My Band T-Shirt

97. The Verve, T-Shirt Made On Hollywood Boulevard (1994)

In the run-up to this weekend’s Spent Vs My Band T-Shirt extravaganza (http://on.fb.me/AabfDW), here is Spent’s John Best with his own tremendous t-shirt story…

OK, so it’s not exactly a band t-shirt, in that it was never sold on a merch stand anywhere, but it does feature at least one member of a multi-million selling band, in ‘Mad’ Richard Ashcroft, seen here keeping the company of a bunch of back-roomers, among them on the left, your truly. I do have other Verve (and later, post-jazz-label-litigation, The Verve) t-shirts, but this one holds the most memories and associations, for obvious reasons. At this time (I’m going to say, 1994) I was masquerading as manager of Wigan’s chosen few, having graduated from being their publicist,  and this T would have been created in a cheap instant print shop hard by Mann’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Blvd, hence cheesy walk-of-fame typeface.  

It still being early an Verve US jaunt, we were giddy enough with the notion of ‘America’ to want to go out and just be in the place they made the movies. We must have stepped away from our budget West Hollywood accommodation to go and fit our hands and shoes in concrete prints left by Tinseltown’s great and good.  Doing the t-shirt would have been my idea, since it’s not the only one i have with my face on it. (I also had one done with James Brown, later of Loaded, on his first trip to America back in the late 80s and, I have to say, I recommend them, as they take on unexpected poignancy with the passing of the years. Plus nothing unsettles people more about what kind of crazy egomaniac you might be than walking round with your own younger phisog stretched across your front.) 

Anyway, the pretty guy at the bottom of the picture is David Boyd, who ran Verve’s label Hut Records in the UK, and had some kind of Native American fixation that extended beyond his blonde-Geronimo good looks to the wearing of a lot of turquoise and silver jewellery, and radically short denim cut-offs (actually, maybe that bit wasn’t native American). He was the person who suggested I manage the band, after they’d spent every last penny of their advance on beer and pasties in the first short months of their deal, and needed someone a little bit more, ahem, “responsible” to step into the breach. As their publicist, I understood next to nothing of what a manager did, but having already watched Pulp, Elastica and Cranberries come to our PR office manager-less, and go onto bigger and, let’s face it, more lucrative things, I was keen to give it go.  

This would’ve been around the time of their second album, A Northern Soul, and Dicky (as we sometimes referred to him) would have no doubt been calling me Eppie, in reference to Brian Epstein’s supposed illicit attachment to John Lennon, goading me that I had beyond-bromantic leanings towards our putative star. As it went, I didn’t (I couldn’t go for someone who didn’t flush the loo after themselves), but then anyone living South of Manchester would have naturally and quite rightly aroused gay suspicions.  Truth is, later that night I would make a gauche attempt to, um, “flirt” with the other person on this shirt, one Liz something-or-other who A&R’d for the band’s US label Vernon Yard, and had signed the still excellent Low. Liz rightly gave short shrift to my half-hearted seduction attempts, and everyone had a right old laugh in the morning, for unbeknownst to me, the motel walls were so thin, they could hear my abject attempts to call her room.

Later on, we went to party at Ritchie from Acetone’s house somewhere in the unknown hipsterville of Silverlake. Acetone were our Hut label-mates and supporting us on tour. In the future - when Ashcroft had stolen and secretly married Jason from Spiritualized’s girlfriend Kate - Spiritualized would immortalise the by-then sadly late Acetoner in song with The Ballad of Ritchie Lee. I remember the house seemed super-glamorous and have an abiding memory of myself standing in the shallow end of a swimming pool in my clothes drinking a brewski and feeling the innate rightness of doing it surrounded by such balmy LA-ness.

