Tonight’s episode jumps off with our first ever guest on the show, our Vans brother, Dave Metcalf aka @nu_dav. He shared his awesome experience with SE Bikes, after having his Vans PK Ripper order cancelled, which ended up with a personal call from Perry Kramer (Mr. PK Ripper, himself), confirming that he will be taken care of. You gotta listen to the whole story. We then have Dave show and tell a few of his Vans accessories , which included an entire set of Vans Vault x Taka Hayashi “Skate Monkey” decks, and a few other rare and obscure Vans pieces you just have to see. We discuss the latest shoe drops, including the Vault x Taka Hayashi Amzn Trl V3 LX, a new hiking boot, that gives us some heavy 90’s outdoorsy inspiration. Another Taka joint to show up, is the TH Epoch Racer LX, inspired by 70’s auto racing. The Anaheim Factory collection flies in under the radar with a Pendleton pack, featuring two Sk8-Hi Reissue DX’s, and two Authentic 44 DX’s, in a Beach Boys plaid, and a Royal Stewart Tartan plaid colorway. We also get a little history lesson from the Twitch livestream chat, by way of Todd, on the reference to the Beach Boys plaid name. The Andrew Reynolds Skate pack has been pushed back, but we still talked about how dope it is, and Joey went on a little tangent about what Andrew Reynolds meant to him as a kid. Some of our recent pickups were discussed. Mainly, thanks to the homie Julio Duran, who while at Born Free, discovered that Blends were selling a few pairs of their Padres and Angels Vans, from the Vault x MLB collection from over 10 years ago, alongside the Born Free Vans. He reached out to Joey, and Bill, and they both secured something from that shocking surprise. Eddie shared his Supreme x Public Enemy Black Sk8-Hi’s, and Vault Mickey Authentics. Bill’s recent pickups were the jjjjound black Sk8-Mids, and a sample pair of Raising Cane’s Old Skools. We never really mention the “clown callouts” here on our summary, but there was a good one this week from eBay. A seller had listed a pair of Slip-Ons, supposedly worn by Kid Rock, but there is absolutely no provenance to the shoe. The photos are crudely cropped, and the kicker was the price being set at $420.69. Secretly, we think it’s Joey’s listing. We were dying. Lastly, we close out the show with a nice find for our listeners. There’s a sale going on, and there are deals to be had, from a certain retailer out of Miami. They got Taka’s, and Bedwins for $60, amongst some other steals. Listen in and find out. You can drop in for the live Twitch stream, every Thursday (10PM CDT / 8PM PDT), or you can get caught up later on, by viewing us on our Youtube channel. Audio formats can be found on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and Anchor. All views and opinions are strictly our own, and not affiliated with anything. If we offend any of you, just know that it wasn’t personal, and we love everyone and everything. Don’t take life so seriously, and that includes us.

We start off tonight’s episode with Bill spilling half his Belching Beaver x Deftones “Phantom Bride” IPA while opening it, which sparked a quick discussion about everyone’s favorite Deftones song, while Bill cleaned up his spill. Then a quick discussion on what hats we were wearing. Shoe releases for this week include the wild and out of left field, Vault Boot Skoot LX, and we give our “Old Head” opinions on it. Blends and Born-Free are back again for 2021, but the details are still vague. Blends posted up a teaser, then took it down, then put up another one. Rumors are that it’s the same shoe as last year, but we will know soon. We went down the list of past Born-Free Vans. The SE Bikes collab release was a little messy, and needed to be addressed. Following up with last week’s collaboration episode, and our wish to see a The Hundreds shoe, Eddie reached out to Bobby Hundreds, and we got a surprising, and definitely not expected response in regards to that. Basically, we’ll probably never see a Vans x TH shoe. We talk about Tony Hawk’s new edgy collab with Liquid Death, as well as his Vert Alert skate jam in Utah. More Old Head talk, but we assure you that “This Ain’t Nike Talk”. We are confused about eBay’s TopStar sneaker buying program, and we want answers! Bill had a conference call with the Vans Family team, and wasn’t allowed to say much, but did confirm that there will be another #31DAYSOFVANS shoe for next year. We talk about our wishes of possibly a Vans-hosted gathering for the wrap-up as well. That segued nicely into a topic about Vans accessories and merch, and Bill shared a few of his pieces, including the latest Vans Fam luggage tag, the vintage Vans POGS, a Vans x Civilist espresso cup and saucer, and an unreleased Greg Hunt promo postcard book from Vans Syndicate. Whether they were from the Vans Family program, through friends and family, officially released, or not. We will make this a regular recurring topic. We’ve been collecting this shit for years. Lastly, we give a shout-out to our boy Scotty D, and his episode of “Meet the Vans Fam” with Clayton @wearingwaffles. We learned a lot of stuff we never knew about Scotty, and we’ve been friends for over 10 years lol. We also give major props to Clayton, for doing something original, and staying authentic. He definitely passes the vibe check and is invited to the cook-out! You can drop in for the live Twitch stream, every Thursday (10PM CDT / 8PM PDT), or you can get caught up later on, by viewing us on our Youtube channel. Audio formats can be found on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and Anchor. All views and opinions are strictly our own, and not affiliated with anything. If we offend any of you, just know that it wasn’t personal, and we love everyone and everything. Don’t take life so seriously, and that includes us.

