Bassists Against Racists- T-Shirts For a Good Cause
image credit- https://www.kaosmerch.com/product/linhle/
Playing bass is about the music. We support the song, not always in the front, often not appreciated or recognized. But without us the music falls apart. But what is behind the music? T-shirt/fundraising project Bassists Against Racists seeks to answer that question for themselves.
Bassists Against Racists was started by Bad Cop/Bad Cop bassist Linh Le and some friends because she personally felt she wasn't doing enough to help support the causes that are important to her. “I figured this was a great way to not only continuously raise money for BLM and support female owned businesses, but it was also a way to show appreciation to fellow bass players,” said Le.
Le partnered up with a couple friends to start a line of shirts called "Bassists Against Racists" to consistently raise money for BLM (or local BLM/Anti-Racism charities). Each month they feature a bass player that stands in solidarity with this cause and do pre-orders of the shirts. All proceeds after production costs goes towards BLM or any anti racism charity of the featured bass players' choice.
Bassists Against Racists was started in October 2020 with cofounder Linh Le’s shirt (seen above), followed by Purple Intruder (Masked Intruder) in November, and Bungle Preacher (Barstool Preachers) in December, Miguel Chen (Teenage Bottlerocket) and Gaby Kaos (The Venomous Pinks) in February, Rob Kaustik (Death By Stereo/Kaustik) in March and Georgia South (Nova Twins) in April. The April post was what brought BAR to the attention of The Bass Channel because the new Nova Twins album is excellent. So far, Bassists Against Racists have raised over $4600 for BLM and 440 Euros for 2 NGOs (Tmom Merch joined in February to support across the pond) and has bass players booked up through March 2022 so far.
What happens is Paul of Zombie Teeth Clothing volunteers his time to draw up the bass player on the front of the t-shirt add a slogan if they want it to the front, and put "Bassists Against Racists" on the back.
Once the artwork is approved, the shirts go through one of two merch distributors- Kaos Merch, which is run by the fabulous bass Queen Gaby Kaos of The Venomous Pinks, will print and ship all North American orders and all proceeds will go to Black Lives Matter (or an Anti-Racism charity of the featured bassist’s choice). The other is Tmom Merch, run by Bad Cop/Bad Cop’s tour mom, Ines Bartl. Ines goes through a printing company in Germany that uses only sustainable materials and will ship all UK and European orders. All proceeds through her site will go towards European Anti Racism NGOs. And with all of these, Bassists Against Racists is supporting two female owned businesses.
You can check out Bassists Against Racists at https://www.bassistagainstracist.com/ and can also follow them @bassistsagainstracists on Instagram. This article would not have been possible without Linh Le taking the time to supply all of this information, to the point where she should get co-author credit for this. And before anyone says we should just “stick to music”, if being anti-racist is somehow a controversial position for you then the problem isn’t with this website. For everyone else- grab a shirt if you can afford it. They look great.
image credit- https://www.instagram.com/p/CM7IGlDpmIt/
Doug Robertson is the editor of The Bass Blog, the blog component of The Bass Channel, your one stop YouTube channel for all things bass. His number one is a Mexican Geddy Lee Signature Jazz and his boomer is a BEAD tuned T-Bird. Find books by Doug here. If you’re interested in contributing to The Bass Blog please reach out to Doug at doug@thebasschannel.net. We would love to hear from you.
