It's T-Shirt Friday 6 !

Cities On Flame With Röck and T-shirts...... 

So did you get last weeks T-Shirt Friday Conundrum? It was a bit of a tricky one. Mainly also because there is some dilemma as to who came up with the name 'Napoleon Dynamite'. Jared Hess the director of the film, believes that he met someone of that same name around 2000. Elvis Costello used the name on his now rather famous album from 1986 'Blood & Chocolate'. He also used the name as early back as 1982 as a pseudonym. So if you got Elvis Costello or even Elvis Presley you still did very well! Perhaps you could celebrate by buying yourself an Elvis 'onesie' jumpsuit or even go one step further and get a Rhinestone Nudie suit made... just for the weekend! You could do all of that or maybe just have a nice cuppa and treat yourself to a jammie dodger! Whatever way you decide to celebrate... Well done! Which now brings us full circle to another t-shirt. Which much like Jammie Dodgers and Nudie Suits has a story of nostalgia to it. But also has an element of adventure and it rocks like Godzilla!!! What could this t-shirt and it's story be about...? Well here goes...

Today's T-Shirt is from : http://www.rockbandtees.com

Way back in 2006 my great friend Dave and myself found ourselves in the now sadly closed down and demolished but at the time rather sticky floored London Astoria. We were having our brains blown out and our faces melted by a band that it's fair to say at the time we both knew little about. They were not a new band even then. They have a couple of staple songs that really will last 'together in eternity' but the real surprise was just how good everything else was that they played! It was a riff-tastic guitar and song fest of epic proportions and we left that night blown away by the them, vowing to discover more about their history and their songs. The band was the not to be confused with the 'British Oxygen Company'... 'BöC' (Blue öyster Cult got the umlaut the British Oxygen Company never did!)
Often referred to as the 'American' Black Sabbath BöC packed a plectrum wielding punch that night! One that hit so hard that along with the sticky floors the memory of it all propelled itself through the timelines and has stayed with us ever since...

The taste of salt was on both Miss Russell's and my lips, everywhere we looked was just pure white and the light was so bright that by default we had to wear sunglasses. Old shoes or trainers had to be worn for fear of corrosion, the very floor that we were walking on could degrade rubber and plastic materials. The Jeep that along with 4 others we had been members of for the past 3 days had just dropped us off in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. The only things marking our way were small heaps of pure white salt which every now and again might have a discarded spade or tool left on top of one of them. We were in Salar De Uyuni, the world's largest salt flats and when you're there it's like you are viewing infinity itself! Our journey had begun in Santiago, Chile, we then travelled via a 24 hour bus to San Pedro de Atacama, to which we then began the trip in the jeep through the Atacama Desert into Bolivia and to our final salty goal. 6 years on from BöC there we both were, Miss Russell and me standing in the most outworldly place we had ever been, thinking back over our epic journey and looking forward to what was next to come. All the time I had been wearing the below Blue öyster Cult t-shirt! - So while all of these new thoughts and experiences where happening a certain nostalgia crept in... times spent back home in London with Miss Russell, wondering how friends and family were, what they were doing, Dave and myself having a few beers at the sticky floored Astoria watching BöC... it's funny what a t-shirt can do! 

When we were planning our trip to Chile and South America, it became apparent quite soon that we would need to invest in some new clothes to take away with us. I had regretted not buying a BöC T-shirt at the time of the gig. The T-shirt design is taken from Blue öyster Cult's first album in 1972 called strangely 'Blue öyster Cult' and the wonderfully mysterious image was designed by Bill Gawlick who incidentally also designed the bands now iconic logo and the album cover for their second album 1973's 'Tyranny and Mutation' as well. 
I ordered the Blue öyster Cult T-shirt in preparation for our trip, plus the now elusive 'Waiting For Columbus T-shirt' (But that is a whole other story...) without really even thinking about it, the reason for my purchase only became apparent right there out in the middle of the Bolivian salt flats. It served as a way of remembering and giving back great memories...
A stairway to the stars!

Well, well, well, it's time again for the T-Shirt Friday Quiz Conundrum, so here we go.... this week it's a question that will test your knowledge to the full. A kind of geographical t-shirt question... How large in square kilometers is Salar De Uyuni?

Interested in BöC? check these sites out:
http://www.blueoystercult.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Öyster_Cult

If you like cowbell check out 'Don't Fear The Reaper' - it's a cowbell-fest!

And Bill Gawlick:
http://www.blueoystercult.com/History/history4.html

P.S. Incidentally, It's thought that Blue öyster Cult began the trend in heavy rock and metal to use the umlaut in their logos that bands like Motörhead made famous!
Go... Go... Godzilla Yeah!