chrisBrown

Chris Brown

Week 28 - November 10, 2011

We love Texas, and some of our favorite people hail from the Lone Star State. We find that Texans have a certain spunk, a can-do nature about them that you don’t come across in every state in our grand Union.

 

Chris Brown is a perfect example of this. The Austin-based creator/editor of the Americana-themed magazine Refueled, he’s one of those guys who seems to know everyone (this was demonstrated to Carrie and Amanda in September when they spent several days hanging out with him in Marfa at Liz Lambert’s El Cosmico festival) and who thrives on connecting with other creative people. Once he does, he loves devoting column inches to their passions in the pages of his magazine, where he’s featured Imogene + Willie several times.

 

Because writing is his bag, we asked Chris to whip up his own OV, focusing on the events that inspired him to start Refueled and the things that keep him plugging along.

 

The quiet, lush courtyard of my friend and personal muse Liz Lambert’s Hotel San Jose is a creative spot I frequently visit to set up office and envision each issue of Refueled. On this fall day, I ponder questions that I am frequently asked like, “What made you want to publish a magazine?” and “What’s it like?” I know the answers lie in my early childhood and that three things ultimately led me to create the music, style and adventure magazine/brand.

 

“Can I stay up past 8:00 pm tonight?”

 

Sunday, February 9, 1964. The day that started it all. I was only six years old but somehow knew my life was about to change. Not in that Kevin Arnold Wonder Years kind of way, but really change.

 

Although our usual bedtime was 8 p.m., I asked my parents if I could stay up a little later and watch the Ed Sullivan Show. John, Paul, George and Ringo’s first chord of “All My Loving” sparked something. It was a spark that would continue to not only grow inside me, but also shape my world.

 

I asked for a guitar for Christmas every year after that night in February, ultimately receiving it when I was eight. While my brother continued to add butch wax to his crew cut, I let my bangs grow out. My best friend, who lived next door, also received a guitar from Santa that same year. He took lessons and would come home and teach me what he had learned that week. We practiced day and night and formed our own band. I drew band logos on schoolbooks and we played at every school dance, festival and backyard party we could find.

 

Twelve years later, we found ourselves on the road, sharing the stage with name acts and watching ourselves on MTV in the summer of ’87. Although we never sang about revolution or a walrus, music became a part of who we were – who I am.

 

Today, the bangs are long gone, and the electric guitars have been put away. Days are now spent with a ukulele around a fire or on a beach with my young daughters. The stage has been traded for family sing-a-longs to “Let it Be” or “Michelle.”

 

“Hey, my jeans aren’t like that!”

 

There was something about the color, the stiff texture, and the rolled-up cuff with that thin white and red line that made me want to study them, over and over again. Early 60′s Levi’s 501 XX Big E jeans – or, as my father calls them, dungarees. My pop, Dal Ray Brown, who turned 80 this October, worked his whole life in the Southeast Texas oil refineries. A blue-collar man with style and a true-blue wardrobe.

 

Crisp jeans, white t-shirts and Western style yoke, sawtooth snap-pocket denim shirts– both Levi’s.

 

Blue and red cotton bandanas, with amazing designs that I studied carefully, Red Wings and cowboy boots. The winter months brought out incredible canvas chore jackets.

 

Straw and felt cowboy hats – straw for working in the garden or tending to our cows, chickens and sheep, felt for a night out on the town. I became obsessed with his clothes, fascinated with the way they faded, how they wore in certain spots, and became softer and softer. I would try on his shirts and hats while he was at work. They smelled like him – like Old Spice after-shave.

 

I now know that my father’s sense of style most certainly came from his father. Although he died before I was born, I wanted to know everything about my grandfather, Charles “Charlie” Brown. He was a butcher. Pop told me stories, took me to a vacant lot in town where once stood the butcher shop, and showed me black and white photos of him. He wore great baggy khaki chinos, fresh-ironed short-sleeved shirts that he rolled up twice, and white cotton aprons.

It is these early experiences and memories that have kept me researching and exploring classic American work wear style.

 

 

 

The gap-toothed boy with the “What, Me Worry?” grin

 

My inherited ability to design was fueled. My mother taught me to draw, but it was Frank Farnie, my material Italian grandfather, who bought me my first Mad magazine at the corner emporium. I definitely did not understand most of the satirical content, but boy, did I dig the drawings and the feel of the whole thing. Sure, I would pick up an occasional copy of Life, drawn in by its large format and Kodachrome photos. But Mad spoke to my love of cartooning and caricatures. I drew cartoons nonstop.

 

I began drawing pages and pages of cartoons, stories and fake ads. I would staple the pages down one side and sell them to the neighborhood kids for ten cents. That bought a lot of grape and cinnamon gumballs. Forget cashing in collected Coke bottles from the side of the road: drawing and creating a one-of-a-kind publication was way more fun to me and a lot less tiring.

 

Later, I discovered music magazines like Crawdaddy and Creem. The photos were cool, but they lacked something. Then, in 1992, led by art director David Carson, Ray Gun magazine hit the scene. The result was a chaotic, abstract style that was not always readable, but distinctive in vibe and appearance. It completely blew me away. It was the first magazine that combined everything that appealed to me: experimental typography, cutting-edge advertising and musicians/pop culture/style icons that were typically ahead of the curve.

 

Over the years, I definitely feel I have developed my own aesthetic – a certain vibe to my designs, always hoping to capture the raw and rebellious free spirit of Alfred E. Neuman.

 

Every issue is like an entry in my personal journal. I constantly walk a fine line between my creative life and my personal/family one. My friends consist of musicians, designers, style makers, models, surfers, skateboarders, publishers, producers, directors, artists, hoteliers and photographers. As a result, the line definitely gets blurred a lot.

 

So much inspires me on a daily basis – and it all makes its way into an issue at some point. Simply put, I love to share the people and things I dig: music, style and adventure.

 

It’s a blessing to not only do what I love but hopefully, in a small way, to inspire.

 

Learn more about Chris and read the latest issues of Refueled at www.refueledmagazine.com

 

You never forget your first:



 



About our photographer: Gustav Schmiege Dividing time between his Dallas and New York studio, Gustav fulfills his position as Refueled magazine’s senior photographer by capturing the vibe and aesthetic of Chris Brown’s vision through stills and moving images.

Along with it’s covers, features and road trips with Refueled, additional editorial clients include Men’s Vogue, Esquire, Men’s Journal, Southern Accents, Red Bull, American Way, D Magazine, Veranda, Cowboys and Indians, Kiteboarding Magazine, and many others. www.gustavfoto.com.