Tonight’s episode was fun. Started out with a little bit of new releases, including the Vault x Aries collection, and how wild that pack is. Other releases discussed were the Hockey Andrew Allen Authentic Hi’s, the Thalia Surf “20th Anniversary” Collection, and the latest Vault VLT shoe to come out, the Dream Leather Sk8-Hi Reissue VLT LX. We’re also anticipating the Vans x SE Bikes to be dropping next week, but be prepared to fork out $1k for them! We give Henry (The Other Side of the Pillow) a shout-out, for having Jason Mamoa (Aquaman) stop into his shop, where he picked up a few vintage pairs for him and his family. Pretty cool stuff right there. That segued into Bill sharing his most recent pickup, and perhaps one of his holiest grails, a pair of vintage Made In USA Vans Breakers. He has always wanted a pair, but figured they were already such a niche shoe, that he’d never come across them for sale. Well that luck changed last week, when he found a seller from Texas, who had a sz5.5 up on eBay. After a little bit of pleading, and begging, a deal was struck. Such an amazing find. He talked about buying an ad cut-out off of eBay back when he first started OTWS of the Vans Breakers, just because of how cool it was, that Vans made shoes for breakdancing. He can probably frame it now, along with the shoes! We finally got to discussing collabs, and some of the brands we’d like to see in the future. Brands that just seem to be a no-brainer to us. We surprised each other, with Eddie’s first pick, which was also on both Joey and Bill’s list, of The Hundreds. Why hasn’t this collab happened yet? For Bill’s next pick, he chose SoCal Burger institution, In-N-Out. They need to put down those silly knock-off slip-ons they currently sell, and get with the other SoCal staple, Vans, for a proper collection. It needs to be sold in the In-N-Out store, as well as online, and it needs to always be in stock. Done deal. Joey, picked another SoCal heavy hitter brand, BornxRaised. They’re probably the brand that is most tapped into SoCal street/hood culture right now. Vans could use a little boost in that scene right now. Get all these kids away from the types of sneakers that are taking their lives, and teach them a little thing about being authentic, and forging your own path. Bill, then had a vague idea, for a collab with something car culture related. It could be from any genre. Hot Rods, Lowriders, Imports, etc. SoCal is rich with car culture, and most car trends start here. Vans has worked with Mooneyes since their early days, so something along those lines, but perhaps with another speed shop, or parts brand. Heck, maybe even an organization like NHRA or NASCAR? Eddie finished off our collab wishlist with one that we should’ve all had on our lists…KAWS! Yes, Kaws has lent his artwork to Vans before, for The Simpsons project, but perhaps something fresh and independent. The signature XX’s or a Companion character perhaps? Chompers! Or, something entirely new! Either way, that one would be epic. That’s about it folks. Thanks for listening to us ramble on and rant! You can drop in for the live Twitch stream, every Thursday (10PM CDT / 8PM PDT), or you can get caught up later on, by viewing us on our Youtube channel. Audio formats can be found on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and Anchor. All views and opinions are strictly our own, and not affiliated with anything. If we offend any of you, just know that it wasn’t personal, and we love everyone and everything. Don’t take life so seriously, and that includes us.

