Thunderfrogs

When there's nothing left to burn...

2011-11-20T22:25:00.000Z

You have to set your t-shirt on fire.

From Australia With... Beards?

2011-10-21T15:13:00.000+01:00

What is it with Australians and beards?

There's the inimitable Aussie band "The Beards", rocking their mixture of comedic beard-based original songs and bearded-band covers (think ZZ-Top).

While the above song is obviously a classic, my favourite 'The Beards' track title is "If Your Dad Doesn't Have A Beard, You've Got Two Mums".

T-shirts and other merchandise available from The Beards store.

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".

Silly Hats

2011-10-20T20:49:00.001+01:00

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.

Cookie Monster knitted hat from 80stees.

Pikachu girl looks like the perfect partner for Frank from Donnie Darko.

Homemade Dr. Zoidberg ski mask via Fashionably Geek.

TMNT Lapland hat from 80sTees.

This awesome flamingo hat is seemingly available from "fcandm" - and cheaply enough - though you have to buy two dozen at a time.

Feel free to add your own favourites in the comments.

Half Price Halloween Tees at Threadless

2011-10-20T20:09:00.002+01:00

A whole bunch of scary-themed tees are half price right now over at Threadless. Get them while they're, um, half price. At Threadless.

Snowbite

2011-10-15T16:46:00.001+01:00

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.

Are We Breaking Up?

2011-07-18T23:40:00.001+01:00

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.

Che Hearts New York

2011-06-14T00:06:00.001+01:00

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.

Oh, Spotify

2011-05-21T15:50:00.003+01:00

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.

New Super Mario Bros Wii

2011-03-31T23:50:00.001+01:00

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.

I give it 5 stars out of 5.

Ban T-shirts Comment and Win

2011-01-24T17:55:00.008Z

Ban T-shirts have a competition going on right now and you could win three T-shirts of your choice. There are also two runners up prizes of a T-shirt each.
Ban Tees is well known for its generous selection of political T-shirts as well as designs that focus on the environment, media, immigration and Native American issues. Most of their range is printed on organic cotton T-shirt brands such as Royal and American Apparel.
For more details about the T-shirt competition click here.

$10 sale at Threadless

2010-08-18T20:26:00.003+01:00

Yes it's that time of year again, $10 tees and $30 hoodies at Threadless.

Eclipse! by Ian Leino, ~~$18~~ $10 from Threadless
For those with a cursory interest in the violence and beauty of the heavens, check out these stunning photographs: one of a supernova, and these remnants of supernovae SN1006, SN1572, and the Crab Nebula.

Pick Your Poison

2010-07-29T19:37:00.005+01:00

"Beer" tee (as seen in Repo Man) $21.95 from Found Item Clothing
"Drugs" tee 38,50€ from Sixpack France
^ The winner of the "tee most likely to be cited as reasonable suspicion to stop and search" award.

Death and Drugs by Rockett Clothing, currently unavailable
^ This one has some nice drug-related puns in the form of a lineup for a fictional music festival, including "Creedence Bongwater" and "Bill Cosby, Pills and Hash".

Remember though, kids, drugs are bad, m'kay?.

Thunderfrogs Top Eleven Pac-Man T-Shirts

2010-07-19T20:30:00.017+01:00

Apropos of not very much, I thought I'd compile a best of list of t-shirts featuring everyone's favourite pie-chart-resembling video game character, Pac-man.

"Pac Ghosts" t-shirt £10 from Bang Bang T-Shirts.

Neon Pac-man t-shirt $20 from 80sTees

"Called For Help" t-shirt $19.95 from GlennzTees

"The Madness of Mission Six" by Travis Pitts, available from Threadless.

"Last Supper" t-shirt $19.97 from NerdyShirts

"Who Pacs The Pacmen?" t-shirt from RedBubble. See more of James' work here, and my interview with him here.

"Ain't Afraid" t-shirt $20 from 80sTees

"Digital Smile" t-shirt by Goodie Two Sleeves, available for £20 from Urban Retro.

"Dot Overdose" t-shirt $20 from Dead Zebra

"Cookies" t-shirt $18 from Threadless

"Busted" t-shirt $18.95 from Splitreason.

Please vote Thunderfrogs up on http://t-shirtblo.gs/

Luke, you should have finished jedi school...

