Grateful Dead Kennedys

Not only do you have to love this mashup (of two very different bands, both of which I listen to quite frequently) but you also have to love the name “ye olde Retard Riot shoppe“. Less lovable is the fact that it’s sold out (this thing has been all over the internet while this blog was taking a break so no wonder), hopefully it’ll get reprinted. If not, you can always get the Ronald McHitler shirt…

Anti-You

So, this was gonna be about Blood of the Young and a couple of their shirts (see above) but then I got tired just trying to figure out what the hell they were and I also discovered the Anti-You shirt was sold out (you can get it here though, and from a million crappy Zazzle-esque places) so… nah.

Dusty Lumber

You know, I’ve pretty much seen it all, whether you’re talking weirdness or gruesomeness in a shirt company, but I was still a bit baffled by Dusty Lumber. Most of the shirts use really detailed, sometimes very nice illustrations, although they aren’t quite there when it comes to contrast and a good use of color, but then all of a sudden there’s a shirt with an all-over print of killer Ian Stawicki, without a single word of motivation on why they’ve opted to do this. The photos in the “about” page seem to offer an explanation (this is the work of young and immature assholes) until you see the name of their “president” is also Stawicki, and you’re forced to wander whether they’re related or just trying to be funny. Or if it isn’t Ian on the shirt in the first place. All in all, it’s enough to put me off this company, which in itself is somewhat of an achievement – normally it takes really crappy shirts to do that, and most of the Dusty Lumber shirts are pretty nice.

Vintage Motörhead shirt on eBay – The chase is better than the catch (at lest this particular catch)

Though I’m no fanatic, I like Motörhead a lot. You know, the old golden years (plus 1916 (which, in this case is an album and not a year)). I always used to have a Motörhead shirt from the tender age of eight or so, until I lost the last one about ten years ago (or maybe more). I’ve always meant to replace it, but never felt like buying a brand new regular Snaggletooth shirt from some street vendor (and buying a concert tour shirt featuring one of the later albums NEVER crossed my mind, believe me!). So, I either want a ‘vintage looking’ shirt (which tend to be ugly) or a real vintage shirt (which tends to get REAL pricy). Still, now and then, I have a look at what’s on offer on eBay. Genuine 70s shirts are very expensive, and I strongly suggest there’s a lot of fakes being sold for hundreds of dollars. Also, my everlasting problem with vintage shirts makes a lot of them impossible – the sizes, older concert shirts are rather small for big fat guys like me.

Anyway, I just wanted to show you one of today’s finds:

A shirt from the 1983 ‘Another Perfect Day’ tour. I got this album when it was new, on cassette, and I still think it’s really good even though Robo made the band sound quite differently. Now, the album cover is a bit special even in it’s origial form, and this is not a great rendering of it. But you know, I’d still TOTALLY wear this. Except… there are a few reasons why I won’t. One thousand reasons. Yup – one thousand smackaroos is the asking price for this bad boy. Nice to see there are still optimists out there…

Filth and Decay – BE CAREFUL!

Yeah, I know! It’s easy to get fooled. “Filth and Decay” is not a bad name and at first you see all the high contrast devilish imagery and you think you like it. Then you realize it’s just tarot cards put on a shirt and it’s clothing for neo spiritual, new age fucking hippies and then it’s like when you see a photo of a sexy lady and suddenly realize it’s a guy.

Riding the Satan bandwagon

Much as I hate to bash some enterprising person doing their thing on Etsy, and as much as I like shirts with a satanic touch, there’s a lot of shit out there that I just can’t stand. Shit like this. Cutesy satanism, tounge in cheek devil worship, goofy crap. As much as I don’t like religion, even when it’s the dark variety, satanic shirts should be evil and bad ass, not cute and “funny”. Ah, I dunno… I just don’t like this at all.

Tshirtbox – finally a Swedish version of the shirt site you love to hate!

Ok, so why am I even writing about this? There’s a billion websites that sell “funny” shirts (aka shirts that are only funny once. if you’re a moron. no, not mormon). I flip through the first 25 shirts and turn my back forever. So what’s special enough about Tshirtbox that makes me wanna write about it. Well, mainly the fact that they’ve taken the trouble to come up with a few original Swedish prints instead of just copping the regular shirts everyone else sells. They’re still “funny” shirts, but I applaud the effort.

This one, however. Disliking the Swedish rail company (who hasn’t been so great at running trains on time since they were privatized) is a national sport, but still… buying a shirt about it? I hope to god this remains unsold!

So, all in all crappy shirts that are only interesting to Swedes. Not my finest moment as a fashion blogger, huh? I will say this though:, there’s one shirt at that website that I’m actually considering, but I’ll keep that under wraps until I make my mind up.

Nooooooooooo!!!! (KLF content)

What. The. Fuck?

There are things you just DO NOT DO. One of them is taking classic KLF ‘White Room’ imagery and write “Joy division” and fuckin “Bob Marley” above it. I seriously don’t give a flying fuck if there’s some sort of reason for it or some kind of joke I’m not getting. I hate Bob Marley. I hate everyone who doesn’t hate Bob Marley. Get this shirt off the internet please, KIDS can see this you know!

And no, I won’t link to this piece of shit shirt.

How to look not only naked, but naked AND British (yuk)!

Seriously, what the fuck? I think it’s a fascinating idea, printing clothes that make you look naked, but I’ve never quite understood why you’d want to wear them? To look sexy? To shock people? To disgust people?

If you wanna be sexy, you couldn’t get it more wrong. If you want to make people sick however, this may be the shirt for you. I mean, the front is not so bad, but the back… eugh! The only thing I’m missing is a bad sunburn for that perfect “British 20-something on his first charter trip to benidorm” look that makes all the rest of us feel a little bit more sexy on the beach.

Fortunately, as is the case with so much of the “look naked” clothing, this is just an aaart project (what isn’t, these days?) with an edition of one copy, so hopefully we won’t have to see this again.

You don’t deserve that shirt!

Wanna get an underground music fan really, really upset? Show them a photo of some mainstream celebrity wearing a shirt with a band they love and adore! There’s a great thread on the Nuclear War Now! forum about this. I’ve only read parts of it yet, but rest assured, I’m gonna read all of it! Lots of profanity, lots of mud slinging, lots of plain old hatred. You have been warned.

Personally, I kinda figure that even really really famous people might actually like unknown or unexpected bands. However, there’s no denying that a lot of people walk around wearing Iron Maiden and Ramones shirts, though you’re pretty damn sure they’ve never listened to them in their lives. And I can sort of understand that, I guess – it can sometimes be tempting to buy a great shirt even though you don’t like the band – it’s happened to me several times, although I’ve been able to resist most times. Also, I figure ultra rich and famous people probably have stylists who dress them and once you’ve given up the desicion making on what to wear, I guess you don’t really care anymore, as long as it looks cool.

So, what about Ryan Gosling wearing a Limp Wrist shirt? I really don’t know. I hope he likes them. And if he doesn’t, I hope a lot of people see the photo and check them out, and if that happens – it was