New York, New Yorker

I have this sneaky feeling I’ve been talking about New Yorker before. If I have, just pretend I haven’t and bear with me. So, anyway, New Yorker is a German clothes store and it didn’t use to exist in Sweden, only in Germany, Poland and other countries where they’re not very good at English. So they used to sell these FANTASTIC shirts with the most bizarre word combos on them and I would try to go there every time I could. Since then, they have hired someone in the design department who speaks English and they now have several stores in Stockholm and all that wacky charm is gone.

But the other day, as I was dismanteling the chest of drawers where I keep my shirts (they’re moving to a newly built cabinet), I found one of my old New Yorker shirts that had fallen down behind the drawers (which had saved it from being thrown away during the time when I was too fat to be able to wear it). So, here it is. Silver print on black, saying “Rockers Tribe Destruction Deluxe”. Okaaaaay…

I love it.

Fuck trailer queens

Stating in my previous post that I’m not into car culture, I remembered this old shirt of mine. This harks from the days when I was an avid reader of Gearhead Magazine (the music (the issue where they had the Donnas on the split 7″, more precisely) drew me in, the great writing got me interested in cars and car fanaticism). Anyway, they had this piece about Billetproof (who is some sort of car nut organization for people who like cars that are meant to be driven, not just displayed, which I dig).

I had a look at their webstore and found a shirt I liked that said “Loud, Dirty and Ugly” or something similar that I wanted and then I also ordered this one for good measure. Now, it said on the website they’d contact you about the extra cost for overseas shipping but they never did. In fact, I didn’t hear from them for a long long time. Then, suddenly one day this shirt arrives with a note saying the other shirt was sold out and they’d kept the money for that to cover the extra shipping charges. Short of just stealing my money, I think this is pretty much the shittiest way imaginable to treat your customers. So… fuck trailer queens and fuck Billetproof, I say.

…and no, that’s not what made me drop the car scene. I just got tired of it. Oh, and a “trailer queen” is a car that gets towed on a trailer between car shows because it’s too valuable to drive. Fuck ‘em!

All of a sudden, great Misfits shirts start popping up

Hell… is it just me, or did Misfits shirts suddenly get better-looking? Yeah, yeah, there’s always been a few that are great (the classic skull on black, the Fiend Club shirt) but for the last 10 years, most of them have been hideous! Ever since Jerry Only took the helm, monstrous shirts with large, neon colored prints have been in favor. Today, I spotted the following (allegedly) officially sanctioned shirts over at www.8ball.co.uk:

Fitted shirts with good looking prints. Nice. They also have all the classics like the ones mentioned above, Horror Business, Bullet and Die, die my darling (I never liked that one though). Hell, there’s even some ok looking prints in the official Misfits store now:

(real sorry about the green glow and poor images, I’m sure Jerry Only is behind this too somehow).

Speaking of green glow by the way, check out this old shirt of mine. Yeah, it’s getting old, even though its a “Newfits” shirt. I bought this on the first European American Psycho tour in 1997, the one with Michael Graves handling the vocals.

The bad thing about it: gi-fucking-gantic skull on the front, a half-inch thick glow-in-the-dark print. The great thing about it: all Sweden dates are taking place in Switzerland according to the tour schedule on the back. Funny stuff…

So, all in all, good times for anyone who needs a new Misfits shirt, I’d say. Which is me. I used to have… ten? But now, all I have is this one pictured above (which I never wear but can’t throw away), a very sad looking white Fiend Club shirt and the one pictured below.

However, seeing as it’s one of my favorite shirts, I’ll probably just see if I can get another one of these next week when I’m in London. There’s a small stall at the Camden Lock market that sells great bootleg shirts. The shirt is really really soft, the print is wafer thin (well, much thinner than a wafer, but you know what I mean, right?) and I love the print. Last time I went there they were out of size L, hope they’ve re-stocked since then.

DAMN, where’s my Dellamorte shirt? I think one of my favorite shirts is missing!

I went to see Usurpress last night. It’s not exactly my cup of tea, but the vocalist, Steffe, is a good friend of mine that I don’t get to see often enough, and a truckload of people I know were there and a good time was had by all. After the gig, I got talking to Danne, who plays the bass in Usurpress. He’s one of the first people I got to know after moving to Stockholm and has previously played in bands like Tyrant, Diskonto, Insision and Dellamorte. The first Dellamorte album… damn, THAT is definitely my cup of tea. The second album also has some very very good stuff on it and although the third one was too much metal for my taste, Dellamorte is a band I miss.

