Hand & Face

Silent Hotels.

“When a day you happen to know is Wednesday starts of by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.” John Wyndham, 1951

Monday, actually, felt much like this line. It had been another unrivalled success for record-breaking number of games played in the solitaires stakes. That’s what no internet does to you. Or, should I say, that’s what constant access to the internet reduces you to. Get out more, and take me with you.

I had expected to be busy, gazing longingly at expensive surfboards and sending kids out on kayaks in questionable weather with anxious, helpless parents looking on. Instead, I was sent to Seaweed, which at least gives me time to blog.

Watch out this week for the new Kaimana website. It’s been a long time going live but it should be worth the wait, and even though the summer season, be it a loose term these days, seems to have come to an end, someone is always going to ding a board, so this should really kick-start Kaimana, so Tom and Pip, nice one. Also, in the coming months watch out for the monthly Kaimana artist promotion. It’s only in the pipelines for now but if you are in or know of any good, decent unsigned bands from the U.K. that want to get featured, email: music@kaimanaworldwide.com.

I may share the world’s concerns for the current ongoing situations in Tibet, and far be it for me to get myself politically embroiled anywhere along the line, but does anyone else feel that China did just a little bit of a good job of the Olympic opening ceremony?

If today was anything to go by, summer officially gave up trying at half past 3 in the afternoon, and then again at 7.15, and is now going back to square one, to rethink it’s strategy for next year.

Pedestal.

So, right now, it’s eight minutes past eleven, A.M, at the time of writing. Obviously, time of posting is different, but you need some perspective. Once again, I’m stuck in internetless Seaweed, playing music I shouldn’t be. Not that there is anything drastically inappropriate with it, just we still don’t really have a license but we should be getting that through soon. And I guess I should really stop repeating this minor detail in the blog. I can probably shut up shop now, go home and no one would be none the wiser, but what the hell. Let’s see how this pans out. The sun is a bit unsure how it feels today, it’s nice and sunny, and warm too but there are grey clouds hovering, and as such, I’ve only had 3 customers, only one of which bought something. Cosmic.

I want to see the Dark Knight. I want a 6” Subway Melt. I want to change into my shorts. I want the car outside to move so the reflection of the sun off it’s windscreen stops blinding me. I want this customer to leave. I want the wood and epoxy surfboard that’s hanging up over the door. I want to be able to surf properly. I want some more Fannings. I want this sticker I just found. Fuck it, I’m having it.

I made a good playlist though. Over and over, it doesn’t bother me.

Alright - Cast
Standing Next To Me - The Last Shadow Puppets
Everyone Needs A Nemesis - Fighting With Wire
Get In Line - The Runners
Pathfinder - Gay Dad
Waiting For Jane - The Gentle Good
Pedestal - Bombay Bicycle Club
All You Do Is Talk - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
I Love You and Buddha Too - Mason Jennings
Oxygen - Willy Mason
Textbook - We Are Scientists
Plea From A Cat Named Virtue - The Weakerthans
Messages - Xavier Rudd
Beans On Toast - Lucy & The Caterpillar
Place Your Hands - Reef
Outta Mind (Outta Sight) - Wilco
White Gold Way - Terris
Rock Boys - The Grates
Oklahoma - The Answering Machine
You Know - Athlete

If it gets me through the day, it’s gotta be good. I also have a book if necessary. More soon. Bye bye.

Hand & Face

PS. It’s now eleven twenty-five P.M, and I did see The Dark Knight.

Pinch, Punch.

So, a new month and much has been happening of late. Much of it has inhibited this blog, like work for example. June seemed to come and go, dripping wet and agitated, just a damp squib of a month. So, even on days off, the weather has been against everything we have been trying to do or progress to, and its been hard to go anywhere or do anything of any note.

So, I have been working flat out on the random days off, on all things Hand & Face. The blog is changing; expanding. We have, in addition to our as-yet-empty shop, a links page and a guestbook. We come up 2nd on a Blackle search, 3rd on Google, and we’re making more dolls, albeit as a slow process.

The links page is designed to change constantly. We put in some random headings, but most of it is covered in just a few segments. Hopefully, this will stop me bombarding you with link after link after link in these blogs. We can just make reference to them when needed, but keep the blog for updates on Hand & Face more exclusively.

I know that may seem as though our blogs will become far more sparse now, because when we were short, we’d just post up some links. That’s true, and it’s just something we’re going to have to work on, but also, we want to get out more and bring you more photographs, as well as sitting indoors trawling through the Internet, so we do want to be more proactive, not less.

Hand & Face Records has been overtaken with the overhaul of last.fm, as I am sure, everyone else has had to, by recording more and more music with more of it’s most prominent artists. There are now three new demos kicking around, as well as countless mixes and Guns For Lovers are now not far from dropping a new album with some interesting developments along the way. We’re looking at putting it out in about 1-2 month’s time.

Apart from that we’ve been listening to loads of music. At the minute, we’re big into ‘Hope For a Generation’ so you can go away and here that. We’ll be back once things are at least looking tidy. I am working without the aid of a wireless connection tomorrow, but that should mean time enough to write a post at least. Expect an update late tomorrow.

For now, take care
Hand & Face

Switch.

Hey all.

Bit of a rant on this one. Why tourists (and I’m sure, some uncaring, idiotic locals alike) feel like they can just use the nearest beach as a rubbish tip just because they can’t be arsed to pick up their litter escapes me. It’s not hard. In the time it took to watch (or preferably miss) an episode of Eastenders, four of us managed to clear what was left of the sand at high tide last night into two rubbish bags. If you pick up your own mess, then it takes less than a minute. What disgusted me the most is that we went and got two black bin liners and they were full when we finished. There could only have been 10ft-20ft from sea to shore of beach left by the time we got on Broad Haven. I can only lament what the sea must have taken with it. I thought two bin bags would be plenty but by the end, they were to the brim.

No one is perfect, not least of them, me, but there is a line. This isn’t a rant at you. It’s a rant at them. Which side do you belong to? And where is your line?

Thom, H&F

News From Home.

Hello young dedicated ruffians.

The Times ran an article on Sunday, claiming to know who Banksy is. There was a photo, and an in-depth article in both broadsheet as well as pull-out about the year-long ordeal to unmask the street graffiteur. You can read the jist of it here. And news night, I hear are running a piece on Banksy tonight on BBC2.

Quantic is about to release a new album, ‘Flowering Inferno’, and judging from the tracks heard so far, it should be another unrivaled success. I wasn’t the biggest fan of ‘Tropidelico’. It was a little too different for the QSO to get away with but even so, with this change of direction, and location to Columbia for Will Holland, he has this time well and truly landed it.

Hand & Face Records was busy yesterday. Very busy in fact. OK well not ‘so-busy-you-could-see-smoke’ busy but busy enough working on potential new Marshal Plan material. And, in four hours and brand new demo track was recorded, entitled ‘News From Home’. It stands at 2:19 sec and is a fast paced no-nonsense verse-chorus-verse affair. We will be bringing that to you soon.

Pulp Fiction was on telly last night. Thought a link to this site was worth it alone.

That is all I have for today. Back to work tomorrow after a long weekend.

See ya,

Thom, Hand & Face