Choose Your Weapon T-Shirt

Here’s a handy fan-made key to all the weapons featured in this shirt.

You can buy this cool  t-shirt in all sizes for both men and women for $18 at shop.leino.com.

Buy Tees are Xenotees firm fans (aren’t we all?). They have a devoted following which we soon found out about when we first reviewed them in The Strangely Exotic Mind Of Xenotees. Their appeal is both quirky and alluring, their approach experimental, and their products top-notch. So of course we delighted to hear from Noelle the creative wizard behind the label who told us she was taking up the gauntlet and extending her range of silhouette shirts with her latest creation entitled ‘Too Much Party’. Not so abstract as her some of previous incarnations but definitely geared to a wider market!

Too Much Party T-Shirt

Guaranteed for a laugh (even if you are suffering the effects of a wild night out), the print features an official vintage Pabst bottle opener with a bunch of newbie bottle caps! Too Much Party is currently available in three colours (Slate, Cranberry Red and ladies versions in Heather Grey and Kelly Green) and plenty of different sizes but as usual stocks are limited so if you’re planning to use and wear one of these tees to full effect, take some Alka-Seltzer and rush on over there before they’re all snapped up!

We’re off to London for the weekend to do much the same thing, get hammered that is, so see you all Monday and have fun!

Cottonmouth.nl are a relatively recent fave of Buy Tees and now to top it all they’ve gone one step further and knocked 30% off their t-shirts as well as offer free shipping! You can’t ask more than that :)

I always feel right at home, culturally speaking, when I visit their site, everything from their products to the web design to their constantly updated left field blog shimmer with a slightly tongue-in-cheek British fervour for the hey days of punk. Their style spills right out onto their highly flamboyant illustrated t-shirt prints which are all highly recognisable as unique yet strangely familiar iconic pieces that make up their collection. Their ideas are their tour de force, some perhaps more obvious than others, but in a good way, in the way you might think ‘damn, I could have thought of that’ except you know you didn’t, and if you ever did, you know you’d never got around to creating them, because if you had I’d most likely be writing about your label right now :p

Their reputation has spread far and wide into the world of independent fashion retailing with 17 online stockists and what I guess must be another hundred or more stores selling their unique wares around the world. So if you like what you see then there’s no excuses when it comes to tracking down any of their infectiously irrational tees, hoodies and accessories (if you don’t order direct), besides which they have a handy mailing list so you can keep up to date with all their latest offerings no matter what corner of the world you may reside. So without further a due, rip a few holes in your best pair of jeans, stick a safety pin through your nose, kick the TV Screen, deface any image of royalty you may have lying around and get ready to enter the minds of Disturbia.

I Want Out Tee

This phenomenal tee available for men and women simply entitled ‘I Want Out’ commemorates or rather mourns the death of The American Dream. This superbly detailed illustration rifles through the draws of the slowly dying inner sanctum of perhaps the last of the world’s super powers. Sure there’s China, but simply piling up the gold, coal and nukes isn’t going to help them influence the planet the way that the USA have over the last century or so. In fact it’s more the ploy of a survivalist stocking up their bunker before the ‘big one’ – it might be war, weather, a global food or fuel shortage, who knows but their every increasing economic might is definitely not a ploy for political influence as far as China are concerned. America bailed out Europe during WW2, they’ve flown to space for the hell of it, they’ve farmed the greatest generation of obese burger loving human beings since time began, in essence they’ve been the movers and shakers in almost every major political decision since modern democracy began. But I’m afraid it may all be over for ‘Western Civilisation’ as we know it. For a start, what the hell is the West anyway? The Middle East have almost all of the remaining oil bar Israel, China has more reserves of just about every commodity going and Obama has, in the meantime, had to put a hold on some of his more loftier dreams once he’d confronted the frightening truth of ‘everyday people’ at a local Denny’s. Perhaps Obama can soothe a few furrowed brows in the major oil producing countries in the world, but if the USA doesn’t scale down their consumption soon it won’t mean diddly-squat. I read recently that if they drilled every drop of oil in Alaska, not only will it destroy their last untouched wilderness, but the oil supply will last them less than a year. With no real public transport system, an enormous amount of workers in their failing automobile industry, and a never ending demand for more and more fuel I guess Obama will be ending his term on a horse and cart by the looks of things. Still if the USA falls we all fall, like dominoes the whole Western economy will topple and all of us will be asking for handouts from China – who already realise that commodities are worth more than cash. Cash is just paper, nope actually its just a string of numbers on a server, powered by electricity, which in turn is supplied by a power station that most likely runs on gas or coal. We’re all stuffed, yes, I want out too. Get this amazing tee for £19.99 before the world finally gives up its last breath and we all shuffle out of the way for apes, cockroaches, rats, or any other creature that cottons on to the fact that we have absolutely no idea how to manage a planet.

