Once again, the gypsy punks of Gogol Bordello, and specifically their Ukrainian lead singer Eugene Hütz, are the subject of one of Simon’s hand-painted tee designs.

I’m sure that a few of you will be reminded on a rather famous album cover from The Clash, which went on to be an extremely popular tee, when you take a look at this design. Just like the last Gogol Bordello tee, I’m drawn to this one because of the way that it represents the DIY ethic of punk, even though with the amount of time and effort that Simon puts into each tee (about six hours) it would probably be more cost-effective for him just to buy a tee from their merch stand, but clearly that isn’t the point, this tee is truly unique. Although, if you’d like one drop me an e-mail and we’ll work out how we can make it a bit less unique!

(It should probably be noted that this tee is © Jackie Canchola, and as such might suffer from a few copyright issues)

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Tags » Eugene Hütz • gogol bordello • simon faircliff • t-shirt • white

Todays offering from Simon draws inspiration from music, which is rather more lowbrow than I’ve been used to writing about to be honest. The band in question is Gogol Bordello, a band who have been described by Phill Jupitus as sounding “a bit like The Clash having a fight with The Pogues in Eastern Europe.”

They aren’t my kind of thing (I haven’t given them a fair shake to be fair though, having only heard one song), but I know they’ve got a strong following, and I really like the idea of people producing fan tees of their favourite bands rather than buying overpriced merchandise. That said, the overpricing tends to only really become apparent when bands are playing arena tours, smaller bands seem to still give their fans enough respect not to gouge them.

Obviously, the GB in the middle of the design stands for Gogol Bordello, and as the title to this post may have tipped you off, the ring of cyrillic around the edge says ‘Gypsy Punk Revolution’ in Russian, a language which was presumably picked because of the number of Russian members of the band, though they are a thoroughly multi-national bunch. I think that the DIY style works really well with this kind of tee, it feels like its getting back to the roots of the punk ethic.

As usual, if you’re interested in purchasing one Simon’s tees, send me an e-mail via the contact page, and I’ll send a message to Richard, who will put the wheels of commerce into motion.

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Tags » gogol bordello • music • simon faircliff • t-shirt

In the continuing Faircliff-fest, day three is a picture of French Absurdist dramatist Alfred Jarry (the same one as on his Wikipedia page, I think) with the title of his best known play Ubu Roi sitting on either side of his head.When looking through his bio, I noticed that he wrote Ubu Roi when he was 23, maybe that means I’ll reach my creative peak at the same age, so expect some top notch descriptions of t-shirts with robots on them in 2008!Again, if you’d like one of Simon’s tees, they aren’t for sale in the traditional sense, but if you send me an e-mail then I’ll get a message to him via my friend Richard.

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Tags » Alfred Jarry • simon faircliff • t-shirt • ubu roi • white

When I first looked at this tee I thought “aha, you’re not getting me this time, Faircliff, this t-shirt is all about going to the beach!” Then I sat back, impressed with my ability to understand the French language, although admittedly the bucket and spade was pretty helpful. Oh, Andy. Andy, Andy, Andy, how wrong you were!’Sous les pavés, la plage’ translated into English means ‘beneath the pavement, the beach.’ This was a popular slogan used by student rioters in Paris back in 1968. The rioters would smash up paving stones so that they would have something to throw at the police, underneath the paving was a layer of sand, and what do you find at the beach… sand! Yes, even when they’re throwing rocks at each other, the French still managed to get poetic about matters.

This tee isn’t necessarily for sale, but if you’d like one of Simon’s hand-painted tees drop me an e-mail using the contact form and I’ll get a message to him via my friend Richard.

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Tags » black • French • paris • riot • simon faircliff • t-shirt

Okay gang, I’m going to class up the joint by kicking off each day (UK time, you Californians will be getting your dose of culture before bedtime) with a tee from Simon Faircliff, who is a friend of a guy that I lived with at university.Simon spends about six hours crafting each t-shirt. The designs aren’t printed, he sketches out each design on the tee in pencil before filling it in using using fabric paint. As such, Simon isn’t exactly mass-producing these tees, but if you really, really, really want one, e-mail me through the contact form and put the wheels in motion.

The source for todays tee is the title page of a Russian Futurist manifesto published in 1913, presumably this one. The text says (when translated into English) “A slap in the face of public taste” which I was a little surprised by, as it didn’t feel as grand of a statement as you’d expect from any kind of a manifesto. If you’d like to learn more about Russian Futurism you could take a look this Wikipedia page. I like the style of the tee, although I guess that’s because cyrillic is so indecipherable to me, I dunno what the little pointing hand is about though, maybe its some kind of a nod towards the futurism?

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Tags » cyrillic • russian • simon faircliff • t-shirt • white