Perhaps the same night, or maybe one shortly thereafter, I also remember Damon Albarn coming to a small room where all of The Verve were ensconced smoking draw (and probably more) and him insisting on fronting out some extrapolated North:South rivalry (based, I guess, on Ashcroft’s friendship with the Gallaghers). It was kind of a bizarre evening and constantly threatened to turn ugly. In the end I think it was suggested that someone take Damon away before it properly kicked off. Anyway, there’s no real end to this rambling anecdote, except to say that such was life on the road with the then only legends-in-their-own-minds around 1994. Soon of course, everything would change, and a few years later I would have no connection with any of these people. Only one of us would be wrestling with head-turning wealth at odds with our working class roots, and it wouldn’t be me. Still at least i got the lousy t-shirt.

P.S. Either that shirt’s got smaller or…oh, hang on a minute…

John Best

96. Morrissey, New Morrissey Express (1992)

Ah, 1992 … the year of the Maastricht Treaty, the L.A. riots, the New Musical Express’s fortieth anniversary and George H.W. Bush puking into the lap of the Japanese Prime Minister. On a more personal level, it was the year I took my GCSEs, consolidated the previous year’s experiments with smoking and drinking and witnessed, outside a Ned’s Atomic Dustbin gig, an exceptionally wasted girl from school pointing at the sign reading ‘Doors – 8pm’ and gasping, ‘Wow … the Doors are playing.’ Heady days indeed.

However, 1992 was also the year in which I belatedly discovered a little-known singer/songwriter from Manchester named Morrissey, and attended a small musical gathering called Glastonbury. Moz was scheduled to be playing the Pyramid Stage on Saturday night (the evening headlined, in a true reflection of the turgidity of the time, by Shakespear’s Sister) and it was as much to do with his presence as Carter USM’s on Friday and that of 808 State on Sunday that my chum Luke and I booked our tickets.

Of course, in-between the day of purchase and the day we embarked on a series of bus journeys from the Midlands to Worthy Farm, Morrissey cancelled (an eerie precursor of what was to happen on my next trip to Glastonbury) and was replaced by James. Although this was fairly disappointing news – or rather, as we were sixteen, A MORTIFYING, END OF DAYS TRAGEDY – we somehow coped with the heartache and had a great weekend anyway, watching bands good and mediocre, and drinking frighteningly opaque local cider. Yet although Morrissey wasn’t there in person, he still made his presence felt. On the merchandise stand by the second stage, I spotted a beautifully minimalist black t-shirt featuring just the NME logo … only with ‘music’ replaced with ‘Morrissey’. I got the in-joke and a minute or so later, I got the t-shirt.

For the next few years, the garment occupied pride of place amongst my band t-shirts (briefly sharing the top slot with a none-more-monochrome Ride number) and it outlasted all of them, surviving my A-levels and subsequent departure from my mum and dad’s house without being binned, burned beyond recognition by hot rocks or lost at nightclubs – fates which tragically befell several of its peers. In fact, it was still part of my wardrobe when I made my second visit to Glasto in 1995.

This time it was the Stone Roses who caused a flutter of horror by pulling out at the last minute (thanks to John Squire busting his arm cycling, an event which briefly became one of our masturbatory euphemisms) but by the time me and my pals, Steve, Alex and Kate arrived, the glorious weather and generally giddy Glastonbury vibe had assuaged any spiritual trauma the Roses’ no-show might have caused. Not even the purchase of what I thought was acid but turned out to be nothing more powerful than aspirin put a dampener on the first part of the weekend. The accompanying photo, taken during some amyl downtime on the Friday afternoon, shows the t-shirt in almost its full glory. (I’ve got a better picture, but for some horrendous and unfathomably ‘90s reason, I’ve got the t-shirt tucked into my jeans, Cowell-style. For this reason, it’s being confined to the archives.)

Things went wrong that evening, during Oasis’s set, when Alex was mugged, and became irretrievably pear-shaped the following night, as while we all huddled together in one of our two tents for security, the second was pinched. The sun had gone out on that year’s Glastonbury and we went home early, missing the Cure, Elastica and, erm, Tanita Tikaram. My guitar had gone in the stolen tent; so had Steve’s camera and some of Kate’s clothes; but the New Morrissey Express t-shirt survived to be worn another day … and another … and another.

