A huge part of the story of Dischord Records-- still one of the greatest indie labels ever to exist-- is the label's general longstanding aversion to commercialism. Fugazi, for instance, always refused to license their name for T-shirts, which forced kids who still wanted to publicly claim allegiance to the band to spend the 90s walking around in bootleg "This Is Not a Fugazi T-Shirt" T-shirts. (Yeah, I had one.)
So when teenybop mall fashion institution Forever 21 welded the logo of Dischord flagship band Minor Threat onto what looks like Hair Cuttery wall art from 1986 and then slapped it on a shirt, it's a problem. The resulting atrocity, which looks like some bullshit that Jenny Humphrey might design on "Gossip Girl", can no longer be found on the Forever 21 website, and we might have the band themselves to thank for that.
The image of that shirt above comes from the blog You Thought We Wouldn't Notice, who first caught onto the Forever 21 shirt. When Tripwire reported on it, Dischord's Alec Bourgeois gave them this statement:
"This is an unauthorized shirt and it is still unclear whether the shirt was produced by Forever 21 or if it is a bootleg that they just happen to carry. Either way the members of Minor Threat are looking into it and Forever 21 will be asked to stop selling it.
"In the beginning, Minor Threat did not license anything and any shirts you saw were screened by band member Jeff Nelson. But Jeff stopped screening shirts and over the years the band members realized that the shirts were going to be made with or without their permission, so they may as well authorize a couple friendly printers in order to better control the quality, content and revenue.
"The band and the label tend to deal with bootleg shirts on a case by case basis, acknowledging the vast difference between kids screening shirts for friends and professional printing studios screening shirts for profit. Obviously this absurd Forever 21 shirt falls under the 'unacceptable' category."
This isn't the first time Dischord has had to deal with Minor Threat-related copyright infringement. In 2005, Nike launched a skateboarding tour called Major Threat. On their poster, they used an almost exact copy of the image that originally appeared on the first Minor Threat 7". After the campaign pissed off enough people, Nike pulled the poster and apologized.
However, Bourgeois downplays any connection between the Nike case and the Forever 21 one. He tells Pitchfork, "It's apples and oranges. Minor Threat shirts get bootlegged all the time and, as is the case with all bootlegs, it's a simple case of selling something under the false pretense that it is band approved and that the band will see some of the revenue. In the Nike example they were attempting to hijack Minor Threat imagery in order to link themselves to the band's legacy as a means to sell something completely unrelated to the band or the label."
So, small potatoes, I guess. In any case, the offending Minor Threat shirt is now gone from the Forever 21 website. Bourgeois doesn't know if the band or the label were involved in their removal. "I just know that the band was making some calls," he says.
But if you really need to get a piece of strident hardcore agitprop band merch at Forever 21, this Public Enemy shirt is still available."
Minor Threat and Fugazi frontman Ian MacKaye seems to visit Soundlab every two years with his new band The Evens. We hope to see him again soon!
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