Complicated Shirt recently went on a most excellent adventure to prove they were the most authentically retro band ever. It was a tortuous route with some bogus detours, but it finally paid off.

“When we started this band we had one goal in mind; to become the most authentic band in the 21st century to sound like a mid nineties band that sounded like a late seventies punk rock band. Then we retrogressed further to an early nineties band that sounded like a mid seventies NYC proto-punk band.” claims Complicated Shirt lead singer/guitarist Drew Benton.

“So when Bare Mattress came out with his retro 80s dance pop casette, we were like, we got this. We’ll put out a vinyl record of our retro NYC 70s punk rock. But then we thought, that’s not far enough! What was the coolest retro thing to do in the mid-nineties? Put out a vinyl record. So we needed to be before that, say in the early nineties. But a proto-punk NYC record? That would need to be released before the Ramones in 76; before Marquee Moon and Blank Generation in 77.

“So the first thing we did was went back to the future, to steal the time machine from George Carlin before he gave it to Bill and Ted. Next, we took all the copies of our new record ‘This’ to the Village and St Mark’s Place in ’75 and snuck them on the shelves. Then of course we took a short detour to assasinate Billy Idol and thereby save punk rock. Not killing Billy Idol would be like not killing Hitler. Duh.

“When we got back, there were no extant copies of our record anywhere, but we’d been reviewed in Sniffin’ Glue magazine! Which means we are, definitively, the coolest most underground band EVER…

“Either that or it was all a dream and I still have a bunch of the new records. If you want to buy one e-mail me or go to Last Vestige.”