Music merchandise has always been fascinating. For the followers of a band, owning souvenirs that bear the stamp or logo of the outfit is a peculiar high. Tee-shirts are the most vocal, most creative residents of this material universe. At any rock concert, if you don't see a headbanging sea of black tees, then the trip probably wasn't worth it!
Wearing your allegiance on your being is the ultimate high, the ultimate evidence of your love. The musicians on the stage, swept up in an adrenaline, alcohol, smoke and what not haze, can hardly ever make out faces in the crowd in front of them. But heck they can see the tee-shirts, the boisterous prints on them, and they know who the listeners are here for.
The impassioned association of music fanatics with tees is quite old. Merchandise selling takes up added importance in an age when CDs don't sell much and most people out there are effortless downloaders. The bands need to make money eh, and tee-shirts and other merchandise help them do that and more. It helps them build a cult following. It helps build recall value like no other, because if you dig deep, you will discover 10 new bands everyday. The music business is in a manic rush right now, and very few things out there have escaped the clutches of marketing mumbo jumbo.
Tee-shirts, we hope, are one of those things. The high of wearing one of them is fantastic, you want it to be true. You want it to be your mascot of fan-dom.
Over the years of wearing many a band tee, the biggest discovery has been that there are categories here - there are the tacky, painted on ones which come cheap; and then there are the slick, assembly-line beauties which sell for a bomb but are "official merchandise".
Aah, well, money has always been a party-pooper hasn't it?
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