The Ukulele Instructional Song and Iain Lee

"Mummy, we done another sing".

At Christmas we get pretty busy, so I couldn't do this blog. It's January, we're not especially busy, so I'm doing it now.

Just before the madness of Christmas, or "Chrimbo", as some people insist on calling it, we made another song. It's the 3rd song/video we've put on our You Tube channel. And it's by far the least popular. Yeah!

It's a song about the ukulele. Not only is it "about" the ukulele, but it tries to teach you how how to play the ukulele. Then, when you've learnt the three chords in the song, you'll be able to play the song itself. I'm confusing myself.

By a stroke of luck, whilst we were recording it, Iain Lee asked us if we'd print his t-shirts for him. We wet our pants a little, but remained cool enough to ask him to feature in our new video. When he agreed, we really did wet out pants. For real.

The video features lots of our friends and shop customers, thank you!

How To Bake Bread - The Bread Song

Everyone likes bread don't they? And everyone likes songs too. So what could be better than a song about bread? Not very much we reckon, and so we've produced just that. But it's not just any old song about bread - this one gives you step-by-step instructions on how you (yes, YOU) can make your own loaves and therefore become a baker. One listen could potentially change your life forever. Well, it could, couldn't it? Anyway the recording features the entire Balcony team, and it would be wrong of us not to mention our very cool 'Real Man Bake Bread' t-shirt at some point here -so we just have. Marvellous.

Iain Lee Appreciation

You know those companies that just throw free stuff about to EVERYONE in hope that they'll get some free publicity? Well, I can state without a second's hestation that that isn't us. I can count on 2 fingers the things we have sent to "celebrities" for free.

When we started doing Balcony Shirts "full time", about 6 years ago, we discovered Iain Lee (or "that bloke from the 11 O'Clock show" as we called him at the time) on LBC radio. He made us laugh and stuff, wicked eh? So we sent him a flight bag with a fake logo from the Lost TV series on it because he liked Lost. It was probably illegal. Oh well.

He was asking for free stuff over the Twitter the other day, as a joke, because someone asked him if people sent him free stuff, so we obliged and offered him one of our Ukulele Hero T-shirts. He accepted. This is boring isn't it? Yeah. Well, to cut a short story even shorter we sent him a T-shirt and he plugged us. That was nice of him and we weren't expecting it. We had the busiest night on the website we'd had since Christmas, so that was brilliant, because it's pretty tough selling T-shirts over the internet.

But it's fun. x

A Promise Is A Promise...

I was taking pictures of the shop today for our new website and these little scamps walked past. They made me promise I'd put a picture of them on the website so I have. They will check later on the main site and not see themselves, they will become angry and come back to the shop and demand an explanation, I will show them this blog post. They will apologise. It will be a beautiful moment.

Eastenders makers deny new product placement laws are "ruining the show"

The makers of hit BBC soap "Eastenders" have angrily denied accusations that new product placement laws are ruining the show. The Broadcasting giant was bombarded with complaints last night after popular characters Kat and Alfie Moon screamed "THANK WORCESTER FOR THAT" after finally being reunited with their estranged baby. It is not the first time the show has attracted attention for it's spurious product placement. Only last week, show stalwart Dot Branning was heard to utter the phrase "You can't get quicker than a Kwit-Fit fitter" when suggesting where Max should get his vintage Mercedes serviced.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ukulele‏

With ukulele sales at our Uxbridge shop reaching a level that has got us actively considering changing it's name to The Uxbridge Ukulele Centre we thought that this might be a good time to share this wonderful rendition of 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' with you, which in addition to demonstating just how good a ukulele can sound gives us a chance to mention that we also stock a wallet that relates to said film.

Ukuleles and wallets available in a t-shirt shop - whatever next? LH.

Mum! We're on the telly!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8jXN5-z1Y8

Back in September Windsor Street in Uxbridge saw scenes of apparent jubilation as a commercial to raise funds and awareness for the British Legion Poppy Day appeal was filmed there, with much of the action taking place outside the Balcony Shirts shop. As we reported here at the time various Balcony staff members were spotted performing opportunistic high-fives every time the camera panned across the shop, and while it's probably best for all concerned that none of these rather peculiar antics are featured in the finished article the shop itself is clearly visable in both the long and short versions of the film. If you'd like to see it for yourself then click here, and please remember to buy a poppy this November.

Our First Year and The Custom Bar

It seems incredible really, but after trading online for what seems like a decade (probably more like 7 years), it was almost 1 whole year ago that Balcony Shirts opened up on the High Street. Incidentally, the High Street of our hometown; Uxbridge. The custom T-shirt printing website (a work in progress).

Uxbridge gets a lot of stick, not least from me, but really, and honestly, I actually like the place. I like the way Windsor Street (where we are) with its 500 year old pubs nestles in the shadows of a monolithic JJB Sports. I like the way an Irish drunk will grab you by the arm and tell you you have lovely hair. I like, in a masochistic kinda way, the fact that Reebok wearing, gold sovereign ring toting, Staffordshire-Bull-Terrier walking Kevs own the high street but effete indie boys, tattooed emo kids and Brunel intellectuals are always (half) willing to give a bit back. Not a lot back, granted. But a bit.

Anyway, barring some sort of natural disaster, or a fire-bombing, it looks like we should survive our first year. It's been good. Hard work, but good. For those that are familiar with our shop, we have just built a "Custom Bar" in the back section, where patrons will be able to design their T-shirts and have them printed in front of their eyes. It should be good and will hopefully increase trade a little during our next 12 months.

