Snake Q&A 025: Zack Wuerthner/Shining Life
Snake Q&A 025: Zack Wuerthner/Shining Life
The deepest and best publicly available hardcore shirt collection in the world
Snake covers design and explains it. For a representative sample, read the best selections from this week’s auctions, and the most recent designer profile and explainer.
Today on Snake: Every other Friday or so an interview with a person in good standing of the newsletter whose taste in vintage, furniture and adjacent is worth recording. Sellers, buyers, artists, adjacents, etc., but first:
Housekeeping:
Click above, or here: https://snakeusa.bigcartel.com/product/embroidered-fanclub-hat-white — thanks.
Zack Wuerthner | IG, Shining Life IG | Silver Spring, Md. | Website
Zack is a friend and one of the deepest collectors I know. He changed my life putting out my book… but more relevantly here, he has effectively cornered/owned/moved a significant collector’s market: vintage/original T-shirts from the (mostly) U.S. hardcore scene of the 1980s, and ‘90s. It is an achievement. I want to say he’s been doing this for 15 years. Zack told me once he chose his career path so he could be liquid enough to buy any rare hardcore shirt he wanted if it came up. It’s impressive.
I want to pull back: There is no real immediate aesthetic link between these shirts and topics covered in my other newsletters. In fact, I try to keep hardcore (music) out of furniture, and kept it fairly out of the first era, collected in the book, about vintage clothing. I don’t doubt it comes across I like this stuff, but I don’t want it as a filter. There is no, say, flowchart from music of a certain sound to furniture design, not to a working person anyways. I also don’t think the aesthetic connections are at all explicit. Separation is good… these are different worlds. So it’s not so much about that, but, rather, process: First, the collection below is real, serious work, built on merit and knowledge, and psycho research. This kind of research is hinted at a lot in these interviews, and is really very present in all of them. It is prob. for anything… at a deep level. If you want to find you have to dig.
Second, while nothing about an underground music scene needs to be explained, or canonized outside its borders to justify itself, and Zack’s collection (which is based off dedication, love, other stuff) would stand on its own even in isolation… to me, the items in the collection stand up with pieces of other more heralded aesthetic productions. This to me means a Christie’s auction price, a freeport, a fashion conglomerate, evidence of these shirts somewhere high-tier… have no bearing on the quality of actual items. Today such work is easier to find and contextualize, and, therefore, mine for $ by brands, fashion houses, artists, other individuals not immediately involved with these scenes. But it was just as good then, before there was as much money or attention around. Which means there are also no hard feelings here—the point is… these are works of design on items of clothing, some so good that it has always just been a matter of time until they got recognized on their merit, or recontextualized somewhere. No one owns this stuff, it’s just out there.
I wrote, earlier this week, about the T-shirt model of buying furniture: if there’s a sofa or a table out there that you like and picture yourself having, and you can buy it, and you’d like to buy it, then you should buy it, and not overthink it:
(Paywall removed… read the whole bitch if you want.) Buy a $1,400 sofa like you might a $7 T-shirt. Why not? As long as you have the money. I think people think too much about pulling the trigger on furniture. The inverse of this is as true: Some T-shirts, especially the ones considered here, are as important, or rare, or beautiful, or meaningful, or just as plain fucking sick as any piece of furniture or design on permanent collection in the MoMA. They are that timeless, arresting, worthy of contemplation. I don’t want to get in too deep here about how much I like this stuff—I like keeping some important things to myself. But it’s probably all the same thing. And it’s not up for debate. Items, wedded to certain music and which stand apart from it. Both. Not bad. Thank you Zack for the time and attention. Nice job amassing it…Weekend auctions and so on at the bottom.
Q&A 025
Fav flea market?
Only ever went to a handful in the local area, but it’s got to be the one in Essex I went to with Gene Joint in 2009—best day is story below.
Best flea market day ever—what did you get?
So that day at the Essex flea market we copped many multiples of 80’s Md. thrash metal band shirts (all featured on the 97 Underground comp) for like $5-10 each, which was mind-blowing at the time. The story goes there used to be a motorcycle shop in Baltimore, called Ezekiel’s Wheel, around in the 80’s/90’s and which also happened to sell heavy metal ephemera. When you walked in, the first thing you’d see would be literal mountains of shirts, piled up high to pick through. The owner passed away and the shop closed down, and his wife sold the leftover merch off at Essex. I also picked up a very sick Exodus ‘86 tour shirt, even though it was an unwearable—toddler size. Gene and Ritter had already been copping from this woman well before we went, getting stuff like this dope Mosh Fest ‘89 tee that you can still pick up from their storefront.
Best eBay purchase?
