With out warning or announcement, Kanye West and Jay-Z dropped their second track from their highly anticipated upcoming Watch The Throne LP late this afternoon. Also attached, track art designed by Riccardo Tisci the Creative Director of Givenchy. For those thirstily waiting, this should be a nice taste of what’s to come when the full album drops digitally August 1st and in CD form on August 5th.

Twelve Bar have just launched their brand new online store which is now the exclusive vendor for the brand.  At the new site you will find amazing new washes of their selvage denim, new graphic and classic logo tees, plus selected fleece and cut & sew ranges.  A handful of limited edition Twelve Bar favorites have also been thrown into the mix for good measure and in the Sessions and Playlists sections on the website you can explore the brand’s connection with music through a number of different features and mixes. Expect plenty more exclusive product and collaborations to be released through the site on a regular basis in the months to come. Visit: twelvebar.com

Members of the Heineken100 should have gotten this nice little package already, in the box is a blacked out Heineken x New Era snapback featuring the beer makers bottle label blacked out. Some of you might remember the previous awesome package with t-shirt Freshness did with Heineken and Union for the 100 members. Well for those lucky enough to be a part of this exclusive club should continue to receive random and awesome packages the rest of the year, we just wonder what’s next…

Day two of our visit to Nike Football The Opening began with a nice surprise, #80 Mr. Jerry Rice was honored with custom made footwear and gloves in front of the “150″. The rest of the morning included an introduction to the new Nike Carbon Vapor Glove and the Nike Hyperbeast Glove. After the introductions, Mr. Rice geared up and trained with different groups of the invited 150 of the elite High School football players. In the afternoon, the “150″ were all escorted into the auditorium of the Tiger Woods buildings for team announcements and uniform introductions, six teams were then created for competition over the next few days. And as you might have seen from an earlier post, Ace Hood surprised the crowd gathered in the auditorium with a 30 minute performance. Check out our photo recap from our second day with Nike Football The Opening.

One hundred and fifty of the country’s top high school football players were invited to the Nike World Headquarters for The Opening, termed as the ultimate football training experience. The five day event, filled with dynamic training, coaching and competition will give the student-athletes the training and knowledge to develop their speed, explosiveness and position skills.

Over the course of five-day program from July 5-9, every position and aspect of the game will be highlighted and the players are put to the ultimate test by the world’s top athletes and coaches. Competition will end the program and Nike will crown winners for the Nike 7ON tournament, Nike Linemen Challenge, and SPARQ Rating National Championship.

Nike invited Freshness to tag along and report from the sidelines, unveilings and press conferences during this five day program. Here are some scenes from day 1 of The Opening…

Yesterday on the Nike Campus in Beaverton, Oregon, Ace Hood surprised 150 of the best High School football athletes with a 30 minute performance. These student athlete are spending the week at the Nike World Headquarters to be part of “The Opening”, termed as the ultimate football training experience. Ace Hood was decked out in Nike Football lifestyle apparel and footwear, wearing a Nike The Opening t-shirt and a pair of the Nike Trainer 1.3 Max. He performed a number of his recent hits to energetic crowd, gearing them up for the next few days of competition. Stay tuned to Freshness for more from Nike Football The Opening and follow us on twitter for live updates.

The good people over at Monster and Beats by Dr. Dre was kind enough to send a set of Beats Studio to giveaway to you, our readers. The Beats Studio Edition were designed to help people hear music with all its fine-tuning, mixing and intricacies as it was made by the artists and producers in the studio. Dr. Dre has this to say about them: “Most headphones can’t handle the bass, the detail, the dynamics. Bottom line, the music doesn’t move you. With Beats, people are going to hear what the artists hear, and listen to the music the way they should: the way I do.” See below for all giveaway entry info.

AND THE WINNER IS..

Last week, Puma invited a select number of journalist to Newport, Rhode Island to the unveiling of the Puma Mar Mostro (or the Monster of the Sea in Italian) for the 2011-2012 Volvo Ocean Race. For those who are unfamiliar with the Volvo Ocean Race, you can think of it as the ‘Everest of Sailing’ taking the yacht and the crew on an enduring nine month race around the world. The 2011-2012 race will start in Alicante, Spain, in November 2011 and concludes in Galway, Ireland, in July 2012, the teams will sail more than 39,000 nautical miles of the world’s most treacherous seas via Cape Town, South Africa; Abu Dhabi, UAE; Sanya, China; Auckland, New Zealand; around Cape Horn to Itajaí, Brazil; to Miami, Florida, USA; Lisbon, Portugal; Lorient, France, finishing in Galway.

This year, Puma will enter a brand new yacht designed by Juan Yacht Design of Valencia, Spain, and constructed at New England Boatworks, Inc., in Portsmouth, R.I. On the exterior are are giant octopus tentacles taking over much of the boat and the sails and even organically shaping into Puma’s Form-Stripe on the side of the boat. The graphics were conceived by Puma’s CMO Antonio Bertone and Puma’s London-based brand design team, GBH and was hand-painted by artist Dean Loucks of Elkhart, Indiana.

