Customskins price rise - Great News for Everyone!
Posted by tim in Uncategorized on March 2nd, 2010
You may have noticed that Custom Skins Blog posts have been a little on the sparse side since Christmas. There’s a reason for this though; we’ve been working hard behind the scenes putting together perhaps the most explosive and exciting event in the history of customskins.co.uk…
the Great Customskins 2010 Price Rise!
Stop rejoicing for one moment though, so I can give you some background. A story without background is like a picture without a background - photoshopped. Trust me though, this story ain’t photoshopped - there’s LITERALLY no way you can Photoshop a story. Try it!
Anyway, we haven’t raised our prices in about 4 years. In that time EVERYTHING has got more expensive - printers, blank drum heads, postage, inks, beer, accomodation, petrol, linguine. Literally everything. Except customskins from customskins. A couple of years ago we VAT registered, but instead of adding VAT to our prices we absorbed it, like a big happy generous sponge. Thank you customskins! Said everyone, whilst we ate baked beans and slept in the clothes recycling bin.
But enough is enough, and after careful analysis we’ve modified our pricing structure, to MORE. For those of you who prefer numbers to words, here’s the equation:
OLD PRICES < NEW PRICES
What will the customskins price rise mean for you?
The good news is that the increase in prices will have no detrimental affect on our service - this will remain identical. You will simply pay us more money.
If you have any questions regarding the information above please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Customskins iz now tweeting itz face off!
Posted by customskins in Uncategorized on January 12th, 2010
Last night I had a dream that Eminem mentioned Customskins in his new single. I woke up and thought “Customskins needs a twitter, so I can relate this story”. So here it is.
You’ll notice that the Eminem story is syndicated on the Customskins Twitter. But remember, this was the whole point.
I know some of you are on twitter so please please add us so we look popular. We’re http://www.twitter.com/customskinshq . In the spirit of common decency we’ll add you too. But not U2 cos…well, y’know.
Oh, by the way, hope y’all had a nice xmas and new year!
Customskins review of 2009
Posted by tim in Uncategorized on December 21st, 2009
Well, another year is as good as over, so it seems good and proper to take a look back at 2009. Here we reclimb the highest peaks, replunge the lowest depths, make sense of it all, and post it up on the customskins blog in a conveniently truncated form.
F**K you, we won’t do what you tell us. Unless it’s printing drumskins.
Yes, surprisingly we’ve spent much of 2009 printing bands names on their drumskins; regular readers will recognise this as our specialist subject. Customskins has been almost as popular as Derek Obama this year; we’ve printed 900+ heads for 700+ clued up drummers, which is almost certainly more than Derek has managed. When it comes to band names, it’s been popular to combine an adjective with a first name - this year we’ve had Turbulent Eddie, Terrifying Joey, Hard Way Harry, and James Blunt. Other band names that have raised a chuckle in CSHQ this year include the Fragrant Vagrants and Blazing Grumpy Penguins.
Customskins HQ is the New Hollywood
Aside from printing drum heads, we’ve been terribly busy making a nuisance of ourselves on movie sets. Most of Hollywood has descended on CSHQ this year - we’ve had Clint Eastwood’s new feature, Colin Firth’s new movie, and most episodes of Spooks are filmed in our toilet.
Speaking of which, I never got round to posting pics of the Colin Firth movie on the blog. Here’s one:
We didn’t actually get to meet… sorry, I mean, Colin Firth didn’t actually get to meet us, but I’m sure he’d have found us to be thoroughly decent blokes.
This year we went to see some bands
The advantage of living and working in London is that you have a choice of 100 bands playing every night of the week (accept Sundays, which is when acoustic singer songwriters broadcast their relationship problems at open mic nights). The disadvantage is that 90% of these bands are terrible. The best bands we went to see this year were Frontier Ruckus, who are a quite brilliant alt-country band from Michigan, and The So So Glos, who are a quite brilliant punk rock band from New York City. Both these evenings involved tequila, which is guaranteed to enhance any form of live entertainment, but not necessarily work the next day.
