By Bro. Jo Stern, on July 14th, 2009
 Ever noticed that the ‘Best of British’ is often just a bag of wank? Sausages filled with eyelids and snouts, sports stars who regularly bottle it, pan-faced birds with their tits out in mags like Nuts and skinny, floss-brained, smacky-looking male models in union jack boxer shorts. The phrase immediately fills me with trepidation, cynicism and doubt.
Last weekend’s Sunday Mirror decided to spunk out this age old slogan (in their dire ‘Celeb’ mag) in order to shift a few extra copies (probably to retarded BNP voters in Yorkshire) and glory in the crop of new female singers we have warbling around our sacred shores.
To be fair the list was mildly impressive to a point – Florence Welch, VV Brown and at a push Little Boots too (although the hype has done her no favours – wasn’t she supposed to be quirky and fresh as opposed to derivitive and bland?). But Pixie Lott? Yeah, there are probably plenty of tabloid readers who would like to make the glossy magazine pages stick together given half a chance – but the marketing is so transparent I’m at a loss. Hot pants. Loads of them. That’s it. And it’s working. Shame on you Britain! I would say, ‘Not in my name’ – but that’d probably be taking things a bit too far.
Two names relegated to just a small end blurb in the feature were the beautifully melancholic Laura Marling (you should have all heard of her by now) and the lesser known Marina & The Diamonds (although as some of you may know, there are no Diamonds, just Marina). I’ve not heard a lot but what I have heard sounds both commercial and quite good (rare bedfellows) – a little bit Joni Mitchell here and a little bit Kate Bush there (although that’s a bit crass and obvious – sorry). Keep an ear out for her – she’s miles better than La Roux and doesn’t seem keen on pretending the mid-80′s were ace either (they weren’t, they were shit).
None of them are as good as the ladies Foilface got to sing on ‘Pussyfoot’ and ‘Truckers’ though. Those girls have got some serious pipes on ‘em. Check out the tunes if you don’t believe me.
Conclusion – fuck the all sloganeering and hype and dig a little deeper…
By Bro. Jo Stern, on June 25th, 2009
 THE KING OF POP IS DEAD…
The fresh from the bakers oven news concerning the death of the consistently peculiar plasticine mannequin, Michael Jackson has got me thinking about the future of music.
Since Foilface mixed their first EP, two or three months ago (the magical and strange, Jean-Claude Naive) important musical icons have started dying in their droves.
We’ve had Manchester’s very own Johnny Roadhouse, Randy Cain of The Delfonics, Ink Spots singer Huey Long, Soft Machine bassist Hugh Hopper, Motown drummer Uriel Jones, the producer of Massive Attack’s brilliant ‘Blue Lines’ album – Jonny Dollar, Steppenwolf’s Kent Henry, Ean Evans – bass player with Lynyrd Skynyrd and now, hugest of the huge, ‘THE KING OF POP’ HIMSELF – MICHAEL JACKSON.
Maybe it’s a sign. Are these people making way for the mighty Foilface? Is the musical relay baton being passed? Who knows. But I bet you one thing – they’ll be a whole load of Wacko Jacko covers being played this weekend at Glastonbury.
I’d personally like to see Bruce Springsteen belting out ‘Billie Jean’ and maybe Rolf Harris wobbling out a cover of ‘Earth Song’ (“What about the elephants – a-hum-tiddy-hum-tiddy-hum” - how good would that be?).
All jokes aside it’s a sad moment. Jackson has left big footprints all over the history of modern music and we’ll probably never see someone as famous and popular as him ever again.
So why not celebrate his memory by listening to some Foilface. Some good, honest slacker-rock. It’s way better than listening to ‘Thriller’ for the 6,643 time and it certainly beats standing in a muddy field in some over-priced wellies, listening to Shed Seven holler out a re-worked, ‘Man in the Mirror’ or Kasabian murdering, “Ben”.
The very thought of such horrors is enough to give me a heart-attack!
By Bro. Jo Stern, on June 24th, 2009
 Sometimes it’s easy to be paranoid in this frequently bleak world of ours. Far simpler to think people are judging you every minute of every day, than no-one actually being arsed to. Just because the latter is the more likely does not make it the easier option.
At Foilface HQ we love judging people. We thrive off it. But we are also very wary of the whispers in the trees, the haunted gurgle of the river that sits beside our beloved studio and the watchful flap of herons at dawn. People love to hate and hate to love most of the time – it’s how things work.
So, it came as no surprise on my walk home the other day, to find that nature has seemingly started listening to my moves (see the photo above). All I was doing was listening to a few bits of recent music on my shiny ipod and then I came across that. And I’m telling you – that patch of land was not fiddled with by me – that’s the face of nature staring at you – and do you know what it’s thinking?
It’s thinking, “hmmm, I really like these Foilface fellas. They produce a fine example of 21st century progressive-post-punk-slacker-rock. I likes and I think others will too”.
