RH Collectors: DJ RTC
Many music heads are also collectors. There's a common thread between seeking out new and rare sounds and using that same drive to acquire and celebrate other passions that ties collectors of all kinds. RH Collectors is a series that aims to showcase the collections of the various music heads in Chicago and beyond. In our last edition, we spoke to the Stitch Gawd, who showed off her collection of art and memorabilia that she has collected throughout her time in the Chicago music scene. Today, we turn the spotlight onto Closed Sessions + rubyhornet honcho, DJ RTC.
Going back to his early childhood, RTC has been an avid baseball and basketball collector, and boasts an impressive collection. For this installment, I spent time with RTC's card collection and asked to speak on a few choice cards. Peep it below.
If you've got a collection you want to talk about, hit us up. We want to talk to you.
What got you into collecting cards?
I think it was partly playing sports, and playing on teams all based on major league teams. My first team was the [Atlanta] Braves. I was young, like 6 or 7 years old. I just remember watching the real Braves on TBS and all my teammates wanting to be certain players. The first baseball player I really knew and wanted to emulate was Dale Murphy. Later, my brother introduced the concept of baseball cards to me and I got into keeping stats and dove into the card collecting heavy with many of my friends. It turned into a big social activity. My friends and I all played in the same baseball league, and we all wanted to be like our favorite players. We picked our jersey numbers based on those players. We would hang out all day playing sports and/or trading cards. Then from there it became more obsessive, it was all about who could get the most rare cards in your peer group. It was a good era to be a kid in that the popularity of cards was at an all-time high. It was a great way to feel closer to the game.
Ozzie Guillen: 1985 Fleer Extended Rookie Card
Ozzie Guillen was a shortstop on the White Sox from 1985 to 1997. Then he briefly went to The Orioles, then the Braves, and ended his career with the Devil Rays. In 2003 he came back to manage the White Sox. Ozzie Guillen was my favorite baseball player growing up. I modeled my stance in little league after him, many coaches corrected that because it wasn’t an ideal stance for a little kid to have (fundamentally speaking). My dad started taking me to this card shop by Comiskey Park, and I also got a subscription to this magazine called Beckett that listed the value of baseball cards, and I started noticing this thing called the XRC card, which stood for “extended rookie card.” I saw Ozzie Guillen’s XRC in Beckett and finally tracked this down . I don't even know at what point I got it, but it took a while. My dad and I got it at Grandstand in Bridgeport. Definitely a prized card, many Sox fans around my age view Ozzie as the man. I can't speak for older or younger fans, but definitely in my age group, Ozzie was the man. If we could one day throw a Closed Sessions party with Ozzie Guillen in attendance, that’d be great.
Sandy Koufax: 1963 Topps
I connect with Koufax on many levels. One of the great things about baseball, why I also think I like it so much, is that my dad, he kind of got into it with me. My dad's older, he had me much later in life, when I was 10 he was already 55. For him, his generation of baseball player was from the ‘50s and 60’s. Sandy Koufax was revered in every Jewish household, he was one of the first athletes to proudly be Jewish. Game one of the 1965 World Series games Yom Kippur, which is the Jewish day of atonement. Even for Jews who don't go to synagogue regularly, Yom Kippur is the one day where you’re supposed to sit back and observe. Sandy Koufax was the Dodgers best pitch and was supposed to pitch that game, he decided to sit out and observe the holiday and became a Jewish folk hero. That’s one piece of it for me, another is in Sunday School there was this teacher who always labeled me as a trouble maker for whatever reason. Whenever anyone did something, he would blame me and send me to the library. So I would be able to get out of Hebrew class and go to the library, and I actually preferred it like that. I’d have nothing to do, so I'd just check out books. There was a book about Sandy Koufax, and anytime I was sent to the library, I’d find the book and pick up from wherever I left off. I learned that the first few years of his career he was really bad, he was 2-2, 2-4, 5-4, 11-11, ERA was high, he wasn't very good. He had to figure out how to succeed, and its unique because he’s in the Hall of Fame and revered as one of the greatest pitchers ever. He only had a few great seasons, but they were so good that he ended up as one of the best. He also retired early because although he could still play, he said he wanted to “live the rest of my life with the use of my arms.” So I think Sandy Koufax has a lot of things that make him unique: from almost being cut to becoming one of the best, to retaining personal beliefs over sports, and even the idea of quitting while you’re ahead, athletes using their bodies while they still can. Thats why I connect with Koufax on so many levels. This card from 1963 I got at a shop in Skokie. It was one of my first major cards for sure.
