Gordon Brown - Texture Like Sun

Gordon Brown - texture like sun. Oh the fun we have at Balcony Towers singing "Gordon" instead of "Golden" over this Stranglers classic. It's a song about herion. What is it about songs about herion? They always seem to be pretty good; Beetlebum by Blur, Perfect Day by Lou Reed, There She Goes by The Las, Dead Flowers by the Stones, Needle And The Damage Done by Neil Young ... ooooh, there's loads innit. Anyway, we've knocked up a T-shirt to celebrate the moorish world of smack-songs here: Gordon Brown - Texture Like Sun T-shirt

Todd Snider - Punktry & Western

OK, we made up "punktry & western" but if such a thing were to exist, Balcony's current new favourite find Todd Snider would be the embodiment of it. His drunken drawl and perfectly concise country songs are quite simply; the finest things to have graced the Balcony Shirts airspace for quite some time. Bucking the modern Nashville trend, Snider takes your slick production, airbrushed nonsence and country-by-numbers unit shifters and sticks them up your bum. He doesn't shift many units though. There's a moral in here somewhere but it's buried so deeply I can't be arsed to unearth it.

Tennis is for Posh Kids

Despite ritually taking the piss out of Tennis and it's fans/players. Balcony Shirts are made up of 50% tennis fans. There, we've said it. The other 50% like cricket, but we won't go into that. Anyway, at Balcony Shirts we're celebrating that fact that the second best British tennis player after "you know who" is ranked at 195th in the World. That's bad isn't it? I mean, I've never picked up a tennis racket in anger but I reckon I could give the 195th best player in the World a good game. Why not celebrate the glory of Wimbledon and have a butcher's hook at our ever-popular Tennis Is For Posh Kids T-shirt.

Cold-Blooded Chameleon Commandos

Whilst researching copy for our new product, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt we stumbled across mention of some Turtles spoofs that really caught our eye. If anyone has any details (or even better - copies) of some of these gems we'd love to hear from you. In no particular order, but all genius are: Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, Pre-Teen Dirty-Gene Kung Fu Kangaroos and finally the Cold-Blooded Chameleon Commandos. Who are they? Where are they? We need to know...

The Alfonz

Balcony Towers have been bouncing this morning to the fine sounds of The Alfonz. Head over to their myspace page where our picks are "Sitting On Your Radiator" and new demo "Look Back".

There's something charming about The Alfonz, there's an (almost certainly unintentional) nod to Airhead on "...Radiator", a nod to Modern Life era Blur on "Look Back" and a brief but welcome glance to Pavement on the demo "Floating Away". Good things in store...

http://www.myspace.com/thealfonz

Doves are rubbish

Went to see Doves the other night, they were rubbish.

Ronnie Cannon - Country Legend

At Balcony Shirts, we're pretty big fans of Country and Western Music, and absolutely massive fans of Talk Radio. A UK Talk Radio legend is a fella called "Phillip from South Norwood" who mainly rings up London's LBC radio and also Iain Lee on Absolute (previously Virgin). Imagine our surprise and joy when we discovered that Phillip had recorded the funniest country and western song of all time at Universal Studios in the US and posted it on You Tube.

We hope you enjoy it as much as we have:

Paul Cook - Songs and Stuff

Chances are you've not heard of Paul Cook, he plays the guitar and writes and sings some of the finest songs you've never heard. At Balcony Shirts, we're his biggest fans and we urge you to head over to myspace and have a listen to him.

http://myspace.com/paulcooksinger

Alternatively, you could just watch this video from You Tube and be suitably blown away:

You Tube Watch - Thank You For The Daves

A musical celebration of the magic of Dave. There are 43 in total, can you name them all? Some are characters, some are nicknames, some curiosities, but ALL are Daves. This film is dedicated to all the Daves of the World.

Lux Interior - RIP

Lux Interior - frontman and founder of The Cramps has died in hospital, aged 62. Lux, along with his wife Poison Ivy, founded The Cramps in 1973 and they became a key part of the '70s punk scene in New York City. Combining rockabilly and surf rock'n'roll, their sound was described as "Psychobilly". Lux was known for his wild antics on stage - just a few years ago i watched him strip off on stage and deep throat a microphone before taking off his wifes boots and drink the sweat from them. A true Legend. RIP Mr.Interior Sir.

