Ten Tee Tips
Bad hair and suspenders constitute no barrier to superior T-shirt design. They may, however, undermine marketing.
When I cashed in my super and went feral, the first thing I did was create T-shirts.
Their design, production and sale yielded many lessons whose pain far exceeded their value.
I reproduce them here, in case you or a loved one are mad enough to contemplate a similar path.
1. Nobody cares if it’s local.
I spent weeks trying to source Australian-made blank garments. Even locally woven fabric would have satisfied my patriotic urge. But suppliers and vendors alike assured me that:
- The Australian textile industry was cactus.
- You couldn’t get a local product for love or money.
- Customers didn’t give a damn.
2. Nobody cares if it’s original.
Even at peak capacity, with economies of scale fully leveraged, it took me at least 40 minutes to draw and colour each T-shirt.
No shop was willing to pay a price that reflected my labour. Indeed, no shop even twigged that my brilliant ‘1 of 1’ signature motif meant my designs were hand inked.
Compare that scenario to the 210 designs I’ve since created electronically.
3. Nobody cares if it’s organic.
This was certainly the case in my day (15 years ago). I’m impressed to see that REMO, buoyed by his 45,000 enlightened custOMERs, has recently put his money where his mouth is.
Will people put their money where he is and support the necessarily higher prices of organic? I sincerely hope so.
4. Consignment sucks.
Consignment means no care and no responsibility on the part of the shop.
From ice-cream-wielding kids to carefully-packed goods that never reach their destination, this method sounds great but isn’t.
And if your products do turn up and survive long enough to sell, the vendor keeps 40-60% of the take. Or, if you’re really unlucky, 100%.
5. Women prefer fitted garments.
My small-sized ladies range was a complete failure as the garments were deemed unfashionably baggy. I, of course, had done no market research.
6. Lack of research kills.
My lack of research was highly consistent. When I did take orders for fitted ladies’ tees, I bought blanks with no concept that my ink pens would snag and ruin the stretchy fabric.
7. People like colour choices.
My edgy, arty, black-and-white-with-spot-colour pallet appealed to only a small fraction of the market.
This demographic chiefly comprised students with no money, who dreamed of making T-shirts.
Stocking the range needed to satisfy all customer desires was a logistical factorial colour wheel mind melt.
8. Never pitch at lunch time.
The worst time to lob into a shop with an arm full of T-shirts is midday. This is when they’re busy with – wait for it – lunch time shoppers.
You’ll get short shrift, if you’re lucky. And no second chance.
9. Have capacity and range.
After a hot, exhausting day hitting gift shops in Sydney, I finally met a lady who expressed great interest in my designs.
It was only after half an hour of friendly chatting that she realised my ‘samples’ were actually my ‘range’.
Christmas was coming. She wanted many units of multiple styles. Delivered the following week. I confessed that I was completely unprepared for her level of commercial interest. She was not amused.
10. Keep a second string.
The worst thing you can do is burn all your bridges and throw yourself on the mercy of fate.
Though exciting and noble, such dramatics leave you entirely reliant on the success of your ‘big idea’.
Unless you hit pay dirt fast, you’ll start worrying about money. That kills creativity, which fires another torpedo into your dream boat.
So, even if it’s flipping vegieburgers, keep one reliable income source until the world recognises and rewards your incredible talent.
Paul Hassing, Founder & Senior Writer, The Feisty Empire
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Great post! Thanks. Haven’t gone into the TShirt business (won’t now!!), but many anologies there for other markets. It is unfortunate that nobody cares is its local anymore – Australia just cannot complete with manufacture in China and businesses that wish to compete in a global market have to look at offshore manufacture. Even if the production/print prices here dont eat all of your margin, the shipping costs to get your goods across to the States (or anywhere else for that matter!)certainly will.
And you are right, consignment is about as useful a tool as those suspenders!
Lisa.
Thank you , Lisa. It’s great to hear that some of these points resonate with you. The products on your website look fascinating. We have plenty of space in this forum, so feel free to regale us with your war stories. We love that stuff! Best regards, P.
Paul, thanks for the name check. I was mightily impressed by that not-quite-RudeBoy photo at the top. Possibly around the same time, I was wearing DMs, narrow braces and polo shirts … the difference being that my hair was a sharp short back’n’sides. And I was in a ska band, so it was a uniform of sorts.