Jackie Robinson: 1954 Topps
My brother's friend Josh was cleaning up his room and that included getting rid of a slew of all of his baseball cards. He dumped them all in one big bag. He called me up and said, 'if you want to sort through this bag and keep the cards, that's fine but just know its mostly scrub players, worthless cards.' So I’m like, 'ok, I got nothing to do.' It was summer vacation, I was probably in 3rd or 4th grade. He lived next door, and I went over got this large paper shopping bag of cards. I take them home and start going through them. It's been a few hours, I’ve gotten some good cards but nothing special... I picked up the next card by the back, I see "Brooklyn Dodgers" and some stats and I’m just getting this feeling like, 'oh shit, oh shit.' I was maybe 11 or 12 at the time. It only took a second, but I remember turning the card over in slow motion, in my head thinking 'please let it be, let it be' and I remember just having a heart attack. A real life Jackie Robinson baseball card! My mom had these books at home that were called "ValueTales", they are a series of books that taught kids morals and to believe in themselves etc... There was a book about the story of Johnny Appleseed, Abraham Lincoln, but as cartoons and starting as kids. One of my favorite editions of the series was the Jackie Robinson story, which taught the value of courage. I remember viewing him as this epic figure, and here I was with his baseball card. I remember I was so naive that I called Josh up and was like, 'thank you so much! I can't believe there was a Jackie Robinson card in there,' when he was probably on the other line thinking, 'damn...' It was my prized possession, I had it in a single case, one day I guess I left it on the couch or somewhere, I go to bed, then later hear my mom on the phone, all of a sudden all I hear is 'OH NO, THE DOG HAS THE JACKIE ROBINSON CARD OH MY GOD!" I jumped out of bed, found it in this (ripped) condition, had a meltdown, I probably wanted to kill the dog. I was so sad I probably cried myself to sleep that night. I was so angry and sad I told my mom I didn’t even want it, get rid of it, I didn’t even look at it for maybe 6 months. But she always kept the card around, so later I healed enough to finally put it back in my book and accept it, because it is still a real Jackie Robinson card - it is ripped, but at least I have one, So (Shrugs)...
Michael Jordan: 1990 Upper Deck
For anyone that doesn’t know, really sadly Michael Jordans father was killed the summer after the Bulls won their third championship, the first 3 peat and as a way of coping Michael Jordan stepped away from the Bulls and pursued baseball because that was his dad's dream (to play in the major leagues). Jordan was good enough to get to the minor leagues with the Birmingham Barons, it had always been known before that he could play baseball well. This card was actually from before that, when he would play in spring training games. The White Sox and Bulls have the same owner. If you’re a real collector you have to have this. It was one of the first years of upper deck coming out and this was just a dope card to have.
Bo Jackson: 1991 Topps Traded
This was big because he was severely injured playing football. He had to retire from the sport and took a while off from baseball. Many people thought he was done. He was released by the Royals right before the season started, the White Sox signed him after the season started and everyone was pretty excited. This was included in Topps “traded edition”, which would come out midway through the season every year and multiple brands started following that format, reissuing cards for marquee players. This was the first card of Bo Jackson as a member of the White Sox. It was significant because he was such a famous player and so heavily tied to the Royals. And extra significant to me as a lifelong White Sox fan. My dad used to take my brother and I to Toys-R-Us and we’d buy packs of trading cards and my brother would always end up taking the best cards because he was 8 years older than me. He’d give me some of my personal favorite players that I'd heard of but actually sucked, while he’d pocketed a Mo Vaughn rookie card or this Bo Jackson card. One day I decided it was time to take them back, so I hope he’s not reading this because I did in fact steal this card back from him. So yeah, First ever Bo Jackson card on the Sox, the highlight of the Topps Traded Edition 1991.
Shawn Respert: 1995 Classic Wooden Award Contender (autographed)
My brother went to college at Michigan State and Shawn Respert and Eric Snow were there and they formed Fire & Ice. He is was the school leader in 3 pointers made, and Michigan State's all-time leading scorer. This card is special because it came from his collection, which is pretty interesting that I think about it. He graduated in 1995, and was my favorite basketball player at that time. When he got drafted, I wrote him a letter wishing him good luck with The Bucks and stuff. He wrote back with this signed basketball and that cemented him for me as one of my favorites. He never really made it in the NBA. It came out years later that he had stomach cancer and just never told any of his teams. But man he was a hell of a college player and a great guy.
Kobe Bryant: Fleer Ultra 95-96 Rookie Card
Outside of Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant really opened the floodgates for high school players to go straight to the NBA. This was during the height of my card collecting. Getting a Kobe rookie wasn’t much of a big deal at the time, since he hadn’t done anything in the NBA yet, but I had a feeling that this was gonna be special. Similar to music, and how you can tell certain artists are going to be something special, I saw that with Kobe Bryant and basketball. I got this one in a pack. So many years later during his famous feud with Shaq I remember a lot of people siding with Shaq and at the time I was in teach for america training which was in Long Beach, California. There were a lot of kids from LA in that program and we were on the school bus one day and the radio announced that Shaq had just been traded to The Heat. All the kids were like “oh no!! Fuck Kobe” while I was just laughing since I was just a Bulls fan with no particular stake in either side.
