Urban Outfitters — the supplier of clothes worn by your younger relatives — now sells a $28 t-shirt that’s an adaptation of Minor Threat’s Out of Step cover. This predictably piqued the curiousity of people who know that Ian MacKaye, the band’s highly principaled frontman, refused to produce shirts as the head of Dischord Records, the label of Minor Threat and MacKaye’s other band Fugazi. Well, it turns out that Urban Outfitters’ offerings were obtained via Tsurt, a licensing company that MacKaye hired to produce the apparel, he told The Washington City Paper.
According to the hardcore legend, he decided to use Tsurt to not only produce offical Minor Threat shirts, but to police the myraid bootleg apparel floating around (Fugazi were also the subject of the famous bootleg “This is Not a Fugazi T-Shirt”). “My time is better spent doing other things,” MacKaye told the paper. “It’s not a political thing for me. I just don’t give a fuck about T-shirts.” More power to Ian MacKaye — who can blame him for not wanting to track down and sue retailers?
It also appears that MacKaye could not care less if you decide to buy one of them from Urban Outfitters, which also has a shirt featuring fellowing D.C. punk pioneers Bad Brains, “Do I think it’s absurd? Yes, I certainly do,” he said. “Motherfuckers pay $28, that’s what they wanna pay for their shirts.”
As a means of comparison, Ian said it reminds him of people who buy fancy shoes: “I guess it makes their feet feel fuckin’ rich.”
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Not as rich as buying Kanye’s plain white tee for $120, though.