Anyway, we talked a bit about the possibility of a reunion (not totally out of the question according to Danne) and I suddenly realized it’s been quite some time since I last saw my old Dellamorte shirt. I bought it from Danne in… 1997 or so, and I think it was pretty limited. It is also the only Dellamorte shirt I’ve seen that doesn’t have a colorful print and prints on the back/sleeves and all that metal-ish crap. I’ve worn it a lot and for the last few years I’ve only worn it at special occasions. Well… I recently went through all my shirts to weed out what I never wear and it wasn’t there. WTF? How do you lose a t-shirt? And why did it have to be that shirt? That sucks. I hope they do a reunion and if they do, I hope they print black t-shirts with just the logo. I’d buy at least two.

I know, normally you put a black square to cover just the eyes of people. This photo though… I look like an idiot. Trust me, it’s better for all of us this way!

Ultra rare Helen Love shirt

Yes, now I know how rare this shirt is. Was. Here’s the (short) story:

I’ve been a fan of Helen Love for a long time, collected the colored vinyl and all that stuff. When they did their only ever Swedish show (how many shows have they done in total, 10?) I made my own crappy Helen Love shirt, because there were none to be bought. For ages, I had a standing search on eBay for Helen Love shirts and that finally turned up this shirt. I bought it cheap – there’s not that many of us who like the band (and very few of us wear XL I think). Happiness. Anorak happiness, but still.

But… after a couple of years, I still hadn’t worn it one single time. Maybe you can tell, it’s pretty huge and shapeless. Time to look reality sternly in the eyes and admit I didn’t like the looks of it. It was time to let it move to a new home. So, I put it up for sale on the Helen Love message board and some guy from the U.K. bought it (for the same amount that I’d bought it for, I figured there’s no reason to be an asshole about it).

THEN, about one week after I shipped it, Helen Love herself (yes, the band is called Helen Love and it’s fronted by Helen Love herself) posted on the board, something like “ooh, one of THOSE shirts. The Cuban Boys made them when we were appearing on Top of the pops, there were only ever 13 made”. Ok. NOW you tell me. Actually, she might have done me a favor – I would NEVER have sold it if I’d known and I honestly think I’m better off without shirts I’m never gonna wear. Still though… it hurts a bit, thinking about it.

1. Take drugs 2. Kill parents 3. Worship Satan 4. Metal.

I told you I’d start posting more old shirts of mine, and here’s one: my beloved CROATAN shirt!

First of all; Croatan is a band, check ‘em out here. While I think their line-up (one guy on drums, one gal on guitar (that goes into one bass amp and one guitar amp) is really cool, I can’t say I listen to them all that much (which makes me a poser for still wearing their shirt. so sue me.). The drummer, Mark, used to be in Brody’s Militia with my friends Doug and Al (who were also, untin recently when they split up, in Hellnation), which is how I found this shirt – I think someone in the background in one of Doug’s photos on Facebook was wearing this shirt and I knew I had to have it.

Apparently, this shirt was made to mock kids that came to their gigs wearing ‘cool’ metal shirts for bands they’d never heard or didn’t like very much and the front… the front looks like one of my kids made it in MS Paint (the guitars… wtf?), but the back… The back! I love it.

1. Take drugs
2. Kill parents
3. Worship Satan
4. Metal

I have nothing to add to that. Genious!

Fortunately for me, Mark likes my band, so I traded him one of our shirts for this, which makes it even more special. I don’t wear this every day and yes, I’m a poser when I do wear it but I love this shirt to bits and I won’t be getting rid of it any time soon.

PS. My mum does NOT like this shirt, due to item #2 on the list. I, who am also a parent, still love it.

Grow your own!

Today, I’m wearing my ‘Grow your own food’ shirt and it’s still available so you could get one too. This is one of my favorite shirts and has been so since I got it. Pictured in green here, mine is black, both look good! Here’s what Metro Three have to say about it:

In October 1939 the Government launched ‘The Dig for Victory’ campaign. People were urged to use gardens and every spare piece of land, such as parks, golf clubs and tennis courts, to grow vegetables. Even the moat at the Tower of London was used to grow vegetables. “We want not only the big man with the plough but the little man with the spade to get busy this autumn. Let ‘Dig for Victory’ be the motto of everyone with a garden,” – Rob Hudson, Minister for Agriculture, in October 1939.

This 100% cotton unisex standard size tee is kelly green and is screenprinted by hand in white ink.

Get it here.