[RH Collectors] Stitch Gawd
Walking in to Stitch Gawd’s apartment is the closest thing to walking into a Chicago rap scene museum that I have experienced thus far. Everywhere you look there is art created by, for, or about Chicago Hip Hop. Art on the walls, art on the floor, even the in the bathroom (which is a shrine to Joseph Chilliams). She has hundreds of signed show posters, photos, paintings, flyers and everything else in between.
Standing in the middle of her living room she looked around and started pointing things out at a rapid pace. “That Max Sansing illustration is from Kevin Coval’s book, that’s an original Hebru Brantley," she says before spotting something from photographer Bryan Allen Lamb (who has done multiple CS photos and docs). "That’s the first piece that Bryan Allen Lamb ever sold, I forced him to sell it to me. I was like, how much did it cost you to frame that, $350? Would you let me walk out of here with it for $450? Like, I Venmo you $450 and I leave with your art? And he said ‘Okay, for real?’ and I said, 'go get it.' So that was the first piece he sold, I made him sell it to me. That’s a Brandon Breau piece over there.”
Because she never sells her own work - creating customized clothing for her favorite artists - she has done a lot of trades. Over the years her continual presence within Chicago’s music scene has led to her meeting, and trading with, some of the most important artists in the city. But it wasn’t until this interview that she fully understood that she is in fact, an art collector.
“Oh my gosh, I’m an art collector! We’ve lowkey been talking about that the whole time… Wow I didn’t know that til right now. Oh my god I’m kinda blown actually," she said. "Art is such a nebulous concept and because it’s so nebulous, we have a hard time giving ourselves the space to grant yes or no, we want to make sure we have everyone else’s opinion before we deem it art or not, but really we don’t have to do that. Wow, so I didn’t know I was an art collector.”
For this edition of [RH Collectors], we asked The Stitch Gawd about some of her favorite pieces. Below you will find a handful of the 160+ works of art and some of the stories behind them. Check back for our full in-depth interview with Stitch Gawd dropping soon.
Sick Fisher
That’s my guy. I bought that on coloring day, I named him Carlos and I thought it was 8 x 11 and in my 600 square foot apartment it was HUGE. I did not have room for him.
Ricardo Cavolo Tarot Cards
Do you know Ricardo Cavolo? Kaytranada’s artist. Because I did that Kaytranada jacket, it was amazing and he was shocked. He’s the nicest guy, Kevin’s the best.
Max Sansing Portrait of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable
My favorite book ever was Chicago: City on the Make by Nelson Algren, but then I really really love Kevin Coval’s last book A People’s History of Chicago. Max Sansing, who is an incredible artist did this portrait of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a Haitian guy, the first legit resident of Chicago, guess what? Not remembered all that well in the history books, he has like, one street. Anyway, so Max Sansing did this illustration. I went to the art show for Kevin’s book, and I walked in and just had to get it. I’ve always wanted a Max Sansing piece, he almost never does stuff this small or black and white, he does a lot of mural work, he did the Fred Hampton piece at YCA recently. That’s kind of the scale he does. The chance to have a Max Sansing piece, especially of such a pivotal character to Chicago in my home was unmissable for me. I wasn’t in a great financial situation to go around buying art like that, but I had to have it, I stretched myself to get it and I’m so glad I did because it’s one of my favorites.
Hebru Brantley
Hebru had a pop-up across the street from Lollapalooza the first year that Chance played, and Red Bull had gotten me a free wristband to Lollapalooza. I went to this pop-up and, on my first credit card, this was the most expensive thing that I had ever bought. I was not an extravagant person, this was the early days at the coupon factory, so I fucking stretched myself. I think I spent like $275 on that. But you can’t do that now… he made it.
Lori Dell
I used to manage this artist who did large scale portraiture, she’s Canadian, her name is Lori Dell. She’s done sittings with Javier Bardem, Uma Thurman and Anthony Hopkins. She actually had art in that Tim Meadows movie, "The Ladies Man"... I was categorizing her art because a lot of management things in the art world is translating between the commerce side of things and the art, so I was helping her out, but then I had to get out of Toronto. I kind of had a situation with her son. He was an amateur photographer, this may or may not be a picture that was taken of me while the rest of me was as god intended you feel me? So imagine my surprise when I was called over to the house and Lori was like, “I have a going away present for you.” So I walk into her studio, and lo and behold there’s this massive oil painting of my face from that picture, I know what fucking picture it is, and it is a picture of just my face, but I know what the context is, so I was like, 'how dare you give that picture to your mother for her to paint this glorious oil panting?!?' All of my guy friends have told me you can not put that in your bedroom, that is far too much pressure, especially because my bedroom is bright pink.
