Blog This is not a Slayer T-shirt, it’s a dude magnet

A few years ago, a Slayer T-shirt came into my possession courtesy of an ex-boyfriend. During the returning-of-the-things ceremony he refused to take it back. “The shirt always looked better on you,” he told me. Indeed it did, and in the time since, it’s also proven its worth as a fairly effective dude magnet. Which, inevitably, sparked this thought: Why not wear band T-shirts to attract guys? In my own social experiment, I tested out three different shirts—Slayer, No Age, and Black Flag—to see what kinds of male attention each attracted. The results were varied. Happy Valentine’s Day, ladies.

T-Shirt: Slayer
Venue: Gothic Theatre
Within five minutes of entering the Gothic’s lobby, a man approaches me with school girl-like glee, commenting that he never meets girls who like Slayer. Truth is, I don’t even own a Slayer album and I usually wear this shirt as pajamas. He and I chat for a bit about the recent Nashville Pussy show at 3 Kings, and our mutual love for local band Kingdom Of Magic. Things are going great. The T-shirt seems to be working in my favor—until I mention what I do for a living. Suddenly, the warm conversation turns into a public relations bombardment of information about his own metal band (which shall remain nameless).

Metal Dude: So, can you come to our next show and review it? I would also love to send you our demo, too. And our press kit, and our potential tour itinerary, and… 

Me: You can send me whatever you like, but I can’t guarantee I’ll write about your band.

Metal Dude: Great!

Result: During the 10-minute PR sucker punch, Metal Dude snakes my phone number out of me. Since this fateful meeting, I’ve received roughly two-dozen text messages about his local metal band’s upcoming shows. Slayer T-shirt is an epic fail.

T-Shirt: No Age
Venue: Sunflower Farmers Market
Food is a powerful thing for humans, so heading to the supermarket seems to be a logical choice for the T-shirt experiment. Plus, there’s that myth that the sexual innuendos of various produce items provide the perfect prop for a pick-up. But, honestly, anything that leads to me making obscene gestures with bananas or fondling large cantaloupe sounds like a bad idea. So, instead, I go the less awkward route and choose the checkout line as my test setting, picking the loveable, hairy hippie guy who’s working every time I visit. (That means he has job stability, too. Bonus!) I beam a smile his way, making sure my rainbow No Age T-shirt is visible over the credit card machine.

Hippie Clerk: Nice No Age shirt. Are they your favorite band?

Me: (in my best surprised and super-flirty voice) Thanks! Yes, I dig them very much. Did you see them open for the Pixies?

Hippie Clerk: No, I’ve never heard of No Age. You’ve just worn that shirt in here twice before.

Result: No dice on a phone number or a date, but I did score the MySpace of his jam band. No Age shirt deemed a partial success.

T-shirt: Black Flag
Venue: house show
This T-shirt is generally a dicey choice: I am an admirer of Black Flag—though almost strictly the Henry Rollins-era material—but don’t know enough about the band to do music-geek battle with a serious fan. Still, there’s no denying the T-shirt draws dudes to me, based on the sheer fact that it exists. (I don’t usually have the heart to tell Black Flag aficionados the shirt was purchased at a Hot Topic in Grand Junction or that SST is probably unaware its merchandise is being produced in a girls’ size medium.) Luckily, the gorgeous man who approaches me in the smoke-filled living room wants to talk about the Dirty Projectors’ 2007 from-memory-only reproduction of the seminal 1981 Black Flag album, Damaged.

Party Gentleman: I don’t know how I feel about Dave Longstreth leaving “Damaged I” and “II” off of the record.

Me: Agreed! But I also don’t really like his voice in the first place. I think it wanders too much. I feel like it would piss Henry Rollins off.

Result: Black Flag devotee turns out to be gay. Serious bummer, considering 20 minutes into our chat, I was thinking how hot it was that a dude knew so much about SST. In another life, we would have had babies and name them Greg and Kira. Black Flag shirt’s success is undeterminable.