Thanks for reading

See you on my new blog.

Posted – 21st January 2009 @ 20:37

If you have seen the Jason Mraz video for ‘I’m Yours’ and you are an eagled eye viewer then you will probably recognise this image. I searched the internet for a good hour trying to find the t-shirt that Jason Mraz was wearing but had no luck, so I decided to make my own.

I created the design on Pixelmator with (borrowed) images from google and finished it on Photoshop. I then printed out the template and cut round it with a stencil knife. As I have never made a t-shirt before I was unsure how to transfer the image, this is what I did:

1. Inserted a piece of card inside the t-shirt so the image would not go through to the other side.
2. Sprayed the template with spray mount and stuck it onto the t-shirt. (This was a bad idea really as the t-shirt is now really sticky, but I had no other option, oops!)
3. Made sure all parts of the t-shirt were covered (obvious really)
4. Sprayed with Pink spray paint (It was Monster Colors spray paint for those interested)
5. Removed template and surrounding paper
6. Dried with a hairdryer
7. Gave it a name – Love Note
8. Presented it to my sister to model for me
9. Took a picture
10. Posted onto internet

I am very please with the result and I hope to make more t-shirts like this in the future.

If anyone knows where I can get the real t-shirt from the video, please leave a comment or send me an email (info@retrome.co.uk), thanks!

I’d say last.fm is a mix between Facebook, YouTube and iTunes Genius.

It’s similar to Facebook because you can add Friends, write on their wall (shoutbox) and it gives you a list of recent activity.

You can type in a name of an artist and it will automatically play a song by that artist, or similar artist, depending on whether last.fm has it in their catalogue of music.

Last.fm recommends music to you based on what you have in your library already. For example if I type in ‘Bright Eyes‘ (who are my all time favourite band) and then click similar artists, it will give me a long list of artists that I may be interested in. This feature is very similar to iTunes Genius but it has been out for a lot longer than Genius and I believe that it works much better.

Here is how I use last.fm:

1) Every song I play through iTunes on my mac gets ‘scrobbled’ to my last.fm account on the net. A song gets scrobbled once it has been listened to for at least a minute (I think), all this means is that it has been added to your last.fm library.

2) Every song I play on my iPhone gets scrobbled onto last.fm every time I connect my phone to my mac.

3) I sometimes get a bit bored of my music on my iPhone, so I use the last.fm application that I downloaded off the iTunes App Store (for free) to listened to new (recommended) music. The last.fm app on my iPhone works anywhere that I have a network connection, be it Edge, 3G or WiFi!

Last.fm tells you your most played songs and most played artists and with that information it gives you a list of other users from across the world with very similar music tastes to you. I have managed to find loads of new music through using this feature.

If you wanted to see if your favourite band are playing a gig anytime soon, last.fm will tell you. It will also tell you if anyone else is planning on going; maybe make a few new friends? You can join groups of your favourite artists or write something in your journal. 

Since 17th August 2008 I have had 5502 scrobbles across 511 artists, I am a member of 1 group, I have 0 friends and 1 shout in my shoutbox.

I realise that this blog is probably very confusing, its late and I’m tired and I apologise. Just visit www.last.fm and have a damn good time, any questions please email me alex@retrome.co.uk

Feel free to add me as a friend, my username is retro-me. 

Posted – 7th January 2009 @ 23:33

Okay, so this one isn’t really sticking with the kind of t-shirts I intended to post, but here goes!

Everyone has there own little sayings and gestures that get spread among friends, well this one is a favorite of mine.

Straight from American company Crooked Monkey, this one can be bought direct or from Palmercash.

If you do a google search for ‘That’s How I Roll T-Shirts‘ and flick through the sites, I’m sure you would find a hundred different variations of the saying, but this one is my favorite.

That’s How I Roll!

Price $21.97 (+ overseas shipping)

Posted – 7th January 2009 @ 00:22

Joe Black is a relatively new Artist on the urban/street/whatever you want to call it art scence. 

My first encounter of his work was a collaboration piece he did with Miss Bugs named The Lego Monster of Spin back in the early part of 2008.

 I later found him at the Miss Bugs solo show at the Ink’d Gallery in Brighton, where he had done a massive collaboration piece with Miss Bugs; again named The Lego Monster of Spin. If my memory serves me correctly I believe it was up for £6,000 and was the last original to sell at the show.

The piece below was released at the end of 2008 and was an edition of 25 priced at £125; it sold out in minutes. Lucky for me I was able to get one before they all went and to my delight it arrived this morning. This piece truly is a stunning diptych print, it comes with a ‘viewer’ which is used to make the image appear smaller so it can be seen easier; a nice touch I thought.

In 2009 I expect to see Joe Black go from strength to strength, he will be going over to NYC in April with Miss Bugs for a joint show at the BrooklynNite Gallery. Hopefully I should be travelling to the preview night so I will post a review upon my return.

Check out Joe Black’s site mrjoeblack.com he has loads of really nice originals made from lego, pins, buttons….. etc. etc. etc.

Posted – 5th January 2009 @ 23:41

When I started this site all of a week ago, I decided that I would only post t-shirts from UK sites; I changed my mind! It seems there are so many amazing t-shirts coming out of the States at the moment and there is always a thing called worldwide delivery.

This gem of a T-Shirts comes from designer Thiago Borges, its an 8 layer screen print apparently made of Sugar, Spice and  Plastisol Ink.

You can as usual get this one by clicking the image, hurry though as these are going fast.

Check out some of Thiago’s other designs here.

Available for the Guys and the Girls.

Price: $18 (+ a large shipping bill)

Posted – 2nd January 2009 @ 00:40

From one of the best movies in recent times, this fantastic portrayal of the Joker played by the late Heath Ledger is a must for any fan of Batman.

Price: £19.99

Posted – 1st January 2009 @ 21:33

This strangely titled T-Shirt from FCUK comes in black, red & white, unfortunately though if you want the white version you will have to get on down to your local FCUK store as it isn’t available online.

Click the image to buy this T-Shirt

Price: £10

Posted – 30th December 2008 @ 21:17

This Space Invaders t-shirt is very Retro. Designed by LA based company Goodie Two Sleeves, you can get this one today from Truffle Shuffle.

Click the image to buy the t-shirt

Price: £24.99

Available for the ladies as well as the gentlemen.