Keep Buying Tee

Keep Buying is available for men (bunout/royal) and women (burnout/pink) at £19.99. Reminiscent of the British government’s hectoring style for slapping the crown jewels over any directive, order, public sign or institution they care to in order to frighten the serfdom (that is our population) in to full and compliant submission. We the British people have lost our nerve over the years, this country feels more and more like a prison every day, the last decade of the former socialist party Labour (which due to Tony Blair‘s meddling was temporarily revamped as New Labour) has passed more mean spirited and petty laws than all their predecessors since the war. I grew up in the 1970′s, I saw punks as a child, I saw riots on TV, I saw unions down tools, I saw rebellion. Then Margaret Thatcher took over and all anyone wanted was a house of their own, money in the bank, two holidays a year and shares in every former publicly owned utility and service on offer. Instead we got Mcjobs which were eventually farmed out to India and Poland, mobile phones, a weak economy, we lost all our manufacturing skills, every industry has just about collapsed and now even the cathedral-like shopping malls are struggling to compete with online bargains. Some 20 years ago I made a prediction to a few bemused, stoned, and rather disinterested friends that within our lifetime we’d witness Britain go from a first to third world country. I’ve stuck to my guns and taken little pleasure in my strange knack for second guessing the future, especially as most of it is indeed rather depressing. We can’t buy ourselves out of a recession, we can’t run the economy on a nation of shop keepers, they’re all dead and have been replaced by the vast and autonomous Tesco supermarket chain anyway. What we have is very little, at least we used to have agriculture, food we could grow and eat, now all we have is a last minute panic to grow a few veg at the local allotments. We used to have a vast shipping industry, now we have cheap ferries to France and a Chunnel that will most likely remain in debt, especially once the cracks start to show. It’s as if the whole country was redesigned by a local town planner with a fixation for parking meters and pedestrianised high streets but no idea what to do with all the rubbish, or how the public are supposed to travel, work, eat, live. So, what do we do? We do exactly what the rest of the world does, we keep on keeping on. Digging ourselves into an almighty debt unheard of in all of history, and we spend it on junk that we don’t need to take our minds of the very same fact, we are broke and one day the credit will run out. In the meantime you may as well break the trend and at least spend your hard earned cash on something worthwhile like this t-shirt which at least will remind you and everyone you meet of the impending doom that all capitalist states and countries around the world are facing. A t-shirt with a profound message to say the least.

Bateman Tee

Christian Bale, now there’s a man on a mission, a screwed up mission of course, but in a sick and twisted way you have to admire his gall. He takes no **** from anyone even if he does give it out every chance he has. The Bateman tee essentially deals with the character he plays in the film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis‘ American Psycho. What’s more Bateman specifically references his glum and dour appearances as The Dark Knight aka Batman, but with a great angle i.e using the original logo which is more famously associated with the outrageously camp TV series starring Adam West (who must be one of the most surreal personalities who ever walked the earth). Available for men and women, this tee really made me laugh, in fact almost anything to do with Bale does, but especially regarding American Psycho. The first time I saw Bale act was as a rather spoilt brat in Empire of the Sun, the next time he appeared on the screen was as Patrick Bateman. I don’t know what happened to the guy in between those two films, apart from growing about 13 years older, but it must have been bad. Sure he’s an actor, so he learned to mimic an American accent, sure he was playing a psycho obsessed with terrible 80s mainstream pop and murdering everyone he met, but it was more than that. Bale had actually become Bateman, he still is, now. OK so he hasn’t actually murdered anyone in real life (as far as I know) but he looks as if he’s on the verge of it. I haven’t heard him speak with a real British accent in years, he looks almost psychotic and guessing by his off set rants he is and now he’s getting all the plum jobs in La La Land. It makes me wonder if he’s secretly threatened any potential competitor with a grisly death by kitchen knife to the beat of a Genesis or Huey Lewis and the News track? Who knows, perhaps this t-shirt is as close to the truth as any of us mere mortals will ever get available for men and women in white for £19.99.

