I hold Fates Warning singularly responsible for pretty much the entirety of my journey through all of the many varied forms of music I now know and love.
That may sound like a huge accusation on my part, but it boils down to this: as a kid, I was an adoring Iron Maiden fan. Maiden was everything to me – and all I listened to – at age 11, 12, 13…and then around 1987 a miraculous thing transpired:
I happened upon a tape in the Heavy Metal section by this band Fates Warning, with a sticker on the cellophane that claimed they “rocked with a power and vision akin to Iron Maiden and Queensryche”. I was sold.
At first, they sounded a bit clumsy and less polished (to my young, naive ears) – but repeat listenings revealed them to be a far more sophisticated and nuanced metal act than Iron Maiden even attempted to be. Trusting their record label’s vision, I bought ‘The Best of Metal Blade Volume One’ which instantly converted me into a fan of all things metal.
Recently, Metal Blade has done well by re-issuing the Fates Warning catalog in expanded remastered versions with extra discs of demo recordings, rare non-album tracks, and bonus DVDs of live stuff. This is a nice value-add, and a smart move in a digital era where most music consumers (myself included) relish the immediacy of a download or are perfectly willing to “do without” artwork inserts.
But enough praise – since I also suspect that Metal Blade is behind the Fates Warning t-shirt shortage. The only t-shirt design currently available on eBay (or anywhere else) is this one:
…which i think sucks. It’s not even one of the classic incarnations of their logo & any band shirt that features only the band name are of little use to anybody.
About a year ago, I recall seeing some (apparently) bootleg Fates Warning shirts on eBay that looked to be very lovingly crafted full color screenprinted reproductions of their greater works, ‘The Spectre Within’ and ‘Awaken The Guardian’:
I really wish I’d gone ahead and purchased those when I had the chance. I’m always a bit resistant to buying bootleg shirts, but these were clearly of a higher quality than the usual “single ink color” rip-off boot t’s that pollute eBay. My suspicion is that someone in the Metal Blade fold (or Fates management?) put the clamp on those bootleg shirts, since now they are nowhere to be found.
It would be nice if Metal Blade had a decent licensed shirt to offer in their place, since I am in no way interested in that silly logo-only shirt.
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I want a Fates Warning t-shirt too! The t-shirt you don’t like is sold out anyway. Damn this.
A-friggin’-men!
I can’t believe there aren’t enough Fates fans that would want a cool t-shirt! I’m betting it is a licensing issue.
Anyway, don’t know how long it’ll be out there, but here’s a link to ebay with for of those shirts:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Hot-FATES-WARNING-SPECTRE-WITHIN-T-Shirt-S-2XL-/140409242427?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20b10b033b
If anyone finds another place to buy Fates t’s, please post!
Thanks,
A.J.
Let’s try that one sentence again:
Anyway, don’t know how long it’ll be out there, but here’s a link to ebay for one of those shirts:
There WAS an original, genuine ‘Spectre Within’ tour shirt on eBay that sold for $68.00 a few weeks back (this link will surely be gone soon):
http://bit.ly/9ubr4o
…I’d seen a well shredded ‘No Exit’ original tour shirt go for about $30 a month or so ago.
Although I like the general design of the overseas bootleg ringer-T (thanks for the link A.J.)…I’m always a little nervous when the shirtmaker says “cold water only..no dryer”…
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