What eventually became of it, I don’t know. It was certainly long gone by the time I finally stopped buying the paper which inspired it, in the last year of the century. However, it saw a great deal of service during the 1990s, and 20 years after I bought it, it remains as much a part of my memories of those distant, dreamy days as the bands which soundtracked them and the cloudy cider that did its best to obliterate them from my mind.

David Lewis

95. Alien Sex Fiend, Black With Holes (1994)

This shirt was my favourite from my goth period, which began around age 16, or 1994 in the rest of the world’s time. It met all my style requirements: dark, messy, and obscure. Though people probably read the name and wondered whether I was indeed an Alien Sex Fiend, I rarely got hassled in the same way I had when I started dressing in band t-shirts and tie dyed petticoats some years earlier.

The darker and stranger I looked, the less likely men were to tell me my Doc boots were “kinky”, though now they yelled “Addams Family” from cars as they drove by. By now my Doc boots had lost their embarrassing newness and were well worn in. I’d changed the colours of the laces a few times, at some points being alarmed by what shoelace colour was meant to signify. Did white laces really mean you were a Nazi sympathiser? I stuck to purple or blue, which meant you were a lesbian.

The ASF shirt was one of the rare band t-shirts that, after sewing machine surgery, actually fit in a flattering way and wasn’t like wearing a sack. Wearing it I felt I was a real goth. Although I wore only black, listened to goth music and read everything I could about goths and goth interests, my feelings of having made it were easily destroyed when I saw someone more goth. Goth band t-shirts were crucial in displaying my authenticity.

The ASF shirt soon developed holes and this pleased me, as I could wear it with ripped stockings and layers of black lace petticoats and feel appropriately post-apocalyptic. I felt pretty happy with myself in this outfit, as I went to see local goth band Neuropaque at Feedback, (a venue above Newtown Station in Sydney that has remained boarded up since the 1990s; I imagine it still would be the 90s if you broke in). When I got to the show, as happened with every gig or club I attended, I saw the goth girls in their 20s, who wore beautiful gowns and had excellent control over their liquid eyeliner. They floated past, majestic, and I felt like a little rat. An Alien Sex Fiend rat.

Alien Sex Fiend were a trashy electro goth band from London whose core members were a couple known as Mr and Mrs Fiend. My favourite song of theirs was Now I’m Feeling Zombiefied, a song that culminated in screaming out the title over and over, as many of their songs did. Who knew more about being zombiefied? The majestic older goth girls or me, still in high school, having to sit through things like Maths classes?

Most of my favourite goth times were spent in my room listening to cassettes of songs I’d taped off Sacrament, Sydney’s one goth radio show. I was a “bedroom goth”, a term I used to describe teenage goths who, rather than hang out at clubs like older goths, spent most of their time in their caves. One of the things that appealed to me about goth was that it was a subculture in which it was acceptable to inhabit an imagined world, separate to the real one. It was also acceptable and normal to spend the majority of one’s time inside, reading, with the occasional cigarette or slice of toast to keep you alive.

The remnants of my goth wardrobe, along with other evidence of my past lives, have been stored in a suitcase under my mother’s house for many years. Sometimes I would wonder what was happening to them under there: growing mould, being eaten by mice and through decomposition becoming even more goth. They’d been in storage for about a decade, packed away a few years after the above polaroid, in which I loaned my ASF shirt as an instant goth-ifying spell for my friend.

So when I decided to make a zine about my teenage years told through band t-shirts, I finally had a reason to exhume my goth clothes. Among the lace gowns with tiny waists I found my ASF shirt, faded, with holes down one side, the demonic faces of the band members leering out at me, saying to me, “we knew you’d be back”.

