Thursday, September 16, 2010

Posted by xCHIPxSEM | File under : ,

Here's an interesting t-shirt that was printed as Strife began to really gain momentum. While its pretty common place for bigger bands to ask for guarantees now, at the time apparently it wasn't very well looked upon for Strife to do. At first glance, one would assume that this was printed after Strife chose to no longer be considered a straight edge band with the release of their "Angermeans" album but this is actually from 1997 when they were straight edge. From what I remember hearing, this was printed by the guys at The Attitude Shop, a company that made straight edge and ARA shirts (Ill post their catalog soon). If anyone has more info, please pass it along. I'd also love to hear the story behind the New Jersey date (I'm assuming it was canceled).

14 comments:

Unknown said...

Amazing

Anonymous said...

yeah...post that catalog! nice work...

Anonymous said...

Haha, I was at the Hagerstown show and remember all the talk surrounding strife and their thousand dollar guarantee.

Anonymous said...

that's funny.

Anonymous said...

as a promoter, i mean a kid setting up shows, around that time frame i remember how intimidating it was to deal with guarantees. i was really nervous with big bands like snapcase and eXc. i set up shows between 15-22 years old. everything was coming out of my ass if i f'ed up and there were a few f' ups. even as a promoter i thought that shirt was ridiculous. that's what bands do; playing hardcore isn't a public service. bands didn't stay around b/c they couldn't afford to live on working at Kinko's on the off dates.

Justin M. said...

I grew up in the OC hardcore scene in the early/mid 90's and Strife was obviously a fixture. I remember this being an issue that people were pretty pissed about back then, but even then I saw no problem with them having a guarantee for out of town tour dates. However Strife insisted on the same guarantee for Southern California shows as well which was complete bullshit.

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure that Mike Phyte made these shirts.

Andrew said...

Here's the deal... If the show is a $10 door and there are 500 kids that makes $5000. Now, who deserves that money? The band, the promoter, or the club? Even after expenses there was more than enough money to go around.
I know it is scary for a young promoter to book a show like that, but a high guarantee also weeds out kids that want to book shows for scene status and puts us in touch with promoters that are serious about putting on and promoting a good show.
You know what's scary... quitting your job and getting in a van knowing you have rent and bills to pay!
$1000 doesnt go far.. With gas, van rentals, u haul rentals, hotels, as well as percentages paid to booking agents and managers (who usually make more than individual band members) there isn't much to split up 5 ways. We could have made more working at starbucks or at kinkos!

As far as guarantees for local shows go... Again.. Who deserves that money?
The bands do...

- Andrew / Strife

Andrew said...

Here's the deal... If the show is a $10 door and there are 500 kids that makes $5000. Now, who deserves that money? The band, the promoter, or the club? Even after expenses there was more than enough money to go around.
I know it is scary for a young promoter to book a show like that, but a high guarantee also weeds out kids that want to book shows for scene status and puts us in touch with promoters that are serious about putting on and promoting a good show.
You know what's scary... quitting your job and getting in a van knowing you have rent and bills to pay!
$1000 doesnt go far.. With gas, van rentals, u haul rentals, hotels, as well as percentages paid to booking agents and managers (who usually make more than individual band members) there isn't much to split up 5 ways. We could have made more working at starbucks or at kinkos!

As far as guarantees for local shows go... Again.. Who deserves that money?
The bands do...

- Andrew / Strife

Anonymous said...

hahahaha.

great (imaginary) figures.

$10 shows? back then... that didn't happen very often. and generally, when they did, there were a lot of big/touring bands on it.

500 kids? maybe at some of them...

look, i can has made up figures, too! if the show was $5 and there were 200 kids, that's your guarantee... with nothing left for other bands/space rental/etc.

and the kids who went to the shows could have made $ at work, too...

as for hotels, i went to shows all over the country, and almost always found a place to stay. and i was an asshole, then, too. and still let kids/bands stay with me, numerously...

attitude shop FTW.

Anonymous said...

Fucking shut up robmafia, jesus christ... Dickhead...

OmegamanJim..laststanding said...

The shirt were sold/given out by Tad and the Attiude shop which I was friends with. My friends and I were at the show and were given these shirts and told to wear them, to prove a point on how one band was causing other bands playing to no get paid as much or at all!

So let me start by saying the show was in Hagerstown Maryland at the 180 club. My band and some friends were at the show and Like I mentioned were given these shirts..in which we thought was funny! My one friend Bryan has his on and who was the smallest guy out of the entire crowd starts getting a bunch of crap from who we later find out was the roadie/friend of Strife. The guy was much bigger than my friend - even though we knew Bryan would have taken this guy! Needless to say is cause a bunch of crap to the point there was a shoving/scream match between the Strife crew and some of us local kids! And being in a band we thought it was rude for any band to demand that much more over any other act...so we stood our ground and some of the Attitude guys got involved and is mad for a fun show. It was like a Hip-Hop was East Coast vs West Coast thing too...some starting yelling crap about where "They Live" on both side! This is the kind of stuff that makes cool clubs like this go out of business, as I remember the show had a strange vibe form that point on! And don't get me wrong I was there to see Strife, but the way them and their crew acted was just as bad as One Life Crew in Cleveland...but OLC are the bad guys!! I think allot of the Victory bands took their popularity and ran with it and it went to their heads.

I was interesting to see what later became of Strife selling out, I think this might have been the start of it all. I mean if you are going to lose your edge cash in before anyone finds out and walk away with the $$$

With that said I am in my 30's and still Straight Edge...young until I die!

Anonymous said...

Just saw this same shirt listed on ebay, if anyone is interested! I think I am going to go for this piece of Hardcore history, if the price is right!

Anonymous said...

bryan did not stand a chance, you have got to be kidding me!
-your welcome