Oh, do I remember the xylophone toy from this shirt. I’m not sure any adults that might have been witness to me playing with it appreciated my musical skill as much as I did, but parents just don’t understand. Also, dinosaurs. If such a xylophone dinosaur ever did actually exist, I’m fairly certain they would have never gone extinct. After all, what better to do holed up in a cave waiting out an ice age than play your dinosaur? (Available at Threadless)
I’m sure the King of Pop would be happy with this one. His famous red leather zippered jacket from the Beat It video would be a bit expensive, but in t-shirt form, it’s certainly within my reach. A bit cheap, like tuxedo t-shirts, but that’s kind of part of the fun, isn’t it? (Available at Threadless)
I wish the designer had more to say about the inspiration behind this shirt, but the short and squat asian woman sharing their headphone cord and listening to their little radio device is adorable! (Available at Threadless)
He’s the king! The circle of music and all that. You’ve got to love The Lion King references (or, at least I do), and Elvis is the king, after all. The classic image on this shirt of Rafiki raising the new king with Elvis in the royal position is pretty hilarious, especially so given the childlike scale of Elvis. (Available at Threadless)
The title of this shirt, “lovely face”, gets Bill Withers stuck in my head. Which is kind of cool, since I like the song, but also kind of annoying. The hair on the figure depicted on the t-shirt also reminds me of one of the monkeys from the Gorillaz, which is also kind of cool. I’m not sure what the designer was going for with the dripping rainbow face and all, but it looks awesome and reminds me of some sweet stuff. (Available at Threadless)
Amazing! I love the little penguins in the shirt standing in a row like an octave of a keyboard. I’d play the penguin piano any day, and they look happy enough to possibly enjoy it themselves. If Happy Feet taught me anything, it’s that penguins love to sing, so I’m sure that’s the sound this piano would manifest. (Available at Threadless)
I’m not sure that a shirt, being a silent medium, can really be the official guide to music. But featuring mainstream genres like hip hop and blues to more niche genres like ambient and beatbox, in the shape of a music note, this shirt does a pretty fine job of it. (Available at Threadless)
Spacemen certainly do rock. I love the way at first (with the exception of the bassist, I guess) it looks like this shirt has a normal spacemen on the moon picture on it, until you notice the instruments. The keyboardist looks like he’s just leaning over a toolbox or something, and I didn’t even see the drummer at first, hidden atop the moon landing module thing. I might have appreciated some kind of pun on rock, myself, but still an awesome t-shirt. (Available at Threadless)
Well, the very long title says it all. With love and food and water and shelter one can go a long way. (Available at Threadless)
The famous Abbey Road shot, by the Beatles. Only, with beetles. Get it? What better way to (mis)represent the Beatles on a shirt than their most famous image and namesake. (Available at Threadless)
Rocky would be proud. Well, maybe. But this shirt depicts many different eyes of the tiger, complete with cat eyes, tentacle alien eyes, sunglasses, crazy swirly eyes, a monocled eye, girly eyes, eight-ball eyes, ninja masked eyes, a single cyclops eye, an eyepatch, Cyclops visor eye, and X’d out dead guy eyes. The best Eye of the Tiger shirt I’ve ever seen, that’s for sure. (Available at Threadless)
Ok, so the actual title of the shirt is “kwaaaaaak”. I figured walkman speaking was a little more descriptive, so sue me (er, I don’t mean you, Sony). This pretty awesome line drawing shirt features an old Walkman popped open, showing the all too familiar sight of a cassette that has malfunctioned and whose tape has sprung a leak. In this case, however, said leak makes the resultant image look like a mouse, thus the kwaaaaaak. Funny old throwback shirt, throwback colors, sweet design. And once more for the fun of it.. kwaaaaaak. (Available at Design By Humans)
Pretty simple here, an owl is playing a violin to make the music of the night. The shirt doesn’t otherwise really remind me of the song much at all, though you could argue the similarites between an owl’s mask and The Phantom. (Available at Threadless)
I’ll quote the designer of this sweet shirt – I drew this while listening to The Raconteurs – Consolers of The Lonely. I have the album and can definitely see the influence it had. I love the old timey skeleton with his old timey mustache (and monacle!), I love the banjo/drum one man band-ish thing, and I love that he’s hocking miracle tonic. Sign me up, I’ve been in need of a cure-all for a while now. (Available at Threadless)
The Bag O’ Bones Boogie is certainly a dance I would have to adopt at a party, particularly if there were skeletons prodding me to do so. I’m not sure a band with a fiddle, a trumpet, and a flute, could use a flag bearer over a fourth musician, but again, skeletons. I’m not going to tell them stuff that is clearly their business. (Available at Threadless)
I have such a hard time not typing 99 Luftbaloons, as I mistype balloon every time I type it, but so it goes (get it?). 99 red balloons (or 99 luftballons) is a classic by Nena, and this t-shirt represents it well. (Available at Threadless)
The shirt itself seems fairly hi-fi, with a great amount of detail, really, but the designer calls it lo-fi. So be it, I still love the detail. Turn my volume up, indeed! (Available at Threadless)
Normally I’m not terribly fond of the TypeTees shirts with just lettering on them. I like a good typeface just as much as the next guy, and clever sayings make me chortle, but what’s good for an email signature is usually not enough for me to wear around. That being said, there are a couple today that made me chortle enough that I have to link to them. The first is here, making fun of hipsters. And man, do I like making fun of hipsters. As Stuff White People Like points out:
If you mention a band you like and the other person has heard of them, you lose. They own you. It is essential that you like the most obscure music possible.
Thus, listening to bands that don’t even exist yet is the best possible music ever, inherently! (Available at Threadless)
(Edit: Now available as a hoodie, too!)
I really want one of these. Hell, I want a piano and I want a typewriter, having them combined into the same thing just reeks of awesome. (Available at Threadless)
