Summers Fade Co.

“All the years combine, they melt into a dream…” In 1987, an artist by the name of Matt Twomey, based in Colorado, designed and printed 144 shirts to get a bus of deadheads into the Telluride Dead shows on August 15th & 16th. That would be the first and last time the Dead played Telluride, the first and last time Matt would create a Grateful Dead graphic… and this is the first and last reproduction of that shirt. (Re)done by Matt, produced by me. And so I introduce to you: Broken Angel. A graphic I’ve spent years studying. It represents the tender prosperity of music juxtaposed against the haunting acknowledgment of the end. After death, only music and rhythm remain. Such is the essence of The Grateful Dead. Such is the reason why we are all here now, 28 years after Jerry’s passing. The ethereal nature of this graphic is matched by the sheer illusiveness it took to find it at all. It’s been a long journey. It was 4 years ago when I first (and last) saw it posted. It wasn’t until a year after that I would learn of the artist’s name. I thought with that I had a lead, but no, more dead ends. I spent another two years searching. Weekly. Ask any vintage seller you know, and they’ll tell you I’ve inquired about it. Most had never seen it, and if they did, they were looking too. No luck... Until March, when I finally found a lead to Matt. I got ahold of him, and soon we became pen pals, emailing often. He was as excited to hear about a 36 year old graphic as I was to talk about it. Despite our high spirits, it took a month of pulling his arm to get him to commit to a reproduction. The screens were lost decades ago, so this art had to be recreated from scratch by Matt himself. And in the end, he agreed. Sheer passion got us here. He said “shooting for summer, but no promises”. A week later, an email hit my inbox: “Summer ‘23 it is.” I will offer Broken Angel starting this weekend in Boulder. Online after tour. These will *not* be reprinted. Once gone, they’re gone, until the next guy wants to do it in 36 years. It is serendipity that this art would find it’s way to us on this final tour. Printed in an edition of 144. “…a broken angel sings, from a guitar.”

FOREVER Pre-order is live now on summersfade.net until 5/31 NOON PST.  10 Color Screenprint on LA Apparel 1801 Black Tees. Printed by the incomparable BG Concepts (@bgconcepts ).  Max has some additional words:  “When we set out to design this project our goal was to create a shirt that has the appeal of 80s and 90s lot shirts that were over the top all over prints, real works of art. We set out to create a shirt that gave a nod to lot tees and incredible artists that gave our scene the reputation that it has now. Our reference was a shirt from the 90s that we both agree is one of the best designs we have seen printed, and would be a challenging piece of artwork to pay homage to.  Making this design took us two months and nearly a hundred hours, getting it printed took nearly a month and a hundred phone calls. Getting a true all over print is a gigantic ask for any screen printer. To make matters difficult, we quickly learned that many of the AOPS (all over prints) printed throughout the 80s and 90s were done with methods not seen often today. We called dozens of screen printers, heard back from less than half of those, we even abandoned mock-ups from some over concerns that it wouldn’t look just exactly perfect. Finally, we stumbled accoss BG Concepts, who specialize in all over prints and beyond, and as far as we can tell, are in the upper echelon of screen printers. They saved our skins. We were delivered these shirts in Las Vegas on the second day of vending. We couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome: a true all over star print unique to every shirt, masterful color separations and gradients in the sky and sunset, and a huge design that fills the entire shirt.  One comment overheard from a head was “there’s too much going on with this shirt”, and it was then when we knew we had achieved our goal.  We didn’t cut any corners in making this shirt, it is certainly the most expensive shirt per piece that I have worked on. We needed it to exist in its full form for us to be satisfied. We are so excited to share it. This one is for the heads that love over the top designs.” All I gotta say is Max is insane.

