I have too many shirts. It’s not quite a problem, but we’re getting close.
As we’ve established, I go to a lot of shows. Rarely a week goes by that I haven’t stopped by some venue around town to catch at least one band that’s playing. A lot of times it’s an all local show, sometimes it’s a mix of touring and locals, and other times it’s stopping by Urban Lounge to catch exactly two Vanessa Carlton songs.
If you’re unaware, touring is hard, tiring, and fucking expensive. If the band is playing Vivint or Usana or somewhere with 5,000 or more people, they’re probably fine. It’s the mid-to-low level bands that have a hard time staying out on the road—even more so now that everything costs more than it did a few years ago.
When I was in touring bands back in the early 2000’s, I learned really quickly that I had to treat it like a mini vacation with my friends. We usually made enough money to cover gas to get to the next town, and maybe we could charge the band card for food. Usually we had to pay for anything not band related ourselves. Whatever extra money we made (when there was any) went into an account for the inevitable van problems that were always right around the corner.
I can’t say I totally miss sleeping on floors, stressing about the van getting towed, and worrying about the trailer full of gear getting stolen… but I do miss it a little. I really miss hanging out with my friends in random cities and playing music every night, though. Those were some of the best times of my entire life.
That’s a story (several stories, really) for another newsletter. Today we’re talking about band shirts.
One of the easiest, and most effective ways to support the bands that you like is to buy merch from them at the show. The bands don’t make money from streaming. When they’re on tour, the venue owners usually get paid first to cover their costs and staff before any money goes to the band.
(Again, at huge venues, arenas, and festivals, this doesn’t usually apply. Those groups have an infrastructure in place, and usually support from a major label.)
I try to grab something from at least one band at each show—whether I’m going to wear it or not. Most of the time, I’m all about it and excited to add it into the rotation. Occasionally I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a gym shirt sooner than later. Sometimes (rare, but it happens), I like the band, and want to support them being able to buy food that night, but absolutely hate every single design that’s available. Those shirts almost always go directly into a bin in my garage never to be seen again.
Also, I fucking love a good internet bootleg. I got really into those during Covid.
Which brings me to my main point. I was trying to fit all my new shirts into my drawers, and kept finding old shirts that I wore once and completely forgot about. As I started to organize everything, I got curious how long it would take for me to wear every single shirt I own before I had to start over. I genuinely don’t know, but I want to give it a shot.
Naturally, there are a few caveats. I’m counting band, bootleg, tattoo shop, and artist shirts in this list. Hoodies and crewnecks will get counted, but those will repeat uncounted. Also, I do have a job to go to, and can’t wear my Cradle of Filth shirt (which I bought as a joke, and am already stressed about wearing in public) in a professional setting. That means there will be days where I wear my usual plain white shirt, or polo, or something that won’t piss off the squares, you know? I also won’t be counting or wearing shirts of the bands I was in, but I did keep a lot of those. They’re in a box in my closet.
The plan is to document everything on my instagram stories (@trevorhale), and add a little anecdote about each one if I remember. I don’t want to flood the timeline with too many posts, so I’ll probably skip a few days, then post two or three at a time so no one gets annoyed. There’s also going to be a playlist that goes along with it, since the majority of these are band shirts. I’ll add a song for each band as they appear in shirt form. That link will come a bit later, once a few songs have been added.
I started yesterday (Thursday, June 1), so let’s all find out how many shirts I own. We’re in this together now.