By request of Dan Chatrand from Off the Charts

RECORD STORE TALES #1175: Tie Dye

Bob Schipper was the instigator.  He was always the one with the creative ideas.  From making our own spiked wristbands from juice tins and black electrical tape, to sketching our own original video games, he was usually the one with the kernel for the idea.  I provided the energy, and was able to spin his ideas off and expand them into entire universes.  On this day in question though, Bob had the idea that we could make our own tie dye T-shirts.

I don’t know where he got the idea.  Probably someone from school.  There was one hippy kid in his grade that I would later work with at the grocery store.  Massive Grateful Dead fan.  The idea probably came from him.

In our world, tie dye wasn’t big.  Metal bands rarely wore the stuff, and we didn’t go back to Zeppelin.  Our horizons were much more recent.  In my world, wrestlers like Superstar Billy Graham were my inspiration.  He was known for his tie dye, and he looked incredibly cool.

We were not able to make tie dye as fancy as Superstar’s.  We were only able to mix a couple colours.  Our methods were simple.  We went to the local Zeller’s store, bought a few colours of fabric dye, and four of the cheapest, plain white T-shirts we could find.  Then, we would walk home and set up in my mom’s basement.  With no regard for other people’s clothes or the mess we were making, we dumped the dye into the big basement sink, and mixed it up. Then, we carefully twisted the shirts up, trying to create a spiral effect.  Once satisfied, we fastened everything with elastic bands, and dipped the shirts spiral-side down into the dye.  We repeated the process with another colour, and let everything dry.  Of our shirt experiments, maybe one out of every two attempts turned out.

The dye started to wash out after two washes.  The shirts wore thin and ripped easily.  One evening, Bob and I were wrestling in the park, when he grabbed and lifted me, and my favourite tie dye shirt ripped.  I had no choice but to finish the job.  “Rip it off like Hogan!” encouraged Bob.  With a roar, and a lot of effort, I ripped the shirt off my body and threw it to the ground.  “Raaaah!!”

Meanwhile at home, Mom was trying to get splashes of dye off of every surface in the basement.  She was absolutely furious with us.  No wonder Bob wasn’t allowed to do stuff like this at his house!