The Von Bondies return

It's hard to believe that it has been 5 long years since The Von Bondies released Pawn Shoppe Heart. A lot has happened in that time - the band parted company with their label and went through several new members before settling with the new line up. Still featuring singer/songwriter Jason Stollsteimer and drummer Don Blum, they've been joined by Leann Banks on bass and Christy Hunt on guitar. And now they're back with their 3rd album; Love, Hate and Then There's You. We had a sneaky preview here at Balcony Shirts and were loving what we heard - and although it's not actually out in the UK yet, you can order it online and they'll ship it over quick smart.

Find out more at the Von Bondies Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/vonbondies

And here's the video for the first single to be taken from the new album, Pale Bride:

Google - you plummed it!

Remember the date folks: Saturday 31st January 2009. The day Google plummed it! Yep, after years and years of impeccable service, today at lunchtime, Google blocked every site on its books for being "malware".

We're not exactly sure what "malware" is, but old Googs doesn't like, no sir. What happens now eh? Where shall we go? Does anyone remember "Ask Jeeves"?

It doesn't really matter to be honest, it'll be forgotten tomorrow, and Google is going to release a statement later on, explaining what happened. Shall we have a guess? A young genius hacker? Terrorism? Someone split their coffee at Google HQ? It's VERY exciting.

The Orphans in Brighton - Tonight!

For any of you lucky enough to live in the Brighton area, get yourselves down to the Hobgoblin tonight for a real treat. The Orphans feature Hooligan and Boag from the most under rated of all '90s bands, These Animal Men. This time the roles are reversed, Hooligan sings and Boag plays bass. We've been playing the album Muff here at Balcony Towers for a while now and can confirm it's bleedin great! We'd love to be there tonight....unfortunately we're hitting the streets of Uxbridge instead. Exciting eh.

Check out the Orphans here: www.myspace.com/theorphansonline

The Hobgoblin is at 31 York Place, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 4GU

It's the weekend - Bacon Time!

Yes folks, it's Friday afternoon - which means tomorrow is Saturday and Saturday mornings = bacon sandwiches. Maybe it's not worth a blog posting on....but come on, it's bacon! Excuse me for getting a little excited. You people who don't eat bacon sandwiches are fools. I've got twice as much to look forward to this weekend. And through the week, i like to build up the excitement with a little look at this site:

http://worshipbacon.com/wiki/Main_Page

It's a beauty. Thank you bacon.

Iain Lee on Radio 6

As you may or may not know, we're big fans of Iain Lee here at Balcony Towers. We get the podcasts and everything. Unfortunately we only get to hear him once a week nowadays, on his Sunday night show on Absolute Radio. So imagine our joy when we heard he was filling in for George Lambs on Radio 6 every day this week! That's the weird one that you can only get on the internet and DAB. He's on at 10am, make sure you don't tune in early and catch Shaun Keaveny. He took the piss out of me once for liking These Animal Men, and that makes him a very bad person.

You can find out more about Iain at http://www.iainlee.co.uk/

Praadeeeeeeeeep!

You Tube Watch - Libertines Spoof

Any old skool Balcony Shirts afficionadoes (or just anyone who has read our "About Us" section) will know we're rather partial to indie legends The Libertines and especially Pete Doherty but we couldn't help but be amused by these two cheeky young scamps having a few pot-shots at them...

It's a faux Libs classic named "Dickensian Beauties". Notable moments are pulling an Oscar Wilde paperback out of a drain and fishing around bins for Pomme Bear crisps whilst chain-smoking tabs. Classy.

WOAH THERE.....what happened to the Blog??

Excellent question folks - it seems we got a little carried away with making a mighty fine website and forgot all about this little side project. Not that it's much of a project, more an occasional rambling about whatever is filling our heads at the time, and it's not usually t shirt related. This new entry - our first in...ahem...16 months, is no exception. It is Balcony Shirts related though because we've got some new trapper hats in stock and we're so excited, a little bit of wee came out. Not on the hats you'll be pleased to know. That would be wrong.

Nice though eh. And a bargain at £18. I've been searching the world wide web for some info on trapper hats, where they originated, that kind of thing. No such luck though. It seems they just appeared one day from absolutely nowhere, yet perfectly formed and capable of keeping our heads warm while also making us look damned cool at the same time. What more could you ask for. Go take a look, they're over here...

http://www.balconyshirts.co.uk/Mens-Retro-Clothes/Retro-Hats/sc1307.aspx

That's it for now - if anybody is reading this - we thank you for sticking with us. It'll be worth waiting for, don't you worry.

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