Tonight’s episode starts off with a little bit of explaining to do. Let’s just say, things didn’t go exactly as planned for this past Saturday’s Wafflehead Summit at Blends Costa Mesa. Although Eddie had made it out to SoCal safely, he had a little bit of a health scare shortly after arriving, and we thought he was having a nice “trip” while staying at an AirBNB out in the local San Diego mountains, lol. We discuss what he missed out on. Joey is now officially a dad, and we welcomed Joey and Kay’s new baby girl, Isabella Jo into the world and on to our podcast for a few seconds. She was a little milk wasted, so she had to run. Talked a little bit about Clayton’s SoCal visit, which is sort of what this was all about from the start. Bill got to tag along with him, on his tour around Vans HQ, thanks to Steve Van Doren’s right hand man, “NEWKON”. It was fun just seeing Clayton take it all in, in amazement. This week’s Vans releases include the Vault x FDMTL pack, the Vault x JJJJound OG Sk8-Mid LX, the Kids of Immigrants Old Skool, and finally the upcoming Sneakersnstuff OG Authentic LX. We derailed our Vans talk, as we normally do, to talk about more sneaker bullshit in the mainstream “culture”, mainly the deadly shooting at the Shoe Palace store on Melrose, in Los Angeles, over a damn Jordan 1 raffle. We wonder what or if there is a solution to all this stuff? Would a deeper love for the brand and the core collecting culture make a difference? Everything just seems to be a transaction these days. That led us to another topic about Copdate, and their entire program. Paying money to boost your chances at being picked? There’s just so many side hustles out there, figuring out how to make money off of everyone. We jump back into some Vans talk, to talk, well…about fake Vans? Mainly some “OFF-WHITE” customs on eBay. Not much to say there, but we did notice the seller has them signed up for the eBay authentication services, and Joey was seriously entertaining the idea of buying them, to see what their results will be. We closed our convo, by sending off Bill’s cousin Mike, who sadly passed away last week at the age of 29. He will live on in our hearts and minds as a chill and cool dude, who was always fun to be around. We’ll miss you man! You can drop in for the live Twitch stream, every Thursday (10PM CDT / 8PM PDT), or you can get caught up later on, by viewing us on our Youtube channel. Audio formats can be found on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and Anchor. All views and opinions are strictly our own, and not affiliated with anything. If we offend any of you, just know that it wasn’t personal, and we love everyone and everything. Don’t take life so seriously, and that includes us.

First off, we’re just gonna come out and admit that we don’t know what the fuck is going on with our recordings. This week, Eddie has this weird echo. I (Bill), had to join in via my phone and airpods, so I sound different, and Joe came in crystal clear, even when he thought he was muted, lol! Sorry. We suck. We know it. This was supposed to be the “collaboration wishlist” episode, but we got majorly side tracked. We went down a rabbit hole of sorts, talking about our earliest memories of buying sneakers, mainly Nike SB, cause that’s where we came from. We also discussed more things we just don’t understand about the mainstream sneaker culture, and our own experiences at the time. Some of y’all were there as well, so enjoy a little bit of Nike talk, but remember, “This Ain’t Nike Talk!” So, this is the last week for 31 Days of Vans, so we will have to start finding something new to open the show with. Help us come up with some topics! We discussed the Civilist Skate Sk8-Low that came out. Bill shared his recent XXL Bedwin Hoodie come-up, and pleaded that Vault stockists order more XXL’s in all the Vault apparel, cause it seems to disappear first. Eddie showed his pair of Bedwin & the Heartbreakers Multi-color Authentic. The Metallica pack came and went, and seem to have all ended up on eBay. No shocker there. Bill also shared a Vans Customs Skate Old Skool that he made, in the classic STV Navy colorway, but adding a few checkerboard graphics to it. We gave a shop shout-out to Eddie’s home state of Tennessee’s first Vault retailer, Rooted, who carry a bunch of the high fashion labels that are known today. Lastly, we remind you all that there will be no episode this coming Thursday, as we’ll be meeting up for a live podcast at Blends Costa Mesa, for a Waffle Heads Summit on Saturday August 7th at 3PM, featuring Clayton (@wearingwaffles), Eddie (@strictlywaffles), Bill (@djguamstyles @underthepalms), Dave (@nu_dav), and a bunch more of our homies. Please come down and chop it up with us! You can drop in for the live Twitch stream, every Thursday (10PM CDT / 8PM PDT), or you can get caught up later on, by viewing us on our Youtube channel. Audio formats can be found on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and Anchor. All views and opinions are strictly our own, and not affiliated with anything. If we offend any of you, just know that it wasn’t personal, and we love everyone and everything. Don’t take life so seriously, and that includes us. -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/theauthenticera

