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Rich

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Firstly let me say: yes, I do realize that there are some here who find the idea of your own band t-shirts as naffness in the extreme. That's fine, we're all entitled to an opinion. That said, I'm not looking for views on the whole concept of having your band name plastered across shirts here, so if you think they're cringe-making then please just walk on by. Ta :) 

My query is this. My ska band have our own t-shirts, and jolly nice they are too -- plain black with no graphics, just the name of the band in our emblem font. I always wear mine when I turn up at a venue and for setting up and stuff, BUT I always change into something different before the first set starts. I find the idea of wearing the band's t-shirt whilst playing the band's gig to be a bit odd, and I never do it. However, some of my bandmates do wear theirs for the entire evening.
So, for those of you whose bands have their own shirts... when do you wear yours? Do you ever play gigs in them?

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Great topic! My band also sells shirts. I'm amazed by how popular they - so popular the profits should fund our next EP. Personally, I don't wear mine - I find it a bit cringe to wear your own shirt. Having said that, our singer wears his when going to see other bands in the local area and he has people approach him to say they like the band, so I guess the cringe factor is something I need to get over!  I know a band who all wear their band shirt on stage, almost like a uniform. To me it does not look good at all. We have our logo on our amps, so to wear the shirts as well I think would be branding over load! 

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21 minutes ago, Rich said:

So, for those of you whose bands have their own shirts... when do you wear yours? Do you ever play gigs in them?

We have several designs of shirt. Every time a new one comes out we get a freebie. I generally wear them for work, normally under an open Levi western shirt or the like.

We never wear them on stage. The only 'band' t-shirts we've allowed anyone of us to wear on stage is our drummer, wearing his Motörhead t-shirt - bear in mind we're an 80s indie band.

image.png.adf4a53e43cea3bf18f9b196290888b8.png

 

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1 minute ago, Twigman said:

We have several designs of shirt. Every time a new one comes out we get a freebie. I generally wear them for work, normally under an open Levi western shirt or the like.

We never wear them on stage. The only 'band' t-shirts we've allowed anyone of us to wear on stage is our drummer, wearing his Motörhead t-shirt - bear in mind we're an 80s indie band.

image.png.adf4a53e43cea3bf18f9b196290888b8.png

 

Hahaha, of my old band had a strange rule of no wearing band shirts on stage - they also had an exception for Motorhead!!!

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Never wear your own t-shirts (too weird), get your mates to wear them, that'll encourage others to buy them if they like you (the band).

Back in the early/mid 90's, in my mates Britpop band, they used to wear plain coloured t-shirts with "Singer", "Drummer", Bassist", "Guitarist" etc emblazoned on the front. I thought it very cool (back then, not so much now), and would slowly see other bands copying this.

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I did subscribe to the 'never wear the band T-shirt during a gig' school of thought. This was particularly true when I was in the rock band - we had a wicked design but it was never worn 'on stage'. I've relaxed that view a little lately, under slightly different circumstances. I play sax in a horn section. The trombone player made us all bespoke T-shirts with the band logo + cartoon character with instrument. I'm prepared to wear that on stage if the rest of the horns are. But then I'm also prepared to do 'dance moves' under similar conditions!

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Band T-shirt thing only happened once in a band I was in:

One of the guitar / singists had written a song called 'Cartoon Victim', and decided to have their own T-shirt made for a gig with the title emblazoned across the front.

We ripped the pee out of him before the gig, and even more afterwards when someone from the audience asked who 'Car Tim' was - his guitar strap covered the rest! :D

Never again!

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We have t shirts that we try to sell. A handful have sold... We will wear them on stage sometimes, I dont think it's naff but I can see how some would, especially in originals bands... We are a covers band, so lots of people think that's naff in itself. There's a motor racing event we've done a few times where the sponsor of the event makes a t shirt and puts our logo on it but it is definitely a motor racing t shirt that you might find our logo on. We wear those more than most. 

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2 hours ago, Teebs said:

Band T-shirt thing only happened once in a band I was in:

One of the guitar / singists had written a song called 'Cartoon Victim', and decided to have their own T-shirt made for a gig with the title emblazoned across the front.

We ripped the pee out of him before the gig, and even more afterwards when someone from the audience asked who 'Car Tim' was - his guitar strap covered the rest! :D

Never again!

I once wore a T shirt at a gig a year or two ago. It had a picture of Darth Vader saying ' I am your father' emblazoned across it.

I noticed our guitarist wetting himself with laughter everytime he looked over at me.

During the interval I asked him what was so funny and he replied that my guitar strap was covering some of the letters and made it look like 'I am fat!' 🤬

Edited by Hobbayne
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For the pub-rock covers band, never. It would just look really sad.

But for the rockabilly outfit, very niche and brings a dress code automatically, oh yes. We all wear band t-shirts for the load-in and set-up, helps to whip up some apathy in the venue, then change into our 'official' stage wear for the actual gig.

The band logo also features on both the bass drum head and the pop-up banner at the back of the stage ... we're not shy about telling people who we are.

 

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Somewhere I have a t-shirt from one of my old bands that the singer had printed up for us (just the band members).  I have never worn it.

Partly because he got everybody an XL, despite me being a M (as were most of the band) so it's huge and shapeless, and partly because the band logo was designed by one of his kids and looks like a child's bad drawing (because it is a child's bad drawing, and not in a good or amusing way, it's just bad) and he was the only one in the band who actually liked it (and none of the rest of us had the energy to argue against him)

Nobody ever wore it on stage or at gigs though - we dressed up, and never played in t-shirts, and it's just a bit naff, isn't it?

The band I depped with at Christmas sell a lot of merch, and aren't averse to wearing their own shirts (as I have done), but again, never at gigs

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37 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

For the pub-rock covers band, never. It would just look really sad.

But for the rockabilly outfit, very niche and brings a dress code automatically, oh yes. We all wear band t-shirts for the load-in and set-up, helps to whip up some apathy in the venue, then change into our 'official' stage wear for the actual gig.

The band logo also features on both the bass drum head and the pop-up banner at the back of the stage ... we're not shy about telling people who we are.

 

 

Damo @ Kings Arms_before the gig.jpg

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HAHA! I knew someone would notice it. It's a roller banner created by me with two images taken from separate places on t'internet, photoshopped so the cab and the amp are the same width. (Which makes the Matamp way too big, compared to reality). The banner's purpose is to cover a multitude of sins - in our case, mostly the wireless desk and external router my tablet connects to for sound engineering purposes.

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Our frontman once suggested that he and I stencil paint the band logo on our cabinet grilles to mirror our logo on the kick drum. It was a no from me...

In a similar vein, we recently played at a pub festival. The pub were selling festival t-shirts in the run up to the event. Our frontman bought one for each of us, which was kind of him. The shirts were quite cool and nice to wear out and about, but he intended that we all wear them during our festival slot. I unfortunately ‘forgot’ mine on the day.

Edited by BrunoBass
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