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One of our most popular categories of shirts is guitarists. It’s no surprise, I suppose, if my passion for guitar music is anything to judge by. I don’t completely know where this comes from really. These days, kids have their parents and grandparents’ record collection to mine and explore to inspire them but my generation didn’t. We did have mid-60s Beatles albums before they got what my mother declared to be ‘too weirdy’ after that the only guitar I was exposed to was Big Jim Sullivan on Tom Jones live album from Caesars' Palace. Little did I know that a few years later, I would see Jim at Redcar Coatham Bowl playing for Tiger supporting Racing Cars.
But as soon as my collection was under way, guitar music, like yourself, I’m sure, dominated my life and still does. But what I’ve noticed is that while the greats like Jimmy Page, Blackmore and Iommi are popular, my fascination with more obscure players was not shared. I was an early lover of John McLaughlin. Now, you and I know of his brilliance, but even now, he is far from a household name.
People’s craft, as opposed to their popularity, has always attracted me. I think that’s what is behind it and why I’m drawn to doing t-shirts of people like Stan Webb, Dave Cousins, T.S. McPhee, Bert Jansch, Gary Rossington, Michael Chapman, John Martyn, Paul Kantner, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Bill Nelson, Allan Holdsworth and Waddy Wachtel to name just a few. It always seemed to me that the music such people made was so great that to honour them in albeit a very small way on a t-shirt, is the least I can do. Of course, they sell poorly, if at all. But that is typical of modern culture, too many former heroes are thought to now be zeros.
I thought this while I was designing a t-shirt of Mark Farner from Grand Funk Railroad. Here’s a man who drove one of the biggest bands in America for many years but is now, not forgotten, but is considerably less well-known than he once was.
Obviously all these people are in their late 60s to 80’s now, if they are still with us at all. And it’s well-documented how invisible older people become. I must say, I was never struck by this phenomenon when I was younger but see it all too clearly now. But why should the music of say, the Strawbs or the Groundhogs be forgotten or only find a home on golden oldies stations. It’s strange really, the degree to which young people are given prominence in music is unlike any other artform. For example we don’t ignore Beethoven for some new performer, do we? We don’t ignore Dickens for a new author.
I also think those images of guitarists in full-flight evoke our lived experience at gigs or watching TV, I know it does for me. It’s a very existential thing, it’s been well-described to me as Proustian, evoking a time when you were younger and in some spiritual way, wearing a t-shirt plugs you back into those days, even though your conscious mind might not realise it.
You didn’t realise wearing a John Mclaughlin shirt was so spiritual did you? Maybe I’m thinking too much about it, as is a writer’s habit, but life has taught me we don’t do anything much for no reason, it's all a working out of early experiences. And my early experiences involved dancing to Do Wah Diddy by Manfred Mann and being obsessed with Al Kooper’s organ on Like A Rolling Stone. I loved it in a way only a small boy can. I used to write stories based on Beatles songs. Should have known I was a novelist earlier!
So my whole life has been wrapped up in music, perhaps it’s not surprising that I want to still be wrapped up it in it now. Dawn, when designing the t-shirts, often says to me, ‘who is this?’ and laughs when I give her a run down of an obscure artist's career. ‘We’ll never sell any, you know’ she says, to which I always protest. ‘But they were brilliant and made some great music, I can’t be the only one who thinks so.’
So that’s the spirit which governs what we do.