Horrorshow Tee

I love A Clockwork Orange, the Anthony Burgess novel and the Stanley Kubrick film, which is a rare thing, usually one format or the other screws it up, but not this time. This t-shirt, Horrorshow, picks up on one of a plethora of strange quirks and sayings that Burgess’s writing induces into the narrative. A weird hybrid of English, Russian and gobbledegook which form the nadsat language, in essence heightening an already extremely disturbing yet prophetic story. I won’t go into it here if you’re not au fait with the script, but if you’re not you’re a gloopy nazz. So how close was Burgess to predicting the future? Well we might not drink amphetamine-laden moloko, but drugs are bigger than ever, almost everyone in the 21st century has had some brush with illicit substances even to simply refuse them or just watch a friend or two turn to mush on a pill or some powder or a few doobies. Besides how many people honestly think that corporations want to limit their toxic offerings to booze, fags and energy drinks anyhow? If they could they’d push the lot, before long there’d be a vast, organised and profitable drug empire on a new and unimaginable scale. The underworld would lose their power, the drug scene would lose its rebellious cachet and the police forces of the world would be able to breathe a collective sigh of relief as they take a deep lug on their state approved hashettes. What’s closest to the truth about Burgess’ dystopian vision is violence, violence breeds violence and within just a few generations the gap has widened so far that those with wrinkles on their skin are more worried about getting plastic surgery and their teeth bleached than the rising numbers of violent crimes. Pupils stab teachers now, in the USA they shoot them, I never liked school but I can’t imagine anyone I knew back then, however dispossessed, firing a few shots in the library and the canteen for the hell of it. It’s all down to expectation as far as I am concerned, capitalism runs on greed or rather the promise of riches for those who take the risks. It happens in the stock market, it happens in the ghetto, destroy or be destroyed. If you aren’t the nastiest piece of work that ever walked the earth then you can bet your bottom dollar the next guy will be. We are encouraged, metaphorically, emotionally, or otherwise, to fight tooth and claw to make a few million bucks and stick two fingers up at the rat race, and that’s all down to the numbers game. The more people, the more competition, the less rewards to go round, the greater the greed, the selfishness, and eventually the frustration amongst those who lose out in the lottery of life. Failures used to kill themselves, now they like to bring down a few before they do themselves in. If the situation continues this way we won’t be able to rely on governmental institutions, the police, or the basics of ‘civilisation’ to carry us through. Nope. There’s just two alternatives, an electronically tagged, chemically balanced, nation of zombies will roam the earth, or alternatively, mass resistance, bloody revolution and war. If the base instincts of 6.25 billion human animals kicks in before the mass lobotomy the walls will come tumbling down and we can wave bye bye to our shiny gadget-laden wireless HD ready future. It’s a horrorshow, a real horrorshow. Get this iconic tee for £19.99 available in purple and white for men and women.

If you hurry you might just be able to grab a bargain at www.DisturbiaClothing.co.uk in their sale for men and women, Tees start from just £10.99 or try one of their mystery bags of three tees for just £25. There are labels and then there are phenomenons, Disturbia are well on their way to combining the two.

]]> http://buy-tees.net/2009/07/psyched-tees-from-disturbia-clothing/feed/ 2 http://buy-tees.net/2009/05/the-amazing-ames-bros/ http://buy-tees.net/2009/05/the-amazing-ames-bros/#comments Mon, 18 May 2009 19:39:10 +0000 admin http://buy-tees.net/?p=962 No they’re not a flying trapeze act, they’re not part of a secret government cloning project, and they’re not a household cleaning product manufacturer but they do make great tees. The sort you can wear anywhere with pride, the sort that will confuse your mother, make a customs officer at the airport snigger, and get you through any interview (as long as the work is paid at minimum wages). If you want quality gear, if you have a superb sense of humour and nothing seems to phase you, then it’s time to try on some styles by the Ames Brothers. AmesBros.com has a deceptively cool and simple layout, I love the little tricks they’ve sneaked in on their site to keep you hooked, check out the main character, which appears to be a kid from a 1950′s comic reinvented on a faux-graffiti background, it’s true what they say about great paintings – the eyes follow you around everywhere – lol.

The Ames Bros. (Jeff and Barry Ament) have recently teamed up with Pearl Jam artist Brad Klausen, responsible for the creation of just about every Pearl Jam poster there ever was and published a rather fab book worth checking out. Pearl Jam Vs. Ames Brothers should be getting a heap load more publicity soon seeing as the big wigs in La La Land are currently shooting a Pearl Jam movie. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out like a po-faced version of Spinal Tap! I have never enjoyed many rockumentaries, but then again most rock stars have made it because they can jam to high heaven, not so much for their intellectual clout. Still, it’s all poetry I suppose. Anyway be sure to check out the new book featuring 100s of poster designs here.

If you have the spare dough you might be lucky enough to get the brothers to design or illustrate something for you, I’m guessing their rates are going to reflect public demand so if you want to hire them be prepared to pay big time – anyway commission them for your project here. If you’re one of us mere mortals you might be far better off simply buying one of their fantastic t-shirts, I’ve featured a few of my favourites here – check them out!

I know they wouldn’t like me dropping names (ha ha), but the Ames Bros. are big with a few celebs out there including The Fray, Ken Leung (Miles from Lost) and Eric McCormack (Will and Grace). Okay they’re all the names I could find on their site but it’s a great start, anyway how many famous people are wearing something you’ve made? To be honest no one (normal) cares about celebrities, they’re almost all full of it, let’s get on with the tees… all of which are available here – it’s an embedded Flash store so you’ll have to hunt them down yourself.

