As of this article’s writing, both Hanukkah and Christmas are a little over a week away. Since most of the people in my life still haven’t done their holiday shopping for the year, below are 10 last-minute gift ideas:
Soju is a distilled Korean alcohol that is — by volume — the most consumed spirit in the world. TOKKI is the first soju to be made in the U.S., as produced in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Unlike many of its competitors, TOKKI does not add artificial ingredients or flavors. Beyond Astor Wines & Spirits, TOKKI can be found in dozens of New York City restaurants including Cafe Boulud, Hangawi, Barn Joo, and Thursday Kitchen.
Co-founded by Brandy Hoffman and Patricia Santos, Volition is a beauty company known for its innovative anti-aging products. This set is a 3-in-1 system meant for application twice daily, as massaged into the face and neck areas. It contains 60 mL of a Dual Cream Base and 15 mL of both its Day Active and Night Active products. Volition also offers free shipping and free returns on purchases.
Based in Austria, Swarovski is known all around the world for its crystals. Swarovski’s Crystaldust Bangle Doubleis a new signature design, as crafted using the brand’s Crystal Rock technique. It is lavishly-encrusted with silver-toned crystals, which makes it sparkle, and available in eight different colors. Swarovski fans with an interest in chic tech-wear ought to look into the Cardoon Activity Tracker, as part of the Activity Tracking Jewelry Collection.
Not all Christmas sweaters must be ugly, and this officially-licensed Wu-Tang Clan sweater proves that. UglyChristmasSweaters.com lets shoppers add LED lights to any sweater — Wu-Tang threads included — for $9.95. Those seeking something a little more “yuge” have some Donald Trump sweater options from the site.
TOMS first achieved notoriety for its “one for one” policies, in which the company would give away a pair of shoes to a person in need for each pair purchased. Within the past few years, TOMS has become known for much more than its slipper-esque canvas shoes, including sunglasses, bags, backpacks, boots and dress shoes. Its Del Rey sneakers are not just in line with the company’s “one for one” policy, but also manage to be both comfortable and fashionable. The Del Rey can be purchased in Black Teal Tribal, Grey Plaid and Black Dotted Wool. TOMS purists interested in the Grey Plaid version of the Del Rey may want to check out the Red Black Plaid edition of the classic slip-ons.
Shu Uemura is a top Tokyo-based beauty company. Takashi Murakami is one of Japan’s top contemporary artists. Put them together and you have the Shu Uemura x Murakami Limited Edition Holiday Collection. Only available while supplies last, this collection maintains both the quality that Shu Uemura is known for and the colorful artwork of Murakami. Beauty both inside and outside of the packaging.
Neubau Eyewear is a popular Vienna-based brand known for its chic yet ergonomic pairs of glasses. Its Heinz line is unisex and light, made of lightweight polymer. While the Black Coal Matte caught my eye, Heinz is also available in five other colors. On the Neubau website, shoppers can easily sort models by color, material and gender; 13 colors, two materials and two genders lead to plenty of options.
Tipsy Elves is one of the top sites to purchase ugly Christmas sweaters from, but the San Diego-based e-tailer offers something for everyone. Halloween-ready jumpsuits, Thanksgiving-themed t-shirts, St. Patrick’s Day gear, Hawaiian shirts, patriotic clothing, officially-licensed college sweaters, fanny packs, neck warmers…fun attire and then some. I personally had a hard time deciding between the the American flag sweater and a Hanukkah sweater. Free shipping for orders over $75.
MOO is helping to make business cards cool again, although it also sells postcards, holiday cards, letterhead and stickers. The brand recently partnered with Baron Von Fancy to create limited-edition business cards. But for those who don’t need business cards, MOO has great a hardcover notebook to offer. Sized at 5.12″ x 8.15″, the notebook comes in dark grey with 160 lined pages and 16 unlined pages. Sturdy, professional and fashionable all at once.
Based in the Port Morris section of the South Bronx, The Bronx Brewery has becoming one of New York’s leading craft breweries in only five years. The Bronx Brewery’s No Name IPA is a special collaboration brew only available at Whole Foods Market locations in the Northeast region. The beer is currently nameless and is looking for a name — submissions can be submitted at www.namethisbeerwfm.com. In turn, you have not only given a loved one the gift of great beer, but also the chance to be the person that gives that great beer a proper name.
