In the beginning...

The origin of the company or movement known as Yamabushi is varied and complex it took along time to evolve. It was like a slowly developing seed a language was created and communicated to the world.

The story of Yamabushi encompasses many people over many years and could not be told without the support of everybody that ever bought a shirt.

Yamabushi is all about the underdog; all about the true essence, the heart, the very core. A lifetime of practice and study has gone into the creation of a truly unique product line.

The timeline really begins years ago in the early 80's when my brother and I were little ass kids. We watched a lot of cartoons we loved the 70's Japanese stuff like 'Starblazers' and 'G-Force' as well as 'Super-Friends' and most Filmation shows, cartoons were important to us, they became a second religion.

Jon and I used to stay up late on Saturday nights to watch kung-fu theatre on channel 48 WGGT 'the great entertainer' it was our favorite. When I saw my first ninja, 'Super Ninjas', I was hooked and I was addicted for life.

We loved the stories the action the brotherhood it all formed part of the basis of our further investigation of eastern culture. I was always drawn to Japan and her culture and history particularly the samurai era. They had the sharpest swords and their armor looked cool.

As I grew older I learned there was so much more to it the Zen aspect the spiritual side of a warriors life. The way one deals with the good surprises and the bad rolling with the punches. The extreme amount of dedication and self sacrifice needed to advance to higher levels of both skill and perception. The commitment to guarding the weak to being a good example living by a code all of this appealed to me.

So along with the deep involvement in eastern studies our love for cartoons and mythology of all kinds we slowly started to develop our own specific aesthetic. These were the skater years the punk age going to shows getting into trouble slam dancing stage diving twelve packs older girls south-side backyards.

Television played a part with shows like V and Amerikkka the apocalyptic freedom fighters make them clap to this they arrived in fifteen mother-ships offering their friendship and advanced technology. We ate up the sci-fi, video games and hip-hop. These were the days of sock world and the brown Scout, of Commodore 64, Miracle House and Love Fest. It was a time of exploration trying new things hanging out with crazy people. The freedom did not come without struggle but our community absorbed good times with the bad.

Along with Mike, our honorary brother, my brother and I continued to customize and create. We taught kids how to Jim Morrison Pink Floyd out really go and start pushing the boundaries. With other crew members Dave, Matt, Seth, Will, John, Bones, Travis, Stella, Rob, Martin and the late great Haze Jones R.I.P. we rolled tight. Always there was the need to express how do we show the vibe how do we make it better than it was.

From punk shows to parties from movies to magazines everything we had to do ourselves. I really think that is where a big part of Yamabushi comes from draws from those old Ardmore balls to the wall days. No one is going to do it for you , you have to do it yourself.

The music, the poetry, the flamboyant excesses and lifestyles all contributed to a fiercely independent sense of style and doing things. The first aspects of gnosis 'the inner divinity the pipe-line to the personal godhead' began to appear, we all were seekers, out to find a form of truth that was our own.

As a group we did campouts the tree-house all of the parties and shows Frisbee at Reynolda Gardens and an early pinnacle of exploration 'Good Fingers'. Good Fingers was an early attempt at a collective, part store part gallery part home. We threw some amazing events there but eventually it came to an end.

Ardmore continued to expand the development of new creative ventures. Relations at home were bad, we lost a close friend, Aaron, and I moved out, left home, tried it on my own for a while, it was a bad time. I had to do something with my life I had always liked art and the expression it provided, I had even gotten into AP classes so I entered art school after dropping out of regular high school and the discipline probably saved my life.

The intensity and competitive conditions of the school fostered a sink or swim mentality. It made you better through total immersion you ate it and slept it. Where before I had been on my own, the first to drop out, I had multiple court cases and run ins with Jake, life could have taken a very different trajectory had it not been for art, it became the outlet and the way out because those times were hard as cheesy as that sounds.

So stay in school, it is good for you to learn it makes you more effective. During this time the early 90's we started seeking out all the 70's stuff that was cool really started collecting devouring whatever we could find and afford. Developing a taste for particular styles and motifs I covered my walls with pictures I liked to look at. Jon, Mike and I started collecting toys in earnest. Part of the drive was to recapture that feeling of youth that old school feeling that time period in your life where imagination ruled supreme.

Then we started mixing things together making badges or early designs by lumping a bunch of special pictures together. Jon was the one to make the first shirts some CBS Jimi shirt then the blow up of Zartan's box and the Snake-doctor shirt. I started to further the idea and make cool combination pieces heavily influenced by the kung-fu and blunts organic shaped weirdo designs [that can be viewed in the vault section.]

It was all about our own icons on shirts. Making shirts we wanted to wear Mike and Jon got in on the action as well contributing early to the stylistic size and scope of the whole undertaking.

The music we were listening to anything could make it in, it was wide open. We would have little parties and share all of our little pictures and make works. It was all about making something hype. They had to rent time on this massive heat press at this sports supply store to print out small runs of highly personalized T-shirts. Tiny batches of shirts of all colors with patches on the arms that would end up given to friends.

We were grabbing stuff from all over one of the real innovations was Jon's access to a early video editing place where you could capture still pictures from movies or cartoons. It was a way early on for us to have something no one else had. That was the motivation to make our own styles and heroes no one else was.

We actually had a few designs when it was all said and done, but the quality of paper used to apply the design to the shirt would not last. It was a good idea but a far cry from the sophistication that would come later.

Those were salad days tragic thrilling and formative. Freedom and free doom we learned some things too late, we didn't all make it intact or otherwise. Some of Yamabushi deals with the struggle to stay positive in these complex dark times. Ardmore forms the root the foundation but the tree of Yamabushi had further growing to do branching out to Baltimore. Continue to the Next Chapter: "The Baltimore Years"