On-topic: as I’m sure you’ve worked out, the REMO General Store model of designing it yourself and then email-promoting it to a large audience means that your target audience benefits from bulk discount prices. We have a few talented and prolific contributors to REMO’s CustOMER design portfolio, and it seems to be a given that a well-considered design (especially one that keeps the medium in mind) will attract repeat purchasers, thus returning a royalty to the designer. Our production method, although currently only suitable for white shirts, provides that great combination of flexibility and low-ish production costs.
That said, we’re always asking ourselves whether people will pay slightly more for fully Australian-sourced organic product, made to our exacting specifications. It’s still an open question.
Good on you, Adam! I was eager for a REMO soul to drop by.
Luckily I ditched that look before pursuing my wife, otherwise the outcome might have been radically different!
I’ve been watching your business with interest for a while now. You sure have been put through the wringer by world events. Yet you’re still standing. This surely bodes well for a strong 2010.
I hope we get more comments on the pros and cons of high-quality Aussie organics. And I hope the final answer is a resounding YES!
Thanks very much for giving us your perspective!
Wow! If you replace T-Shirt with Pizza, that could almost pass for my business synopsis.
There are however a few differences…e.g. I did heaps of research…but when you are researching a niche market about which there is no specific ‘hard’ (i.e. dispassionate/objective peer-reviewed, journal published, government digested, media regurgitated, publicly sugar-coated scientific), data and your not asking people to pay you to give you their views, then views are what you get.
Views propelled by imagined weekend trips to the Bahamas in imaginary Lear Jets, balmy banana-chair clad beaches where organic wood-fired pizzas are served by Bikini clad devotees…views wafting on images of privately owned, minion filled Castles bedecked with more banana-chairs, where organic wood-fired pizzas would be a great idea (when I’m in the mood)… and perfect organic-wood-fired pizzas delivered at the perfect temperature instantly and simultaneously to 518 office workers within 16 seconds of placing an order.
Unfortunately, even the best research hasn’t quite developed to the point where it can in fact capture both the views and the imagination behind them, of sample groups. So often the best one gets are not much more than whimsical answers to questions from prescription-drug addicted desperados just doing their best to ‘make ends meet’ for the banks and utility providers eagerly rubbing their hands together waiting to get the insurance paid-outs when we meet our ends.
And I found exactly the same thing…either in the ‘lunch-time’ rush or after a few ales at an evening party, few care about authenticity or ‘organicity’ more than ‘now’ and ‘taste’. I reckon I could’ve sold wood-fired ‘Frizbees’ made from Chinese finger-nails and Heart Foundation ticked, food-dyed Oil Slick derivatives and so long as 25 years of tax-payer funded, independent corporate lobby-group managed scientific research couldn’t establish a ‘direct’ link to attention deficient gasping babies, then everything would be sweet.
Unfortunately for the National ‘Triple Bottom Line’, I just can’t do that to people.
Now, I don’t want to frighten you mate, but before I go I’m going to have to disagree with something that you said…but I reckon our ‘Bonds’ of good fellowship are stretchy enough to take it ;-P.
I don’t think the price of organics are ‘necessarily higher’. But then I don’t think that paying $80 to sit in front of a Doctor for 15 minutes is necessary either…especially when one considers that it’s cheaper to transport a live human, on call, across a city, (in a technology that has killed more people in 75 years than all wars combined), than it is to send a box of similar volume the same distance overnight.
Great post as always mate…:-)
Cheers
Stephen G
You’re in FINE form, Stephen! I cracked up at your fabulous comment.
It’s amazing how human folly flows effortlessly across diverse sectors. How I wish the cockroaches were in charge of saving the planet!
Thanks for your organics observation. Our Bonds fellowship T-shirt is alerted but not alarmed. As I’ve been dealing in virtual goods for 1.5 decades, I no longer have ANY authority to comment. Hence my all-points bulletin to REMO.
I’d be delighted to hear from as many organic folk as possible. In fact, I should put the word around at the Collingwood Children’s Farm Farmers’ Market. It was fence-to-fence sustainability last time I went.
So, let the debate rage! Great to see you back, Mate. Thank YOU for your time and thoughts.
This story just to hand:
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/retail/20100112-fashion-label-ksubi-collapses-into-administration.html
Do they call it the ‘rag trade’ because that’s what it leaves you in?
