Cut Off Your Hands

2011-07-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

Fooling No One by Cut Off Your Hands

Fooling No One

2011-07-03T17:47:00.000-07:00

video by 'They'

Cut Off Your Hands - Fooling No One from They Ltd on Vimeo.

stayin alive

2011-06-27T02:49:00.000-07:00

relearning an old song backstage

2011-06-23T16:14:00.000-07:00

2011-06-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

2011-06-23T15:54:00.000-07:00

tour again more

2011-06-23T15:50:00.000-07:00

touring again

2011-06-23T15:31:00.001-07:00

Posterized..

2011-06-04T14:33:00.000-07:00

Thanks: http://www.scaredycat.co.nz

nice video

2011-05-28T17:47:00.000-07:00

COYH bandcamp

2011-05-15T12:40:00.000-07:00

You Should Do Better by Cut Off Your Hands

No Aloha

2011-05-15T02:31:00.000-07:00

Awake Too Long by No Aloha

Bird Nest Roys - Aint Mutatin'

2011-05-14T23:49:00.000-07:00

JACK LADDER

2011-04-28T17:53:00.000-07:00

Im very excited about this record, this is the title track:

Cold Feet...videos a bit average, song rules though:

HOLLOWED OUT INSIDE

2011-04-21T23:02:00.000-07:00

Our 2nd album 'HOLLOW' will be available soon. The first single is called 'You Should Do Better'

This is the best:

here's a tune

2011-01-12T17:16:00.000-08:00

you can have it here

You can make me feel bad, if you want to..

2010-09-27T13:05:00.000-07:00

The Pastels - Crawl Babies

2010-02-24T14:18:00.000-08:00

satelitejameson (3 months ago) Show Hide
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Try ebay, once I see it there for bid. But be patience...

we get to play with our heroes this coming monday

2010-01-27T13:11:00.000-08:00

The Church

2010-01-20T15:25:00.001-08:00

k2kopu (1 week ago) Show Hide
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great geetar solo. The 80's produced some of Austrailian music's finest moments for sure.... And I'm a kiwi.

the Go-Betweens

2010-01-20T15:14:00.000-08:00

synno62 (3 weeks ago) Show Hide
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My two daughters (13 and 8) have been fans for a couple of years now (one loves Was There Anything I Could Do, the younger one "Bachelor Kisses"). I'd be a proud dad, but they also think Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Hannah Montana et al are great. They're not convinced by The Smiths or The Pixies quite yet...

Bodines

2010-01-20T15:12:00.001-08:00

apesgrapes (7 months ago) Show Hide
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"words.can.not.describe."

Paul Anka

2010-01-20T15:08:00.000-08:00

Templehawk (3 hours ago) Show Hide
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"damn he is young in this, neverthe less the song lives on trough the ages, never getting old or out of fashion cause it's allways modern, allways"

Totally Wired

2010-01-11T14:15:00.000-08:00

"The song that made me a Fall junkie. And this was the best of their 7,463 different lineups, with Scanlon, Hanley, Riley, etc. It's hard to believe it's been 30 years since they recorded this until you see that Smith has aged about 70 years in the interim."

Open Your Dirty Arms

2009-09-27T06:14:00.000-07:00

to keep you updated, we are;

- touring Australia with Midnight Juggernauts in November. Also playing one NZ show, at Milton Wine Estate in Gisborne Oct 24th

- hoping to finish album by christmas...heaps of new songs ready to go...fingers crossed for early next year release

- about to announce a bunch of NZ/Aust festivals/tours/shows over this coming summer...

