Nothing against New Found Glory, but they have about as much in common with Judge musically as Integrity does with Green Day. At least Hatebreed’s heavy, plus they did the Schism version. I know Chad’s a Straight Edge hardcore kid, but I would have thought they’d more likely to go with YOT or GB for a rip off design if they wanted to tip their merch design hat in that direction.
As seller the blue on white version of the classic Underdog NYC tee up for sale, also limited to 100, and it’s 20 bucks! Did I miss the memo about shirts being the new colored vinyl? And do labels try to sell their colored vinyl for a couple bucks more than regular vinyl now? Everything about this post has made me feel old and out of touch…
I think the b9 sleeve tag is the worst part about the tee…
Probably not too out of touch, but you’ve been OLD for a long time now, dude. Old man, tennis ball walker style.
I like that you can get the same Underdog shirt on Revhq for 9 bucks cheaper
Morgado,
I know you’ve been around the block but let’s be real, t-shirts have ALWAYS been as exclusive and cool and fun to collect as color vinyl, at least since I’ve been in the game. Why else would this site exist? I know you’ve been hip to bands over the years making small runs of tees for tours, for their friends, etc…
As a label, we could just make black vinyl and photocopy covers for our 7″ records ala Back Ta Basics and call it a day, but we go the extra mile with full color, spot varnish, embossed printing, etc… because we want to make something cool and worth the $.
Now, you should probably remember that selling color vinyl for more is actually something that established labels like TAANG was known for “back in the day”, but we’ve always kept our more limited versions the same price as the common ones.
We do, however, sell these limited to 100 versions of tees for a little more because the costs to make them are considerably higher than our run of the mill tee. We start with a soft, high ring spun cotton tee (think American Apparel quality). We remove the tags and silkscreen the size info on the inside, for a more comfortable tee. We limit the design and quantity to a small run – and instead of putting a big B9 logo on the back, we sew on a small, tasteful woven label on the sleeve and hand number them (I actually have #’ed all of our limited tees, keeps it personal!)
For the same reasons that we like to go the extra mile and not cut corners on our records, I started to look at how we were handling our merch. Just throwing a logo on a Hanes brand tee felt like using a photocopy cover for a 7″. So, we went tagless, and started limiting the quantities of what we printed. Remember back in the ’90s, how you would never want to buy the Victory label tee for one of their bands, because it was the one that was in every store and every kid had? I thought it would be cool to keep the shirts from getting so over produced.
No doubt this is foreign to you because you are an older dude, but kids these days don’t want to pay for music. Some do, and we’re extremely grateful because the studios still charge us to work with them, but a greater # of kids these days don’t. It’s part of the iPod twenty ten culture of listening to music I guess. So, labels need to find other ways to make money, to keep the process going. Hence making premium merch that costs a little more.
Ironically, as much as they don’t want to pay for the music, kids will throw down for t-shirts. Whether it’s $30 / $40 / $50 for older tees on eBay, or $30 / $40 for “Streetwear” brands like Supreme, The Hundreds, Johnny Cupcakes, etc… I thought it would be cool to make limited runs of t-shirts with the same attention to detail and quality, but at half the price. Let’s be real, $20 is still a great price for what you’re getting. Speaking of which, I’d be interested in seeing what this shirt goes for when the auction is over. I’m going to assume over $20, but we’ll see.
Expect more of this in the future, and while we may be one of the only labels doing this sort of thing right now, expect more to get in the game.
At the same time, when we debuted our $20 tees, we made sure to also bring out a run of $6 white tee black logo jams. So, we’re not trying to gouge anyone here, take your pic – you can spend $6, $13 or $20 on a shirt in the B9 store, and still walk away with something.
– Chris
P.S. We also made a GB 7″ cover version for NFG as well :)
^ word
Chris, i had a hunch you’d pop in to break things down. You know I love ya and wasn’t trying to diss ya; in fact I just ordered a bunch of the other Underdog stuff you guys have the other night. Limited shirts at a higher price just seemed crazy to me. I see a difference between kids tweaking over something old that they can’t get regularly, or a shirt made specifically for a show, and expressly selling them that way right out the gate. That said, it’s a fine line, especially when you consider what people are willing to pay up front for stuff like those Hundreds shirts (hardcore streeetwear is yet another thing that I don’t get that has made me feel old), so i see where you’re coming from. Thanks for taking the time to reply.
No problem Chris we’ve got history it’s cool just wanted to put in my 2 cents!
– Chris
B9
B9 also puts out some of what I think are called ‘discharge’ printed shirts that are SUPER comfortable and I know cost a lot more to do.
is this NEW FOUND GLORY Hammers Ltd. Ed. Black T-Shirt still available?
Click the image, hit ebay.
@b.murphy: already, but not found or been removed from ebay
That’s because this post is from August 2010, dude.