Backstage — Tulsa, Oklahoma

Green room’s open. Inventory’s thinning.

Five things are left in the room — the tour hoodie, the dad hat, the enamel pin set, the signed poster print and the limited vinyl pressing. The last of each is on the table right now, and when a row goes quiet that item is gone.

See what’s left Join the drop list
Corner of a green room with a worn couch and a low table holding folded merch
Green room, after hours

Tour Hoodie

Thinning

Dad Hat

Running low

Enamel Pin Set

Last of it

Signed Poster Print

Nearly gone

Limited Vinyl Pressing

Almost out

What’s left

On the table,
for now.

Everything here came off the last drop and lives in the green room between episodes. Nothing behind it is a restock — once an item is off the board, it stays off.

Hands folding a hoodie into an open cardboard box on a backstage table

01 — The one that goes first

Tour Hoodie

Charcoal ground, the tally chalked across it in emerald. It’s what people reach for before the guest has even sat down.

Thinning

Claim yours
A plain dark dad hat resting on a table beside a folded garment

02 — Everyday

Dad Hat

One color, one stitched tally, dressed down. It reads better scuffed than new.

Running low

Claim yours
A small set of enamel pins laid out on a plain card on a dark table

03 — Small

Enamel Pin Set

A set on one printed card, small enough for a jacket, a tote or a lanyard.

Last of it

Claim yours
A short stack of dark poster prints on a table with a marker resting on top

04 — Signed

Signed Poster Print

Signed by hand, one print at a time, out of the last of the run.

Nearly gone

Claim yours
A black vinyl record half out of its sleeve on a backstage table

05 — Pressed

Limited Vinyl Pressing

Pressed for the room, sleeve and insert with it. Nothing digital about this one.

Almost out

Claim yours

Order of operations

Before the
next drop.

Four things happen in this order every time. Then the board comes off the wall and the next run gets written up in its place.

  1. 01

    Clear the table

    Everything off the shelf and onto the table, where we can actually see what’s left of it.

  2. 02

    Read the board

    Chalk, not a spreadsheet. What’s written up there is what’s in the room.

  3. 03

    Tape and box

    Gaffer tape, a marker and the door. The tape is the only thing we’re generous with around here.

  4. 04

    Wipe the board

    When the last item goes, the chalk comes off and the next drop gets written up.

A podcast desk with a microphone on a boom arm and headphones in a dim room
Taped-up cardboard boxes stacked by a doorway backstage

The room

Between episodes, we clear the room.

Cole Trentham records in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the green room is where guests wait, where the last take gets argued about, and where the merch lives between shows. It’s a small room with a couch, a table and whatever is left of the drop.

Nothing sits in there long. The board on the wall started as a joke — a place to chalk up what was going and what was nearly gone — and now it more or less runs the merch table.

Back to the rack

Drop list

Get in before the board goes up.

There’s a drop coming. When this board gets wiped and the next one is chalked up, the list hears about it first — before it’s on the table and before it’s going, going, gone.

We only write when there’s something on the board.