I came across this site a while back, and they sell t-shirts (and other stuff) from defunct stores, amusement parks, radio stations, venues, sports teams, etc from all around the country. There are a bunch from New England (where I grew up) that would be worth getting and I would wear proudly.
Here’s my pick: Grants
This was our local department store, back when department stores were a thing. I actually still have a cutting from a cactus I bought at Grants in the 1980s that’s still going.
I can think of many original concert t-shirts I would love to have from the 70’s when I was too young to go to those concerts. Not sure where to start to name them all…
NOFX “Punk in Drublic” t-shirt. The black one, with the album cover on the front.
I’m not really a NOFX fan and don’t even own the album but I have loved that title ever since it came out. I was a goody-two-shoes wallflower in high school but I remember seeing the punks wearing it and I’d giggle to myself and wished I could have it too. It just tickles my funny bone. Punk in Drublic lol!
The shirt is actually generally available and I can afford to get one, I just haven’t made the effort. It’s less that I want it now, but that I want teen me to have had it.
I’d love to get another copy of the concert T-shirt I bought at a Yes concert during their 90125 tour in 1984. I bought one at the concert, and wore it to death.
The one I want I am not sure if it even actually existed.
I swear I remember a t shirt that said “I don’t want the antidote. I need THE CURE” on the front and a picture of Robert Smith of The Cure on the back.
Did this actually exist or it is some weird “mandela effect” misremembering on my part?
I feel like when I was in college in the early 90s, Big Johnson was part of a cluster of “frat guy” fashion that included “Co-ed Naked” (often Lacrosse or some other sport) T-shirts, University of South Carolina “Cocks” (as well as other colleges) hats by The Game, and Greek wear depicting wholesome characters like Calvin & Hobbes or Peanuts doing keg stands or double-teaming some woman.
Absolutely. We used to visit the Wisconsin Dells (a tourist area in central Wisconsin) often, and the main strip that went through the town had a number of shops that sold t-shirts and other tourist crap. In that era, there were several places which had a wide selection of “Big Johnson” t-shirts.
The original Zero shirt from the Smashing Pumpkins. (It’s also my favorite song of all time.)
I had an official shirt from Hot Topic and it was my favorite shirt for years. I even had to get a couple of holes mended because I wore it so much. And then it vanished, I have no idea what happened to it.
In the film Scott Pilgrim vs the World, the protagonist wore that shirt also in one scene.
(Though his version is black and white, and the one I had was black and silver.)
I did find a replica shirt that I wear, got it from Amazon, but it’s a knock-off and not the same quality or feel. It also doesn’t have the SP logo on the sleeve or the silver collar and shirt cuffs. I wish I had that original shirt again.
Had a bootleg purple tie-dyed shirt from the 1991 Clash of the Titans tour (Slayer/Anthrax/Megadeth, with Alice in Chains). Lost it sometime around 1994, never seen another like in the wild (paid $10 for it in the parking lot)
Mine gave up the ghost by around 1987.