Here’s a quick pic of the album art I did for the 8 BIT ALLIANCE TOUR sampler CD.

Hope you like it! It’s my first piece of album artwork ever - there’s a back cover and graphics on the CD itself as well.

(also, can’t wait to release the new website and some new designs later this month!)

So, the weekend of May 15th is going to be pretty rad. I was originally all set to show at the inaugural Renegade Craft Fair Austin - I’d get to see all my people from the Austin Craft Mafia (don’t think I’ve forgotten about y’all!), eat some tasty tacos, see some old friends, and do it up at what is NO DOUBT going to be a great show. I had plans to float through Texas with my boys the Two Rabbits and Billy Bishop on a river of Tecate and money.

But then, a vision came to me. Two best friends reaching out their hands, as if coming down from a holy mountain. But before I go into that, brief introductions are in order.

[from left to right: Rob "Love" Schmidt, Jon "J-Tapp" Tapp, and Ben "Captain Foldypants" Applegate]

Say hello to the Kyushu Krew 2002, three of my best friends from my year in Japan (which, incidentally, was 2003 - 2004). Through our classes every day, to the countless nights out on the town, to an EPIC trip through southern Japan, these were my dudes. These days, I’m a hustler trying to make it happen, Rob is a baller working for JP Morgan and living in New Jersey, Jon is working some complex finance job in Tokyo, and Ben is a reporter and translator in Seoul. We don’t see each other that often, but whenever we do, it’s a great time - sadly, all four of us haven’t been able to reunite since we left Japan in 2004, but when we do, it’s going to be ridiculous.

So anyway! Twice a year in Tokyo, there’s a huge event called Design Festa - there are over 2,000 exhibitors, and over 100,000 attendees from all over the world. I’ve been thinking of going for some time, but have kept putting it off. Flights to Japan are expensive, and taking the time off is even tougher, but I think it would be a good start to breaking into the Japanese market, and besides, I haven’t been back to Japan since I left in 2004 and miss it so.

Earlier this month I got an e-mail from Jon and Ben, who were having drinks for Jon’s birthday in Tokyo and apparently had been concocting a plan to get me over there. They have decided to buy my plane ticket (no small investment) in return for a cut of the take. Obviously, there’s no way I could say no to such an act of kindness, and an amazing opportunity to see my old friends - a few e-mails later, my booth was reserved, and now it looks like I’m headed back to Japan. I’m probably going to try and stay for a week, but we’re still working out the details.

Oh hamburgers, I really need to refresh my Japanese.

Hey guys,

Unfortunately, SEIBEI will not be at The Bamboozle this year. I was stoked to meet all of you there, but it’s just not going to work time and money-wise. I was hoping to reunite the SEIBEI Dream Team and party with my homies Secret Secret Dino Club, but between a possible show in Japan (!!!! more on this once it’s confirmed !!!!) and plenty of other gigs, I just can’t make it work. I’m just one dude!

Don’t be too sad, though - there will be plenty of awesome (and probably some not so awesome) vendors there who will happily take your money. You can give me some money later if you really like.

I should note that there’s a new SEIBEI website in the works, which I’m pretty stoked about. My man Josh at HIVEHAUS, who put together this website (and the previous one, which some of you may remember), is working with me to have a new site up, tentatively within the next month. We sort of started this last November, but then the holidays hit and I got super busy/stressed/depressed, and I put it on the back burner. Consider yourself on the front burner, WEBSITE!

Our current website isn’t bad at all, and it still gets written up in random articles about awesome t-shirt site design, but I think we’re all tired of looking at this one. It’s three years old, which is absolutely insane when you think about it. There are t-shirt companies that have started and had multiple site revisions in the same amount of time that we’ve held onto this one. Just as I have a bad habit of leaving the same CD in my car stereo and playing it every time I drive (I’m looking at you, FAREWELL’s Run It Up The Flagpole and one or two Diplo mixes), I’ve been content with this website and just let it run…cause hey, it is nice! It’s just been up a little too long.

So here’s where you come in. I’m working with Josh to plan the layout of the site, new graphics, new color schemes, having sortable categories in the Shop, integrating customer photos into the product pages, all kinds of goofy stuff, but if there are any features YOU would like to see on the new website, let me know! I will definitely take everything into consideration (even “make better shirts” or “stop being a jerk”). Let me know!

When I was in high school, I spent most of my time in class drawing cartoons to make my friends laugh, or sleeping, or cracking jokes (and farts, probably). I was a pretty smart guy (emphasis on was), though, so I almost never studied and skated out with a 3.2 (roughly a B) average, all Honors and AP classes, and a 1600 SAT score. A number of universities rejected me, but I did manage to get into the University of Virginia, where my bad habits carried over. It wasn’t until I was taking higher-level Chinese and Japanese classes (and did immersive studying in both countries) that I actually had to study to do well, and learned how to effectively study (sort of).

