The latest design from Ban T-shirts takes aim at the Republican Party's stance on women's issues. This T-shirt is called "The Elephant in the Room" and features the GOP elephant that has somehow gotten inside a uterus. It is printed on Royal Apparel organic cotton shirts and is priced at $20.
As if that weren't enough beards (how could it be?), new Aussie tee startup Hello Fresco has even more for you.
Their writeup promises "a lack of skulls, thunderbolts and general weird stuff" and while that's true, Hello Fresco does boast a ginger bearded face on every tee.
I think Shakespeare said it best when he said:
"He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man".
The weather here has started to take a turn for the decidedly chilly, so I was wondering what to wear to keep my head warm this winter?
I'd love to see the look on the policeman's face when someone reports that he's just been held up "by the stay-puft marshmallow man". Available from 80stees.
Whilst I think they're backing themselves into a corner somewhat with their snow-themed tees for snow-themed people, there's something cute about this snowflake tee from Snowbite.
After all, everyone likes snowflakes, right? Right. They're like the straight man's rainbow. In fact, one of my favourite coffee-table books is Snow Crystals which is just a book of photographs of, yep you've guessed it, snowflakes, but it is remarkably enchanting and far less boring than one would assume.
It was with some trepidation and a few friends that I went to the Bright Eyes gig last week. Never having listened to much of their stuff, my real reason for attending was for the support band - Jenny and Johnny. The touring twosome are Jenny Lewis (of Rilo Kiley fame) and Jonathan Rice (of being-Jenny's-boyfriend fame). I'm being a little harsh on Jonathan there. He's a moderately successful solo artist in his own right, and also starred as Roy Orbison in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line.
So to be more specific, I was really there to see Jenny Lewis. You see, I've been a fan of Rilo Kiley for a number of years, and have dutifully attended every reasonably close gig they or their bandmembers' various incarnations have played in my vicinity since 2005. This includes several outings as Rilo Kiley, a couple of Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins, as well as a trip to Leeds to see The Elected, the side-project of Blake Sennett, Rilo Kiley's lead guitarist (and Jenny's former boyfriend).
A former child star, performing comes naturally to Jenny, and this gig was no exception. She moves confidently on stage, and while her dress style may not have changed much over the years - sporting a short, floral-print dress matched with white tights and her flame-coloured hair in a fringed cut - her musical style certainly has.
The early Rilo Kiley records are experimentary avant-garde country indie-rock, with each subsequent album release gradually becoming more and more mainstream, culminating in the release of 2007's Under the Blacklight that saw the band's highest chart position at #22 in the US Billboard 200.
Her early collaboration with the Watson twins produced a gospel-style album of harmonised folk and country songs, which was followed by 2008's Acid Tongue, on which Jonathan's influence begins to be seen.
The current partnership sees Jenny's developed song-writing techniques put to Rice-style melodyless music, the lyrical content failing to hit home without the killer hooks of the Rilo Kiley work. The live show is actually better than I expected; it feels far rockier than the rather drab studio album "I'm Having Fun Now", thanks in part to an energetic and spirited performance from Rilo Kiley drummer Jason Boesel. Jenny and Johnny just doesn't have the magic that Jenny and Blake had - Jenny's song craftsmanship matched with Blake's raw emotion far better than with Johnny's dull-as-dishwater delivery.
Perhaps the clue to the problem is in the title of the album; Jenny is happier now than when with Rilo Kiley. There's nothing worse for a creative than satisfaction. If it were up to me I'd lock Jenny and Blake in a shipping container until they emerged, crying and bleeding, with RK's sixth studio album.
It's rather sad that one of the catchiest songs of the set is My Pet Snakes, a bitch-fest directed squarely at Blake Sennett that contains such cutting lines as
"(You) talk a lot of shit, but you would never start a fight" (Johnny)
"I'll sink this ship if I want" (Jenny, obviously in reference to RK)
and closes with the venomous
"All the best of luck with your career"
Now Jenny's songs have always drawn on her own life, as one would expect from a prolific songwriter, however the problem with airing such grievances in public in this fashion is that it forces the audience into a position of complicity; to applaud the song tacitly approves the sentiment and places the audience in "Team Jenny" by default.
That's why I wore my "The Elected" t-shirt to the gig - I refuse to play partisan politics with two of my favourite artists. Not that Blake is behaving any better; his new album Bury Me In My Rings contains a few ill-concealed stabs in Jenny's general direction:
"You think you're so cool/You think you're so hot/You've got those "go for the throat" eyes"
"So it’s the long face, nothing but dead eyes/I couldn’t miss them if I tried"
"You may not know what you are, but you know what you’ve done/And now you’re back out on the road havin’ fun"
The morning after the gig, I check the status of the band and find that Blake's announced that day (somewhat unsurprisingly given the acrimony) that Rilo Kiley have officially broken up. I guess there's really only one song to play at this point.
