Best Shirt Ever

Today’s shirt comes from my buddy Jason M.! Another person who was around at the shows I would go to at Sound Exchange, and schoolmate and buddy of Mike Riley! The man is a legal genius, and is Breaking Down the Walls of justice on a regular basis these days, since he’s a lawyer. I’m stoked he sent in this sick old YOT shirt.

Classic Youth of Today.  This shirt, to me, is the best shirt ever.  I acquired this gem in 1989, and I am glad that it still is hanging on to life, even if just barely.  Somehow my ghetto high school had the funds to send us on a field trip from Baltimore to Philadelphia to explore that city’s rich historical narrative.  Unfortunately as a young white trash Lansdowne kid I was not in a position to appreciate Philly from that perspective.  So I did what any hood rat worth his weight in salt would do, I ditched the group tours to engage in my own adventure.  The only thing at the time saving me from a life of yo-boy disaster was the fact that I loved the Dead Milkmen.  At the time, my punk rock and hard core knowledge was limited.  So I went to South Street and took a walk to Zipperhead.  I was completely floored by the selection of incredible shirts and music.  I browsed the shop for what seemed to be an eternity, until I saw the Youth of Today shirt.  I knew the name but could not have told you anything about them at the time.  But there was something about that design that just drew me in.  I bought a tape and the shirt.  Essentially, it was that shirt that sucked me into fully to that late 80’s early 90’s hardcore and punk.  If it was not for this shirt I would have been completely consumed by my white trash hood and would probably have grandkids today!  That is clearly why this is the best shirt ever.

 

Unfortunately do to the condition it is in, I rarely get to take it out of the drawer.  I feel as if one or two more washes it may be no more! 



-Jason Molidor

Weekend post!!! Today we get a shirt from my bud, Alex D. He runs one of my favorite labels, currently, Grave Mistake. He’s also an old band mate of mine, and has been in a ton of rad bands. I was pretty stoked he decided to do this, since I know for fact that dude’s a t shirt hoarder. Here’s the deal…

Ok … this was hard considering the only thing I’ve worn pretty much for the past 15 years are band shirts so I’ve amassed / hoarded quite a collection (I’m not even really a collector, more of an addict).  Picking a favorite was tough, but after weighing all of the factors (design, fit, comfort, band), I finally chose one… fitting (no pun intended) I chose this particular shirt, because I actually made the decision to “retire” this t-shit earlier this year.  As much as I love wearing it, I wanted to keep it (or at least what’s left of it) from disintegrating to nothing. Here we go …

This is a Direct Control shirt I purchased off the band in the beginning of 2005 (not their first design, but an early one), and aside from it being a killer home job (this ink held up incredibly) printed on a fruit of the loom white under shirt and being as comfortable as can be (i wish more bands printed on under shirts), there are a bunch of sentimental reasons why it’s my favorite.  I first saw Direct Control I believe late 2003, shortly after I moved to RVA, and my mind was blown / jaw on the floor.  They instantly became one of my favorite bands; I tried to see them every chance I could around town, and their demo didn’t leave my tape player for months. Oddly enough (especially considering the past seven years of bands / label / etc), I didn’t really meet or befriend the guys in the band until a year or so after seeing them for the first time … they were just some punk rock dudes in a sweet band and I was a bit of a, um, uh “cleaner-cut” hardcore kid, so, for whatever reason, socially our paths never really crossed for a good year or so, and I didn’t want to be a weirdo fan boy so I did what any socially awkward hardcore kid would do … I just kept my distance.

Well, fast forward to late fall / early winter 2004.  I had a couple of mutual friends with the band - my pal Mikey, who had just started playing with Eric and Brandon in a new band called Government Warning, and Mark who had recently moved up from the beach and knew them from booking Direct Control in VB a few times. Through them, I finally was officially introduced to Brandon and we became pals instantly - if I remember correctly, it was outside of house show here in Richmond where Government Warning played their first show.  A few weeks after our introduction, I headed up to DC with my good bud Ryan Brouillette to catch DIRECT CONTROL (and maybe GW too?) play a killer show with 86 MENTALITY at the Goon house.   After the show, I chatted with my new pals Brandon and Lauren, bought a cdr with the DIRECT CONTROL demo and 7” on it, and this shirt.

As the year went on, I ended up becoming better friends with the DIRECT CONTROL dudes (Brandon and Lauren especially), eventually joining their other band GOVERNMENT WARNING, and working with their newly formed label NO WAY RECORDS. Over the past seven years, between playing in bands (GW and Wasted Time) and doing my own record label (Grave Mistake), co-releasing a bunch of releases with No Way, loitering in their record shop VINYL CONFLICT and just chillin, tourin’, and doing things friends do, this shirt has always sort of symbolized not only the beginning of a very active / creative / memorable time in my life, but more importantly the beginning of an awesome friendship.