By Bro. Jo Stern, on June 22nd, 2009
 For those of you who haven’t visited our downloads page and are still unaware of our newly released (and first ever) EP, the magical, “Jean-Claude Naive”. I am here to remind you that as of last week our first ever batch of tunes (6 in all) are out and available to DOWNLOAD FOR FREE.
SIX FREE SLACKER ROCK TRACKS all ready to be given a new home and loved like a little doe-eyed puppy.
Don’t let ‘the man’ tell you there’s nothing in this world for FREE. He’s wrong (and always has been).
By Bro. Jo Stern, on June 18th, 2009
 Long before the birth of this here internet and the mp3 revolution that spawned the now endless availability of music 2 download, these guys (Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood, for anyone who’s new to the planet) were knocking out many pleasing sounds that still get a healthy amount of air time today.
Although it’s just not considered ‘cool’ these days, Clapton is still up there on my guitar hero list and I enjoy the occasional over-indulgent bending of notes on my old black and white Strat in homage.
Clapton has always had that look of being just a bit too into it when he performs, but this snap from his latest “See ‘em While They’re Still Standing” tour, puts me in mind of the agony I once saw on my dad’s face the moment his back gave out whilst carrying some heavy paving slabs. Is it all getting a bit much for Eric?
By Bro. Jo Stern, on June 9th, 2009
 We’ve beavered away and finally got some kind of site together that we’re quite pleased with. There’s plenty yet to add as things progress, but at least we’ve got something decent to be going on with and – more importantly – you can now listen to and download the brand new Jean-Claude Naive EP from Foilface in it’s entirety for free! There’s also a cool Pussyfoot ringtone you can help yourself to for free. So, grab some great new music for free and get your free ringtone rocking right now.
By Bro. Jo Stern, on April 18th, 2009
 Look at that little Primula mouse shoving his thumbs up at some chunky Foilface loving bugger. It’s almost winking at him as he wraps his cheddary ears around a little bit of ‘Break In to Break Out’ – the closing track on Foilface‘s soon-to-be-released first-EP, ‘Jean-Claude Naive’ (but more about that at a slightly later date).
The cheese lover in question, when asked about this post-cheese-sex-esque photo, slathered, “See how coy the tube of cheese is? Notice how embarrassed it looks, all naked in the sunshine of the front seat of my motor, we didn’t even have the decency to drive away from Tesco, we just got straight down to it in the car park while women, workmen and children idly walked by. It gave me the horn”.
It’s official – listening to Foilface makes you horny for cheese. Get your hands on some of their Hot new music for dairy pervs now. Listen and understand!
By Bro. Jo Stern, on March 20th, 2009
 Foilface copyists are coming thick and fast. No sooner have we spurted our recent music pips all over Manchester and people are coming out of the wordwork trading off rhymed versions of our lovely name.
Boilface (see photo) has yet to release anything onto the internet as yet but he’s certainly trying his best to build up the hype. I caught him on a Manchester music forum the other day claiming to be, “the filibustering crunk genius (who’s) about to rock the North like a wooden horse with hives”. His forthcoming EP, “Minge Two” claims to unite the ideals of ghetto opera with violent sexual imagery (opening track, “Spocked the Ho” is described as lesbonic-electro-sleaze). I think he’s just a little girl pretending to have tits, if the truth be told. But each to their own.
As yet he hasn’t associated his name with us over at Foilface HQ, so maybe it’s just a coincidence. Either way the chap’s a quent of the highest order…
By Bro. Jo Stern, on March 13th, 2009
 I have a tune here, ready to be uncovered and swooned to. Its a lovely acoustic cover of Aha’s seminal 80′s track ‘Take On Me’ (no giggling, it’s a top tune – yes it is! Stop pretending to be cool).
The question is – who is Cubass? All I know is that he’s only ever recorded one tune, likes snickers and lives somewhere near Manchester. He’s like the Lord Lucan of alt-acoustic loveliness. Here’s the tune:-
(MP3) Cubass – Take On Me
Rumour has it, he’s a big fan of Foilface. That said, he’s also supposedly a big fan of Mama Mia and Mariah Carey, so there’s no accounting for taste….
By Bro. Jo Stern, on March 9th, 2009
 I totally understand how annoying social networking sites like Facebook can be. And as for all the applications – stuff like software that makes your nose wiggle on photos, people sending pictures of fruit-baskets to each other and setting up Lorraine Kelly Fan Groups – do people really need that kind of fluff in their lives?
That said, I have recently witnessed a mildly amusing new idea/trend on Facebook, namely the instant-fictional-album-cover fad. For those not in the know, you pick a random wikepedia page heading to use a your band name, then a random quote from a quotes website (the last four or five words generally). Then hop onto a photo hosting site like flickr and pick the first photo you stumble across. Piece them together in something like Photoshop and hey presto – fictional album cover
It’s utter bobbins but mildly amusing (and kind of eerie) as my example here shows. That said, it really is much better to actually make a real album.
Which Foilface will endeavour to do once we’ve finished mixing our first few EPs. Watch this space…
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