Tee Time: Karly Hartzman of Wednesday
"Almost all of my fave band tees are modern ones where I cut out the graphic and sew them on vintage shirts myself. I’m very picky with fit and comfort level of my tees."
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 get to it:
Karly Hartzman is the front woman and main creative engine (beep beep) of one of my favorite contemporary bands, Wednesday. I’m fairly certain if you read this newsletter you already fuck with Wednesday, but if not I implore you to correct that for your own life’s improvement. She’s like Flannery O’Connor with blue lipstick and an electric guitar (and more use of interiority) - her detail-rich lyrics about the bars, ticks, and smoking weed out of a Pepsi can, her sharp observation of her Southern existence braided through with her universally resonant expressions of pain and heartbreak make for some of the best albums (last year’s Bleeds and 2023’s Rat Saw God especially) I’ve heard in a long time.
Karly is not your typical band t-shirt collector - she’s not out here dropping $350 on a singular t-shirt (dragging my own ass to hell here). Instead she transforms new shirts into something new through actual artistry and craft.
Here is her Tee Time:
KH: Almost all of my fave band tees are modern ones where I cut out the graphic and sew them on vintage shirts myself. I’m very picky with fit and comfort level of my tees. I can’t wear modern Gildan or any of those type of brands really. I’ll pick up 70s-00s blanks for the sole purpose of making them into these tees.
I think it’s really really cool to find and buy original vintage merch from the 90’s and aughts bands I love but I can almost never rationalize paying the prices the go for. I appreciate the value of t-shirts as archival items but like .... defo don’t tolerate some of the price gouging I see on sites like Grailed.
Usually I will buy the modern merch directly from the band unless their shit is totally out of print.
KH: I wear the Unwound tee, the Belle & Sebastian, Drop Nineteens and Swirlies tanks constantly....
The Swirlies one is especially exciting to me right now cause the shirt I cut the graphic from was sent to me by the original bassist of the band, along with some other really sweet memorabilia. His hand writing is tattooed on my arm cause he wrote some text on one of their covers and I ripped it for the tat on my wrist!