Bad Moon Tee

Mad, bad, and the coolest kind of corny out there. If you ever wondered what happened in those cheap 50s and 60s B-Movies when the cameramen had a tendency to focus on close-ups of hands getting hairier, teeth sharper and eyes crazier, well here is the metamorphosis in all it’s glory. I’ve never been a fan of Werewolf flicks, mainly because the special effects are for the most part awful, although though the special effects did improve by the time American Werewolf in London was released – which is still a classic and funny for all the right reasons.

These days they simply keep the characters hairy all the time to save money i.e Wolverine, but really if every hairy guy out there was hunted down and shot with a silver bullet that would most likely cut the population of Greece in half for a start. It’s a werewolf, let him be, he just wants another bottle of Ouzo. Anyway for the benefit of any lazy Hollywood moguls out there – here’s a pitch for a movie – how about a something along the lines of an English Fox Hunt (have they been banned yet? seems like the most unfair sport in history) except instead of a fox, chuck some decent CGI budget at the director and make it a werefox – yes I’ve just made that up.

Essentially they’d be ginger, cunning, sly, and won’t have much luck with the female of the species – we have foxes (not werefoxes) around here and almost every night in the summer they squeal like murder when they’re mating – its’ all to do with prickly barbs I’ve been told. Gawd knows why evolution came up with that idea. Yes I’m droning on about foxes but we don’t have any wolves left in the UK, or bears, I think we ate them all and cut down most of the trees to cook them centuries ago. $29 Large / X-Large Cream.

Bigfoot vs. Unicorn Tee

An amazing illustration of a daft subject, you can’t get more lowbrow than this in the world of mythology. It’s kinda incredibly cool really, I mean the Bros have managed to cross breed two of the strangest slices of social idiom here, both are rather dumb as far as I am concerned and that makes it all the funnier. If you’re dating a woman and go back to her place and it’s filled with unicorn art I’d recommend you back out slowly, she’s probably highly sensitive and slightly deranged. I had a minor skirmish with a horse as a child, I walked over to pat it and give it a clump of grass and it stood on my foot for a hellish 5 minutes. Even if it had a horn on its head I doubt the experience would have been any more pleasurable.

As for Bigfoot, well I lump the “Deerhunter” loons who stalk those across the world in with Loch Ness Monster aficionados and the like. It’s an inane pastime, following hairy guys around the woods (which probably leads to even dodgier “hobbies”), desperately faking films of guys in ape suits and making plaster moulds of oversized feet in an attempt to wake cynical society from it’s highly sarcastic slumber. So what if there’s a big old bear man out there, he obviously doesn’t want to know the rest of us, we’re bald midgets with too much to say as far as he’s concerned. $29 Large Dark Chocolate.

Shark vs. Bear Tee

Loving this one, it was worn by the character Miles in Lost‘s last season (if that makes any difference), it’s a really well drawn tee design, not just technically but dynamically too. If it were possible for these two giants of the natural world to fight I’m sure this is what it’d look like. Funny, sharks actually started off as wolves way back when, they eventually slipped into the sea and their legs became fins amongst other changes. Don’t get me started on wolves again, I’ll be onto foxes once more and you’ll be rolling your eyes in disbelief like there’s no tomorrow. Just blame it on a lack of sleep, in particular the mating habits of foxes :p A t-shirt that illustrates the law of survival if the laws of nature and physics didn’t apply. Get it for $29 in Heather Green – Medium, Large, X-Large.

Bar Fight Tee

Rootin’ tootin’ and a shootin’ yeehah. You know how most Americans (amongst others) think that the Brits still ride around on horses and carts, drinking tea and eating biscuits, singing their praises to the Queen and talk with an accent akin to Dick Van Dyke? Well this is how a lot of Brits imagine most of the USA, kinda like Westworld but without the robots. I for one have never tasted sour whisky, sarsaparilla, rode a horse or shot tin cans off a fence, but if I did I’d probably do it wearing this t-shirt. It’s like a veritable Where’s Waldo? for the good old bad old days of the Wild West. We have a Wild West in the UK, it’s rather different though, filled with Banksy clones in hoodies painting the town red (amongst other colours) every night. They have their own nasty booze too, it’s called Scrumpy and it’s lethal. I spent a day off from school once (in a million) after chugging a five litre container of the stuff with some mates on Dartford Heath just to impress the girls. They weren’t, especially when we started puking everywhere. If we hadn’t we’d have probably all got into a big ol’ fight, a little like this cool tee. Bar Fight is available for $29 in White Large.