In my band t-shirt zine, I wrote the story of my teenage years from my first Cure shirt, through my goth period (Joy Division - the Unknown Pleasures shirt that is probably the world’s most iconic band t-shirt, so much so you can even get it as a g-string), Alien Sex Fiend, Bauhaus, ending up at indie-pop with a Cannanes t-shirt I bought from an op shop for $2.

I have no memory of getting rid of any of my many band t-shirts; all I know is that now most have disappeared. Each one persists strongly in my memory, though, and like with many of the entries on My Band T-shirt, my shirts are connected to bittersweet stories of fandom, love, record stores, gigs, cities, and wearing one’s identity on one’s chest.

Vanessa Berry
http://vanessaberryworld.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/the-band-t-shirt-zine/

94. Madness, Christmas Party for Greenpeace (1983)

Ladieeeeez and gentlemen! Roll up, roll up for the greatest show on Earth. London’s Lyceum theatre proudly presents for one night only…The Madness Christmas Party!!!

It is the year of Our Lord Upminster 1983. Accompanied by my new mate, Paul G, as uber-fans of Madness, we had decided to get to the venue nice and early in the vain hope we might meet our heroes and nab their autographs.

Paul G was ‘Suggs’ to my ‘Chas Smash’. Our paths first crossed at a caravan park disco called The Quarterdeck in Selsey Bill (the Sussex seaside town famously name checked on the Madness’ single, Driving In My Car and in Saturday’s Kids by The Jam too).

On a night out there, I’d usually be attired in a tonic suit, a pork pie hat and jet black wrap-a-round ‘walk into the Ladies toilets by mistake’ shades. Whenever the DJ spun a Madness single, I’d rush to the dance floor and attempt Chas Smash’s ‘Nutty Dance,’ often attracting a ring of revellers warmly cheering me on.

I was a seventeen-year-old would-be comedy actor who just needed a platform to perform. The tiny, shoe-scuffed, lager-drenched, flashing-draughts board of The Quarterdeck was that very platform. And it was one fateful Friday night that this fellow Madness clone suddenly emerged from the fog that was farting from the dry ice machine. He was dressed in a sharp grey suit, a flat top you could place a spirit level on and sported a pair of round black-tinted specs. The opening snare drum beat of House Of Fun burst from the speakers.

Together, we blindly moon-stomped, skanked, ran on the spot like hamsters, bounced back and forth and accidentally head butted each other. Crack.

It must be…Kismet? Paul was a pretty nifty dancer; favouring the jerky ‘Suggs’ approach that complimented my ‘Chas Smash’ swagger. The crowd went nuts and for a short while, this couple of young show offs believed they were a ska version of The Two Ronnies. The Two Pauls.

Wednesday, December 21^st, 1983.

The train whisked us away from the mean streets of downtown Chichester to London’s The Strand (‘ave a banana) and on arrival, we gazed in awe at the proscenium majesty of the Lyceum Theatre. Sadly, this magnificent 19^th century building no longer acts as a rock venue. Today, you’d probably get thrown out for crowd surfing during a Lion King matinee.

The ‘Two Pauls’ stood shivering by the stage door. My old ‘crombie’ overcoat (I won’t dignify it with a capital ‘C’) was never much cop in winter. It was one of those cheap jobs purloined from Petticoat Lane market where all the buttons fell off after a fortnight and the red lining tore under your arms if you lifted them above chest height.

“Let’s go and stand by that other door,” I suggested, pointing at a security exit; hearing a slight ripping sound. We sidled up to the door and hung around for an hour or so.

Now, how often did country bumpkins like us, experience the bright lights of London? Where the streets are paved with… pavements. We could be in Virgin Records…Forbidden Planet comic shop…Wendy Burger! No, what are we doing? We’re just loitering on a street corner freezing our bollo…Hold on. Policeman giving us dirty looks.

A hairy man in a Motorhead T-shirt emerged from the door.

“Hello boys, comin’ to see the show tonight?”

