u/EnvironmentalBrick18

I bought these jeans in Sydney more than a decade ago. I’m not sure exactly when but they were among the first pairs of selvedge denim jeans I ever bought. Possibly even the first. The assistant tried to steer me toward the 14.75oz version, but I opted for the lighter weight due to the climate. I loved them so much, I bought a second pair.

I washed infrequently and cold for a long time before switching to 40C washes whenever they looked dirty. The ribbing on the rear pockets over the reinforced areas - an unfortunate feature with early Tellasons that thankfully they have since resolved - emerged after only a couple of early washes. However, I still loved the jeans, particularly the grey hue and the blue selvedge ID.

The low rise meant the crotch blew out on both pairs, while the right knee on both also went due to the amount of time I spent on the floor with my then toddler. Eventually I used pieces of one pair to repair the other, sewing in a new right knee and crotch panel. I reinforced the top fly buttonhole with a shoelace and mucked about a bit with some sashiko practice.

I don’t wear them a lot because, a decade older, I now prefer a higher rise, but they still get the occasional outing. I like to pair them with the Tellason blanket-lined chore coat for the contrast.

I can't imagine it's deliberate, but The Plastic Guru from Gorillaz's last album sounds very much, to my ears, like circa-2003 Grandaddy. The little samples, the robotic vocal clips, the metronomic beat. All it's missing is a lovely distorted guitar solo.

Can anyone else hear it, or is it just me?

I was in my very early 20s when UtWF came out. It blew me away. It opened my eyes and ears to all sorts of new sounds and ideas that still inform the music I listen to today. Its themes also chimed significantly with my emotional life at the time.

A couple of years later, I wanted to thank the band for it. I wrote a letter to the address in the UtWF CD booklet and thought nothing more of it. I can’t remember how many weeks elapsed, but one day this letter arrived through my letterbox. The dates were for the tour that supported The Sophtware Slump, which the envelope tells me had not been released. I went to two shows on that tour, meeting Aaron at one and hanging out a little with Jim, Aaron and Kevin after the second.

The letter also included a bunch of stickers, most of which I used on guitars and folders and things like that. I probably gave some to a girl.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this. I grew up in a very small, very conservative, very dull town. It didn’t occur to me for a long time that actual people made the things I loved. It took university and a move to London for me to realise that I could actually try speak with some of these people.

The letter and that tour are more than a quarter of a century old but thinking about them still makes me extremely happy.