Today I am extremely humbled and excited to finally present a project that has taken months to develop, a 14 person mega collaboration of artists and dear friends. The purpose was to immortalize and tribute our era of lot artists. Presenting “my” high roller project for Las Vegas:  Forever Playing Cards.  Card backs by:  Daniel Albrigo @danielalbrigo   Jokers:  Ronnie Martinez @shakedownstyles 🃏 Fernando Lions @lions_nyc 🃏  Aces:  Alex Solome @brolome ♣️ [REDACTED] @noladead ♥️  Max Morrish @maxsshirtcompany ♦️  Daniel Zender @danielzender ♠️  Jacks:  M. Shinha @cetanaworks ♦️♠️ Keenan Shur  @not.shur ♥️ ♣️ Queens:  Logan Walker @logan.walker.art ♥️ ♣️ Brett Whitley @nothinshakinco ♦️ ♠️ Kings:  Sara Dennis @sarablogsdotcom ♥️ ♣️ & featuring very special guest,  Miki Saito @nozarashigajo ♦️ ♠️ “Spherical” card: @710ersomaha Pip (♥️♣️♦️♠️) designs by Shinha  Concept, Artist Curation, Creative Direction, & box design by me, Jeff Thompson  Formatting & Assistance by Brett Whitley  This concept is of my own creation of the fictional band Deceased & Cohorts (D&C for short) and thus bears no likeness to any real band, it’s all in your mind. For years it’s been a pestering need of mine to get a collection of artists from today’s era into one all encompassing project. I can’t state enough how humbled I am that these fantastic people all signed on, and without a shred of hesitation. They all said yes on the spot. More on that in the comments.  Printed on 310gsm casino quality cardstock, 56 card decks. The box is of the same quality, printed from a separate manufacturer that met the quality I was after. Made in the U.S.A. Truly, no expense was spared in bringing this to life. I’ve got 300 in hand. 100 will go online *Friday*, 200 will be available during weekend 1 of Sphere, at @shakedownvegas . The remaining decks will be online after. A concept is only a daydream until the real artists can put their ink to it, and it means the world that they put their trust into this crazy ambitious idea knowing it would come out with quality they deserve. I don’t have the words. It wouldn’t have been this good without every one of them. See you in a week!

In less than a month, Masayoshi Takanaka embarks on his first world tour via SUPER WORLD LIVE 2026! To commemorate, I did a shirt, and I asked help from none other than @favorite.vegetable to make it happen. I was lucky enough to see Takanaka last April at his sole US visit, his first time to America in 40 years. I drove 5 hours from SF to LA on a Sunday, transcended paradise, and drove back home right after. I got home at 3 in the morning to be up for work by 6am. I would do that again for every one of these shows if I had to. Back at that time, I had this design idea of surfing the board guitar, and I knew it had to be realized by favorite vegetable. His style and Takanaka’s music go hand in hand. Thanks Matt. Tons of details here. This is a preorder that’s open now on my website that will close this Sunday, 3/8. Printed on reliable Ivory Comfort Colors, 3 color screen print. Hope to see ya in SF and LA this round.

I would be remiss if I didn’t share my second design from the weekend, brought to life by the wizard @bajardo . His comic style fit my idea so well, and it was a pleasure and a breeze to go back and forth with him on little details that made this thing pop. A lone astronaut, dreaming of some far off place, perhaps a weekend of shows in California… I especially love the date on the radio, the outline of California, the hidden stealie of course, and the everything else. The hidden stealie idea was all @bajardo . Truly a fun one, and a way to unwind and just let loose with it. These are also on my site now.

Hey everybody. Leftovers are on my site now. I’ve been getting a few inquiries on when or if there would be any remaining stock I’d be putting up online, and I just wanted to say thanks for being so patient and for still being interested. This time more than ever, I stretched myself thin with timelines, balancing my day job with these passion projects. It means a lot that there were so many eyes on this despite me not finding the time to post much about it. Everything came and went so fast, I didn’t even get time to do my usual exposition dumps. On that note… If you hadn’t read @maxsshirtcompany ’s succinct post yet, this design was a thoughtful process from the beginning. It began as an all over tee, truly, I was trying to steer away from the “Jeff” shape, but once max sent me the golden border, I reluctantly knew it was the right call. And since, it’s grown on me where I can’t see it any other way. The golden border itself could be seen as a gentle nod to “knockin on the golden door” while Tiger in the sand could be a reference to “prophet on the burning shore”. Though, that was a happy accident. Otherwise, the moon phase on this design is the moon phase that occurred on August 1st. The font is the font from one from the vault. The fog surrounding the bay was my love letter to San Francisco. And finally, there is a glow in the dark screen that illuminates the lyric and Jerry’s hand, shining boldly in Stella blue glow, while the rest of the image fades to the background. We tried to achieve a design that would celebrate sixty years while also embodying timelessness and I think we hit it dead on. As always, thanks to Max for being a great collaborator. These are an 8 color screen print on LA Apparel. 8 screens to achieve that additional glow. More on the way before the year is through…

For Jerry. 🌹 For 60 years. More info coming next week.

