From Ambience To Ambulance

lowtalker:

An excerpt from the book’ The Art of the Band T-shirt’ about this shirt.

Ian Mackaye:

‘When Fugazi first went on tour, in 1987, we were really struck by the demand for t-shirts coming from the kids at the shows. People would ask us if we had shirts while we were still loading in, and when we said no, they seemed almost offended. Fugazi didn’t even have a record out, and we had never played their town, so they hadn’t even heard our music, but they still wanted to buy shirts…Fuck making shirts!…Of course, our decision made it even easier for bootleggers to print up and sell shirts and stickers…In the beginning it was mostly small companies, and they would knock it off if I called them. They usually offered to pay us…but the answer was no…I managed to trace one design back to a fairly well-known t-shirt company in the Boston area, and I called to tell them to cut it out. I spoke to the main guy there, and, of course, he wanted to do a deal. And, of course, the answer was still no. Still, we had a nice chat. He was curious why we didn’t want to sell shirts, and after I explained our position, he seemed to respect it. About one month later, a friend at a record store alerted me to the ‘This is not a Fugazi t-shirt’ shirt. I traced it back to the same Boston dude. What a smart motherfucker he was! I called him up and said, ‘Okay, you’re funny and you’re creative, so let’s see how creative you are with accounting.’ I asked him to choose an organisation doing good work in his community and give them what would amount to the band’s royalty for the shirts. I think he chose a women’s shelter up there, and as far as I know he sent them money right up until he quit the business.’