What I’m saying here is that I have a bad habit of playing things a little too loose. Unfortunately, SEIBEI is no exception. Because it started as a goofy hobby, it’s not until now that my girlfriend (who has a considerably sharper mind for business) has started to help me break these bad habits. I’ve been living for a year doing SEIBEI full time, but I’ve still been treating it as sort of a big hobby rather than a business, and a career. I’ve done some good things in the past year, but I’m still trying to break bad habits…because hey, I did alright playing things a little bit too loose. I got in a book about t-shirt designers, which I always wanted to do, I got featured in some magazines, I did well at various shows, met some of my favorite celebrities and made new fans out of them, made new friends, did a Yo Gabba Gabba poster…but it’s not enough. I think I’ve made it to a certain level in the industry that a lot of starting tee companies don’t see, but that was more by luck and persistence than anything resembling business acumen or discipline.

So, it’s time to stop blowing it. For my sake and yours.

I’m now working on a rigid schedule, and am taking everything more seriously. Having fun was the reason I started this company, but I need to become a better businessman, a better hustler, if we all want to keep having fun. Wish me luck!

Anamanaguchi is a chiptune rock band (as I understand it, they program tracks using sounds from a hacked NES and Gameboy, and bolster these tracks with electric guitar, bass, and drums) out of New York City made up of four dudes who put on a great live show, and are solid SEIBEI bros and supporters. Getting to work with them is one of the few good things to have ever come out of me having a MySpace account - I think I contacted them a couple of years ago asking if they wanted to work together, but I didn’t actually see them live for the first time until a few months ago when they played with our homie Starscream at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn (where I got kinda drunk with my buddy Ben and went into the mosh pit for the first time in YEARS). Then, the very next night I saw them open for Peelander-Z at Santos Party House…awesome times.

I’m no musician, but I have seen a lot of bands play, so I think I have a decent sense of when things are going well and when people make mistakes or are uncomfortable onstage. When you watch Anamanaguchi play, not only are they tight, well-rehearsed unit with hella musicianship, but in every song you can tell how much they enjoy what they do and how much fun they have with it. It’s just a blast to watch them play.

Here are my two favorite cuts from their latest album, Dawn Metropolis. The whole album is a blast from start to finish but these two are EPIC.

First, “Overarrow”:

and the final track on the album, “Mermaid”:

Writing about music is kind of a new thing for me, so I hope you like this band as much as I do. They’re playing this Saturday night at Santos Party House in NYC - here’s the info. I won’t be able to make it, but you should go if you can! I think they’re playing PAX East, and they’re going on tour with a bunch of other awesome chiptune acts HELLA SOON - I think it’s called the 8 Bit Alliance Tour - so a lot of you are about to get a great chance to seem them live, along with other great acts. Don’t sleep on these dudes!!!

Hey guys!

I’ve been busy working on some freelance gigs for friends and building up new designs. In an effort to widen my fanbase and put another feather in my cap, I’ve submitted one of these new designs over at Threadless:

If you like it, please show it some love, and tell your friends! I’ve admired Threadless for some time now, and I’d be proud to be a part of the family. I’ve probably got one or two more good designs that aren’t quite right for SEIBEI that I may put up over there…we’ll see!

Hey guys - I finally edited together video from my weekend at UNIQUE Los Angeles.

Just as a heads up, there is cussing and drinking in this video, so please don’t watch it at work, or around my younger brothers or other children.

Hope you like it. It’s not that informative, but hopefully it’s as entertaining for you as it is for me.

So, the other day I found out about a video contest my old school in Japan (KCJS) was having. Unfortunately, I found out one day before the deadline, so I whipped this bad boy up pretty quickly.

Hope you like it. It’s dumb and I have a weird voice, but it’s from the heart. I miss Kyoto like none other.

If it’s the best video of all the alumni submissions, then I get a free round trip ticket to Japan for the reunion at the end of March. There don’t seem to be a whole lot of entries, but I’m not planning on winning. The important thing is that all entries will be played at the reunion for all the attendees, so regardless of whether my school likes this video or not, I’ll get to say hey to everyone attending.

Watch all the way to the end for a special bonus (my cats)!

I made this earlier today - I consider it a work in progress, but am taking a breather here because I need to get to work on actual designs for t-shirts. Hope you like it! It’s a super corny Final Fantasy X Jersey Shore joke. I ended up copying the Imps from the original game to represent “The Beat.” I will probably come back and add something else later. I also thought about fighting Zoo Creatures or Grenades, so maybe I will draw those later, but they always talked about “beating the beat” so here you go.