Making Music Happen: A Roadie Benefit

Watch the video to learn more about this project:

$5 from the sale of each of these shirts will go to Roadie Relief, who help as many roadies as they can without a secure livelihood.

$5 from the sale of each of these shirts will go to The Roadie Clinic, who empower & heal roadies and their families by providing resources & services tailored to the struggles of the touring lifestyle.

• Artist: Gabi Scheff
• Print Run: N/A
• Shirt Colors: Various. Please note that the shade of color varies. "Mystery" could be any color or pattern, not just one of the options shown, making your shirt even more unique.
• Print Color: Black
• Print Size: approximately 11" x 11.25"
• Back Print: STAY VOCAL logo below neckline
• Back Print Color: Black
• Garments: All garments (except Mystery color) are brand new that were being discarded and other shirts are pre-owned shirts that have been washed, treated and ready for their second life.
• Reuse Style: All garments (except Mystery color) are printed on blank shirts. Mystery colors are sometimes printed on the blank reverse side (inside out). For the inside out shirts, we only use T-Shirts with minimal printing on the outside to prevent any possible discomfort. But as most of us have been wearing ReUse inside out T-Shirts for a while, we can honestly say that you won’t even notice.
• Sizing: Our T-Shirts and Sweatshirts are fairly standard for current sizing trend, but there are sizing charts below for specific garments. Please note that "Chest" is from to armpit to armpit and "Waist" is the measurement around the entire waist.

About The Design

This design honors the work that goes into making concerts happen. When you go see your favorite band play, there are dozens of people behind the scenes, making sure that your artist looks good, sounds good, that their hair and make up are on point, that you've got great shirts to buy after the show and that your artist is getting safely from city to city on those tour buses.

Each of the little figures holding up the stage is modeled after one of the artist's tour family and colleagues, but she wanted to make sure that we could see anybody in those people. There are folks from all kinds of diverse backgrounds, with different skill sets and specialties who are there to make the shows go off without a hitch.

And here's how the design came to be:

From Alex Eaves: 
From 2000 to 2007, I was the touring merchandiser for some great bands, including Pilfers, 311, Anti-Flag and  Darkest Hour. Selling merchandise for these bands is what led me to start STAY VOCAL and later convert it into a reuse apparel brand. While I haven't worked directly in the music industry in a long time, I still keep connected in various ways. So when the pandemic hit last spring, I started to see how deeply it affected many people I know and care about.

This is quite a meaningful design for me, as I'll be able to give back to an industry that gave so much to me. And the design unfortunately became more personally important recently, as I lost a member of my former touring family. That incident made me truly realize how devastating the past year has been for people whose careers were on the road.

To learn more about my time working in the music industry and the bands I worked with, you can check out my YouTube music videos playlist.

About The Artist 

A few weeks before the pandemic took force, I had become friends with Gabi Scheff, a full time touring lighting technician and part time artist. She was just starting to prep for an 8-month worldwide concert tour. Over the past year, I've been able to see and hear stories about how her life has been completely changed.

From Gabi:

I have lived and worked in the arts for my entire life. Having been raised in a musical household, I found a passion for the technical side of performance during my undergraduate career at Rhode Island College. Upon graduating with a theatre degree, I found work in an area lighting production shop, where I gained invaluable first-hand working knowledge about the art and technology behind lighting live music. While embarking on a short regional tour leg, setting up a moving light rig with the band Heart, I had the opportunity to find a mentor and a touring family who truly showed me all of the most rewarding parts of lighting rock music and experiencing the touring lifestyle.

I've since had the opportunity to work in multiple capacities within the touring world: in the creative role of lighting designer or director, and in the more technology and operations-oriented role of technician. While working as part of the lighting crew on the most recent P!nk tour, I challenged myself to continue creating art, even though I was immersed in the technical aspects of the job for two years. I carved out time backstage to illustrate a series of coworkers' quotes and quips. What began as a foray into hand lettering became a daily challenge to create a visual representation of each of these sayings, inside jokes, and sound-bites. This is the same style I brought to Making Music Happen in collaboration with STAY VOCAL, and I hope that it exudes the same joy that we, as event workers and touring professionals, get from doing the work that we love.

To learn more about Gabi, her artwork, her cats (and some cool shots from backstage, when that was a thing), check her out on Instagram at @gobowench.