As I’m writing this, Brandon and Lauren (who are expecting twins in a few months!) are currently packing up all of their stuff in preparation for a move from Richmond to Rochester, NY this weekend. Hasn’t really hit me yet that they are leaving town, but I’m gonna miss the hell out of them. In fact, I think I might have to give this shirt one more wear … for old time’s sake.

Today’s post comes from Rob Sullivan, the angry guy who used to sing for Ruiner. Me and Rob are good buds, we even share the same birthday. We always got along really well, and he was a huge help for bands I used to be in. We even took both his bands on tour with us a couple times. I couldn’t have been more stoked for him when Ruiner got to be a pretty big band. Anyways, he found time away from beating other dudes to a pulp in the octagon(not joking), to write this for the blog. Of course he had to be a dick about it and send in a shirt of my old band, haha.

I choose this shirt because before I released my own bands records I helped release Never Enough’s first EP . I drove this band to their first show, toured with this band, listened to them practice a couple times a week in the ware house I lived in and next to my own bands I was closest to them than any other. I wore this shirt until it literally fell off me. I sewed it a few times and finally retired it. I can’t imagine any band meaning more to me that I didn’t personally do time in.

Hope that’s nice and awkward for ya pat haha

Today, we have a submission, our first from Europe! It comes from Alex H. From talking with him over email, he seems like a pretty excellent dude. He is a road dog for Astpai, so if you’re over that way and see them on the road, say what’s up to him!

hey man, my name is alex and i´m writing this from vienna, austria.

i recently stumpled upon your blog and thought it was an awesome idea, so now im submitting my favourite shirt ever.
this trial by fire shirt was a present by Collin Barth himself at a cloak/dagger show.

trial by fire has always been one of my favourite bands. “ringing in the dawn” is just such a great record i grew up listening to as a teenager. unfortunately, they were allready disfunct when i got into them and missed them on their first and only european tour, where they played a tiny basement club in vienna. me and my friends all wanted a trial by fire shirt really, really bad. my friend zock actually bothered jason yawne via e-mail for a couple of months untill he finally send a bunch over, but i was the only one not to get one. it was the black one with the torch in the middle and i wus super bummed out.

fast forward a couple of years and i´m a massive claock/dagger fan, even have a cloak/dagger tattoo. they were coming through on a european tour with life long tragedy and i was super stoked, cause i knew collin from trial by fire was in it. that tour line up eventually also had the dude from american nightmare playing drums for them, whose name i´ve forgotten, but who told some pretty crazy and funny stories about wes eishold.

anyway, i was working as a booker and merch dude for a local band called astpai at the time, and still am. i managed to get astpai on two shows with cloak dagger and was pretty psyched. the shows were great and all the dudes were super nice. i eventually fanned out on collin for having been in trial by fire after show. after a couple of beers i eventually told him the story about wanting a trial by fire shirt really bad and how my friends had gotten some from jason, but i hadnt. so collin said he had an old shirt in the van that i could have if i wanted and i got stoked out of my mind, i was the happiest kid at the show. we went to the van and he handed it to me and i was unbelievably gratefull. he told me that it was one of the first trial by fire shirt they printed in his basement by themselves, which makes it soooo much cooler to me. i ended up giving him an astpai shirt in return, which he ended up wearing on stage the next night, which i obviously thought was super rad.

when i showed the shirt to my friends they were all super jealous. the shirt is super washed out and thin but i still view it as one of the most precious things i own.

Today we have a shirt from one of my favorite Canucks, Robbie Crash. A former MD resident, and hell of a photographer. He sent in this sick Carbonas shirt.

This is the best shirt, not because it’s actually the best shirt, but because it’s better than every other shirt. I got this in Richmond, VA behind the now defunct BoneZone when the Carbonas played. I had just seen them the night before in DC, and was super pumped to see them again. It was some dumb weekday like Tuesday, I was making that up but it turns out to be right, and I had driven down to Richmond after work with this dude that worked on classified satellite imagery or space lasers or something with satellites that made me think he was one of the bad guys. I had just got my new car and had driven like an asshole the whole way down. I showed up after the first band when everyone was mostly sober, and hanging out behind the house smoking and drinking. Stayed for the show, drove back after it ended, got home at like 5:30 and went to work for 8 the next day.

The dudes from the band were selling these for $5, and this was the last one they made before the stencil got totally trashed from being spray painted too many times. Mine’s kinda fucked up so they gave it to me, which is awesome. The shirt used to be white, but it’s a decidedly punk shade of yellow now; there are cigarette burns in it; both armpits are permanently stained; it’s almost transparent it’s such a shitty, budget shirt; it has what can only be called an odour. But, it’s the most comfortable thing I own and I love it. I don’t remember much of the actual show, but every time I wear this I’m pumped I went.