You’re most welcome ol’ Bean…it’s good to be back. Am I back?…or forward? It’s getting harder to tell
But the most important thing is that you laughed
In the interest of a raging debate, try this for a performance indicator – if it has fences it’s not sustainable ;-P
I can’t wait for all the ‘Grass Roots’ organisations in the world to finally break through the surface and become Grass. I’m doing my best to add as much ‘fertiliser’ as I can so as to assist in this. However, after eons in the dark, it is understandable that many take themselves more seriously than Economists. And who would want to grow above ground anyway…apparently in the last hundred years they’ve invented these things called ‘lawn-mowers’. Is there a symbolic parody emerging here? Hmmm!
Speaking of lawn-mowers, I reckon Climate Change is the least of our problems – http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/pw_singer_on_robots_of_war.html
If comedy is indeed closely connected to tragedy, then I reckon the next few years are going to be a major ‘cack’
Cheers
Stephen G
Good points all, Stephen. Love your metaflor.
Looks like I’m about to lose another 16:09 minutes of my life. I can never go past your TED video recommendations!
Major ‘Cack’ No 1:
Re: ‘Story just to hand’ SmartCompany:
“Administrators Paul Billingham and Said Jahani of Grant Thornton will keep the company’s retail stores open and will operate on a “business as usual” footing while they weigh up the label’s financial position.
“Our job is to try and preserve the inherent value of the business and we will be working closely with the directors and key stakeholders to do this,” Billingham said in a statement.
A spokesman for the administrator declined to discuss the level of debt in the company, saying investigations were at an early stage.”
This stuff always cracks me up…in a wrist-slashing kinda way.
So here’s an apparently successful company that one can only assume has submitted the endless reams of paperwork and records via their armies of no doubt highly skilled Accountants, Lawyers, Advisors, Consultants etc, etc, etc (to banks, insurance companies, ASIC, Tax Offices etc, etc, etc ad nauseum), and yet more ‘professionals’ are required to “weigh up the label’s financial position”? WHAT? THEY DON’T KNOW? Oh! Now that’s gotta be money well spent? The homeless and hungry can wait…right?
Investigations into the company’s debt “were at an early stage”? When? In 1947? And I’m unemployed? Why? Because I can’t waste enough money and time?
So clearly ‘inherent value’ and ‘financial position’ must be mutually exclusive, because they know one but not the other? Oh! I see (Insert blindfold here)!
And working closely with the people that got it into trouble is a great idea don’t you think? Just like us coughing-up trillions of dollars to bail-out banks, finance companies and entire industries so that we can keep paying interest, while a Billion people starve makes perfect sense.
Is it just me? Am I missing something here?…Am I the insane one? For the sake of everyone that subscribes to this crap I sincerely hope so.
What is really scary about this stuff is not that it is written…but that it is believed, acted upon and protected by the ‘Laws of the Land’? Land? Laws of ‘THE LAND’??? Land doesn’t borrow topsoil from somewhere else to investigate why it lost its topsoil.
‘The Land’ actually operates on the ‘Laws of Nature’, which we are yet to acknowledge, comprehend and/or accord with. But court is in session…
You can hold your breath, if you like…
You know we’re soaking in it…:-)
Cheers
Stephen G
Thank you, Stephen. It does rather feel as if we unhappy few have woken from our Matrix pods while society slumbers.
With regard to Nature, I think she’ll be swinging the cat and crossing the cuts with extreme prejudice. I’m sorry to say that I believe we heartily deserve it.
Wow! I am on a role ey? In the interest of what would’ve been ‘fair play’ about 3 comments ago, I’ll make this my last for the day
Indeed it does Cobber…but dare we not be unhappy. Remember in the 3rd episode they found out that they were in Version 6 (Beta), of Zion?
We’ve gotta laugh…we’ve just gotta…otherwise Mother Teresa’s and all the other great folks (mostly unknown), that have lived their lives loving what cannot be loved, and smiling where one cannot smile, have been for what?
There are some that refer to magnetism as ‘the winds of love’. I would venture to predict that we will find that this is the very essence of what we would consider the ‘fuel and engine’ of nature. How it accounts, the basis upon which it responds and adjusts. Enter ‘unconditional love’…or in other words, God loves me so much that I can die if want to; or you didn’t pay your debt so I’m going to kill you, but I still love you; or be happy or die; or be happy and die; or be whatever you want for as long as you can because you are going to die; or ‘Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo’
etc, etc…in the words of my 2nd favourite Emperor, “it is unavoidable” 
I remember hearing Bob Proctor say “so many of us tip-toe carefully through life, hoping to make it safely to death”.