Check out all the fab tees by the amazing Ames Bros. at www.amesbros.com.

The site is sharp, slick and well organised** yet leaves you unprepared for the raucous behaviour in textile printed form that awaits you. They do a very nice sideline in badges which feature all their mad, bad and dangerous to know creations, and a blog that’s well worth a lookie, I particularly enjoyed their features on a midi controller that looks something like an old Midway arcade game and a fab video of Only by Nine Inch Nails, as well as (of course) a little background info on all their designs. The truth is Fat Gold is more of an attitude than a brand, a mentality than a brand, you’ll either be into it or not.

There’s one particular t-shirt at FGI I absolutely love, Fat Gold Skull (I’ll show you it in a minute), it sums up everything about the label for me, scary and funny at the same time, reassuringly anarchic, totally off the wall but grounded in a great deal of common sense. They spoof where they have to but this isn’t a “funny t-shirt” brand, this isn’t a trendy for the sake of being trendy company, Fat Gold follow their own sense of style (and do very well by it), I’d love to see a lot more tees in the future from these guys, and I do hope they don’t make the mistake of being a slave to “Seasons” like some of their competitors like to do, the fact is “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.

I don’t want to see their best work disappear for the fear of keeping everything fresh, sure add more designs (the more the better) but don’t lose the old favourites. (This last opinion applies to almost all the up ‘n’ coming labels in the market not just FGI). I’d love to see them hold on to a few more of the older tees in stock, such as their Ku Klux Clan spoof of Ghostbusters and most especially their robot tee, but I suppose it all comes down to economics, you have to follow your instincts when it comes to selling tees.

Anyhoo, let’s get down to the nitty gritty and take a big bite out of Fat Gold and see if you like the taste.

Fat Gold Skull Tee

I think this tee rocks, it’s a killer, simple, funny, macabre and one of the most subtle spoofs I’ve seen in quite a while. Essentially it reminds me of two things, the first is M. Night Shyamalan’s Sixth Sense, the movie, the kid, he sees dead people, yes? No? Watch it, it’s weird, most people have seen it but if you haven’t you should. Funny what happened to the kid in that movie? He was in A.I too, freaky kid with a lot of talent. Anyway, secondly it’s X-ray Specs, now, if you’ve read enough dodgy old Marvel and D.C comics you’ve probably seen all the dodgy ads on the back page (do they still do them?).

I am that old I remember when Bazooka Joe used to advertise junk, you’d have to buy a few million gum and you could buy a bike or something. The funny thing was I’m here in the UK, as a kid I knew they wouldn’t ever send me anything even if I did collect enough wrappers, I think I might’ve written to them and asked and they wrote back along the lines of “screw you limey” but it was probably far more polite than that. So I spent a good few of my earliest years on the planet imagining that America had all this amazing technology that we Brits would have to wait a decade for. The only Bazooka Joe gizmo I still wanted by the time I’d hit adolesence was a pair of X-ray Specs, for obvious reasons. In fact my reasons are clearly and precisely described in the t-shirt above, Fat Gold Skull, which, as I’ve said already, rocks.

Fame Tee

Love the sentiment of this tee, and no I don’t mean it’s sentimental, far from it, religion asides, if this is the only life we have to live then I can understand why so many will risk everything to get to the top of the ladder, then again I relate to those who sit back and enjoy the ride. I really think that Bowie said it far better than any other before and since…

Get your taste of glory with Fat Gold’s Live and Die Fame Tee!

Dance Tee (People Don’t Dance No More)

This (People Don’t Dance No More) tee is so 80′s it’s creating a black hole in my front room, whilst I take a trip down memory lane you might want to take a note of the fat and golden features of this tee. Loving the excessiveness of gold all over, there’s so much I wouldn’t be surprised if FGI start making gold jumpsuits in the future, hey you never know, would look killer if we ever lived in a massive glass domed shopping mall on the moon (or is that just my personal vision of hell?). Loving the gold tooth, the mouth is a little reminiscent of those chattering teeth from joke shops that never made me laugh. I mean has anything from any joke shop ever made you laugh? Whilst I’m at it, has any trick from any magic shop ever amazed and wondered you? I’m sure all those kind of stores were closed down years ago under the trades description act (don’t worry it’s a British thing).

Anyway check out the tiny four letter word at the end of the slogan, “tour”, very funny, or is this for real, a tour of people who don’t dance (no more)? Here’s the facts, in the 80s British guys didn’t dare dance, they’d be beaten up or laughed at or both at the same time. Except for the pogo or slamdance which were both just forms of fighting, and then the 90′s came along (with a truck load of drugs) and everyone started to boogie. I suppose the effects have worn off now and we’re back to shuffling around the bar or by one of the walls in the dark. George A. Romero was right but here’s the killer, it’s us who are the zombies!!! Arrgggh. Someone please start shooting before we eat each others brains out.