This is the Band Collabs episode. After a brief discussion on Ep.3 about band collabs, and just bands in general, we decided to dedicate pretty much an entire episode to some of our favorite past band collaborations with Vans, including the likes of Bad Religion, H2O, Iron Maiden, Sublime, Descendants, Public Enemy, and Bad Brains just to name a few. We talked about Nice Kicks’ re-release of some major band collabs for Ausin, TX’s SXSW festival back in 2012, and then Vans doing it again in 2014. We talk about the recent SE Bikes shoe release, and still want to know where the BMX bikes are at? We’re waiting! We’re also patiently waiting for the Bedwin & the Heartbreakers Vault collab to officially drop, even though some shops have been fucking up and releasing them early! Also, did you know that there were only 400 pairs made of the “31 Days of Vans” Half Cab? Finally, we tried out a new topic this episode, where we shared a few steals we came across over on Proper’s website. We’ll try to do this more, as we come across more TAE-worthy deals. This is a part of any great collecting community! Don’t forget, next week we won’t be doing a Thursday stream, as we’ll be meeting up live in person, on Saturday August 7th around 3PM PDT, at Blends Costa Mesa, for a Waffleheads summit, including some of our closest Vans fam. Expect Clayton (@wearingwaffles), Eddie (@strictlywaffles), and a bunch of others to be hanging out, and chopping it up about Vans. There may be an exclusive reveal of an upcoming shoe as well, so who knows! Tune in. We may have a few goodies to hand out, as well as some tees. Who knows! You can drop in for the live Twitch stream, every Thursday (10PM CDT / 8PM PDT), or you can get caught up later on, by viewing us on our Youtube channel. Audio formats can be found on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and Anchor. All views and opinions are strictly our own, and not affiliated with anything. If we offend any of you, just know that it wasn’t personal, and we love everyone and everything. Don’t take life so seriously, and that includes us.

Tonight, we start out with a little bit of technical work. The last  episodes had Bill and Joey sounding a little low, but I think we’ve  figured it out! The 31 Days of Vans Skate Half Cab was the first topic of discussion.  Everyone agrees that these were awesome, and such a great surprise. We  then get into some favorite picks for #31daysofvans, which transitioned  into talking about band or artist collabs we’d like to see. That then  led into some stories about the punk rock scene, and how sneakers tied  into that. Eddie and Joey can talk an entire episode about that stuff.  Then a little bit of baseball talk came up, inspired by Eddie’s Vault x  Bodega x Boston Red Sox Authentics he posted for 31 Days, which then got  us reminiscing about the Vault x MLB collab back in 2010. Upcoming release talks included the Sole Classics “Carmen 2” DIY  Authentic, Christopher Martin & Olivia Krause Old Skool, the Taka TH  Style 47 LX, Bedwin & the Heartbreakers collection, the Dime  Wayvee, and the Patta x Vans Vault collection. We finished with a topic that Daniel Chow (akamedaniel) brought up in  Strictly Waffles Facebook group, in regards to Hot Rod not carrying  Vaults anymore. There was quite a bit of opinions in the thread, so we  decided to speak on it, respectfully, from our personal points of view,  based on our own experiences and from what others have come to us with,  privately. Lastly, we announced we will be hosting a Waffleheads meetup at  Blends Costa Mesa on Saturday August 7th, in the afternoon. Expect to  hang with Eddie (@strictlywaffles), Bill (@underthepalms), Clayton  (@wearingwaffles), Dave (@nu_dav), Daniel (@akamedaniel), and many more  of your usual Vans suspects! You can drop in for the live Twitch stream, every Thursday (10PM CDT /  8PM PDT), or you can get caught up later on, by viewing us on our  Youtube channel. All views and opinions are strictly our own, and not affiliated with  anything. If we offend any of you, just know that it wasn’t personal,  and we love everyone and everything. Don’t take life so seriously, and  that includes us.

We start off with a little bit of craft beer talk, and Joey’s connection to that industry. Then we dive into #31daysofvans, and feature a few cool posts, which gets us talking about some past cool releases, like the PBR Vans, and the Disney collection. New releases for the week, include the Patta Black Cats, Madhappy’s 2nd release, A$AP Rocky Mules, and a few others. Talked about the Musicians Wanted contest. Talked a little shit about SNKRS app and their Exclusive Access criteria.  Did some free promo for some ridiculous eBay sellers. Had some good interaction with the live chat stream as well. Thanks to our 14 viewers, lol! All views and opinions are strictly our own, and not affiliated with anything. If we offend any of you, just know that it wasn’t personal, and we love everyone and everything. Don’t take life so seriously, and that includes us.

We finally got our first podcast / live stream / Youtube video off the ground, but naturally with a few hiccups. We did a few brief intros. More to come on that in the future, for sure. We kicked off #31DaysofVans, and discussed how cool it is to finally have Vans on board with it, and a little bit on how that came about. Mentioned the upcoming anticipated releases from Palace, NBHD, and a few others. Thanks for putting up with the growing pains. We always appreciate the destructive criticism, so be sure to comment what you think! Keep us accountable, before we run this train right off the rails.  You can drop in for the live Twitch stream, every Thursday (10PM CDT / 8PM PDT), or you can get caught up later on, by viewing us on our Youtube channel. All views and opinions are strictly our own, and not affiliated with anything. If we offend any of you, just know that it wasn’t personal, and we love everyone and everything. Don’t take life so seriously, and that includes us. All views and opinions are strictly our own, and not affiliated with  anything. If we offend any of you, just know that it wasn’t personal,  and we love everyone and everything. Don’t take life so seriously, and  that includes us.