“Yeah”, Paul G grinned, showing him his prized ticket.

“Well, d’ya fancy ‘elping us blow up some balloons?”

Never had the inflating of a job lot of party items sounded so appealing. This was our window of opportunity. The roadie, in a spirit of misplaced trust in hooligan stereotypes and laziness, handed us self-adhesive silky AAA passes (none of your poncy laminates back then) and gave us the task of blowing up several hundred balloons with the help of one huge helium canister. Privately, our lungs wheezed a sigh of relief. The balloons were to be secreted in a giant net up in the gods and released at the climax of the gig. After an hour of tying fiddly rubber knots (and suffering minor cardiac arrests when Paul G would over inflate the bloody things) the moment we’d been waiting for had finally arrived. The Nutty boys themselves!

Several members of the band sullenly drifted into the auditorium. We started trembling. Keep cool, Pauls.

Chas, Mike and Suggs went into quiet discussion, surveying the space and asking the roadie questions.

What?? I thought to myself. No tonic suits, no loafers, not even a fez! Where are Mike Barson’s omnipresent shades? I can see his actual eyes. This ain’t right. TRAINERS??? And they look so serious.

Chas Smash seemed a bit scary in the flesh. He tugged on his cigarette and glared over at us. Us. The Two Pauls, looking like a cheap off the peg version of Suggs and Chas Smash. We immediately felt very self-conscious.

“Alright lads? Thanks for helping out,” said Suggs, wandering over.

“We should get these two geezers to fill in for us tonight, eh Suggsy?” rasped Chas Smash.

He winked to reassure us but we both turned cherry red and sheepishly looked down at our Cherry Reds. Meanwhile, the sax player, Lee Thompson was busily inhaling from our helium supply and began impersonating Pinky & Perky in a squeaky voice. This act of daftness broke the ice and so we all had a gasp. I rather bravely sung a line of Chipmunks Are Go in contralto. Chas laughed. Phew!

After such larks of potential brain embolism, it was time for the band to soundcheck. They kick off with a run through of a new song we hadn’t heard before called Keep Moving and their current hit single, The Sun And The Rain. Chas Smash wants to sing his bass baritone backing vocal lyric (“low…”) several times and then…

I really didn’t anticipate the afternoon could be more mind-blowing, or indeed balloon-blowing, than this but then I spotted a huge camp teddy-boy usher a short hobbling figure into the auditorium. Immediately, Suggs and Chas Smash leapt off the stage to greet this gentleman. Now, Madness were my favourite band but Ian Dury was my god. Five minutes later, the great man lurched between us to inspect our handiwork. He shook our hands, muttered something about Flanagan & Allen, chuckled and then disappeared with Chrissy Boy to avail himself to hospitality.

Ian. Dury.

A third band on the bill arrived to sound check called Bonsai Forrest. Unbeknownst to me, the guitarist transpired to be a future comedy hero of mine in the form of young Paul Whitehouse, who went on to find fame with TV’s, The Fast Show. Nigel Planer from The Young Ones also made an appearance.

(If I’m going to continue to vulgarly namedrop here, I also lent 20p to Dick Cuthell, the session trombonist from The Specials for the payphone in the foyer.)

The hairy roadie wandered over to thank us for our efforts but it was coming up to 6pm. Gulp! We were supposed to meet my brother and his mates over an hour ago! Before we left through the tradesmen’s entrance, we were each rewarded two snow-white Madness Christmas Party sweatshirts. I used to wear mine with pride until I got too tubby and started to look like Mr Stay Puft from Ghostbusters. It kept me warm on the train journey home though and I still treasure it today, keeping it safe in a plastic box in my parents’ garage with some other mildew covered t-shirts.

Needless to say, it was the greatest show on earth.