Skipper Ken Read will once again take charge of the crew of 10 into this years Volvo Ocean Race after placing only second with the Puma il mostro in the 2008-2009 Volvo Ocean Race. In a surprise move, Puma introduced Laird Hamilton, a big wave surfer and the father of modern stand-up paddleboarding, as the honorary 12th crew member. Mr Hamilton will serve as a fitness and nutrition coach for the PUMA Ocean Racing team, applying his proprietary regimen to get the boys ready to face mother nature’s fury at sea. Additionally he will help launch a line of innovative stand-up paddleboards from Puma and Laird.

Puma also introduced Marmo, the new ocean preservation mascot as the 13th honorary crew member. During a chat with Skipper Ken Read, we learned that in the stops during the race, the stop over piers are overwhelmed by children. In this years race, Marmo will not only act as the mascot for team Puma, he will also be the face of PUMA’s newly-launched youth ocean conservation campaign. Marmo will star in an illustrated children’s book – “Marmo Saves Our Seas” – created by PUMA to educate children and their families about the importance of preserving the wonders of the oceans during the stop overs.

To keep up with the Puma Mar Mostro, Ken Read and crew, Laird Hamilton and Marmo before the November 2011 start date, visit Puma Sailing.

Last month to the disappointment of Ray Allen and Air Jordan fans, the Air Jordan XIII Celetics PE was announced as a two store exclusive to House of Hoops Boston and SoleFly Miami. The release date was set for July 16th, 2011 but we just received official word from Jordan Brand that the date has been changed to Saturday July 23rd, 2011. Unfortunately for those hoping for a change to release locations, that remains unchanged. So remark your calendar for this special release if you are lucky enough to be in the release cities.

UPDATE:
It has just been confirmed that SoleFly will actually be releasing these on July 9th at their 1 year anniversary celebration. The Boston release will follow on the 23rd. Raffle tickets will be given out July 6th, 7th and 8th for the July 9th raffle, 1 raffle ticket per person and you must bring ID!

Are apes getting smarter? Well, some of these videos the 20th Century Fox research team put together certainly gets us wondering! In this latest video, from the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University, chimpanzees show off  photographic memories so good they easily beat college students in memory games. In part 1 of “Are Apes Getting Smarter“, we saw amateur footage of a gorilla walking upright like a human, and of a chimp playing Far Cry 2, a first-person shooter. All three videos are from a collection of clips that served as research and inspiration for Rupert Wyatt the director of The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. Rupert and special effects house WETA Digital used this research for a better understanding on the ways smarter apes acted, moved and behaved.

Full disclosure: In accordance to the FTC Guidelines, I am disclosing that my time, travel and accommodations have been compensated by 20th Century Fox for my participation in the “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” campaign. Although I have a material connection to 20th Century Fox, any publicly stated opinions of 20th Century Fox and the film remain my own.

If you ever wonder where your favorite celeb goes to get their vintage gear it’s most likely And Still on La Brea. Owners Jeremy Shapiro & Kirk Tilton have been supplying vintage sportswear to customers for over 3 years now since it’s opening in May of 2008. The question many people ask themselves when you step inside their massive location (that shares a wall with UNDFTD)  is where do they find all this vintage?  The next thing you will think is how can they sustain selling genuine snapbacks, vintage starter jackets, and insane hard to find t-shirts. Jeremy and Kirk are masters of the vintage game, their personal collections and sourcing techniques keeps the shelves stocked with everything from the must have vintage snapbacks including the oh so rare infamous Santa hat.

Yo MTV Raps cards could serve as And Still’s look book. A miniature  boxing ring adds to the décor and doubles as a display case.  Tyler from Odd Future was spotted here earlier this week buying a Miami Hurricanes button up.  If you want your closet to look like a photo from the 1992 All Star Game (any sport) you need to see this place.

And Still
114 S La Brea Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90006
Neighborhood: Mid-City West
(323) 937-0016
andstillclothing.com

Earlier this month, I was invited out to Los Angeles to the 20th Century Fox studios for The Rise 50 Summit, a one day educational event for the Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes film. Part of the summit included a viewing of clips on how ‘apes are getting smarter’. Since the apes in the film are 100% digital, 20th Century Fox hired a research team to build a collection of clips that would serve as inspiration for Director Rupert Wyatt. Rupert and special effects house WETA Digital used this research for a better understanding on the ways smarter apes acted, moved and behaved. Above is amateur footage of a gorilla walking like a human, from a zoo in Germany, it’s a creepy clip showing that apes really aren’t that different than us…

And below is clip of a chimp playing Far Cry 2, a first-person shooter from a Japanese science documentary that shows a chimpanzee in a lab who has been taught to play a violent first-person-shooter game.

Full disclosure: In accordance to the FTC Guidelines, I am disclosing that my time, travel and accommodations have been compensated by 20th Century Fox for my participation in the “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” campaign. Although I have a material connection to 20th Century Fox, any publicly stated opinions of 20th Century Fox and the film remain my own.