Oliver Twist and Shout
June 3, 2010 11:47 AM Subscribe
Can you help me identify a band t-shirt I found in a high-school locker in perhaps 1988?
This t-shirt had a simplified but realistic (think Nagle) full-color illustration of a vinyl record being smashed by a hammer, complete with flying shards and blood splash. The label of the record contained detailed track listings for this record (song lengths, titles, etc). The band was (I think) "The Plaids" and the only track name I recall was "Oliver Twist and Shout". There might have been one called "If I Had a Hammer", but I'm not sure. I don't recall any tag.
The shirt was old-ish when I found it. It was worn out. It was extremely high-end, both in terms of the quality of the illustration and the way it was printed. If it was some unknown garage band their uncle was a gifted designer who owned a printing company.
There is a good-time party band called "The Plaids" that is filling up my Google results, but they seem waaaaay too young to be the band in question. "Oliver Twist and Shout" doesn't get anything either.
I have some unreliable thought in my mind that it was not a real band, that it was a shirt put out by the Gap or Kmart or something to LOOK like a cool band shirt, and certainly it was high quality. But it was fairly edgy. Too edgy for that sort of thing? I don't know.
I really liked the shirt back when I was 15, but I never knew anything about it. It's long gone now but I'd love to learn about what the hell it was.
This t-shirt had a simplified but realistic (think Nagle) full-color illustration of a vinyl record being smashed by a hammer, complete with flying shards and blood splash. The label of the record contained detailed track listings for this record (song lengths, titles, etc). The band was (I think) "The Plaids" and the only track name I recall was "Oliver Twist and Shout". There might have been one called "If I Had a Hammer", but I'm not sure. I don't recall any tag.
The shirt was old-ish when I found it. It was worn out. It was extremely high-end, both in terms of the quality of the illustration and the way it was printed. If it was some unknown garage band their uncle was a gifted designer who owned a printing company.
There is a good-time party band called "The Plaids" that is filling up my Google results, but they seem waaaaay too young to be the band in question. "Oliver Twist and Shout" doesn't get anything either.
I have some unreliable thought in my mind that it was not a real band, that it was a shirt put out by the Gap or Kmart or something to LOOK like a cool band shirt, and certainly it was high quality. But it was fairly edgy. Too edgy for that sort of thing? I don't know.
I really liked the shirt back when I was 15, but I never knew anything about it. It's long gone now but I'd love to learn about what the hell it was.
The description of the shirt makes it sound like something by KMFDM, but the track/band name is not like them.
posted by vkxmai at 6:41 PM on June 3, 2010
posted by vkxmai at 6:41 PM on June 3, 2010
Best answer: There's a 75% or so chance my brain is playing tricks on me, but I think I may have actually owned this shirt. If so it may have been from Levi's "Shock Waves" line, which was self-consciously edgy in a very sad, very corporate and very '80s sort of way.
posted by Lazlo at 7:24 PM on June 5, 2010
posted by Lazlo at 7:24 PM on June 5, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Evangeline at 12:45 PM on June 3, 2010