The Thousands

Before social networking made the process so easy it almost feels like cheating, the main way alternative kids could find kindred spirits with similar interests would be to make value judgements on their dress sense. The identification process involved asking yourself the following: Is this stranger wearing a sensible suit and tie combo, or maybe a pastel-coloured trouser suit, like only a complete square would? Or are they dressed in a thin piece of cotton that has Robert Smith’s gloomy face screen-printed onto the front, festooned with holes and plainly several sizes too big for them?

Band T-Shirt is a celebration of that simpler time. Taking its lead from My Band T-Shirt, this zine sees Vanessa Berry going through the ‘merch’ in her wardrobe and telling whatever reminiscence or anecdote is attached to each garment. Essentially that makes this zine an exercise in ‘90s nostalgia, and is therefore recommended especially to those whose pulse quickens hearing names like Cud, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine. Which includes myself, by the way. You know kids, in those days, if you wanted to buy a song by a band you liked, you had to go into a shop to buy a bit of plastic that had the music physically imprinted onto it. You lot don’t know you’re born.