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
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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
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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
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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
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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.