Erica Easley, T-shirt collector and coauthor of Rock Tease: The Golden Years of Rock T-Shirts, divines the history of rock by deciphering clues left at the merch table. / By Mike Errico / Blender.com, February 2007
Erica Easley, T-shirt collector and coauthor of Rock Tease: The Golden Years of Rock T-Shirts, divines the history of rock by deciphering clues left at the m... more
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1
Lou Reed
circa 1974
Shirts that were made before the late '70s are extremely rare, and this is a perfect time capsule of the era where they were made by fans or people in head shops. The bands weren't really involved. The record companies weren't involved, either. Nobody was thinking about T-shirts as a way to make money. Also, T-shirts were not something most people wore during the '60s — they weren't in style. By the '70s, T-shirts were becoming much more common. Girls and boys both wore them, as opposed to just guys. And there were places where you could silk-screen your own — that didn't exist in the '60s, really. This shirt is a single color print, kinda sloppy, actually, but you know somebody made it with their own hands. There's a lot of passion that comes through there. It's not made by a corporation, and you don't get that on new shirts.
2
Joan Jett
circa 1977
This shirt was made while Joan was still in the Runaways, but it's a shirt for her only, made by people who really liked her. It definitely tells you a different story than the one you get from Runaways documentaries or interviews. Joan Jett was emerging as the star of the group, and the shirt is a historical document of that transition. I also think it's great because there's such a degree of intimacy in it. It's the type of thing somebody drew in their notebook in high school, and communicates the poignant connection between fans and their favorite rock stars. Today, I don't see too many people making T-shirts for their favorite bands — now they might do Web sites for them. It's the same impulse.
3
Lynyrd Skynyrd
circa 1977
This shirt is so great. It's timeless, and so perfectly expresses what Lynyrd Skynyrd was about. I mean, you've got the Southern thing going on, you've got the alcohol, you've got the rock & roll. And that's them. In the early '80s, big corporations started to buy sponsorships of rock tours, but here you have a band embracing an established brand in a much more effective way than by having it stuck on the tour bill. I don't know if it started with Skynyrd, but Jack Daniels is now the unofficial drink of rock & roll. They definitely helped push that along.
4
Frank Zappa
circa 1979
This image is still crass, even 30 years later. But that's Frank Zappa. It's irreverent, it's in your face and you have to deal with it. There's peripheral imagery of Christmas stuff, so I'm guessing this was made for a Christmas show. But then there's the picture of his pubic hair sticking out of his jockey shorts. And when you think about it, there's so much rock imagery that is about women and female sexuality — this hints at male sexuality, even though it's not homoerotic at all. And with the knee-socks sort of lampooning images of female sexuality, the Zappas could sue American Apparel for stealing their entire ad campaign.
5
Ozzy Osbourne
1981
Anybody that I've ever shown this shirt to has freaked out, but I think that people also know that it's not really Ozzy Osbourne. Most Ozzy shirts by this point had copyright and trademark on, but this one doesn't. It's a bootleg, probably Canadian, and I think perfectly illustrates why it became important for artists to control their own merchandising. On front and back, the KKK is beheading Ozzy, and if you notice, the little tombstone says, "R.I.P. Randy Rhoads." I can't imagine ever wearing this, but when we got it, it had pit stains and was obviously well washed. So somebody loved it. Somebody loved Ozzy Osbourne. And they loved the KKK.
6
Sammy Hagar
circa 1982
I believe David Cross wore a version of this shirt as Ronnie Dobbs in Run Ronnie Run. This is the kind of thing everyone thinks of when they think of '80s rock — it's grandiose, and totally hypes the guitar-hero thing. The "jersey" shirt started in the late '70s, but their time period was early '80s. And by '84, they were pretty much out of fashion. I think it's great because this shirt does not reflect the way most people think about Sammy, nowadays. It makes you smile, it makes you laugh, it's totally of its time period. That's why David Cross is wearing it in Run Ronnie Run. It's arguably the dumbest '80s rock shirt.
7
Twisted Sister
circa 1983
I think this is one of the best rock T-shirts of all time, hands down. It's in your face, it's theatrical, it's got the big hair, the social menace — everything. It's loud, and that's one of the 10 commandments of rock & roll. So it's a perfect '80s shirt — like Sammy Hagar's, but actually cool in a non-ironic way. I mean, Dee Snider's just ridiculous. A lot of metal shirts were trying to show how tough and angry they were, and were done without a sense of humor. That doesn't have anywhere near the same impact as "Play it loud, motha."
8
Mötley Crüe public service announcement
circa 1985
In 1984, lead singer Vince Neil was involved in a drunk driving accident that killed one person and really hurt a couple of others. I think the shirt was probably a product of his court settlement. But it's still bizarre. Crüe is notorious for their debauchery. So having their name paired with "Don't drink and drive. The Palm View Drug Abuse Program" at the height of their drug-abusing madness is totally amazing. Can you imagine seeing that shirt on sale at a Mötley Crüe concert and seeing somebody decide, out of the 10 different shirts, "Here, I want the 'don't drink and drive' one"?
9
Slayer
circa 1988
It's important to remember that when this shirt was made, rock music — especially metal — was being attacked on all sides by the PMRC, the government, and parents. People were saying that the music inspired kids to kill themselves and worship Satan. And so Slayer put out a computer-generated graphic T-shirt that would make them apoplectic. That's what you wanted when you were a kid. You hated the authority, you hated people wanting you to be good, and this shirt isn't good; it wants you to be bad and scary. Kids are picking up a piece of the ethos of the band. "If Slayer is scaring you, we're going to help them scare you." Very evil.
10
Mudhoney
circa 1990
I spoke to [vocalist] Mark Arm about the picture, and he said, "We rolled around in the mud in our underwear in one of the band member's backyards." Mudhoney, and grunge music in general, were so loose that they didn't think twice about putting a self-effacing image on one of the band shirts. It's so different from the Sammy Hagar shirt: They're being regular guys, not trying to be showmen, even trying not to be rock stars. So that just says a lot about how the guys from rock music shifted by the early '90s. But I think we can see, in any genre, from Sammy to the present-day line of Shady or G-Unit, the T-shirt is the uniform. It's the game jersey of the band, and the people who love them.
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