Thanks to everyone who's popped in, had a chat, bought something. We hope to have some surprises in store for our 1st Birthday.

Balcony Shirts - keeping Uxbridge High Street a little bit weird, and defiantly independent, since 2009.
xx

You hum it, we'll play it.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and in this case it's probably true, not least because the man playing the trumpet should be behind the counter in the 'Scoffs' sandwich shop opposite juggling with bits of bread, and the man playing the guitar should be behind our counter doing whatever it is that he does there. To name the guilty parties it's Geno on trumpet and Leigh on guitar, and it gives us chance to mention the fact that we can now get musical instruments and accessories in the shop to order. We got Geno his trumpet and he loves it. He's probably blowing it at the moment. Who can blame him?

AS SEEN ON T.V.

Tuesday morning at Balcony Towers, and great is the excitement thereof as a television advert for the 'Help For Heroes' Appeal is being filmed in the street outside our shop. In the pursuit of shameless self-publicity the t-shirt team revealed themselves to be hopeless opportunists by donning Balcony t-shirts and sunglasses then performing high fives as the Army were being filmed marching past our front door. It should be on T.V. throughout October so look out for us - we're the slightly awkward looking blokes in Balcony t-shirts and sunglasses performing high fives outside the Balcony Shirts shop.

ANARCHY IN THE UKE - EH?

According to Queen Lili'ukalani, who as I'm sure you know was the last reigning monarch of Hawaii, the word ukulele means 'the gift that came here'. Others say that it's Hawaiian for 'jumping flea'. Either way there is no cooler instrument in our not-so-humble opinion, and strange as it may seem we've got some in our Uxbridge shop for as little as £16.99 along with various other pieces of magical musical merchandise. Well, Hawaii not?

Easy Leigh Does It

This is Leigh. Leigh is responsible for the 95% of the writing on Balcony Shirts. And that's "a lot" of writing. Some of the facts and anomalies that Leigh discovers from Balcony's vast library and encyclopedia collections (wikipedia) have to be read to be believed. Not since William Burroughs has stream of consciousness literature meant so such, to so few.

If, for your sins, you enjoy reading the madness on Balcony Shirts, why not hop across to "Leigh's Mad World Of Guitars" where our hero writes his own blog. You should.

This is Dave

After banging on about Daves, making T-shirts about them, making videos about them and writing songs about them. We've finally bagged our own Dave. And here he is.

St Spatrick's Day

What exactly is St Patrick's Day all about eh? Well, we're blowed if we know, but we have put together a few T-shirts to celebrate it. "My Nan is from Ireland" is probably our favourite and just about sums up everything to do with St Paddy's day for us. Hundreds, nay thousands, nay millions of people all out on the streets of London, New York, Melbourne - wherever - all pretending that their nan's were from Ireland - and thereby they have the God given right to get absolutely murdered. Well, guess what party people? I'm murdered now, and I've never even been to Ireland. How do you like them apples?! AHOY! xxx

Monkey Picks

If you've got a few minutes / hours / days to spare go and give http://www.monkey-picks.blogspot.com/ a look. It's a blog called Monkey Picks where by our leader and master takes us on a journey through the magical World of our closest cousins - the monkey! From the Lemur of Madagaska to the ... no, not really, it's a blog about music/art/books and things. Often but by no means always with a sixties tilt. Charles Bukowski's book "Screams From The Balcony" was the inspiration for our name "Balcony Shirts", and there are some nice bits about him too.

The Balcony Bike

We're right into saving the planet here at Balcony HQ. Oh yes Sir we are. So much so that we've pushed our petrol-guzzling cars into the sea and ordered a fleet of bicycles to get to work. This isn't strictly true. You can hardly call Uxbridge Canal "the sea" ferrchrissakes. Maybe a "fleet" of bicycles is stretching the truth a little too. Basically, we've got a bike. It's logo'd to the hilt with Balcony orange and it even folds up so you can get it in your ... errr ... car. Anyway. Here's a picture of the Balcony Bike. If anyone wants one, just go on Amazon and search for "fold-up" bike. You'll see it. When it arrives just pick the graphics off (they come off real easily), ride it to our shop and we'll Balcony logo it up for you, right there and then. Now there's an offer it's going to be fairly easy to refuse. xxx

Balcony Shirts Shop

For those that don't know, we opened a little shop in Uxbridge just before Christmas. We sell a selection of things that we sell on the website and some things we don't. We sell Mozaikits in the shop - with them you can mozaik your house 'n' stuff. They're cool. Anyway, the best thing about the shop is we get to meet people and they can give us ideas for tees and stuff. We also offer custom T-shirt printing where we'll print your favourite Balcony Tee on a colour of your choice. We also do little runs of Tees for local businesses and shizz like that. If you're ever in Uxbridge - pop in and say hello. We're down Windsor Street - it's that little "oldy worldy" road opposite the station.

My Goodness, it's been a long time

We've been really slack with not updating this blog for ages. Well, good people of the world, we're back and we're going to update this damn blog more regularly even if it kills us. We hope that doesn't happen though. This really is just an excuse to spill our minds rather than flog our tees. We may attempt to flog a t-shirt too though. Every now and then. We've got children to feed and stuff. You know we have, we really have. x

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.