A few years ago I happened upon this weird Bl’ast! shirt on ebay. It said Bl’ast! on the back with power underneath it. I assumed it was made off the original screens with “the, of and expression” taped off. When I got this shirt in the mail, it had another surprise. It was printed on a Santa Cruz skate shirt.
I am still not certain why/when these shirts were printed, but I can only assume it is related to the Bl’ast! and Santa Cruz poster era.
A few weeks ago, a different variation of this shirt popped up on ebay. Blue shirt with the devil girl as a small pocket print, and the same Bl’ast! “power” logo on the back. This time with the added bonus of a rat. The tag has been cut out, but I am assuming that is was a Santa Cruz shirt as well.
Can anyone shed some light on the rat or the origins of these shirts? Also, can you believe Mr. McKirdy, livewire ceo, will not trade me my shirt back for these 2 gems? Goes to show what kind of Bl’ast! fan he is! ;)
A friend of mine sent this post to me based on the fact that he knows I’m a huge Bl’ast! fan. And i can provide some insight besides being stoked on seeing these old shirts.
I went to high school in the mid 80’s in San Jose, Ca, which is about 45 minutes from Santa Cruz, Bl’ast! hometown. I had a few skate buddies that surfed with some of the dudes in the band and hooked me with the now dubbed “Boner Sessions”. Back then i just referred to it as their demo. I fucking instantly fell in love with band. I saw them tons of times in the mid-late 80’s with the likes of C.O.C., Dr Know, Scared Straight, Agent Orange, D.I., etc.
Anyway, Mike the guitar player and i THINK Bill the drummer both used to work at NHS in the silk screen department. So all their merch was hooked up through NHS. They used to bring huge paper bags filled with stickers from Indy, Santa Cruz, Rip-Grip, Slime Ball, Bullet plus their own designs, and just whip them at the audience! I used to go home with all 4 of my pockets filled with Indy cross/bar and Bl’ast! stickers at the end of the night!
I ended up buying a shirts at the shows, and all mine have the same tags as the white shirt above. I’d take pix of mine, but they are all in storage.
As for the “Power” lettering-I think that was what they wanted to name the record when it was originally slated to come out on Boner Records.
I actually still prefer the demo to this day. Mainly due to the fact that I had the demo for at least a year before they even went in to re-record what would be the Wishingwell Version. I fucking wore that fucker out and made so many copies and sent it out to everyone i knew. Wish i had the foresight to make myself a “backup” back then, as my copy is now a wash of midrange and low end, with the occasional flourish of discernible notes.
Hope this helps.
Mat