Stick It to Ya!

Back in the glam-slam heyday of the 1980s, it was much more appropriate to physically show support for a favorite band. Take, for instance, all those band merchandise ads in Metal Edge and Hit Parader. Flip through a old edition of either rag and you'll find a cheaply produced advertisement on every other page. Today, it doesn't seem like bands produce as much merchandise, shirts excluded.

The other day I won an Ebay auction for a very sweet pair of buttons from the promotional launch of Poison's Open Up and Say...Ah! album. I'm not sure you can tell from the picture, but these buttons are in excellent quality and definitely a glam collector's item considering the side of each is stamped with "CBS/SONY Group - Not for Sale."

I can't remember that last time I've seen a person actually wear a band button to the mall or even a show. I'm not talking about the teenagers who collect odd little buttons for their messenger bags. I'm talking die hard fans here who will destroy otherwise perfectly good clothing with a cheap button emblazoned with the words RATT! or Dokken!

I think it's high time real fans start wearing band buttons again, at least to shows. If you don't support the music you love, who will?