In 2009 we coined some phrases:
Box-furious
Definition: Ultimate anger. Preferably for a slightly irrational reason.
Usage example: “I went all the way to Scunthorpe for the Ipswich Town away game, and then it was postponed. Box-furious, I was!”
Craft Fair
Definition: Something that doesn’t exist.
Usage example: “I went looking for the lost city of Atlantis, but it was all a bit craft fair”
Gaybot
Definition: Girl who accompanies me and Clive on social occasions so we don’t look gay .
Usage example: “How many gaybots does it take to change a lightbulb? Two - one to change the lightbulb, and the other to make the lightbulb not look gay.”
Other significant happenings of 2009
- We were embarrassed in front of the chef
- I ended up in hospital after being stabbed in the stomach at work
- We started a support group with free hugs for thousands of angry people.
If you want to hear the full story behind any of those tantalising items please let me know.
So anyway, that should do it. Thanks to everyone who got in touch with us this year, especially if you bought something. Hope you have a great Christmas, and see you in 2010!
CHRISTMAS REGULATIONS - PLEASE READ
Posted by tim in Uncategorized on November 24th, 2009
Today is the 24th of November, which (assuming my calculations are correct) is exactly 1 month before Christmas Eve. This year Christmas Eve falls, by coincidence, the day before Christmas Day.
Christmas Day is the day that thousands of excited drummers worldwide jump out of bed at 5am to find that not only has Santa got them a new front head for their drum kit, but it’s ONLY GOT THEIR BLOODY BAND NAME PRINTED ACROSS IT IN BIG SPARKLY LETTERS! What a score.
Of course, if you have a loved one who loves drums and skins and the like, and you (correctly) reckon that a custom skin from customskins is the perfect Christmas gift there is inevitably going to be some admin involved. This is why I’ve put together a set of handy guidelines, timeframes and leylines to help ensure that your custom skin gift purchase runs as smoothly as Craig David with a red hot poker up his behind.
The First Rule of Custom Skins Christmas Club is that your order must be placed by 14th December.
The Second Rule of Custom Skins Christmas Club is that your order must be placed by 14th December.
The Third Rule of Custom Skins Christmas Club is that we can help you put together some artwork, but we’ll need an additional 5 days to do this. We get extremely busy (and drunk) around the Christmas period so please don’t call us on the 14th saying you need a badger in a straightjacket driving a Mark II Cortina designed and then printed on a drumskin, because we simply won’t do it. Give us notice, and as much information as you possibly can. Oh, and in most cases a design fee will be payable.
The Forth Rule of Custom Skins Christmas Club is that we’re closing on 23rd December, and reopening on 4th January, and will not be in a position to fulfill orders during this period. If you place an order through the online form please be aware that you will not receive a response or a custom printed drum head until the week commencing the 4th.
Remember, Christmas is a magical time for everyone (except the lonely, and people who hate it), but you have to enter into it in a responsible fashion. If you choose to accept this responsibility by way of a purchase from customskins, please do so BY FOLLOWING THE ABOVE REGULATIONS.
Happy holidays!
Mariah
Posted by tim in Uncategorized on November 13th, 2009
It’s always been my sweet, sweet fantasy to print drum heads for Mariah Carey. As Gabrielle, my other favourite female star, once said; dreams can come true. And this week they not only can, but have.
Carey is going to be using UK Television as the preferred medium to spread her gospel to the furthest shores of this moist isle, and potentially even further. To do this, of course, a custom skin from CUSTOMSKINS is just not going to be up to the job. That’s why you need TWO custom skins from CUSTOMSKINS. With gold butterflys.
The Day Clint Eastwood came to visit us
Posted by tim in Uncategorized on November 4th, 2009
Customskins HQ is a magnet for the worlds jet set - movie stars, pop stars, royalty; they’ve all graced themselves with our presence. So it was with indifference and no great sense of surprise that I glanced out of the HQ door on friday afternoon, only to see one Clint Eastwood peering right back at me.