Okie dokie, check ‘em out, they’re fat, they’re gold, they’re Fat Gold.

**One little technical point regarding the site design – if you find yourself directly on a product page the “back button” doesn’t work, it maybe just in a Firefox browser or a general Javascript problem or the fact that should you find a page without entering the main site you’ll find yourself typing in the address just to get back :/

As Levi puts it at his popular Myspace joint, “We are always doing something new, focusing on new items to release, and many more things. So check back everyday, you never know what you could miss out on if you don’t! We have your biggest concerns in mind: Quality, Comfort, a “true to size fit”, and LOOKIN’ GOOD! That’s why we only use the highest quality prints and shirts, American Apparel!“

To kick things off, here’s one of my personal faves:-

This is Dead Grad, this made me laugh as soon as I arrived at the store. I’m too long in the tooth to get away with sporting this fine number now, but if I could I would! I’ve added a quick ghost story at the end of this post for those who love tall tales and eerie happenings. I love the art work, it’s almost a shame I hadn’t seen this on a train carriage, but of course I could never endorse vandalism, however creative. Jam packed with ghetto goodness, I particularly appreciate the trephining detail top left.

Okay back to the t-shirts, you can stop hiding behind the sofa now, hey! Yes t-shirts…

If you’re going to meet a herd of monsters (is it herd?), then at least make sure they’re Happy Monsters. I think t-shirt is a beauty! Especially the highly effective use of two-tone colours, and the skateboarding guy, is that receding hair or flapping ears I wonder? It’s just the sort of t-shirt that will keep all your mates amused for hours, (when they’re under the influence of something or other :p). Even the logo has been incorporated with a great deal of subtlety, well at least it’s compositionally pleasing. I’d like to see a few more of these cornucopian feasts…

If you love ATHF then this one is up your street, Don’t Mess With The Tasties in a really fruity purple:-

Loving the style and colour here, again Levi has managed to work the logo in pretty well here. Usually I’d advise t-shirt designers to avoid making a feature of their logo, however usually with WP, they’ve been blended well into the design. Still, to be safe I always say, unless you have a few million to build your brand avoid plastering logos over designs, that can come later, when you’re rich and famous! Still, this is still a schweet design, though I do like surreal ideas, and I am sure there’s a confectionary company out there eyeing this one up now, it’s a strong, fluid, t-shirt design like many at WP.

So, in conclusion I’d say more t-shirts, more surrealism, less logo and keep doodling Levi, you have an incredibly confident style. Word up to Word Apparel :]

A Bonus ghost story for fans of Dead Grad…

I was surprised to receive an email from their PR agency GorgeousPR.com, I mean it doesn’t take too much effort for Worn Free to write a quick personal email about their t-shirts, oh well I’d better get myself a literary agent and start charging fees for my posts :p Don’t worry folks, I’m not about to sell out, I’m too lefty. For a start, I was talking to my old man (cockney for ‘dad’ as in ‘follow the van‘) the other day, he made an appearance for the evening before crashing out drunk on the sofa. Anyway, we had a chat and the conversation turned to the unsavoury subject of money, as it usually does, this is the guy who’s been telling me ‘when I win the lottery’ for over a decade now. He asked me what I’d do with £18 million (which happens to be Jonathan Ross‘ wage for a year of blabbing on British TV and radio (don’t ask). I told him, dad that is, not J.R, I’d buy an island, I’d make it self-sufficient, import a whole heap of abandoned, maimed and generally unwanted animals and feed them till they burst (not literally of course). If there were islanders there I’d make sure they had everything they needed or wanted, healthcare, clean water, anything to improve their lives, and I’d probably end up living in around about the same size house do now, typing away on a blog or two. See, what’s the point of money eh?

Okay, okay, celebrity t-shirts… Worn Free have come up with the novel idea of producing famous t-shirts ‘as worn by celebrities’, and here are a few to quench your thirst for a t-shirt related review (which after all is most likely why you’re here).

Talk of the Devil, well not quite, but there you go, coincidence works in mysterious ways. I used to love Nirvana – perhaps I’m getting old or maybe the Foos took the edge off for me, there’s only so much rock family history you can follow before you find you’d rather listen the sounds of the sea crashing on the beach or a distant train going by, I am getting old aren’t I? Anyway Grunge is most definitely dead as it says so on the t-shirt.

Cor! I think that Debbie Harry may have constituted a major part of my earliest crush as a kid, it wasn’t just her looks, she was a smouldering singer too, and even though I did spend my childhood calling her ‘Blondie‘ the effect is still pretty much the same. She’s hot and the t-shirt’s not bad either, looks like an old World Cup football (no, not soccer, that died in the 50s) shirt to me but I could be wrong. Sorry the photo’s too distracting. Get yours here.

