Shirt no. 1 - TOPY X Chicago

Back in the day, I think 1984, I was innocently watching some trash TV & was introduced to Genesis P Orridge and Psychic TV for the first time. I recall being mildly entertained by what he had to say and liking his boots but thinking that he was just a little bit too intelligent for his own good, all that talk of ‘I’, ‘We’ and ‘Flat people’. This may not be the actual interview, but it’s close. Fran, however, was outraged. All that pent-up catholic girls’ school horror was loosed at Mr. Orridge from afar. I suspect that if he’d known it would be exactly the reaction he was looking for.

Oh joy. This necessitated a trip to the local Our Price to see what they had in the ‘P’s. Nothing as it transpired but lurking in the 12″ Rock & Pop section was a copy of Roman P. Its location and the price tag of £3.49 did not lead me to expect the 7″ single that was proffered but I was far too cool to let it show. When I got it home I carefully unwrapped this:

Catalogue no. SS33009 it was released on the outrageously cool French label Sordide Sentimentale in a fold-over cardboard cover with the above artwork and also included a booklet of the usual (it turned out) PTV nonsense which explained the large size.

Side A’s Roman P was fantastic but the B side was an education. While the main track was ‘Neurology’, more cod religion from Mr Sebastian (PTV’s tattoist, apparently), it was years before I discovered that it was double-grooved and about one play in four revealed sermons by Charles Manson and Jim Jones, in one speaker each at the same time. Pretty nifty, eh? And it really pissed Fran off too, which was the point of the whole thing.

So we (finally) come to the T-shirt. The above led to a long-term infatuatio with PTV and when ebay came along to make the whole collecting thing far too easy I chanced across a shirt bearing the three-bar-cross logo on the front and a reference to TOPY Chicago X and the number 23 on the back. Supposedly brand new from a newly discovered batch kept in a box from the eighties (which I didn’t believe for a moment) I shelled out some hard-earned and wear it as we speak.

Black of course, size XL in heavyweight cotton by Jerzees it’s a mainstay of my wardrobe & on special occasions appears under a Paul Smith suit, which pleases me greatly. Its biggest drawback is its latter day likeness to the Take That logo which leads to some perplexed looks and awkward conversations. The main chest print is a basic silver psychic cross in a circle, the back print is the logo of the (possibly fictional) Chicago offshoot of TOPY.

This one really does tick nearly all  the boxes; black, comfortable, no workmates know what the symbol means and are free to show their ignorance (“no, I’m not a Take That fan”) but if anyone does get it there’s a shared ‘Gosh, aren’t we cool’ moment. Back prints are always a bonus too.