Shelter - Quest For Certainty Tshirt

I apoligize for the lack of content lately. Ive been working nights as well as preparing for my wedding next month so its been a little hectic. That said, today I bring you a Shelter shirt I picked up on my last trip to Tokyo. If you ever happen to make a trip out to Japan, make sure to hit up Disk Union, a series of record stores which cater to different genres per store. The 3 floored store in Shinjuku has 2 floors dedicated to just metal...pretty amazing. Anyway, I managed to find this sitting on a rack, marked as Used in the Shibuya store. It only cost me about 800 yen which is roughly about $9 US give or take. This was printed for the Quest For Certainty record and features the original cover art that Equal Vision Records released. Back print has the record title...solid pick up for such a small price. Im a big fan of navy blue (sorry Brian) and the lighter blue I feel compliments it well. Ive seen this on Ebay every so often so hit up our friends the Tee Till Death crew and get them to hunt it down for you. Solid shirt from a great band.

The 90's, Straight Edge and JNCOs

If you were part of the straight edge scene in the 1990's, theres a good chance you owned a pair of JNCO's. Be it jeans or jean shorts, JNCOs were all the rage and (most) everyone wore them. Im not sure who was the first to start wearing them and influence an entire generation of kids to wear enormous pants but I'd really like to find out. I never wore the pants because to be quite honest, living in Miami I can wear shorts year-round. To this day I only own 4 pairs of jeans. But I did wear my JNCO shorts into the ground, to the point they literally fell apart and by that time, JNCOs were on their way out so replacements were never purchased.
If you're reading this and saying "JNCOs? The hell is he talking about?", well let me give you the Cliff's Notes version. Denim pants and shorts that used an awful lot of fabric and had designs stitched into the back. You can read up on the history of JNCOs here. The shorts I liked but the pants I couldnt get down with. I hate stepping on my jeans and with JNCOs, they ALWAYS dragged on the ground and left the denim tassels following behind. Either way, somebody or some band brought them to the scene and transformed a generation of kids for the next few years. With the end of the 90s came the end of the JNCO fascination as "fashioncore" set in. Kids traded in their baggy pants for tighter ones and JNCOs became something that kids joked about as often goes in the hardcore scene.
Often times, companies choose not to associate themselves with the people that are buying their product (i.e., Faygo and Juggalos) but JNCO embraced the straight edge scene and even put out a pair of shoes for the straight edge kids. I had no idea they made these until our friend Brian Murphy of Hows Your Edge and Tee Till Death dropped them on TTD yesterday. I wish I had some info on them but some of the comments state that they were made in 1997 and sold at Journey's. This particular pair is up on Ebay right now with about 6 hours left so if you want to go after them, you still have time. If anyone has anymore info on them, drop us a line and let us know so we can do a follow up. Check the pics below. JNCO was definitely onto what was going on in the scene at the time with the image of baggy clothed wearing X'ed up kids on the soles of the shoes. Maybe they had hardcore kids working there at the time because seriously, take a look at the original tag that the seller included which states that the shoes are "hardline approved" and are the "rebirth of hardcore pride". 18 year old Chip would have been over the moon about this. I really hope someone scoops these up and can give us more info on them.
As we've seen, things go in cycles and now that 90s hardcore has generated interested again, is it possible that JNCOs and tulasi beads will make their comeback as well? Will JNCO jeans become sought after collectors items like records? Only time will tell.


-Note: All info regarding the shoes is from Teetilldeath.com and all credit to them.