T shirt envy

Having got into the band's music and the Sisters taking over from the Banshees, Magazine and Killing Joke as my favourite group, my next task was to track down a TSOM t-shirt. At the time, the only ones I'd seen down at Le Phono had been black with the classic head and star logo in red, presumably dating from the time of the Body Electric/Adrenochrome single on CNT released earlier in the year ("black and red boys", the red on black Velasquez/Bacon sleeve), but wherever and whoever I asked, no-one seemed to know if they were any left on sale. In the end I was reduced to the shame of making one (!) and sporting my home made embarrassment on top nights out in the various dives of Leeds city centre. Unfashionably white with a black head and star motif, with an ill-advised attempt at Rise and Reverberate around it - I cringe at the very memory of it. Still, from a distance it looked the part, and over the next few months proved to be a real conversation opener, mostly positively. By the end of the academic year I'd managed to acquire a proper black t-shirt with the head and star logo on, still the classic sisters tee, and a March Violets one from the Tetragrammaton Tour (with backprint) which shrank by about 10% every time I washed it (not often - I was a student after all) and within a few months I had to wear a plain black tee underneath so as not to offend public decency. Nowadays some of the early t-shirts can change hands for vast sums and proud collectors post photos of their prized possessions on Heartland, but like my the Dinky Toys of my childhood, mine were sadly never kept in a condition that would have made resale a possibility.