Tour Shirt Tuesday: Coorent River Inc- 1994

Special Tour Shirt Tuesday Edition.

There ya have it folks posted below is the original iconic Coorent River Inc band T-shirt before we simplified the name down to the neighborhood in which we grew up in. (Current River).

Nicely drawn by Tbone featuring a Coors Beer Can which we thought was genius yet people said why not call yourselves Current River!

Geez, we never thought of that!

Below is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, kinda!

Funny thing is we had the T-shirts printed off before we even had our original music done as Tbone being the main songwriter in Current River was at times like Tom Scholz a perfectionist in making us sound golden on his Fostex 4 track recording unit!

Remember we are talking early 1994 and everything was recorded (vocals, guitars, drums, bass) in Tbone’s parent’s basement (in their furnace room) as his Mom and Dad were off in Arizona for 6 weeks!

In case you’re wondering what we sounded like. Here’s a tune Masonry Man (about a friend of ours who has a hard head-true story) that Tbone put together a video for. Just remember this was done on a 4 track in a furnace room in the dead of winter with us not knowing what we were doing.

If anything, crank it! Music was put to the video about 5 years ago.

 I like how Tbone manhandles that guitar during the solo going from a George Harrison like solo to ripping off King Edward as the solo concludes. 

Growing up in the 80s it was about concert merchandise so when the subject of playing a few shows came up we jumped at the chance as Frank from Crocks would let us play and give us a chance even though we were straddling the fine line between stupidity and brilliance at trying to pull something off live.

The T-shirt thing was my idea. But back in 1994 not many local places or bands for that matter did T-shirts. If any were floating about by local bands it was usually homemade but I wasn’t confident in that approach as I didn’t want to ruin someone’s wash by having the colors run.

Hodder To Wherever Tour(on the back) comes from the street I lived on in Current River and I tend to believe its the longest Avenue in Current River.

So I went to one of the local baseball jersey places, the ones who do shirts and jerseys for beer leagues and shit like that.

The two owners must have thought I was on crack when I wanted a local rock band shirt done. lol

It did come at a cost as they needed to do a certain amount. I asked what a certain amount was and they said 30 T-shirts!

At what price I asked?

30 shirts for $600!! 

I puked a little in my mouth but…

I thought about it for a second and said yeah. Then I ran it by Tbone (lol) and we went 50-50 on paying for the shirts upfront without even selling one!

Gamble perhaps? 

Sure it was. But within 3 days of getting them, we sold 20 of them once my pals at work seen them. We were moving merch before a stitch of note was played live!

Doing things Ass Backwards was our motto back in 94.

We decided to give 10 away for free to our parents and Frank of course who must have wondered where the hell did we come from having merch but Frank still to this day has the shirt from what he has told me!

We sold the shirts for 20 bucks and giving away the 10 for free we did take a hit of $200 bucks but it was worth it.

A few years ago at work, a buddy of mine told me that his mother in law and me used to work together (back in 94)and she bought the shirt back then and gave it back to me for free! lol

Sure it’s a little worn and has paint on it(some people I told it was blood from the stages of Crocks lol) but what a great quality T-shirt.

Izzy digs this shirt as well!