It is worth nothing at this point, that so far the only immortal entities on this planet are companies.
And yes, from a certain point of view I can agree with that ‘we heartily deserve it’. But I prefer to err on the side of innocence (which incidentally I reckon is misspelled – it should be ‘innosense’ i.e. in no sense
. I reckon that punishment, like prohibition just doesn’t work. Compassion, though a lot more difficult and slower is at least sustainable and life promoting.
I think we heartily deserve the chance to adapt…I reckon we have that chance…but it requires that we make choices…the ‘right’ choices…to ‘do the right thing’. And aren’t we all already doing ‘the right thing’? Ask anyone. How many of us will say “No! I’m not doing the right thing, but I didn’t kill anyone today and it’s lunchtime. That’s a step in the right direction”. Hmmm! Don’t you just love paradox?
And it seems that we could once again learn something from good ol’ Neo. We are spending too much energy trying to understand why we made the choices we made and not enough on making different ones. The catch was though that both Neo and Trinity died anyway and we haven’t seen Version 7 (Stable)…yet
Cheers
Stephen G
Game: Glanville.
Wow fellas, what a work out. Am I glad I’m still at the beach on holidays AND I commented early. Not even those suspenders (organic or ortherwise) could hold me up in this literary expedition. Enough brain space for today… I’m heading back to the surf!
Good move, Lisa. If I didn’t have to keep my hydrangeas alive, I’d do likewise!
Another great post Paul and insights.
What we as small business think is important or necessary isn’t always the case with our customers such as in your case re the material being Australian.
Nice suspenders BTW
Thank you, Susan; you’re dead right. The number of assumptions I had to dismantle in 2009 beggared belief. It’s good to be on the right tram now.
The suspenders have been offered two lucrative speaking gigs PLUS representation by Harry M. Miller. That’s show biz…
Good on you for actually taking the time to review and move on. Hope the suspenders give you a cut
They won’t even take my calls! Claiming THEY carried ME all these years! Hmphh!
OK, here’s a few insights for you.
First off, you’re 100% correct. NO ONE CARES. They don’t care about you, your designs, your shirts, organic inks, China or Australia they just don’t care. Unfortunate but true.
Then there’s retail and reality and any similarities are purely coincidence. Retailers want fast moving, high profit, low cost, proven product ideally on consignment at your risk or if they do pay for it on long payment terms and a ‘sale or return’ basis. And that’s if you are a known brand. Forget walking in off the street with a few t-shirts.
Retail is detail and in the case of most they may have up to 500 SKU’s (stock items) in store so your half dozen lovingly crafted shirts aren’t going to rock your world.
Having working the marketing departments of both adidas and Nike and launched my own surf label I have certainly experienced both ends of the spectrum. With the surf brand I had the same responses you did – ‘Australian made, who cares what’s the price and we need at least 100% margin’.
Here’s Big Mal’s top tips:
Fact: the cost of Australian produced apparel is ridiculous. By the time you source a local shirt have printing screens (digital printing is too restrictive but this will change) made and have them printed they work out approximately 4 times the cost of Chinese produced product for the same quality. And that includes getting them here. In fact the print ex china is actually better now and they add in the specific label and that nice little tab with your brand on it for cents.
Fact: You can get short production runs in China if you find the right factory because they don’t have the same issues with set up times. Labour is cheap so sewing in your label is cents. Printing is cheap and so is embroidery. Delivery costs are also reasonable as you can parcel ship 100 t-shirts in a small box.
Fact: You cannot sell your own product. Impossible. Assuming your designs and quality are good you simply cannot get around enough stores to make it viable. Even if a store takes your product and sells out in 2 days they will not ring you to re order, ever. You need to be in the store with the other 40 reps that they see every week to fight for the stores business – their ‘open to buy’ (amount they have to buy stock that week or month. They will not have the time to find your card and call you.
You need to get a distributor to sell your product for you. The best ones are those already going into the store to sell them other things and have an existing relationship with them so your product can be added to the order. The distributor may sell towels, sunglasses, thongs, caps AND your shirts.
Retailers want to place as few orders as possible so the rep that has the most brands will get the orders. You need to factor in 10% of the selling price for the sales agents. Money well spent. Pick one that is on a fortnightly call cycle with the stores so your product is always in the retailers face. You may get a yes after it has been presented the 7th time. If it’s your own product you will have given up a long time ago.
Get different ones in each state so they have the local knowledge and relationships.
