GREAT MOMENTS IN SHIRTS

1956

The first-ever rock shirt is believed to have been made by an Elvis fan club.

1964

Promoters promise $1 and a free Beatles shirt to all who welcomed the band to America at JFK airport. 4,000 fans came.

1973

An Allman Brothers shirt sells so well, show promoter Bill Graham launches the first big music merch company.

1973

Dee Dee Ramone (né Douglas Colvin) meets Arturo Vega, who’d become the Ramones’ designer, T-shirt seller, and more.

1979

Bob Marley becomes the first highly prominent band leader to have his portrait on an official shirt.

1982

Maiden in Texas! Maiden in Japan! Iron Maiden popularizes a new sales idea: unique shirts for each leg of a tour.

1984

After the BBC bans Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s song “Relax,” this shirt blows up.

1987

Photographer Glen E. Friedman famously puts Chuck D and Flavor Flav in Minor Threat shirts.

1990

Fugazi refuses to make shirts for itself. Boston merch company Just Say Rock fills the void with an instant-classic bootleg.

1992

Kurt Cobain routinely wears singer Daniel Johnston’s shirt, prompting Atlantic Records to sign Johnston.

1993

Beavis and Butt-head debut in AC/DC and Metallica logo shirts, which the bands hadn’t been making. But they soon started.

1998

Robbie in The Wedding Singer, to his ex: “Please get out of my Van Halen T-shirt before you jinx the band and they break up.”

2012

Disney briefly sells an unlicensed shirt blending Mickey with Joy Division’s 1979 Unknown Pleasures. On ebay, it’s now $300-plus.

2012

Licensed Slayer merch gets warm and fuzzy: Locoape begins annual Slayer ironic Christmas sweaters.

2014

Morrissey outfits his band in these shirts, protesting his former label. Harvest Records responds by selling the shirts.