2010-07-05T23:17:00.006+01:00

"After boasting to the more experienced pilots of Red Squadron, he arrives late for the attack, disobeys orders and ignores Obi-Wan's repeated pleas to use the force. Han Solo is not impressed with Luke and must now deal with a vengeful Darth Vader and all Red Five can do is watch from above as the veteran Red Leader calmly demonstrates the correct way to fire a proton torpedo down a thermal exhaust port."

That's not exactly how I remember it happening, but if you're still proud of the Dagobah dropout, and you're a girl, you can proudly display your allegiance to the Rebel Alliance with this cool t-shirt.

Luke Skywalker t-shirt $30 from Her Universe.
Via http://dbsw.net

World Cup news

2010-06-23T12:34:00.009+01:00

Breaking news...

England make it through to the last 16 in the World Cup!

Rooney goal celebration t-shirt £9.99 from iffytonstores
T-shirt found via The Sun

A greeting is required... but which one?

2010-06-23T12:29:00.004+01:00

Almost everything $10 at Resist Today

2010-06-18T22:00:00.003+01:00

All shirts, pillows, bags, and limited-edition wallets are $10.

Monkey vs. Mao wallet $10
They also have some lovely new one-of-a-kind wallets in. I picked up this one.

10% off at 80sTees

2010-06-18T21:41:00.004+01:00

Through June 19th, get 10% off your order at 80stees by using the discount "StayCool" at checkout.

Stay cool? Ghost's always frosty.

^ Do want.

50% off at Sixpack France

2010-06-18T21:18:00.009+01:00

Sixpack France is pleased to invite you to its online pre-sales

From Thursday June 17th to Sunday June 20th 2010

50% off on all our online store!

Men and women collections, accessories, books and fanzines *

Voucher Code : PEYOTEPOEM

Shakespeare
by Mark Owens; €16,75
Nice iconography. Looks like it's already half price though, so the voucher code wouldn't work for this one.

Wild Cats by Hello Monsters; €32,50
Alternative title:
"Michael Jackson's hair is a cat, your argument is invalid"

Secret DBH discount code, and the perfect tee?

2010-06-02T21:36:00.009+01:00

The irony is strong at DBH this week.

"The Perfect Tee"
by a_mar_illo
10% off this and all other tees at Design By Humans with the discount code SECRET. Valid until Sunday June 6th.

And in other news:

Use the coupon code 15OFF and receive 15% off your next purchase at Loops & Pluto! This coupon code may be used storewide but must be used before June 3, 2010. Enjoy!

Trompe L'oeil

2010-05-31T20:54:00.009+01:00

We've all seen the lame tuxedo tees, but there's more to trompe l'oeil than that one-hit-wonder.

You have the bandolier:

The gangster:

The ghostbuster:

And... the suicide bomber?

^ This one wins the award for "Top t-shirt not to board a London Underground train wearing". Click here for a CNN report and interview with the designer.

How Odd

2010-05-31T13:31:00.002+01:00

Any similarities to this blog, including the Thunderfrogs name on a lightning background, are surprisingly coincidental.

Star Pax?

2010-05-19T22:27:00.005+01:00

The Gentle Sith I, by JamesHance, available from MySoti.
For an endless supply of Star Wars-themed fan art, check out distractedbystarwars.

Imaginary Friends

2010-05-04T17:23:00.007+01:00

Garfield Minus Garfield:

Calvin & Hobbes on ritalin:

Drop dead, ~~Fred~~ Harvey.

Dinosaurs and Discount Codes

2010-05-03T17:38:00.009+01:00

Hardcore Thunderfrogs stalkers will remember I covered my Top 11 Dinosaur T-shirts some time ago. Well, there's a couple of new designs that would now make the grade.

"Know your dinosaurs" by Sarah Sobole on Threadless reminds us that even the taxonomy process poses dangers.

Raptor hoodie from MouthMan (founding member of 70s/80s rock band Journey, in case you were wondering why the site autoplays Don't Stop Believing). And YES, this is available in adult sizes!

Discount codes
Through May 7, save 20% on your entire order at 80stees by using the discount code "Bazinga" upon checkout.

I think a better discount code would be "WHEATON!!!!"

10% off at Design By Humans until Sunday with discount code BUYDBH.