Fact: You will need stock. Ensure you can deliver product directly to the store within 48 hours of the order being placed. Getting orders and then having a print run with a 2 week delivery time will just not work. You will have to put your cash where your belief is and take a punt on some stock.
Keep your range small to start. No point in having 20 designs day 1. Retailers will not put that much in and won’t have the space anyway. They will ‘trial’ a few if you are lucky to ‘see how they go’
Fact: Retailers hate new brands. Why should I stock this when I have these 6 known brands that sell really well? They won’t unless you offer something unique and appealing. Great designs, when the worlds selling Ripcurl you need to be a Mambo, great prices or value. A t-shirt and a bonus cap for $10 less than a known brand t-shirt is a great way to go. If the competitors are targeting the kids you need to target their mum’s as they are the ones with the cash and always looking for a good deal.
Fact: Brands sell. Look at the surf brands or sports brand. They sell a Chinese sourced and printed t-shirt for $70!! The cost is about US$4.00 so landed in Australia is still well under $10.00. What’s selling – the design? No the brand. When I was at Nike we joked that we could put a swoosh on a turd and it would sell. Crass but true.
It will take time to build your brand but you MUST be professional from day 1. That means correct branded tags, swing tags (ideally with stickers) and invoices. You must invest in your brand. Don’t say you will do it when the brand gets big because it won’t unless you do. Scary stuff.
Fact: Retailers expect you to market your brand not them. They want you to create brand awareness and position the brand so customers come in asking for it. You need to provide store point of sale, run promotions and value added deals. Keep your brand active.
There is a heap more but this is a start. Dont copy the competition as another ‘ me too’ brand is not an option. Original, unique and positioned directly at your target market is your route to success when the price is right, your product is available and you are supporting it with sales cals and marketing. Easy!
Bloody hell, Malcolm. I think you just delivered the single most authoritative comment we’ve ever had!
I’m scraping my blown-away body off the wall as we speak.
Thank you for taking such time and care to draw on your ridiculously vast spectrum of experience for our benefit. I am extremely grateful.
Hey Malcom
Happy New Year mate.
I do miss the good ol’ days when you said stuff I could disagree with
Awesome mate…thanks.
Cheers
Stephen G
Happy New Year Stephen!
Glad you enjoyed the comment. I have no worries with people disagreeing with me…just as long as they dont mind being wrong!!!!
Seriously, I’m looking forward to another inspiring year of Paul’s blogs and the excellent comments from all.
Have you made the beetroot, fennel and rabbit pizza yet?
How have sales been over the summer pizza season?
Hi Malcolm
Hehe! Like I didn’t know that?
Re: Beetroot, fennel & rabbit pizza: Haven’t you heard mate? My business went belly up by the end of October. You can find gory details here – http://bit.ly/AiNNQ – specifically the last 3 posts (i.e. ‘You can bank on it…’; ‘Office of Fair-ly Stupid Trading…’; & ‘noSh-it! no-Flowers…’). From my perspective I was ’small business supported’ into oblivion.
But I’m far from dead
And after a few weeks of ‘walkabout’ I just last night posted this – http://bit.ly/7udW2e, which is my first public articulation of my thoughts and ideas for the noSh-it! r-evolution 
It’s a much bigger project…but then I’m a lot more pissed off and determined to establish a functional example of enterprise that will hopefully lead to policy and practices that support business logic rather than distorting and undermining it.
Great to see you (virtually), and that your Tsunami-esque enthusiasm now registers on the Richter scale…and you don’t even need an earthquake
I look for to more…
Cheers
Stephen G
I too, for a while in my mis-spent youth, had a habit of wearing suspenders. I still have them, actually, but I never wear them anymore.
Interestingly, I was in a ska band at the time also.
This is getting spooky, Stephen H! I had a zydeco/thrash band called Fluffy’s Chain. Does that count?
PS: Harry M. Miller is looking for more suspenders. If you’re on good terms with yours, get them to give him a call!
Hate to burst your bubble about people caring. Here in the states, (you’ve heard of us before, haven’t you?) We love Australian products. Outback restaurants and every food or grocery store I enter has Australian wines prominently displayed and people love them and are backing their preferences with their “green backs”.
You’re all correct though about the products Paul originally wrote about. Generally, people don’t care. Even here in the states. I won’t repeat all the wise wisdom and comments which came before me, but it is increasingly difficult to observe a correlation between pulling out the wallet and the products you had for sale. Even here in the states!
