There’s an old saying about legislation and sausages, often attributed to Otto von Bismarck—a guy who knew a little something about both. If you care about music, though, you probably do want to see it being made. And not just in the rock dives, jazz clubs, open mic events and halftime marching band shows where it’s produced in small batches by trained artisans practicing sustainable musicmaking techniques. No, you’ll also want to see the huge mass-music factories with lax quality standards where Top 40 hits are churned out one after another, using low-grade raw materials and generating all kinds of corrosive by-products. (Look up how many tons of toxic CMAs were released into our environment this year alone and you’ll be shocked.)

You need to understand how this industry works if you expect to be able to make ethically sound decisions as a consumer of music in the marketplace. And seriously, the big secret nasty thing Bismarck was warning us about with sausage is that there’s pig lips, hooves and a**holes in it. The music industry is way, way grosser. Shoot, there’s four a**holes just in Nickleback alone.

This shirt was designed by: radiomode, who impressed our judges in the third Double-Take Derby with a potent mixture of talent, humor, professionalism and obscene, threatening emails. Hang on… radiomode, radiomode, radiomode… That sounds familiar. Isn’t that who designed the Friends Are Forever shirt that’s still available for sale?

Wear this shirt: to bring out the color of your pretty blue eyes.

Don’t wear this shirt: to bring out the color of the dense cobweb of pretty blue veins crisscrossing your face.

This shirt tells the world: “I’m musical and industrious.”

We call this color: Rock & Pop Alternative Folk Adult Contemporary Rhythm & Baby Blues

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