VASHTIE

When Jay Swing reached out to have me spin at KillJoy in Vancouver, I was ready. Over the years I had heard such incredible things about Van City; from the Skiing and Snowboarding (although I have never done either despite being an upstate kid), the food, and the incredible natural beauty of the city. The team and I thought, let’s make it a 1992 styled party and voila – it was on. Stephen aka DJ Huggy Bear came with and it was good times.

If you’re slow like the rest of us Americans when it comes to geography, Vancouver, Canada is located close to Seattle and Portland. I haven’t been to either place, but apparently they are extremely similar.

The city is GORGEOUS. I was told it would be, but you just can’t imagine rain forest type mountains surrounding a big city. I was in awe…

As soon as I touched down I had a little meetup with the babes Leslie Bishop and Jen Irving from Aritzia. Aritzia is a women’s wear brand from Vancouver that is slowly taking on world domination. When these ladies arrived they came bearing bags and bags of amazing gifts! I was floored. It was a non-stop gift opening moment that was incredible. It was my first introduction to the awesome brand…and I immediately loved it. It’s on trend and classic, yet well made for immediate or long-term wear.

Huggy Bear was hanging in the telly…

Part of my gift from Aritzia was t-shirts that were printed just for me by Vince Chan and Brooke Wells! I was floored and so happy!

DJ Marvel and DJ Jay Swing!

DJ Huggy Bear

I spy some Violette New York gear!

Mixtape Madness courtesy of Jay Swing. You can hear it here.

We were invited to the F As In Frank warehouse where we were showered with vintage goodies. If you are ever in the Toronto or Vancouver area check them out! If not, check them out online! They were so kind.

I modeled some of their custom vintage stuff…

This amazing one of one hat that was never made…thanks for nothing Michael Jordan

I should have picked this up for my homie Tommy Hilfiger…

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I looked up my friend Eerik Ilves. He is Canadian born, but spent his Junior High/High School years in Albany where I be-friended him through my extreme sporting white-boy friends from Downtown. We all had some great times together. It’s been about 10 years since I’ve seen him and I loved that it felt like not a day had passed by.Here were are standing by our native upstate area code. #518

I took him to eat some vegan/raw food from Gorilla Food, which Jasmine Solano recommended. It was the bomb.

A delicious raw salad…

…and a green raw soup. Perfect on a hot day.Yes! desserts to go.

We passed by the Fluevog store, Native to Vancouver.

Saw the poster for the event I was apart of in a nice shop. So cool.

Just an indoor basketball hoop that you can actually play on…no biggie.

A very nice record shop; Beat Street Records

We stopped by to see the peeps at Dipt. 

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Later that evening we passed by the Vancouver Art Gallery for a massive Fuse Party that took up every single level of the Museum. There were performance artists, exhibits, live music. It was a nice Vancouver shindig…

Overlooking the courtyard…

DJ Marvel doing his thang.

Me, Eerik, Huggy Bear and Bre at Charles Bar

Art in progress…

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Special thanks to Jay Wallace aka Jay Swing and The Donnelly Group for brining me out the Vancouver. DJ Marvel, DJ Seko, Bre, The Aritzia team for all the goodies, F As In Frank for all my incredible vintage finds, Dipt, Mary Rich, and all the Vancouver folks for showing me MAD LOVE. It was hard to leave you and your GORGEOUS city, but I can’t wait to come back! Next time, I’m taking my buddy Steve Nash’s suggestion of hiking Grouse Grind.