One of the most disappointing and classically angst-y moments of my (Shane, of Swift.fm) youth was when my Mom stole my Cure “Lovesong” t-shirt and literally polished my Dad’s shoes with it. Of course, it was in tatters beforehand, full of holes and pitstains from all the sweaty shows I’d gone to at Minneapolis’ First Avenue, but to this day I maintain she did it out of spite. I miss that shirt to this day and like all good music nerds, I still buy t-shirts at shows.
I do this for two reasons: first, to directly support the artist, and second, because as Stuff White People Like tells us, as a white person I must like t-shirts.
This got me thinking about what actually makes a good band t-shirt. I’ve got some good ones – from Jamie Lidell (which was actually artwork from Mudwig), Subtle, Choir of Young Believers, Trainwreck, Mastodon, Baronness and even a shirt that more or less launched a relationship. Seriously, my hot pink t-shirt from a SexyPants concert was an ice breaker when I first met my girlfriend.
I’ve got some bad ones too – I think “concert tees” with a list of the 83 venues that whoever played are missing the point. I’ve got a Willie Nelson “Whiskey River 2006″ t-shirt that’s ill-fitting, terrible quality and scratchy. I suppose if I were a Hells Angel or a trucker, I’d wear that more frequently, but for those of us who really pride ourselves on discovering artists and supporting them, I think an artist has to do something unique. Fans want something “limited” or that feels special.
Our friend Sam Valenti IV of Ghostly International once put it well. He said that the Ghostly customer is someone who’s considered and with a taste for quality and understatement. He then said that Ghostly customers “aspire to wear a slightly nicer shirt.” In that spirit, we got to thinking about what Swift.fm could do to create our first “band t-shirt”. Anyone can slap a hastily-constructed logo on a Beefy Tee and give it away, but come on, we wanted to do something cooler than that. So we drafted in our good buddy Jeremiah Wassom, an artist / illustrator / motion graphics designer here in San Francisco. We think what he came up with is pretty kickass. You can find out more about him at: http://freakinrad.com/ or http://twitter.com/jer_ohmy_ah/
So we think that a good band t-shirt needs a few qualities: it should inherently be “cool” (whatever your definition of that is), be quality, and above all else, be thought provoking.
What do you think?
The name of swift.fm is to hard to read. maybe a better font. My favourite t-shirt. Marc Almond cute in small font on front. On back in huge type IN A STUPID ASS WAY. Worked for this whiote guy.