Russian eagle

Look, I’m not saying souvenir shirts are always a good idea, but if they fulfill a couple of criteria, they can be:

1. They’re from somewhere interesting or unusual
2. They look good (doesn’t matter how meaningful a print is or how great the band is, ugly shirts don’t get worn, period)

I picked this shirt up in Moscow when my band did a short tour of Russia in 2009, from the most touristy souvenir shop on the main pedestrian street and our Russian hosts rolled their eyes at me for being lame. Who cares, I absolutely LOVE good-looking eagle shirts (I also have one from Poland, I’ll post that some other day) and Cyrillic lettering and the gold color sparkles! Yummy.

Seriously, I wish I had a shirt from every country that associates themselves with eagles. Albania, Moldova, the u.s… Actually, I think I have a very american NRA shirt that’s been sitting in my friend Doug’s house for a few years, maybe it’ll get here one day and I’ll post a photo of it. No “get it here” link this time but I bet they’re still all over Moscow if you happen to go there. I bought a white and a blue one for my kids too, that’s how much I like it!

Topless Sam Fox and PUNX

Here are two shirts I have happened to see lately, both need a bit of explaining.

Back in the early 00s, one of my favorite things when traveling eastern Europe was to visit a New Yorker store. Apparently it’s a German store, but back then they can only have sold their stuff in countries where people didn’t speak much English because all their shirts were hilarious, a German version of engrish or something. I used to buy them for their sheer craziness and lunacy. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos from back then, except one from the mid-00s, of a shirt I did not buy (pictured right).

These days, New Yorker have a few stores in Sweden and you would think this would make me very happy. Sadly though, their shirts are no longer as funny – they must have hired someone who speaks English. Damn! I popped by the other day when shopping x-mas gifts, just to see if they had anything worth a laugh and found this shirt. Now… I’ve been into punk-ish stuff for more than 20 years, listening and playing and… it’s a bit sensitive to me. New Yorker – get your filthy hands off my subculture and go back to making engrish shirts damnit!

Next up, true underground, with a bit of history behind it. A few years back, my band were doing a split 7-inch with a band called Widespread Bloodshed and Esse of W.B. came up with the excellent idea paraphrasing the Poison Idea album “Pick your king” (with Elvis on one side and Jeseus on the other). We called our release  “Pick your queen” and put a photo of Sabrina on one side and Samantha Fox on the other side. Back when I grew up, Sam Fox ruled the world. I still don’t understand how it was totally acceptable for pre-teen boys to have posters, stickers and flags of a topless, busty woman, even in school – but somehow (because she was an ‘artist’?), it was.

Anyhoodle, a while back, friends of Esse in the band Stay Hungry asked us to send them the photo we used so they could use it for a shirt. You see, getting good photos of Sam Fox is not easy. I spent weeks and weeks on eBay before I found a set of posters I could use and even then it required quite a bit of photoshopping. So, here’s the shirt it was used for, the 7-inch can be found somewhere on www.massgrav.com (my band’s website).

Dead Bury Dead

Yeah, Dead Bury Dead! This awsome example of awsomeness, check it out!

The real piece of news is that Dead bury Dead have re-hashed (or whatever) their great Shallow Grave shirt into a “3-button Henley”, whatever the hell that is? Let me quote the company themselves: ” Its a 3/4 sleeve raglan, and made out of Eco-Heather.  If you’re not familiar with Eco-Heather, its an imperfect blend of organic cotton, recycled polyester, and naturally occurring rayon.  The SG Henley is available in two colorways, and features our signature Shallow Grave hit on the left breast.” To make a long story short, I like raglans and I’m eyeballing this shirt in a quite serious way, let me tell ya. Get it while it’s hot, here and here!

And that would be all, unless I’d been unable to find my previous Dead bury Dead post I meant to link to from this one. It would appear I’ve forgotten to talk about this in the past, so I’ll make up for it now. So, yeah, the Shallow Grave shirt, I bought it the minute it was released, it’s such a damn great-looking thing of a shirt, right?

But then, I had to wait for quite a while, but nothing out of the ordinary when ordering from overseas, say, 4 weeks maybe. Then this bundle showed up. Stickers and cool pins, to make up for the late arrival, but most importantly, the hand-written letter pictured below. You can’t help but love a company that sends you a letter like that. So yes, I got a picture of myself wearing the Shallow Grave, outside the (lame) ac/dc concert in Stockholm this summer and sure enough, they posted it in their twitterfeed, making me even more of a die-hard fan. Support these guys!