I sat perched on my older brother’s shoulders at the finale, leaving him with a cricked neck and me, crushed nuts. It’s amazing how hundreds of descending balloons and confetti can make one forget abject pain. Chas Smash sung The Sun And The Rain line, “low…”, pitch perfect. He and Suggs, dressed in immaculate suits and shades, danced the night away on stage, bouncing around with complete abandon.

Just two young men showing off, really.

Paul Putner

93. Little Fish, Wonderful (2011)

This is the only band T-shirt that I own. And I will never wear it. It marks the transition of a band that I fell in love with, to – I’m sad to say – just another band.

I first encountered Little Fish in November 2008 at my favourite venue, The Abart, in Zürich. The Abart only holds about 600 people, yet still regularly manages to attract great British bands. We were there to see Supergrass, and Little Fish were the support.  Standing right at the front, less than a yard away from the drum kit, I was stunned by the sheer violence that Nez (after speaking to them afterwards, I felt we were old friends) put into his drumming. It certainly made me wonder at the engineering prowess necessary to make a drum kit. How can it stand up to that punishment? How do those clips take that beating and yet remain adjustable? How long can those skins last? Why doesn’t the whole thing just tip up and fall over?

There were times when I watched Nez, times when I watched the drums or even just the pedals, but more often than not I watched JuJu. It didn’t hurt that she was young and cute and thrashing an electric guitar, but the sheer anger in her face, the range of tones in her voice, were mesmerising. She’s one of those people that treats a guitar like a whole range of instruments; percussion, bass and guitar all in one. Able to extract delicate notes or violent screams interchangeably. She was funny too, with a range of put-downs that any stand-up comedian would be proud of.

I’d stopped buying CDs and switched to downloads sometime in 2007 and my flat became a CD-free zone about nine months later But I bought two CDs that night. One was a studio demo (“it’s rare, mate”) and another had three tracks live. I didn’t care that the tracks were probably the same. If there was a possibility of a note, even a breath, being different, I wanted it. I needed it. I asked Juju to sign one and write the same as she had for the guy in front of me. She did, sort of: “I love you - because I have to”.

There followed a period of scouring listings for Little Fish gigs. Plenty of them if you live near Oxford. Zurich isn’t near Oxford. Occasional newsletters presaged an album; it was ordered unheard and loved instantly. I even toyed with the idea of getting them to play at a corporate gig I had a minor input to, but decided against it.

Then last year a new single, Wonderful, was announced. This would be the first time I would hear them as a three piece, with Ben added to play the Hammond, and although that meant it wasn’t the Little Fish I’d seen, it was OK. If you ordered quickly, you could order a limited edition T-shirt. I was quick, but not quick enough; I ended up with a Medium rather than the Large that my frame now requires. Never mind, it was a Little Fish T-shirt. Little details like size aren’t important.

And then, disaster. Pretty much at the same time as the single and shirt arrived, I read that Nez had left the band “to spend more time with his family”. And at that point, the magic was gone. It turns out that it wasn’t about the guitar. It was about the drums. And suddenly the relationship was over, the T-shirt a relic of something beautiful, but now just a T-shirt that’s the wrong size.

We go our separate ways now, Little Fish and I, and I wish them well. Sadly, the Abart will close this year too, bringing another touch of finality. But my band T-shirt will remain, folded and unworn at the bottom of a drawer.

Geoff Collins

92. Pulp, I’m Common (1995)

Of course, my mother hated it. It was bright, acid-custard yellow, with a 70s style navy blue trim around the neck and arms, a discreet Pulp log on the back and I’M COMMON emblazoned across the chest.

Although we lived in a small industrial town in the armpit of the North-West – my sister and I went to the local comp and our dad was a welder – my mum had worked very hard to make sure I wasn’t common.

To tell the truth, I didn’t think I was common either. Growing up in Ellesmere Port with a name like Georgina and a school shirt from Marks and Spencer, I thought I was quite a cut above the Sharons and Nicolas in Tammy Girl that hung around outside the Wimpy. No, it wasn’t until I went to university that I realised how common I was.