Clint was in town on the premise of directing a movie about the Supernaturals or something like that. Of course, the real objective was to get a glimpse of me and Clive, and if you check out his personal journal you’ll see he was pretty pleased with his success on that count. As I said earlier, we were pretty unimpressed, but I did manage to muster up just about enough energy to venture outside and take a nice blurry photo of people hanging around pretending to shoot a movie. Here it is:
So that one’s done for now. The word on the street is we have another big celeb visitor next week. Check the blog for the lowdown on that one!
As if Halloween wasn’t scary enough already without having to meet customskins.co.uk
Posted by tim in Uncategorized on October 12th, 2009
As we all know, Halloween is a big pointless made-up thing, invented entirely for people who want to throw bricks through old ladies windows, and companies who want to sell you something. Fortunately for our countries’ aging population, we at customskins.co.uk fit into the latter category.
In fact, even that’s not really true. We don’t really want to sell you something, we’d just like to meet you. That’s why we’re going to be at the Jobeky UK Custom Drum Festival on Halloween; October 31st. Here’s the lowdown:
The nice people at Jobeky Drums thought it would be cool to host an event showcasing small custom drum makers and suppliers here in the UK. This mad concept evolved into the Jobeky UK Custom Drum Festival, and it’s the first one this year. Of course, customskins.co.uk were high on the list (top, obviously) of companies Jobeky wanted to be there, so here we are.
The event is being held in the Staffordshire Pavillion at the Staffordshire Country Showground, and runs from 10am to 5pm. There’s lots of custom drum companies exhibiting, plus a really quite enticing selection of clinics from the likes of Robin Guy, Martin Ranscombe and Karl Brazil.
Entry is an absolute bargain at £10 and you can buy advance tickets here.
We’re not entirely sure what we’re going to be doing or showing, but you can rest assured that it will not include contemporary dance or firearms.
The three most influential names in British Rock together at last
Posted by tim in Uncategorized on October 9th, 2009
Yes, it’s the moment you’ve been waiting for. The three most influential, monumental and existential names in British Rock have teamed up, and it’s all in the name of Charity.
The Faces, The PRS and Customskins.co.uk have formed an unholy union, and the result is this: http://www.helpingtheheartofmusic.com/ItemDetails.asp?id=11 . Yes, you can buy the right to own a fabulous custom skin, printed by customskins.co.uk, and signed by none other than the Drummer Out of the Faces! Good cause? You betcha - the PRS Benevolent Fund is a top draw charitable organisation.
Here’s some further information about these three behemouths:
The Faces have been making music since something known as ‘The Sixties’. I wasn’t around to experience this heady time, but I’m told by the few people that do remember the era that it was jolly good indeed. The Faces’ website remains unchanged since their formation year of 1969. A famous ex Member of the Faces is Rod Stewart, who played in Ipswich once, under his solo guise of ‘ROD STEWART’. The drummer responsible for the epic feat of signing the customskin is none other than Faces drummer Kenney Jones. They have reformed especially for this historic charity concert, and by god it’s going to be worth it.
The PRS are solely responsible for all drummers being alive. Without the PRS all drummers would be dead because they’d have nowhere to live, nothing to eat, and no Sierra Estates to hoon around in. This is due to the fact that the PRS go around and get money off all the people who listen to music, and give it to all the people who make it. They’re good, good people, and you should respect them cos they tell it.
Customskins.co.uk are the worlds most daring and prominent music publicists. Eschewing the conventional channels, customskins.co.uk promote bands through a magical plastic disc known as ‘YE OLDE CUSTOM SKINE’. Without customskins.co.uk the world would be nothing, and would essentially implode. FACT.
Quite a combination, I’m sure you’ll agree. The “Helping The Heart of Music’ concert, which accompanies the charity auction, is happening on 25th October at the Royal Albert Hall, and I believe tickets are available here.
Apologetic Friday Photo Edition
Posted by tim in Uncategorized on September 25th, 2009
Listen readers of BLOG, really sorry for the absence of posts for a couple of weeks. Things have been pretty busy at customskins.co.uk - we’ve been flat out organising the Michael Jackson memorial concert, working on our uranium enrichment program, and I was in hospital for a bit because Clive ordered me to crash my car on purpose.