Literally so many. But the best came at some point in 2015. I got a notification from one of my oldest eBay saved searches (the greatest invention of our time) that a new listing popped up under “agnostic front shirt”. It was the shirt they sold on their 1985 tour, with the skinhead fight scene on the front—which is rare as hell. Anyone who’s seen this one before knows it’s the fucking best. I’d been looking for this joint for a really long time, so I immediately messaged the seller with a $200 offer to take it down and sell it to me directly. He messaged me back saying he wouldn’t take any less than $150 for it. You can imagine how confused but stoked I was. I thought he was bullshitting me and would not actually send it out, but I got it a few days later. I would dig up the conversation for this interview, but eBay now deletes messages older than 6 months. It is for sure the best AF tee I own—I have 10, plus or minus five. Maybe one of the best NYHC tees ever made.
Best Craigslist find?
A Marshall JCM 800 50W amp for $500, in 2009. The previous owner had cut out a square on the side of the amp and installed a cooling fan, hard-wired to the power switch, so the amp and fan turned on at the same time. I found it to be really annoying and it looked plain stupid. I re-sold the amp on Craigslist for $775 after a few months, then bought my friend Brad’s Marshall JCM 800 100W amp for $750. So I got the G.O.A.T. amp for $475 overall and still use it today.
Best LiveAuctioneers find?
Never copped from there, but that will change real quick if they start listing original red Judge Schism longsleeves. I can’t remember if I had ever looked at that website before reading your newsletter.
IG seller account you hang out on/look at their stuff the most?
@morethanfashion.hcshirts: The bible of straight edge HC shirts, this account trims the fat and gets straight to the good shit.
Thing you most regret passing on?
Every early Integrity shirt back when they went for like $40. Actually—every old hardcore shirt back when they went for under $40. All things considered, everything in general was flat out cheaper across the board when I started collecting in the late 2000s. There are easily a hundred reasons why things started to ramp up in price after that, so I won't try to pinpoint one. But maybe it had something to do with more visibility of vintage shirts through social media, celebrities wearing them, etc. [Wrote about this for GQ four years ago—Snake]
Best thing you got for insanely cheap?
A Confusion shirt for $6, from Celebrated Summer Records in Baltimore, in 2013. Confusion is one of NYHC's best-kept secrets. One of the first bands, probably, to blend death metal with hardcore. True trailblazers along with Merauder and All Out War. The only person I really remember repping them super hard back then was my friend Becky McAuley (author of Lost Indignation, I Question Not Me fanzine, etc). She has an encyclopedic knowledge of the genre, so I knew early on that they were something special. They released a couple demos, a 7" on a French hardcore label, and played around 70 shows while they were together, between 1990 and ‘94. If you like to turn over every stone of obscure NYHC, you can read more about the history of the band in an interview we did with bassist Mike Scondotto.
Best thing you overpaid for?
Youth of Today 4-sided Wishingwell shirt for $600, in 2014, from a guy who was selling off his collection to buy a Porsche. I had been searching high and low for this shirt for years, and at that point $600 was the most I had ever paid for a shirt. I didn't care about the price because it's the greatest garment ever woven into existence, and I finally found one that would fit me the way I like. I think it sells now for at least double what I paid, which is cheap, considering it should really be worth over $1,000,000. By that metric, I got a great deal. The Wishingwell guys were brimming with the best possible design ideas back in the ‘80s, and, for better or worse, printing these shirts in their garage led to Courtney Dubar founding Affliction Clothing (yeah, that one) and eventually becoming a zillionaire. Insane trajectory.
Favorite piece of furniture you own?
I really don’t know shit about furniture. It’s why I’m a proud subscriber of your newsletter.
What’s one thing you own that you won’t ever sell?
1st Press BOLD “Speak Out” LP Test Press—1 of 8 made.
Piece you have now that you despise and want to replace?
I don’t hate it, but I’m looking forward to replacing our Ikea leather couch that my wife bought brand new in 2010. It’s the only Ikea we still own. It’s held up well, for all the shit Ikea gets. All I know is I want built-in automated recliners for the next couch, like the kind I fall asleep in at the Regal movie theater around my way.
Who do you think sold more records: Nelly Furtado or Three 6 Mafia?
If it’s not Three 6 then send my ass to Saturn.
Secret spot that you love but won’t tell anyone about? (please describe as judiciously as possible while omitting any identifiable characteristics)
A warehouse a few miles away from my crib with a psychotic amount of vintage music ephemera from all genres/eras to see and touch. This is where the stuff that ends up in the owners of [REDACTED] storefront is evaluated and priced by their knowledgeable staff. It's not open to the public, and they don't typically sell stuff out of here, but I usually walk away with a nice vintage shirt whenever I stop by to say hi.