But, that was still a few months away. This was mid-1995 and I was about to embark on the best summer of my young life.

I’d taken an enforced gap year between sixth form and university and in that time made a momentous discovery about life. I, was an indie kid. From Blur to Oasis, Menswe@r to Elastica, heck, even taking in Northern Uproar, if it had a jangly guitar, a floppy haired singer, and a beat you could shuffle your Gazelles to, I was all over it. And Pulp were the crowned kings and queen of my personal indie disco.

I wore my band t-shirt with black flares, cherry red Dr. Martens, and a fitted army jacket. When I was chased out of a former-school pal’s party for being a ‘bloody hippy’, I was delighted because I knew I was getting it right: I was a Mis-shape, I was Sorted, and I knew that one day I would use my mind to get my own back on all the kids who’d called me Orangina and taunted me at school. The form of this revenge was not defined, but I was pretty sure it would involve coming back in a blaze of glory and lording it up in the local pub somehow.

But, for that summer, I was content to go berserk in the singles aisle of HMV, devour every word in the NME and dance Friday nights away in the nearest city’s alternative disco, because, my God, other people liked this music too, and some of them were wearing band t-shirts as well.

Since moving to London, playing in a band, and working as a showbiz journalist, I’ve met many people my I’m Common self would have creamed her pants over, and I’ve always managed to keep my cool. But the closest I’ve ever come to Jarvis was accidentally standing next to him at a bar after another band’s gig in the Shepherd’s Bush Empire. I didn’t say anything to him, although I’m pretty certain I must have discreetly fingered his jacket, but fled to the toilet to screech down the phone about the childhood hero I’d just shared smoky air with.

The person I rang? My mum. I knew she’d realise how momentous it was.

George Terry

http://terryterryandtheterriers.wordpress.com/

91. The Leather Nun, Totenkopf Rock ‘N’ Roll (1986)

The city of Oxford during the mid 1980s, pre-Radiohead, pre-Supergrass, pre-Ride, pre-just about everything, was a surprisingly quiet place for a city that was home to a disproportionately large number of young people. Despite the presence of a world famous university, a large Polytechnic (the consolation prize for those who couldn’t make it into the posh place) and a College of Further Education, the expected student contribution to the local music scene never really appeared. There were possibly only half a dozen bands native to the city that gigged with any regularity and I was a member of one of them. We were different to most of the others. We were into The Stooges, Motorhead, 13^th Floor Elevators, The Velvet Underground, MC5, Hawkwind and hardcore punk and attempted to sound like some kind of combination of them all, to varying degrees of success depending on how drunk or stoned we happened to be at the time.

Anyway, one of the more obscure punk singles that was very popular in our small circle was the Slow Death EP by a Swedish band call The Leather Nun, the lead track of which, No Rule, became a particular favourite.  It was rare that any of us would make a mix tape that didn’t feature it and it was very quickly bagged as a cover version by our guitarist’s side project.

By the time we had discovered The Leather Nun, the band had already had a rather erratic career which had seen the release of only three singles and one cassette in nearly seven years. Their sound had also moved on from being pure punk, and had become a greasy kind of biker rock that featured single repetitive riffs and feedback drenched lead guitar. Lead vocalist Jonas Almquist had also dropped his early shouty punk approach and was now crooning in a deadpan style that was an uncanny imitation of Lou Reed.

So, as all this was still pretty much to our taste, when the band announced a live date at the London Clarendon for late 1986 a friend and I hitch hiked our longhaired and unkempt selves up the M40 from Oxford at attend. Inside the crumbling ballroom, a makeshift merchandise stand was situated in an alcove, behind a rickety wallpaper table and the only available item, a t-shirt, was taped to the wall behind and I immediately wanted one. The band’s Totenkopf Rock ‘n’ Roll design had brought them some notoriety in Germany as the use of the word in conjunction with a skull graphic raised associations that the band were quick to refute, but the shirt itself is a great. In stark black and white, the skull and crossbones and gothic lettering should make it a rock cliché and I suppose it is, but as I’m that way inclined and have never been a great fan of t-shirts with large, vulgar designs or tour dates or other clutter, I found the simplicity of this one very appealing and it quickly became a favourite. The arms were swiftly removed, in the prevalent style of the time, and it got some very heavy use for the next couple of years, eventually becoming faded, misshapen and riddled with tiny holes as the result of falling ‘hot rocks’ (an ever present hazard during those Rizla happy days). All of which made love it more, of course.