To make up for the break I thought I’d do a slightly rushed Friday Photo edition which captures the spirit of Customskins HQ on Friday 25th September 2009.
1. NME Radar Drum Head
A couple of weeks ago a nice chap from NME rang the Customskins Batphone and he was like, dudes, can you dudes do a drumskin for, like, the NME Radar Tour. And I was like, yeah dude, and he was like, cool, and I was like, safe, sorted. Today the Customskins Batphone rang again and it was the same dude, and he was like, is my drumskin ready dudes, cos the tour is, like, totally ready to hit the road. I was like, no dude, I totally forgot about it, how random is that? He was like, that’s pretty random dude, but can we have it today, and I was like, sure dude. And here it is:
In the photo you can see the nice floor that we laid at customskins HQ, and my new shoes. On the NME Radar tour you can see Golden Silvers, Marina and the Diamonds, Local Natives and Yes Giantess.
2. EVEN people in the music industry have a bad day sometimes
We always have a good day at Customskins HQ, but then again we’re not really music industry. Contrary to popular wisdom, some people DO actually get jobs in the music industry though, and amazingly sometimes they have bad days, just like normal people. Here’s somebody who’s having a bad one:
Being the consumate professional I am, I finished my lunch and then made the drum head. And then changed my number.
3. I drew a duck then coloured it in using t’computer
To show off my mad illustration and photo manipulation skills here a picture of a duck I drew, which I then took a photo of and coloured in on Photoshop:
Pretty cool huh?
Have a nice weekend!
Les Paul and his Magical Machinery
Posted by richmond in Uncategorized on September 8th, 2009
On august 13th legendary guitarist, inventor and entrepreneur Les Paul passed away after a decent innings of 94 years. Normally at this point you’re saying – “Yes, yet another old guy has died”, “can’t you write about something else”. This time you may be thinking, yes we know – But what has he got to do with drums and drummers?
Other than the obvious impact he had on the guitar world as a player and inventor – the importance of his iconic Les Paul guitar really cannot be overstated, (see Slash, ZZ top, Jeff Beck, Green Day, Sex Pistols etc for further details) he invented and popularised effects (tape delay anyone?) and pioneered multi-track recording.
And this is where we drummers come in.
Back in ‘the day’ most recordings were done with one or two mics for everyone and a ‘take’ had to be complete. That meant if Johnny Bass player ballsed it up in bar 85 you had to go back and start all over. The advent of multi-track recording meant different instruments could be recorded separately and although it didn’t happen overnight it ultimately lead to the modern approach of recording drums. Now we can have a separate mic on every drum (and more if you really wanna go to town! – top and bottom mics on snare drums and multi mic-ed bass drums are pretty common). This gives control over the drums like no other instrument. You can set effects, levels, stereo (or surround sound) placement for each drum. Imagine doing that for individual guitar strings or for separate keys on a sax?! Bonkers.
So, ideally this technology gave the producer and/or drummer the ability to really capture ‘their sound’. We got the barking toms of Phil Collins, the big bombastic beats of Bonham, the fat ‘n’ wet 70s Steve Gadd sound and Copeland’s poppin’ snare and splashy splashes! So what went wrong, or did it indeed go wrong?
Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin said in interview that it is not the drummers you recognise anymore but the producers like Timbaland instead. Over the years have ‘live’ drum sounds become so well produced that they start to sound the same - Are we striving for the ultimate generic drum sound?
So I’m thinking about my favourite drum recordings and whether it really matters if there are a few rough bits ‘hear’ and there? Squeaky pedals, buzzing snares and rattling toms have all at some point made it onto records. Okay, I’m in danger of sounding like a ‘they don’t make em like they used to’ kind of chap and I’m not. But, and it’s a big butt (and I cannot lie…) When was the last time you recognised a drummer by ‘their sound’?
So come on folks, what’s your favourite drum recording? This may have annoyed you just enough to start compiling a list………