Let's not remember Rilo Kiley for the bitterness that has marred their final hours. Better to remember the good times, the happy times.
Rilo Kiley, thanks for the memories.
Masterfully combining two of the recurring themes of this blog, tshirtbaba's photoshopped image subtly undermines Che's socialist ideals (by suggesting his adoration of the capital of Capitalism) and parodies the clichéd overuse of both Milton Glaser's rebus and Che Guevara's iconic visage.
Che did visit New York of course, as he headed up the Cuban delegation to the United Nations in 1964, though since the advertising campaign started in 1977 - ten years after Che's death in Bolivia in 1967 - the only place those two will meet is in this poster, available now from MySoti.
I've been a long-time lover of the free music streaming service Spotify. I've danced to it, sung along to it, and shouted at it when the annoying adverts come on. But I wouldn't have changed it.
A few adverts in exchange for free music? Ok.
You don't have some of my favourite obscure bands on there? That's ok, you have lots of the mainstream stuff.
You don't have some of the biggest names on there? That's ok, that's what youtube's for.
But no longer. I'm done being a Spotify apologist. All that changed today when I got this message:
I should add that this wasn't entirely unexpected. A few days ago I got a pop-up message that invited me to read and agree to a new terms of service agreement. Unsure of what to expect (and unwilling to read a ream of contractual nonsense), I agreed, wondering abstractly if I would be the front, middle, or rear of the new human centispotify.
I've been resisting a switch to the peer-recommended service Grooveshark based on
a) a misplaced sense of loyalty to the Scandinavian green-motif'd venture-capitalist-funded enterprise
b) a fear of change
c) the stupid name. Srsly, Grooveshark? It sounds like a really corny DJ or an ill-advised attempt at creating a "cool" cartoon character. Not that Spotify is much better, conjuring up as it does images of a light menstrual flow, or acne-filled teenage years.
I can understand the need for investors to begin to see a return on their investment, and for the service to "monetize" their existing customer base. But with over a million paying subscribers in Europe (about one in ten users) I'd say they were pretty well monetized already.
Denying people access to their free service can only drive customers to rival services, which Spotify had an early lead on. With established names like Napster entering the mobile streaming market, the increased competition can only be good for customers (and bad for Spotify).
"I love music" tee from Purple Cactus, available from MySoti
While a cursory examination of the beta-service Mflow showed it to be pretty easy to use, the catalogue of five million tracks appears to be restrictive (isn't it great living in the future?), and although an initial appraisal of Grooveshark show it to be advert-stuffed, with 22 million tracks available, it looks to have the edge for those (like me) unwilling to reach into their wallets.
Although these services haven't stamped-out online piracy, I genuinely believe they serve to significantly reduce it. Given the option to listen to the same song legally or illegally, at the same cost, I think people will go for the most convenient option. Historically illegal downloading has been way easier, but with these streaming options available, the music industry seems to have found a way of maintaining a source of income (other than the lucrative and booming tour and merchandise revenue streams).
That is, unless these services make some horrendous error of judgement like altering their terms of service so a free user can only listen to a given song five times ever.
Apologies for the hiatus, hopefully you all got along ok without me for a while.
There's no shortage of t-shirt blogs on the net now, each offering their own particular combination of wit and wearables, so I'm grateful to those of you who have kept subbed to the RSS feed throughout my unexplained absence (whether through a misplaced sense of loyalty or simple forgetfulness).
In honour of finishing New Mario Bros for the Wii - a worthy addition to the Mario stable - today we have some more Mario tees and a short game review.
Although many will assume - as I did - that Mario Bros for the Wii is just another excuse to cash in on the franchise (Mario Tennis, anyone?), the game was actually a welcome return to the ethos of the much-loved 2D scrollers of the past, and as such is, in my opinion, the rightful heir to the Mario throne.
Incorporating many of the enemies you love to hate (like bob-ombs, bullet bills, hammer brothers, dry bones, and boos) along with all-new bad-guys and gameplay features like drop-in drop-out multi-player action, your attention is held through eight worlds of increasing difficulty, culminating in a lengthy adrenaline-fuelled boss fight against a Bowser of mythical proportions.
Having two players on screen is for the most part extremely helpful, more than doubling the chances of finishing a given level, although at times it can be annoying when you accidentally bounce off each other and all-too-often right off the screen.
Teamwork is the name of the game here, although I have to admit my tendency was to treat it like a Modern Warfare free-for-all, stealing boxes and surviving at all costs.
With fairly intuitive controls, familiar characters, and a steep learning curve, you'll soon be taking this game much more seriously than you intended.
Treading the fine line between innovation and satisfying the traditionalists with the ease of a professional tightrope walker, Nintendo deliver a much-needed respectable title to the platform hitherto plagued by novelty over playability.
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