Rarest/most canon vintage thing you have but never wear?
Original Psychos shirt from 1984. Size small, from the early 80s; barely fits my 12-pound dog. It's impossible to know how many of these were made, but I have to believe it was less than a few dozen. There are some classic pictures of NYHC punks wearing them on the Bowery. These shirts were definitely in their wardrobe rotation back then, but most haven’t lasted. I doubt I'll ever come across one of these ever again; the only other person I know who has one is Roger Miret. He played bass in the band for a bit while he sang in Agnostic Front.
Most jealousy-inducing thing you’ve seen? (e.g. I saw a guy in Foremost jeans once in 2012 and I’ve never gotten over it)
Toss up between Jaybil’s yellow Bad Brains shirt, which their drummer Earl Hudson wore during their infamous 1982 CBGB set, and Luis Barrera’s treasure trunk of insanely rare HC shirts, which I believe also includes this same BB shirt. The craziest part about Luis' collection is that his shit is basically all deadstock or close to it. Not only is it the perfect curation of the best hardcore shirts, but they're also in the best condition, which is unheard of for most shirts from the ‘80s. Shirts then were made in very low quantities, and over half, I’d say, were destroyed while moshing at gigs, tossed down a garbage chute after these guys got evicted, or used as rags to clean motorcycles. It's a miracle any of them survived. To see this many museum quality shirts in one box is my own personal view of the fabled Ark of the Covenant.
Favorite Russian novelist?
Don’t have one. These days I’m great at starting books but bad at finishing them.
Is there a field of collecting are you looking to get into in the near future? (Furniture era/paper/autographs/stamps/model trains/computer shirts/90s Harley shirts/digital watches/lighters/slot cars/faberge eggs/Amish quilts etc)
I need more vintage fantasy art prints. Here are some of the original Frank Frazetta prints from the ‘70s and ‘80s that I got for my dad like 10 years ago to put up in his home gym.
What’s the item that’s been on your watchlist the longest without you having pulled the trigger?
Some years back, I accidentally deleted all of the items in my watchlist with one fateful misclick. Hundreds of historical items were gone in an instant. eBay Support couldn’t help restore them. Probably one of my most traumatic internet experiences. Any eBay product managers reading this: Please require users to manually type the word “delete” into a pop-up box before allowing mass deletion of watched items.
But if I remember correctly, it was likely a D.R.I. 1987 tour shirt from seller “silverruins” up until that point. I think I started watching it in 2008, but it was too expensive for me at the time ($150) and I just liked looking at it because it’s a cool design. As soon as I wrote this, I went and bought a deadstock one off eBay for $140 best offer. It's comforting to know that D.R.I. stock has remained relatively stable over the last 15 years—they’re a great band.
Is the best vintage/furniture online or in the wild?
A combination of both. My collection was probably acquired 50-50, but copping becomes necessary by all means when I want something, so I go wherever the hunt takes me, and hopefully a cool story comes out of it. Most of the copping I’ve done in the wild has involved a memorable journey with friends, and I’ll take that over anything. In 2021, a few of us from D.C. went to visit our friend in upstate New York, and we stopped twice along the way so I could acquire full collections from some older hardcore guys who are no longer involved. That's how I got the BOLD test press. We talked about hardcore from sunup until sundown that day, and it was just sick as hell to have that shared experience with friends who also live and breathe it—there's nothing else quite like it.
Has all the cool shit been discovered? (Yes or no answer only)
Nah.
Any vintage accounts you want to rep or boost? Furniture? (feel free to include local spots)
@jointcustodydc—respect to my OGs that got me into collecting
@milestogovintage—wide variety of cool vintage shit you don’t see often
@consumertc—ungodly amount of the dopest McDonald’s ephemera ever made. Should be on everyone’s follow list
@vinylassault—Roger Miret’s vinyl collection—this was mentioned on here before, but his commentary is too sick not to repost
@the.power.of.expression—probably the best Bones / Powell / 80s skateboard collection ever
Follow Zack on IG | Follow SL | Buy Shining Life books
Auctions ending this weekend:
Reverse housekeeping:
Good show at Anonymous Gallery in NYC tonite:
Rest in peace Gaetano Pesce. Collecting my thoughts. What a life and body of work, it is a beautiful thing how much respect and love he got towards the end of his career. Sometimes when something is very popular it means that everyone’s right.
Post Q&A god-tier aesthetic video of the week:
Thanks for reading. Here’s the link to buy a hat:
https://snakeusa.bigcartel.com/product/embroidered-fanclub-hat-white
Snake