My Band T-Shirt

Around 2006, I started to get annoyed with people wearing t-shirts of bands
they were clearly never into. Obvious names were The Sex Pistols,
Motörhead and The Rolling Stones, and every other fool in my hipsterical
street was wearing a Ramones presidential seal shirt. So I decided to look
for shirts advertising bands and albums I actually listened to back in the
day.

Many, such as Living Colour’s Vivid, were fairly foul to look at and
eventually Rush’s 1987 album Hold Your Fire became my holy grail,
because it was a really nice simple design and because I wore my original
- and played the tape – to death. No matter that I abandoned Rush a couple
of years later, because they’re awful, I wanted that shirt.

I kept an eye on eBay. One came up, size M (too small) and used. It went
for $54. Then, in 2007, another appeared, in Akron, Ohio, size L, mint. In
the end there was only one other bidder, and I got it for $15. I felt like
Kevin Spacey in American Beauty, when he buys a Trans Am. I rule!

It’s quite tight - an oddly small L - but I make a point of wearing it on
Canada Day – July 1st – every year. Now if I could just find a King’s X Out
of the Silent Planet shirt…

Steve Sparshott