“Ten Good Solid Years” bandanas are on deck. Designed by myself and @nothinshakinco on blue, black, green, and red bandanas. I’m out here at the #tuscany vending these and some old stock for the first two weekends. The remaining stock will go up online after W2, or maybe in between the weekends, not sure. you’ll be the first to know. There’s plenty to go around. I’ve had my sites set on GD60 design wise, so that’s why I’ve scaled back this year for sphere. No frills. With GD60 up in the air, I’ll still be out on some shakedown or another vending in tribute to the Dead’s 60 year legacy. I’m excited to show what I’ve been working on. In the meantime, we’ve made it to this landmark in Dead and Company’s lifespan and it was important to me to detour and celebrate their significant impact to the history. Ten good solid years. I hope to see you out here. Thanks again for the assistance @nothinshakinco and thanks for the support as always from beautiful @kimbico

Weeelllllllllll who’s going to the Greek this weekend? What do you want to hear? I saw this great old George Jones Possum design a year or two back (slide 6), and ever since I’ve been day dreaming from time to time to incorporate it into a Billy Strings idea. With this year’s West Coast run approaching, I finally got it out of my head. Firstly, I knew the animal had to be a bear. And second, I wanted to keep it traditional with his real name. My excitement for this two day Greek Theatre debut is incalculable, so to commemorate, I put a little back hit on there. I tried to fight the pun, but it got the best of me. I love how these turned out. They are perfectly printed by @pair_prints . I asked them last Thursday (based off a recommendation from @shakedownstyles ) if they could do me this demanding favor and they got them all screen printed over the weekend without hesitation. I can’t thank them enough, so please give em your business. They’re fast, kind, and the printings are extra crisp. There’s less than 50 of these, and they’re printed on Shaka Wear (7.5 Heavy Oz) blanks because they’re the ones who had the color I needed. 2-color screenprint. The font in photos looks black, but it’s a light brown. I’ll be around the Greek all day Saturday and Sunday if you want one, or you can reach out to me in my DMs the old fashioned way and I’ll ship you one for a small donation. First come first serve. I printed a few without the back print if you want one but aren’t going to the shows. I’ll be giving out stickers too, and each shirt comes with one. Thanks @maxsshirtcompany for drawing slew foot, and thank you @nothinshakinco for some font assistance on the front.

Remaining Forever Playing Cards, Aces Back to Back tees, and Dead Forever (XLs only) tees are going up on my site tomorrow, August 8th, 10am PST. In addition to the regular Forever Playing Cards, Artist Edition and “Stealie Gradient” editions will be going up in extremely limited quantities, less than 15 total copies combined. Both versions feature a unique card back color. The Stealie edition features two unique card colors, while the artist edition features a unique card done by @undertheweather.inc . Otherwise, the cards are the exact same between the three versions. Thank you as always. And Thank you to all of the artists that have helped bring my visions to reality this past summer; most of all to my friends @nothinshakinco and @maxsshirtcompany . Couldn’t have done it without you. This is the rest of everything I have, so no further restocks of these items will be happening. Perhaps another deck idea will come to life in the future… 📸: @dudeinn & myself

*preorder closes Monday, June 17th at NOON PST* Dead Forever tees start printing next week. In the meantime, Aces Back to Back (Cactus to Cactus) preorder is live now. Offered on two distinct blanks, Instagram’s favorites. Comfort Colors 1717 Black, and LA Apparel GD1801 Chocolate. Sizes run S-3XL. 5 color screenprint. Once again, this art was executed by @andrepoiseone . This is a spiritual successor to my Summers Fade tee from last year. I like the subtle juxtaposition of this tee from the very in your face, all over Dead Forever tee. Please allow up to two weeks for these to ship once the pre-order closes. I will have these on hand starting July 4th weekend, through the rest of the residency until I sell out. I will not be reprinting after this preorder and in person allotment is done. Thank you, see you again real soon.

Surprise surprise. I wanted to make a spiritual successor to Summers Fade from last year. A cactus blooming in front of Sphere fit that mood. This idea was inspired by last year’s tee, as much as the artist himself, @andrepoiseone . I saw a poster he did for a Mapache run, and from that my idea struck me. I was lucky enough to tap him for the art for this shirt. His art is breathtaking, check him out and you’ll see what I mean. and come on out to Tuscany for @shakedownvegas . @maxsshirtcompany and I are set up all weekend. This is an initial run of 50, available this weekend, while the remainders will be posted online next week as well as a preorder. Printed on black Comfort Colors 1717. I realized after ordering these that they would look great on a dark brown colored tee, so once the pre order opens, LA Apparel “Chocolate” will also be available as an option. Thank you as always.