen Crane, Edgar Allen Poe, and Charles Dickens were all fascinated with the life that teemed in the points.

The slums of the Five Points and the Bend evenutally fell in the 1890s and in their place sprang the grass, trees, swings, and benches of Columbus Park. If you go there now you may see the park and the various Historical Society signs which to little justice to the pages of dark history that were written on those corners and their surroundings, now you will see a string of Chinese funeral homes huddled in the armpits of towering Federal buildings. U.S. Marshalls in their cheap suits buldging with some sort of firearm, can be seen every which way and that-

The Mulberry Bend is being reawakened. Not to impinge upon a slum-free zone, or to threaten, or terrorize, but to bring voices down into the mouths of a culture resting beneath the surface, of a forgotten code.

We will bring you news and culture, art and history, thoughts and fashion. We wont be preening the Bowery in case that be your worry, we want it stir it back to life.

Help our Cause.