Tee Time is (another) new segment we’re trying out here at Fast & Loose HQ (aka me and my laptop). It’s about people’s treasured band t-shirt collections. Is the name bad? Who can say! Life is a highway. Let’s proceed:
Hua Hsu is a professor of English at Bard College and a staff writer at The New Yorker, and also one of the greatest writers of our generation (and probably a few other generations too). His 2022 memoir Stay True is incredible (it won a literal Pulitzer), he is a devoted proponent and creator of zines, and most importantly for our purposes, a rabid collector of musical ephemera, including but not limited to band shirts.
He also just launched his fabulous new Substack Magazines, about a subject extremely near and dear to both our hearts (he also sent me the greatest care packages of 90s music magazines after the tiny violin events of Jan 2025, for which I am forever grateful) . In conclusion, he stays stunting on you hoes, this hoe included.
Here are Hua’s most cherished band tees:
HH: I had a summer job working for a famous debate coach who, as a teenager, had been part of some landmark free speech case. He was mischievous and jaded, qualities I didn’t associate with adults. I went to Slim’s after work one night to see The Verve—who I annoyingly insisted on calling Verve, their original name—because I was really into “Slide Away.” They played it first (the full set is on YouTube) and I was honestly kinda bored the rest of the night. It was too out and I was too basic. I bought the shirt even though I thought the logos were both bad (with the worse one on the front) and wore it to work the next day. “The. Verve,” my boss said, mockingly. “What is that?” I tried to explain that they were really cool, a little unconvinced myself, using terms like “psychedelic” and “roomy” and “spacey.” “Sounds like Pink Floyd,” he said. “Pink Floyd sucks.” I was shook, I had no response, and I’ve still never really listened to Pink Floyd as a result (ed note: Same, despite new year’s resolutions).
HH: The first concert I ever went to (other than Lollapalooza, which was a safe daytime affair) was Suede/The Cranberries at the Fillmore. I was obsessed with Suede and desperately wanted one of those white t-shirts with the “Animal Nitrate” or “Metal Mickey” cover. I still want one. My friend Leigh, whose brother drove us to the show, had all the best shirts—Suede, a Manic Street Preachers “Gold Against the Soul” long-sleeve. To my dismay, Suede were not selling merch that night. Even worse (for me), everyone seemed to cheer the Cranberries louder than Suede. Anyhow, when they came back for “Dog Man Star,” I bought this “Heroine” shirt even though it says “London Suede” on it—a truly bad name they had to adopt for legal reasons. I think all my friends bought this shirt that night, and my pal Vincent wore it when we were on a public television phone-in telethon for community service. A provocative move, the slight frisson of a quasi-drug reference. That summer, Vince went to England and came back with this enormous Portishead bootleg (?) shirt for me, which I’m glad I kept all these years, as I expanded to its roominess. He also got super into raving and put me onto “Mr Kirk’s Nightmare” (which still scares me).
HH: I loved the single “Weirdo” and found this shirt on clearance at some Tower Records parking lot sale. I recall also buying a Wonder Stuff shirt, even though I didn’t like them at all. My mom would wear it around the house because she liked how colorful it was. Anyhow I wore the “Weirdo” shirt so much that I am addressed as “Weirdo” or “Wierdo” by multiple people in my 1992 yearbook. I remember thinking it was cool it said Charlatans and not “Charlatans UK”—the name they had to use in the states for a few years. (What does it say about the originality of the music I loved as a teenager that all these bands were using unoriginal names??) It felt a little stolen valor-y, since I’d never seen them in concert but nobody in San Jose was really trying to police Charlatans fandom. I saw them a few years later and my main memory is that this really gimmicky, very hyped, “all four of them are hot” band called Menswe@r opened. They remain a reference/epithet for me and my friend Harish. I bought a Menswe@r shirt too (I still have it, for some reason) because I thought it would be hilarious to own sometime in the future. But when?
HH: In my opinion, this Blur “Parklife” long-sleeve is one of the greatest concert tees ever made. A great, intensely nineties shade of green. The beer label logo flip! The fact that it’s a long-sleeve! It even says “United States of America” on the back. The night I got it was one of the best nights of my life. Pulp opened (I lost that shirt somewhere along the way) and Blur played “This is a Low.” I saw Blur a lot in the 1990s and always bought a shirt, but these are the only two I still have. The Adidas-influenced blue and red one seemed like a mistake at the time. It fits weird, as many off-brand 90s concert tees do, and I think even as a teenager more concerned with what I was wearing than how it fit I knew there was something wrong with it.
HH: Like any forty-something person, I gave away/lost a lot of shirts along the way that I now wish I had kept. Even as a collector/hoarder, how did we not see the future market for old Oasis t-shirts??? I still think about the Elastica “Vaseline” shirt all the time (ed note: ME TOO), even though it was cut like a square. Anyhow, I never buy vintage concert tees online but I did go through this phase where I was looking for old music sweatshirts. I still give my parents undeserved crap for giving away my Lollapalooza ‘92 shirt, and the prices on those are crazy. But this Lollapalooza ‘92 crewneck sweatshirt? Cheap. The Soul II Soul sweatshirt wasn’t cheap per se but it’s priceless—a relic from when they had their own brand/store/label.
HH: I randomly found this 120 Minutes raincoat online during COVID and it quickly became a cherished possession. I was so obsessed with “the new” in 1992 that I probably ignored this package tour (reviewed here in the LA Times) of bands I considered “old” (B.A.D. II, PIL) or bad (Blind Melon, Live). What did I know…
HH: Owning the 120 Minutes jacket made me feel an obligation to continue looking for 120 Minutes-related apparel. For a couple years, a 120 Minutes fanny pack was in my eBay shopping cart, which I don’t regret not buying. These three tees show a cool evolution of “brand identity”—I always loved the show’s “bug” days. The Unplugged shirt is just here because I like the colors.
This is predictably great. I especially appreciated the anecdote about the Charlatans t-shirt feeling "stolen valor-y". I was afflicted by that feeling a lot as a young person even though I was also in a community where there were very few people to call me on my self-perceived poseurdom. I regret that this caused 19 yo me to avoid talking to members of Archers of Loaf who were at my cousin's wedding. Because at the time I "only" owned one of their albums.... (My little brother chatted them up in the buffet line and said that they were nice.)