Jose Alvarez, a 23-year-old Los Angeles native and relatively new toymaker, is making the coolest (unofficial) artist merch in the game. Marquee Marauders Club* is Alvarez’s long-running self-made brand and one stop shop for all things music, culture, photography, and film. Originally a blog created with the intent to connect with other concert-goers and solidify Alvarez’s cred as a concert photographer quickly transformed into something much bigger. MMC* is now recognized by artists like King Krule, Joba of BROCKHAMPTON and FKA Twigs, plus influential cultural figures such as New York Nico, Anthony Fantano and filmmakers Josh and Benny Safdie.

A devoted music fan and concert goer, Alvarez began toy-making in 2019, gaining inspiration from his favorite artists, bands, and creatives. As an avid music fan, Alvarez was no stranger to buying and collecting merchandise and memorabilia. When ticket stubs, CD’s t-shirts and vinyls grew stale, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He discovered toy making on social platforms like Instagram and Reddit, unlocking tutorials, how-to videos, and forums to create custom action figures. So far, he’s used multiple methods to produce the mini versions of his personal icons. He regularly combines bits and pieces from existing figures and melds them together with clay, resin, and paint to create new action figures, aka “kit bashing.” He’s also learning to leverage 3D printing more frequently to nail certain features and accessory nuances.

As a self-proclaimed “bootlegger,” Alvarez makes it known that his craft was born from the knowledge and expertise of fellow artists. He says, “The thing I try to remember when creating is that sharing is the best advice. I have met a few bootleggers who do not care to share their methods or get upset that someone else is stealing their idea or something, but it is hard to say "stealing" when the artist being made into a figure is globally famous. This is an art form and should be shared with everyone and bootleggers should help fellow bootleggers.” By pursuing this form of bootleg merch production, Alvarez is inspiring his own followers and peers to explore this often untapped medium for themselves. 

As for the future, Alvarez has big plans to cast the MMC* net even wider. He hopes to “expand ...with interviews of bands and actors, as well as making my own merch and figures based on original characters of mine. I am also hoping to make limited runs of figure collaborations with bands and artists with some of the proceeds to help benefit people struggling during this pandemic.” So far, Alvarez has kept true to the latter, auctioning off his one-of-one figures to raise money for Colin Kapernick’s “Know Your Rights” foundation and bail projects via “The Needle Drop” during the height of the police brutality protests in 2020.

During a time when artist merch seems to hold the most power in the apparel realm, it’s refreshing to see a young music fan create something completely unique and evolved. Not only has Alvarez received international and celebrity recognition, he’s also created a community of avid fans who now look to MMC* to see what’s new in music and film, and more importantly, what matters in music and film.  For many, he’s a tastemaker and his original intentions of building a communal space for like minded fans to gather still taps into his original goal, and he’s exceeded all expectations.