Kyle O’Quin (Left), John Gourley (Center), Zachary Carothers (Right) of Portugal. The Man. Photo: Courtesy of the Honda Civic Tour
Last month marked the end of the 2014 Honda Civic Tour featuring artists Portugal. The Man and Grouplove. The tour showcased the talents of the band members both on and off the stage, with a collaboration of artwork between Portugal. The Man frontman, John Gourley, and Grouplove’s Hannah Hooper.
Gourley in particular has been known for sharing his creative abilities throughout the band’s career leading up to their seventh studio album, Evil Friends. After their most recent appearance in Central Park on September 16th, we spoke to Mr. Gourley on the phone to try and get a look inside his mind and see where their adventures will take them next.
DOWNTOWN: I was at your concert in Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield, which I know was the last show of the Honda Civic Tour. What have you guys been up to since the tour ended?
John Gourley: Man, I guess we pretty much flew straight from New York to Alaska and we played two shows up there. That’s obviously where we’re from originally, so we hung out with family and did that whole thing. We had our buddy Maclay Heriot with us taking photos, and he came up to Alaska so we took him up on some mountains for pictures.
DOWNTOWN: Nice! Yeah I follow you guys on Instagram, your photos are great.
JG: Yeah we can get pretty wild…So we’re in the studio with Mike D right now working on some new stuff, which is a New York connection for ya!
DOWNTOWN: That’s pretty cool—should be an interesting collaboration. I know you guys are heading to Australia soon. When will your next world tour be? Or is it too far in advance to say?
JG: I guess it might be too far in advance. I mean we just started working on the new album, so it’s just all over the place. We have recording times scheduled in all these different places and we’re working on a bunch of different things, so it’s probably gonna be when we finish the new album.
DOWNTOWN:That makes sense. Well I’m excited to see you guys on a full tour again. Next time you’re in New York City, I’ll definitely be there.
JG: Awesome! Hopefully Mike will be with us too. It’s pretty crazy recording with a Beastie Boy.
DOWNTOWN: I know Danger Mouse produced Evil Friends. Are you still collaborating with him?
JG: No, but we’re still super psyched. We’ll probably do some stuff together—it just comes down to schedules, you know? That’s the way stuff always works, especially with Brian [touring with] Broken Bells and producing all the stuff he’s been producing right now. I think he’s playing out here tonight or tomorrow night actually.
DOWNTOWN: Oh cool. So your music is often referred to as Progressive Rock, but you guys really do have a unique sound. Who are some of your biggest inspirations that you always try to hold true to in your music?
JG: It’s kind of weird, it’s not the most obvious stuff in our music. So we do directly reference often enough David Bowie, The Beatles…I mean they’re just so easy. Wu-Tang was like the reason we started this band in the first place. They were a huge inspiration for the band…[and] the Beastie Boys. That’s probably the biggest stuff that inspires our music.
DOWNTOWN: Awesome, definitely a wide range of influences there. So I’ve seen you twice in New York now: once at Terminal 5 and once in Central Park. They both seemed like pretty special shows for you guys. Is there anything you’ve noticed that’s different when you come to New York?
JG: Yeah, New York has always been pretty good to us. Actually I take that back, as soon as New York started being good to us, it’s been really amazing. We came there a few times in the very beginning, and we didn’t have the easiest introduction to the city. It didn’t break right away, but after our second album we played one of our first sold out shows in New York City, and it’s just an amazing place. I mean, it’s the greatest city in the world. Paris has something different to offer than New York, and L.A. has something different as well, but New York is just absolutely unique.
DOWNTOWN:So in relation to your concerts, do you prefer playing music festivals or do you prefer the concert/arena setting better?
JG: Well they’re two different things for sure. The festivals are all about the party. They’ve changed a little bit even in the short time that we’ve been playing festivals just because there are so many. It’s become more about the party scene so you have to kind of plan your set around that, and it’s not necessarily straying from what we normally do. We always throw in covers and we always bridge gaps between songs, but festivals are about writing the perfect set list. At your own shows you can play whatever you want. We’re never trying to snatch fans or grab fans at festivals necessarily—we’re just trying to show everyone a good time and keep things moving for the other artists.
DOWNTOWN: At your recent concerts, you’ve been playing a lot of your current music, which most performers do obviously, but do you ever play any of your older stuff?
