Mike Conklin

Potential vice president...and big vinyl guy? Tim Walz's record player of choice is a widely recommended, not-at-all weird turntable.

This is part of InsideHook’s list of The 100 Best American-Made Products, a celebration of the gear, clothes and goods that make up our lives, and are the life’s work of our fellow Americans. If you think back 70 years, there aren’t many facets of popular culture that have stayed the same. Clothing and hairstyles have gone through their natural trend cycles, of course. Films look different. Music sounds different. The distribution channels by which we enjoy pop culture are even different, now…

We have made a fair amount of jokes here at InsideHook HQ about the Flint and Tinder Waxed Trucker Jacket being the official garment of the publication. A bunch of us have acquired more than one of them over the years. We write about it all the time. And we have ample data suggesting that you, the reader, share in our affinity for the best-selling jacket from Huckberry’s premier in-house brand. When we talk about the Waxed Trucker Jacket, we are generally referring to the flannel-lined ver…

James Beard Award winner and Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio has been an ambassador for Made In since late-2019, which, not at all coincidentally, is when I, a Top Chef stan through and through, got my first cookware from the DTC company. I was in the market and considering stepping all the way up to All-Clad the way any gear-obsessed home cook eventually does, but, swayed by Colicchio’s association, I chose Made In instead, and I haven’t looked back. Made In has previously released two produc…

When HBO’s The Last of Us caught the world by storm earlier this year and every single men’s lifestyle website on the internet insisted on telling you they’d identified the very handsome and utilitarian jacket Joel wears throughout much of the action, we felt weirdly, suddenly…inclined to gate-keep. We have, like most men’s lifestyle websites, to be fair, been singing the praises of the Flint & Tinder Flannel-Lined Waxed Trucker for years now. At one point, there was half-serious discussion…

Hi there, reader. My name is Mike Conklin, and I’m the Editor-in-Chief of InsideHook. I’d like to welcome you to the new and improved version of our site. We’ve been working on this redesign for the better part of a year to ensure that what you see on the screen before you is the most accurate possible reflection of who we are and what we hope to provide for you. I’m thrilled with how it turned out, and I hope you are, too. Before you start poking around, a few notes on what we’ve ch…

For Christmas of 2015, I received as a gift a long-sleeve Merino 150 Base Layer from Smartwool. It was maroon with tiny black horizontal stripes. It was unfathomably soft out of the box, and over the next three months, it only got softer. It’s the best long-sleeve running shirt. At the time, I was running at least five days a week, and I realize you will probably think I’m exaggerating when I say this, but I am not, I swear: I wore “my Smartwool” every single time. I wore it on its own on mil…

Everyone’s got a black-dial watch, right? As far as versatility is concerned, it’s a no-brainer if you’re only going to have one watch and wear it every day. It performs admirably in myriad situations, from a backyard BBQ to a black-tie wedding. And maybe you’ve got a blue-dial watch, too. Depending on the particular shade and how it reflects light, it can work just as well as a black dial, offering up just a bit of playfulness for anyone willing to look close enough. But today we’d like t…

Thirteen albums and nearly 30 years into a career that’s most easily defined by Jeff Tweedy’s continued insistence on evolving, Wilco has come to be written about and discussed almost exclusively in terms relative to one’s favorite era of the band. You have your old-school alt-country types, who favor the straightforward singalongs of A.M and Being There. You have your diehard Jay Bennett acolytes who swear by the dense power-pop arrangements of Summerteeth. A ton of extremely vocal and extr…

Occupying the surprisingly vast space between jeans and proper chinos is an extremely versatile and extremely underrated garment generally known as 5-pocket pants. The name references the orientation of the pockets, which mimics that of denim: two on the front, two on the back, plus the coin pocket or watch (or guitar pick) pocket, as it’s sometimes known. Chinos, on the other end of the spectrum, feature four pockets: two on the side seam and two in the back, for a slightly more formal presenta…

Occupying the surprisingly vast space between jeans and proper chinos is an extremely versatile and extremely underrated garment generally known as 5-pocket pants. The name references the orientation of the pockets, which mimics that of denim: two on the front, two on the back, plus the coin pocket or watch (or guitar pick) pocket, as it’s sometimes known. Chinos, on the other end of the spectrum, feature four pockets: two on the side seam and two in the back, for a slightly more formal presenta…

By Mike Conklin Walking beside Tommy Prine through Carter Vintage Guitars in Nashville, I get the distinct feeling we’re being watched. Or that he is, anyway. The shop is among the most famous in the world, a well-known mecca for high-end guitars, with a focus on extremely sought-after old acoustics. If you were in the market for, say, a 1960s Martin D-28 owned by Graham Nash and Judee Sill and you had $60,000 burning a hole in your pocket, you’d be well-served by a visit to Carter Vinta…

On November 11, 2022, when Plains, the collaborative project featuring Texas-born and LA-based songwriter Jess Williamson and Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutcthfield, played New York City’s Webster Hall, Crutchfield was all business — stoic and calm, a seasoned professional fresh off a tour supporting the biggest success of her career in 2020’s Saint Cloud. I’d seen her headline the very same sold-out room with Waxahatchee just shy of a year earlier, and she seemed charmingly nervous. But here, with Pl…

Update, 4/6/2023: Having lived with the Pro-Ject Audio Debut Carbon Evo (previously known as the Evolution) for nearly three years, it is still an impressively high-performing turntable that is unmatched in terms of quality for the price. Technology has continued to improve around the Debut Carbon Evo, but mostly in regard to bluetooth functionality, wireless connectivity and built-in components, all of which remain on an entirely different (and lower) tier of vinyl listening. When it comes to o…

In April of 2012, I shaved my beard for the first time in more than a decade. I don’t remember what I used. It was probably some sort of electric trimmer at first to get it down to a stubble, and then I imagine I used whatever plastic razor my wife had in the shower. I’m pretty sure there was blood. During my time with a beard, I’d gone all in on beard products: oils, shampoos, tiny combs and conditioners. Everything you and/or the dopey new direct-to-consumer mens grooming brands could think…

“This is a Photograph” is the result of a quarantine spent thinking about the nature of time and what we do with it.

Endlessly practical and timelessly cool. What could be better?

There are no wrong answers, really

Chilly mornings are upon us, and these are the running clothes you need to embrace them.

What is this thing? It’s the Pro-Ject Audio Debut Pro, a brand new audiophile-grade addition to the immensely popular Debut line, the base model of which got a significant upgrade in 2020 when the Debut Carbon DC was replaced by the Debut Carbon EVO. The PRO is priced at $999, and it’s hitting shelves right now in celebration of the Austrian brand’s 30th anniversary. Why does it matter? As we stated in our review of the Carbon EVO last year, this is the most popular series of turntable…