And in spite of that, many will sit down at a sewing machine, drawing board and produce those dreams of being the next Banana Republic with their handcrafted products. Speaking of which, the county where I live is the largest cherry producer in the country. Was thinking of taking all the cherry pits from the fruit processing plants and turning them into pouches to either heat or freeze for humans or pets. Would you buy one? What would you name this product? Fluffy Pits?
Keep dreaming. Keep doing. Keep producing.
Thanks,
Cheryl
Hi Cheryl! We HAVE heard of the states! There’s 13 or something, isn’t there?
Seriously, it’s really great to hear your voice again from across the waves.
Also good to hear we’re stocking your shelves. Ironically, some exceedingly fine New Zealand sav blancs are taking over OURS! There’s even been talk of ripping up vines.
As to your cherry idea, I think it’s the…
Thanks for dropping by; y’all come back now; y’hear?!
LOL! Cherry Pits! Pit Packs?
I think the Autralian wines do well here because first of all they say they’re good (our second largest agricultural product here is wine), there’s a wine awareness, and their brightly colored packaging is hard to miss. I’ve seen some New Zealand wines too, but didn’t mention them.
It’s interesting how the wine industry is becoming a growing industry here. Going on winery tours is quite a social thing too. Wine tastings and winery tours. I’ve joked with a few that pretty soon it’ll be “Leelanau, a vineyard in every backyard and a winery on every corner.” You can read more about our eighteen wineries at http://www.LeelanauWineries.com
Another growing industry to complement the wine industry is the attraction of “foodies” up here. Mario Batali has a summer home here and is doing his part to put the restaurants of the region on the map. A sweet European Bistro-style restaurant is one he’s been quoted in Esquire Magazine as the place where “he likes to go to chill out” you can read more about Martha Ryan and her restaurant Martha’s Leelanau Table at http://www.MarthasLeelanauTable.com
Yes, we support the food and wine industry quite a bit!
Cheryl
Hi Paul,
Just to put the readers of this blog straight, you hadn’t ditched those braces (unfortunately!!) before pursuing me but clearly it made absolutely no difference as I’m still here and still besotted after 15 years. Don’t get any funny ideas though as I am glad those braces are no longer a part of our lives!
Fonnie
Thank you, Darling, for sorting that out! Seems I had selective memory lapse there, but I don’t recall.
As Voice of Reason, however, you’re seldom wrong. And I’m now convinced those braces seared your memory forever.
Thank you also for your kind besotting. Not a day passes that I don’t count my lucky stars.
If you pass the pub on the way home, could you pick us up a nice bottle of NZ sav blanc? Love, P.
It’s not the braces that scare me Fonnie…it’s the hair…please tell me that he at least ditched the hair
Or has love ever been blind?
Cheers
Stephen G
Great stuff, Cheryl! Thank you very much for adding a layer of information we’d never get otherwise!
After decades of looking, Stephen, I finally got a good hair cutter. We’re feeding her royal jelly to keep her going as long as possible.
Hehe
Thanks for the update, not quite Fonnie
Cheers
Stephen G
This little bit:- “Unless you hit pay dirt fast, you’ll start worrying about money. That kills creativity, which fires another torpedo into your dream boat.”
Is what i would have to say kills upwards of 50% of businesses unless there is a rich mummy or daddy behind the scenes
I seen so many businesses fall over – in the 2.5year span after start-up – it’s not funny
A second job – yeah – you lose your weekends and playtime of an evening is essential to get ahead.Don’t forget no pain, no gain motto and you should be fine!
Thank you for heeding the call, IWM. It’s really good to see what you have to say.
Zydeco/Thrash? I’m imagining Suicidal Tendencies covering Clifton Chenier – am I even close? Anywhere online I can sample some Fluffy’s Chain?
Thank you for your interest, Stephen. I’ve long toyed with the idea of putting footage on YouTube, but my handlers think it may impair my brand. Influences were Ian Dury, Talking Heads, Spike Milligan, Iggy Pop, Nina Hagen… get my drift?
That sounds far more interesting than what I had in mind! Anything that is using Spike Milligan and Iggy Pop as key influences has to be a winner!
Brand Schmand! You are the ‘brand’, so lets see some Fluffy’s Chain. It can’t hurt…no one here surely thinks you’re exactly the most conventional of blokes to start with. (And I mean that with the utmost respect)
Thank you, Stephen. Your words certainly resonate, so I’ll give them careful thought.