Dublin Sound Studio Tee. James Newell Osterberg, Jr. (born April 21, 1947), better known as Iggy Pop rocks, there’s no two ways about it, the guy is made from steel and apart from a few dodgy albums in the past he can do no wrong in my eyes. He’s mental sure, but that’s the price you pay for being a punk rock god. I quite like the tee too, but in general I think it’s more about the cachet with WF, most of the designs wouldn’t usually make you bat an eyelid (there go any mentions on their Worn Free’s press page – the price of truth is high), but at least you can pretend you’re a pop star for a while. I think that Worn Free need to change a few things, less of the logo tees, more great graphic t-shirts wherever possible, I mean I wouldn’t care how awful the associated celebrity was if the design was amazing.

Something else, sack the PR, or at least take the time out to contact your reviewers personally, I mean press releases are kind of impersonal, kind of, what am I saying, they’re the written equivalent of sticking two fingers up at bloggers. Sorry, that’s the Socialist in me speaking out of turn, yet again. I don’t know, if you love celebrities and fame in general, if you want to emulate your favourite stars then maybe you should take a look at WornFree.com. There are tees worn by John Lennon, Johnny Ramone and other groovy idols, but in all honesty do you think that they wore them because someone famous wore them first? I doubt it.

For all the freedom that technology has brought us you have to admit that there have been some massive downsides to our information revolution, including the slow coaches in government catching on to ‘this thing called the Internet’. Essentially CCTV Britain doesn’t let you sneeze without recording it on some secret database or other, and i won’t even start on America, however let’s just say if you mention Iraq or terrorism in a phone call then you’re on their hot list, besides the fact that I very much doubt any of us are about to lay waste to civilisation, the alternative is a barcoded subsistence of mutual fear and conformity.

Now if you’re still with me and are at this very moment fidgeting as you wait for a less ethereal revolution to come your way, you might want to check out the offerings at BanT-Shirts.com, a site that provides a chink of light, a hope of fashionable resistance against the underwhelming moral minority that have little to look forward to except a turnaround in the world economy and their graves.

If you’re not a faceless follower of the mainstream media, and you want to shake up your community with a pithy yet pertinent message, then Ban T-Shirts organic cotton t-shirts have a collection that could help you on your way to becoming a socially acceptable political agitator. Ban T-Shirts offer a range of superb selection of printed on the finest brands of American made sweat shop free T-shirts including American Apparel; Royal Apparel and Organic Apparel.

Inspired by the counter-culture protests of the Vietnam War era, the Guns and Flowers T-Shirt is a popular choice at BT.

If you can do nothing else resort to peaceful protest, not that you’ll have a chance these days, most soldiers are trained to shoot you kneecaps away before you’ve got close enough to stick a flower in their barrel, but I appreciate the sentiment. Solid, strong, bold and adventurous in sentiment and design, I wish that more designers had the cahunas to put their beliefs straight nto cotton and be done with it.

The most ‘manly’ thing a man can do is show his sensitivity without putting his meat and two veg on the chopping block and begging for mercy. If you love your woman, if you love women, show them you’re on their side, be a hero and wear this t-shirt. Domestic violence is a serious concern for many women and men in the world, if there’s one thing that doesn’t make sense to me it’s physically torturing the one you love. Hence my love for Ban T-Shirts Real Men tee.

I’d urge anyone out there who wishes to surreptitiously or even subconsciously change the world for the better to consider purchasing this t-shirt. It’s a slogan t-shirt sure, but apart from the fact that it’s superbly well executed it actually displays a message worth wearing. Imagine if you’re strolling along and one guy considering taking out his life’s frustrations on his poor distraught family actually reconsiders his life for a moment, this isn’t fashion, this is humanism in action, and no one can argue the value of that.

I find myself watching Fox News here in Britain just to remind myself how screwed up the world is and especially how much the media is to blame for that. it doesn’t matter what’s going down, who’s changing the world, who’s fighting who, who’s in the wrong, who’s in the right, you can be guaranteed that Fox News will lie about it.

I suspect that most problems in the world have been exacerbated by the likes of Fox who come rain or shine spout the same old same old. the left are evil, a free market is the be all and end all, and if you’re not with us you’re against us. Roll on Obama.

The fact is that user-generated content is probably on the brink of saving the world, we don’t actually need mass media, honestly we don’t. Take a look around, their are even user-generated news channels like Current.tv now that show every day schmoes like you and me filming stuff from all over the world, unedited, un-biased truth that would shake the corporate status quo to its foundations if only it had a little more airplay.

Get out there, kick up some fuss, screw with the suits, tell them what you think , wear a t-shirt from BanT-Shirts.com!