JG: Yeah we do. I mean you have to stay up on our Twitter and Instagram and those sorts of things, but we do shows like sideshows and after parties. We play music as much as we can, that’s what we love to do. Those shows are where we play a lot of our older music. The sideshows and the after parties and the smaller things we play are so much fun. We’re having the most fun the band has ever had. We’re actually having trouble in the studio right now because of it…apparently at one point I climbed on Kyle’s keyboard and it all fell apart. But anyway, yeah the sideshows are definitely where we play most of our older stuff. We do play some of it at our shows but we’re in between records right now, so we’re working on our next set list and trying to figure out how to incorporate new stuff. And to be honest, Brian Burton obviously did a pretty amazing job producing Evil Friends, so that album just ended up having a flow to it that we hadn’t had in the past due to his attention to detail.
DOWNTOWN:So you guys have been doing this for a while now. I know you’ve had members of the band leave and new members join, but as a whole, how would you say this entire journey has shaped your music style?
JG: Oh I mean, in every way. Us leaving Alaska in the first place and moving to Portland, Oregon—that was the first step. We knew what we wanted to do, and we literally left Alaska to go on tour. That was how we left. We just knew we had to chase it. But it was going to Portland and seeing five dollar shows and three dollar shows and free shows sometimes and watching bands we loved play for 20 people. And for us it never was that dream of being rock stars or super stars. We just saw people playing for fans and doing what they loved, and we were like, “S*** man, if we can do this for three dollar tickets and play for 20 people, let’s do it.” So we kinda started out like that. All of those experiences…like touring in a mini-van. We bought a mini-van and put all our gear in it, and we bought a rice cooker and a five-pound bag of rice, and that’s all we ate. We would eat rice and vegetables and every now and then we could get something on a dollar menu, and that was a treat for us. But it was amazing though. That’s why we do what we do.
DOWNTOWN: So then when was your transition from that point in your life to super stardom? You know, when was your big break?
JG: [Laughs] Oh right, right when did we become the “super stars” we now are. It was playing Bonnaroo in 2009. We went into the studio to record Satanic Satanist and I was really trying to write a record like the music we used to listen to as family growing up. We listened to oldies stations and it would be The Beatles and Motown and all these three-minute songs. We weren’t trying to write pop songs but I wanted to see if we could write a song in three minutes because it’s so difficult to pick that handful of parts. It’s so much harder than writing experimental music because you’re really constrained, and I think it helped us. We wrote that whole album just trying to write these three-minute songs, and it obviously connected with people. We played Bonnaroo for the first time. It was our first open air festival, and it was massive. And I think because we were all so nervous, we ended up playing a really tight set for the first time in the history of the band. It was so loose and we loved that.
DOWNTOWN: Was that the biggest crowd you’d ever performed in front of?
JG: At the time, it was huge. That was the biggest thing we had ever done by far and probably even so for the next two years before we did our next Bonnaroo. It was huge, and there were a lot of things that worked in our favor that night. Delta Spirit missed their flight and they were playing the slot right before us, so we got this hour and a half long set change, which you never get at a festival. The sound was perfect. It started raining right before we played, and we were playing in a tent so everyone filled into the tent and it just had this big build-up to it, you know? It was massive for us. That was when we decided that, yeah we can play the late night shows, yeah we can do this, yeah we can sign to a major label like Atlantic Records and really try to do this. Not to sell ourselves short because we definitely felt good about what we were doing at the time, but we never felt like, this was it. Being with Atlantic Records for these last two releases, I really feel like this is the start of the band, which a lot of elitists and fans of music would hate to see—when it’s like, “Oh yeah, this is our first record because it’s out of a major label.” But the reality of it is that your first major label album release is like putting out your first record. It’s like your debut. So it currently feels like we’re working on our third record right now.
DOWNTOWN: Yeah, that’s something that a lot of people don’t realize unless they’re experiencing it. Last thought—do you have a favorite moment from a tour in the past? Like an incredible experience that stands out?
JG: It really is kind of all of it. Every step we take, we don’t really get to see it because we’re on tour all the time. During the last tour we did, even before the Honda Civic Tour, it seems likes every tour just gets a little bit bigger, which is what you want to happen. It’s a really amazing thing. But unless you take a step back, you don’t really notice those transitions. You’ll stand on stage one night and go, “Oh, holy s***. Six years ago we opened for this band and it was empty.” So you have moments like that where you really take it in and realize how amazing the experience is.
-Lauren Price
John Gourley during Portugal. The Man’s most recent Bonnaroo appearance in 2013 at one of the venue’s main stages. Photo: Courtesy of Knox Music Today
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