I dropped out of high school in my senior year and went to work in the record store business, and I started to carry some rock group T-shirts. I got a catalog of shirts from who knows where. ... Other record stores were coming to me and asking me where I got them from, and rather than telling 'em, I looked up a dealer and started to wholesale them.
Before long I started to realize, Wait a minute, this guy isn't doing it right. I can do it better. The rock group T-shirts just took off like a rocket. That was 1973. We located our storefront over on Clifton and West 104th Street, and that's where we really started. From the beginning we marketed ourselves as Daffy Dan's from Cleveland, Ohio.
We went from a single store in 1973 to 27 stores in 1978. It wasn't tourists. It was Clevelanders buying Cleveland-themed T-shirts and merchandise. It was a phenomenon. If you go back 40 years ago ... there was a counter-culture that loved the city and what it was and what it had to offer. WMMS was just gaining loyalty. The Agora was packing 'em in every night. Rock 'n' roll T-shirts I saw as an absolute natural. ... It was a blast.
I'm so frickin' excited about what's coming down the pike right now. I watch these kids [doing Cleveland T-shirts]. I think it's great. The more the merrier, and there's so much creative stuff that can be done, and I like to see it being done.
