Thursday, March 3, 2011

Wearing your own Band Merch

This is how screwed I am.
That's right, I just got on the case of Johan Hegg. That's how ridiculously metal I am. You poseurs can't even fathom my true metalocity. I could get in a fist fight with all the angry members of Amon Amarth at once, and only almost die. That's a lot more than I could say for most of you. I may not look like much, but in regards to heavy metal, I'm a goddamn scrapper. You'd be like "pfft who the hell is this guy?" and before you knew what was even going on, the hardest death metal band on the block is all out of breath as they thoroughly handle me by myself. How is such a feat possible? Where do I find the motivation to take such a complete thrashing? It's because I'm pissed at them for wearing their own t-shirts. Not cool dudes.

The golden rule of heavy metal band shirt wearing is simply this: you wear the band you like. Not too tough a concept to grasp. A classic example of doing it wrong would be your typical chic hipster chick strutting through the mall wearing a torn, faded vintage-style Iron Maiden shirt. She may listen to Iron Maiden, she may not. I'm not one to judge a person based only on outside appeara... who the hell am I kidding? If you asked her what she thought about "Powerslave" she would slap you in the mouth and call you a pervert. She's as unmetal as they come. Her favorite band is probably Depeche Mode.

It's never okay to wear a shirt with The Showdown on it. It's even less okay if you're in The Showdown.
Do you really like the band Obscura? Well here's a neat idea to communicate that fact to strangers and your peers without ever opening your stupid trap: Wear an Obscura shirt. Talking is overrated, and we're always gonna be that creepy looking dude that never talks to anybody, anyway. That cute girl with the black nail polish is never going to hear how you really feel about her, but she's always going to know you like Overkill. That's all that really matters.

So let's review: you're wearing a 3 Inches of Blood shirt because they're one of your new favorite metal bands. Fine. But what if you're in the band, 3 Inches of Blood? Are you supposed to be your own favorite band? Sounds pretty god damn conceited. I should know, I wrote the book on conceited. Whether it be on stage, in a photoshoot, or just walking around in casual settings, it is never okay to wear the merch of the band you're performing in. Unless you want everybody to think you're a stupid, self-centered douche. Yeah, I wrote that book too. I'm a renowned novelist in the art of asshole.
Metallica always ends up here somehow.
I know a lot of you are going to try and debunk me by sobbing about how "wearing one's own band shirt was a popular form of self-promotion in the 80's where all bands in the underground really had was word of mouth as a means of promoting themselves", because you're retarded and you think I give a shit. I would like to inform all of you that it is not the 80's, so kindly shut your ignorant mac n' cheese hole. You see this thing you're on right now? You know, the place you're reading this blog? It's called the internet. You can thank it for it all the new music we have today, whether it be good or (usually) bad. There is no longer any excuse for wearing your own band shirt as a means of self-promotion. If you want people to know who you are on stage, that's what big wall flags and bass drum heads are for.

Band shirts are the official uniform of the true metal army (so long as they aren't of bands that suck). Being metal guys themselves, it is only natural for band members to take stage in their own selection of band tees. They can go about this properly one of two ways - always a good choice would be to wear shirts of the classics that inspire you. Maiden, Priest and Slayer are done to an abhorrent degree. Preferably I would go with something a little less brutally beaten to death. A better way to go about it would be to use your time on stage as an opportunity to promote the bands you know personally who are struggling alongside you in the metal music performing community. Get the hell over yourself for 15 minutes and represent.


So let's say you became full of yourself for a moment, wanted some kids to check out the sweet t-shirt of your band, (that they can be the proud owners of by going over to the merch table and paying the one-time, low low price of $20), and wore your own band shirt on stage. Unlike with most of my violation blogs, I consider my suggested Heavy Metal Redemption for this particular case to be quite a simple request: You need to be a Swedish melodic viking death metal band so impossibly awesome that you would be able to get away with doing something so terribly unmetal.

Nobody ever said I couldn't be reasonable.

13 comments:

  1. I used to work out in the tshirt of my former band.

    I'd say that's legit. You're sweating in it and no one else who works out with you listens to metal.

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  2. this site is funny, but bashing Johan just isnt cool

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  3. If he wears his own merch, he hath just painted ye olde big ass fucking target on his forehead. Johan or not, no one is safe!

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  4. @Cody;"The reader agrees that this site is satire/comedy/parody, and should be rarely taken seriously, if at all." If you bothered to read the about page you might have avoided getting butt hurt.
    Even if this is to be taken seriously you think that this constituents bashing? Brenocide basically said "I like everything but this one aspect about Amon Amarth". If that is to be considered bashing then everything else on TNM should be considered war crimes.

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  5. Whoa, I always thought that bands (specially Brazilian ones, 'cause most of the most shitty bands here perform sometimes wearing Maiden and Metallica shirts) should wear their own t shirts at concerts.

    Now that I read this, I realize that is just stupid.

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  7. I saw a concert where all the band members wore their own band shirts... They only had one design so they looked like idiots...

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  8. I know late comment, but c'mon man, sometimes you have NOTHING else to wear to a gig. Oh, and yeah, I hate it when you see some dumbass scene emo idiot wearing a metal shirt (when they wear Maiden shirts it pisses me off the most) and when you ask said asshole about the band they're like "uhhh...what?" That's when I punch em. They do that alot with Iron Maiden shirts, and it pisses me off so MUCH, cuz Maiden is my favorite band. IT'S A FUCKING INSULT! In my eyes, a band shirt is like a flag, it shows where your allegiance lies, mostly with Iron Maiden to me, those are my colors man, I can't have some dipshit wearing a shirt from a band he DOESN'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT! sorry bout the rant, I needed that.

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  9. Lay off johan asshole...

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  10. I wear metal tees all the time, even @ age 33! Stay true to your metal!!!

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  11. hmmmmmmm iron maiden still wears their merch when they play live

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  12. did you just call Cliff burton a stupid, self-centered douche?

    Did you even think for a second that cliff is just proud of what he has made of himself? That's called pride, not douchebaggery.

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  13. LOL guy thinks that Jason Newstead is Cliff Burton, WOW just wow........... What a fucktard. Now Robert Trujillo is doing the same shit.

    Cant agree with this post more. There is nothing worse than wearing your own bands shirt on stage, out of ANY shirt you could pick, you wear one off the merch table. SO GAY

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All readers that post under the name "Anonymous" and are too frail and weak to represent themselves properly with a title, shall be deemed false metal poseurs for the remainder of their pitiful existence.