Michael Jordan Sketch
This is a really good one actually. There’s this basketball blog where they do basketball art, and this guy did this picture of Joakim Noah and I love Joakim Noah so I asked him to print me a print and he did but he also sent me some of his sketches and I think that’s Michael Jordan.
R64
This is this artist from Indiana named R64. He had this giant piece and it said Daddy’s Girl at the top and she was weeping, it was much bigger. It was like $400. I was like, listen, I can’t afford that but I love this piece so much. I stitch, can I stitch you something for that? And he was like, no, I’m not really interested in your stitching but here’s what’s up. I’ll make a mini version of it and I’ll charge you like $75 for it and I said bet, let’s go. So I stretched myself again, so this was one of my first real ones. It’s an original, a tiny original, but an original you know? That’s the exciting part of it. The adventure in art collecting is having a piece of someone’s work that you really love. I’ve never thought of it as a way to monetize, I just want the art that I want in my home.
The Hebru Wall
These are all Red Bull Sound Select. When Hebru wasn’t nearly as poppin’ he used to do all of Andrew’s posters for him because they were homeboys. Andrew and I were neighbors, we lived like two blocks from each other so we used to see each other in the neighborhood. This one, this guy at Red Bull was trying to make me think that he was cool so he gave me a signed Hebru print, I’m like, you’re so dumb, but I’ll take it. I used to get in line hours before shows because I really wanted the prints.
Langston Allston Print
This is Langston Allston from the show that I did with him.
Runsy Print
Runsy is the fucking coldest. When I and bought this print from the show they were trying to give me a bogus copy and she had words with them and was like “No, she gets one of the good prints”
Vic Mensa Poster
I greened out at this show, I almost threw up on Alex Wiley. Anyway, I was standing in line and he was like, “you look familiar.” I was like, “Vic, we’ve met like ten times.” Tenth times the charm… “Light it up Emma Watson”.
Kanye West Mario Game "Lil Ye Land"
The demo version of "Lil Ye Land", a 2D Mario like game starring Kanye West has been released this week. The 'lil pixelated rapper travels through a dark dungeon fighting ghosts trying to escape. As funny as this game sounds, the artwork posted on the "Lil Ye" Instagram account is very well done. The amount of creativity Ye fans have with incorporating their favorite rapper into a video game is impressive. You can even hear the melody of "Amazing" playing in the background of the trailer video.
Play the game here.
Mamby On The Beach Preview
Summer in Chicago means one thing, it's festival season. Mamby On The Beach is arguably the festival that embraces the season the most, with attendees partying all day on the beach with their favorite artists. There's a good mix of local and national talent on the bill this year and here's who we're excited for.
Saturday
Common
Sunday
Mamby On The Beach, happening June 23 and 24, 2018 at Oakwood Beach.
Juice WRLD Releases Project After Signing $3 Million Deal.
With an explosion of streams and video plays over the past few months, the Illinois native, from the suburb, Calumet Park, finds major success with a joint venture deal involving Interscope valued at over $3 million.
Juice WRLD's project, Goodbye & Good Riddance, was released yesterday, May 23rd. This 15 track project contains no features. Well known hits such as, Lucid Dreams and All Girls Are the Same are placed on this record, after achieving millions of plays on streaming services.
"Too busy making money, to worry 'bout making memories" highlights the unapologetic tone Juice WRLD delivers on the outro of the breakup based record.
Beastie Boys Book Gets Release, Available For Pre-Order
Here's something to get excited about if you are a fan of the Beastie Boys. Back in 2013, Mike D and Ad-Rock officially signed on for a memoir. Notorious for spending long hours in the studio discussing and then ordering take-out, the Beastie Boys took their time in finishing the book. Alas, the memoir now has an official title, release date, and is available for pre-order. Beastie Boys Book will hit shelves October 30th, and tell the story of the band's formation as well as numerous transformations over their 20+ year career. The book also includes rare photos, a graphic novel, map of the Beastie's New York, playlist accoutrements, and more.
"A panoramic experience that tells the story of Beastie Boys, a book as unique as the band itself—by band members AD-ROCK and Mike D, with contributions from Amy Poehler, Colson Whitehead, Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson, Luc Sante, and more."
And just for fun, here's the 1998 "Beastieography", which you can see it's all its glory. The video is completed with 1998's MTV commercials as well - truly like stepping into a time machine.
https://vimeo.com/68587522
[RH Photos] Fast Times At SXSW by Cooper Fox
Here's a few shots by Cooper Fox showing the high energy hustle that is South By South West. Featuring live performances, quite backstage moments, and everything in between.
[RH Photos] January, 2018 by Cooper Fox
A freezing cold January meant either bundling up outside or staying warm in the studio. Here are Cooper Fox's favorite pics from the month of just that.
