Is the band shirt dead?
Have rumours of the band shirt's death been greatly exaggerated?
One night back in 2005, I was sitting on a stool at the Black Dog, my local watering hole back in Edmonton. Drinking a heaping pint of Big Rock Traditional Ale, I stopped in mid-conversation to remark on a fellow patron’s appearance. This local yahoo was wearing an authentic 1988 Bob Dylan tour shirt with neon green and pink flourishes on a black background. Four impressionistic little doodles that were shaped like Dylan’s head were stacked on the front. The touring musicians were listed on the back, including G.E. Smith from the Saturday Night Live band. At the time I was an obsessive Dylan fan, analyzing his lyrics and poring over his discography.
I told the man that I must have his shirt and I would literally give him the shirt off of my back for it. In that instance, it was a Caribou t-shirt I had recently picked up from his Milk of Human Kindness tour stop at New City Likwid Lounge. Sorry about that, Dan. Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol or maybe it was just recency bias but the man agreed without a fuss and we both disrobed and swapped cotton right there in the middle of the pub. This is the shirt in question:
I still have it to this day. It’s one of those thin, see-through shirts that they don’t really make anymore that feels absolutely perfect. I think this was where my obsession with vintage music shirts began. I’m always on the lookout for compelling music-related garments, even though they’re feeling a bit played out these days. The metal shirt craze from a few years ago flattened bands into pure branding, which isn’t to say that image is not a major element of the world of music, but the whole enterprise was rendered helplessly swaggerless when a band’s logo became the only thing. Unblemished, mass produced bootleg remakes of old rock merch started coming out, reminding me of new jeans with pre-cut holes in the knees. Stylists plopping totally incongruous band shirts onto celebs made the trend quickly lose its lustre.
I don’t wanna sound like one of those guys who might ask an unsuspecting woman wearing a Black Flag shirt to name their top five Rollins era tunes. I will not be gatekeeping shirts in this newsletter. The thing is, if you’re faking the funk, it’s obvious to everyone. I’ve always steered clear of metal shirts because it’s just not really in my wheelhouse. I like when a band shirt is personalized to the individual, where you can see the relief and calmness in the owner’s face now that they’re rocking the perfect band shirt for them, possibly after years or even decades of searching for it.
To me, this is a level of effortless cool that basically can’t be topped. It’s not about trying to reflect what the band represents (danger, attitude, toughness, class) or about showing off your obscure or unlikely music taste. It’s not about how expensive or rare the shirt is. You could be rocking a certified grail but if it isn’t synced up with every fibre of your being, it just won’t quite pop the way you’d hope it would. A perfectly matched band shirt is timeless.
When I found this vintage tie dye The Prodigy “Firestarter” shirt and bought it for an unseemly amount of money, I didn’t really think twice about copping it because I had been hunting for one for quite some time. The Prodigy have been a creative touchstone of mine ever since I was a kid watching their videos on MuchMusic. As a guy who raps over electronic music, it was a no-brainer.
Other times, a shirt is inextricably tied to how you found it. I was shopping at For All To Envy in Los Angeles a few years back where I chatted with the owner for awhile. I gave him an idea of the kind of bands I was looking for: ‘80s new wave and electro pop but also maybe even ‘70s singer-songwriters. I was open to a wide spectrum. And he went into the back and pulled out the Tom Petty shirt above. There was something irresistibly random about it. It had Tom’s handwriting on the back and no logo on the front, just Mr. Petty’s bemused face. I had recently been analyzing his lyrics so it felt serendipitous. At first blush, you might think it’s no different from another rapper rocking a Guns N’ Roses shirt. I guess I saw it as a way for me to shout out one of the great American songwriters, an artist who did things on his own terms.
Now we’re talkin’! You can say a lot of things about Travis Barker but you certainly could never say that he doesn’t look like a guy who would listen to Gorilla Biscuits! As if he wasn’t already Hip-Hop’s Go-To Drummer That Isn’t Questlove, his dignified rocking of a completely appropriate band shirt for himself makes me appreciate him more than ever.
As washed and tired as the band shirt trend can feel at times, it’s clear that the online market for music shirts has absolutely exploded. You have crazy stuff like a vintage Sonic Youth Dirty t-shirt going for $2,565 USD and a Björk shirt on sale for a preposterous $6,750 USD on Grailed. Both ‘90s alternative acts with artistic leanings, their merchandise has appreciated in value as if these musty old rags were oil paintings. For some people, no price is too high for the perfect band shirt. What’s the craziest band shirt you’ve bought or seen? Sound off in the comments.
Other than being two of the world’s greatest scribes, Haruki Murakami and I also have many other things in common. We’re both record collectors and we both simply love to go for a jog. But most importantly, we’re both shirt enthusiasts. Murakami likes shirts so much, he wrote an entire book about them
I was very touched by this beautiful eulogy for Drakeo the Ruler in LA Mag by the inimitable Jeff Weiss. I believe that Jeff is the best writer of our generation. His reporting helped Drakeo make it out of prison and his harrowing eyewitness account of the enigmatic rapper’s untimely death will further cement Drakeo’s legacy so it can’t be mishandled by outside interlopers. Weiss has bars on par with any emcee; to him, listening to Drakeo is like discovering “a shadowland hieroglyphics of antique slang and diabolical taunts” that simmer with “a tragicomic cartoon realism”
Been really enjoying Clam Day by OTTO, the overlooked 2020 album by the Brooklynite artist formerly known as Memo Boy. He makes freaky electro drum machine pop with an impish, playful spirit that sounds like young Beck and young Aphex Twin having a jam session. Like the sonic equivalent of naive visual art, there’s so much wide-eyed wonder and exploration in these songs. My favourite tracks are “Crystal Hole,” an acid jangle rock jam that merges a lo-fi sensibility with real IDM knowhow, and “Spirit Theme,” a wistful drum workout with childlike raps that make you want to double dutch.
You can find me updating my playlist, DJing on Twitch or hanging on Twitter and Instagram. You can listen to Cadence Weapon music on Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp and you can cop Cadence Weapon merchandise here
Being an old geezer, I can't wear t-shirts with old bands on, it just says "I like old music"! And I like new music! So my most worn are my clipping. tees... Occassionally slipping on the JJ Doom "Allo Guv'nor". My fave is my And Yet It Moves (r.i.p. Dale) bondage dog. Seems to get the most comments at gigs. Bet there's a stack of them under someone's bed somewhere.
I now have a stash of band shirts that I’ve bought over the years but that I’m not wearing these days - a Springsteen tour shirt from a show I saw in Jersey with my dad, a Replacements tour shirt with too many holes in it (Riotfest few years ago); and a Yeezus tour shirt that I love and still wear on occasions but which has been we’ll say challenging to wear regularly in recent years. It’s a dope shirt though.