The grand finale for this t-shirt, before it became totally worn out and unwearable, came during 1988 when one of my first jobs as a professional touring guitar technician was as a roadcrew member for none other than The Leather Nun. This took me on my first tour outside the UK and the Totenkopf Rock ‘n’ Roll t-shirt was in full effect every night, as was the song No Rule which was the band’s traditional encore. It was soon after this tour that the band changed direction, became less abrasive, and moved away from noisy rock ‘n’roll. I lost touch with them and stopped following their career. They apparently made a couple more albums with Kim Fowley then Mick Ronson in the producer’s seat, before Jonas Almquist departed and became a major star on Swedish MTV.

I tried to wear the t-shirt on a couple of other occasions in the early 1990s but its increasing fragility, and my increasing girth, made it impossible. I still couldn’t bring myself to throw it away though and have kept it safe as a reminder of old times and old habits ever since. I was fondly reminded of it recently when viewing a documentary, released last year called Anyone Can Play Guitar, a history of the Oxford music scene. I was delighted to notice, among the archive material in the film, a previously unseen photo of myself and a bandmate during rehearsals. I am, of course, wearing my favourite t-shirt and it looks fresh, and still black, unlike the item I’m left with now. It would seem that although classic t-shirts will never die, they do (literally) fade away.

Adrian Vines
(rehearsal photograph by JohnnyMoto Photography)

90. The Jam, In The City (1977)

Some mates and I set up a t-shirt printing company in 1977, designing and hand printing punk rock inspired t shirts: X Ray Spex, Penetration, The Beat, The Clash, the Pistols, all became our inspiration and our clients.

As we hand-printed everything back then, we were able to make some quite unique t-shirts, with oversize images bleeding off the edges, and off-registration prints blending all sort of lurid fluorescent colours. But the Jam ones tended to be more a wee bit more conventional and controlled, like the band… and like the one I am wearing in the pic.

The Jam were always my favourite. I was seriously in love with Paul Weller in my late teens, and my mate Molly had brief but intense hots for Bruce Foxton. We followed them all over. One night Molly drove us to some seaside resort (can’t remember where) to deliver the Jam T-shirts. Paul’s dad was his manager back then, and I seem to remember all the merchandising was run as a family thing… dad, girlfriend, sister, all hands-on.

Well, we saw the band and were invited back to the hotel. It was a great evening for Molly who ended up disappearing with Bruce for the night. Not so good for us though, sleeping in the freezing car, which at least she had taken the trouble to open for us.

We printed several runs of this Jam In the City design, and I ended up with this ‘special’ one with the red trim. We went to see them in Aylesbury one night, and I wore the ‘special’ one. The excitement of driving to a gig back then was rarely to be matched again in my life, and on this night itself the excitement was doubled, as I expected to go to after show party and meet the man himself, wearing my one-off T shirt. But after a few support bands and a few beers (and stuff) I was making my way to the front and it all become too much for me (I was a bit of a lightweight back then).

I never made it down the front. I must have passed out and found myself waking up in a St John ambulance van with a very kind man offering me sweet tea and a Mars bar. I was advised to lay still while the band played on! I wanted to get up but was pretty paralytic. I missed The Jam, and am not sure if I made it to the aftershow party. I have a foggy memory of the late 1970s… but I still have this t-shirt and am still a big fan of the man and his music.

Cat Santos, Fifth Column