If TCWSH tickles your fancy you can pick it up at http://shirt.woot.com/friends.aspx?k=6415 but hurry it’s only on sale for a few weeks and her die hard fans are snapping them up as we speak! So what is ‘The choice Was Not Hard’ about? Well it seems pretty self-evident to me, we all have to make choices in our lives, some of them good, some of them bad, for the most part (if we’re really being honest here) most human beings opt for immediate amusement, satisfaction, titillation or plain old convenience.

I’ve never understood the saying that one climbs a mountain ‘because it’s there’, if that actually made any sense I’d most likely never rise from my bed again, and why you might ask? Every body now ‘because it’s there’. The truth is we all do our own thing on this bizarrely awful yet awfully wonderful planet of ours, we have no choice, that’s what individuality is all about. If we honestly thought through every moment and hence action of our lives it would make for a particularly boring life all round. It would make sense to make money, and until very recently working with money made you plenty of wonga,

‘Don’t regret anything,’ I’ve heard that from several people in my life, which is absolute nonsense if you ask me, however I’m sure they meant well. The truth is you can’t do anything about it now, if you thought you were going to be a famous rock star or a great artist or the first man (or woman) or Mars and obviously now you know you’re not it shouldn’t make your life any less worth living, in fact you’re probably a more well-rounded personality than any of your heroes and heroines. You, I and a vat majority of people on this planet have made the wrong choices, experienced failure, felt pain and loss, but we’re still here and we’re still human. I’d rather aspire to be more human any day.

Back to the t-shirts, I know I’m far too philosophical for this blog but it keeps me sane (even if it drives you all crazy). If you didn’t manage to grab Jamie’s latest tee you should check out her collection at her groovy store www.medicatedclothing.com – there are plenty more examples of this designer’s piquant sense of humour here – I’ve featured a few for your delectation – but visit MC regularly if you find yourself addicted!

Circumstances is one of my particular favourites at Medicated Clothing, it’s the age old story of human endeavour overcoming insurmountable odds. I feel this tee continues the theme of Jamie’s particular brand of philosophy, life is hard, live with it. The image is wonderfully executed, it features two kids in wheelchairs on a staircase that has seen better days, to say the least. Life is treacherous, but I suppose that’s what makes it challenging, and challenge makes it fun, in a roundabout sort of way.

Forget landscapes, this is Spacescape by Jamie Marshall. You probably have to be an old hippy or an astronomer to understand this one, but the truth is the night sky is absolutely fascinating, it’s so vast and entrancing it could swallow you up. I had an abnormal fixation with the night sky as a kid, here’s a story recounted to me by various members of the family over the years… I was only 18 months old, yes a very early starter, I had a red go-kart, well made from a steel chassis and painted in thick enamel. I used to ride it everywhere. The only thing I loved more than that kart was the night sky, to the point I declared my intentions to be a ‘Space Man’ no not an astronaut, I’ve never been hot on maths, I just wanted to float around in space.

Anyway, to get to the point, one night I decided I was ready to fly off with the ‘Space Men’ who my mother recalled me talking about obsessively for my first year on earth. I took my kart out in the middle of the night, a clear and starry night, so as to make sure I’d be seen from above, and rode it a mile or two to the local library (don’t ask me why, perhaps it was the large expanse of concrete at the front – perfect for landing a flying saucer). I sat and stared at the stars and Moon, and waited. Eventually a craft arrived, filling the place with flashing lights. The creatures had decided to send a scout ship, and for some reason it wasn’t able to fly. They took me home and handed me back into my mother’s arms. She was crying her eyes out, she thanked them and offered them a cup of tea. They were policemen, not aliens. They refused and nodded at us as they set off into the night. That was the closest I ever got to space travel.

Not As Cool As You is an instant classic, although ‘d really like to see this as a mobile, I’m sure it would do a few babies’ egos the world of good, spinning around over the heads, giving them a sense of self worth before they’ve mustered the art of speech. Still I love the sentiment, very anti-fashion, very anti-media, very pro-humanity.

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Fashion really does suck you know, people don’t want to all look the same, that’s taken for granted. I’m glad that we don’t all wear silver jump suits and live in plastic apartments the way so many 1960′s and 1970′s sci-fi films had predicted, but still it’s got close at times. The 1980′s and 1990′s were filled with brand name addicts wearing tracksuits, shell suits even (god forbid), and of course trainers (sneakers for the USA), all declaring a unified love for a faceless sweat-shop fuelled faceless corporation with aspirations for world dominance.

I say buy what you like, wear what you want, don’t follow the crowd, it’s cool to not be cool, and that’s the truth.

Take a look at the rest of Jamie’s quirky t-shirt collection at Medicated Clothing.