see you soon

end of tourrrrrrrr

2009-06-30T20:31:00.000-07:00

It's Canada day tomorrow..fireworks are being let off and we're in Winnipeg recouperating from our North American tour which has just finished, after 80 shows since feb...it seems very alien to see only 2 shows remaining on our myspace shedule!
So, Copenhagen tomorrow, then our first show in Auckland all year on july 25th (its all ages too!)..going to be so good to be home. After being on tour for the last 2-3 years, we're relishing the idea of having a home, relaxing, eating properly, and of course writing and recording album #2
We have a new addition to the family, Djeisan Suskov (cool rainbows) who ive been writing with lately, will be with us from the Auckland show...so we're now a 5 piece...
alright thats all for now
nick

AOL interface sessions

2009-05-20T12:01:00.000-07:00

To view these recordings and the interview, please visit: http://www.spinner.com/2009/05/08/cut-off-your-hands-meet-expectations-on-the-interface/

coyh

all good

2009-05-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

We got the week off in chicago, its been nice. I just found this clip from 1989 ...i love the accents at the end.

Brent's time out

2009-03-29T20:45:00.001-07:00

Hey all the following is some very important and sad news, that any friends or followers of this band should read;

Hey everyone,
This is Brent here... I have some news to share with you as friends, fans of the band or anyone else who has supported us over the past three and a half years.......

At the age of 16 I started losing my hearing; it began as a mild hearing loss which didn't overly alarm me or my specialists. Over the past six years however, there has been an uncertain yet steady decline in my ability to hear. At the age of 19 my hearing got to the point that I needed to wear hearing aids. Since then, the deterioration has slowed but is still steadily eating away at my ability to hear all frequencies. Recently I have started to lose hearing in frequencies which up until six months ago have been good. These frequencies are important for speech recognition and general functioning in everyday life. I have seen several different hearing specialists over this time and no one has been able to diagnose a real definite reason for the loss. One of the obvious guesses at a cause is loud music and the fact I’ve been playing the drums almost everyday for about 11 years.

My audiologist has told me of patients who are 90 years old, fought in wars and worked coal mines for most of their lives and yet still have better hearing than me. Some people have resilient ears, others do not and these inconsistencies in the tolerance of the human ear are very hard to measure. I haven’t played the drums without wearing ear plugs for six years now, yet still my hearing has degenerated. There is a chance that I was just born with a genetic predisposition for hearing loss, something beyond the damage that drumming can cause. After CT scans, MRI scans and 30-plus hearing tests, my specialists are still very unsure as to what is happening. However, there is a possibility that I have a low tolerance to noise exposure which is causing my ears to give up. Whether or not drumming has been the sole culprit I am told my exposure to loud music could be aggravating and accelerating the loss.

Sadly, the only way to know if drumming is inducing or aggravating the loss is to plainly stop playing loud music for 12 months - which in turn has made me decide to step down from Cut Off Your Hands for the next year. This decision represents much thought and was incredibly difficult for me to make. The concept of life outside of Cut Off saddens me; we have all devoted so much of ourselves to make this band work. I’m now thoroughly addicted to making music and it hurts to know I wont be sharing it with the guys I have enjoyed it with over the past many years. I don’t feel good about it but I believe it’s the right thing for me to do.

It is uncertain what the future will bring for me and Cut Off. I hope with all my heart that I can return to playing with the band but only time can let that be known.

I'm not writing this to ask for sympathy or pity, we all have shit going on in our lives; I merely want to say that I’m not giving up on Nick, Phil or anyone else who has shown support for what we have been doing. I believe in what we have done so far and I would still very much be apart of it if I had my own way.

By no means is this a disintegration or ending for the band. Thereare many more songs that need to be shared with you and we are all very excitedfor what 2009 has to offer.

Much love
Brent

SXSW

2009-03-23T00:47:00.001-07:00

...is over, thank god! 10 shows in the 3 days always sounds better the week before you have to play, than halfway through it...but regardless, it wasn't too bad, and we could've played more.

The best thing about SXSW for us this year, apart from Phil pretending to be in black lips and being given hundreds of headphones, was probably the shows put on by Todd P and Fi at Miss Beas..on friday night we went down and saw a bunch of bands, they were all awesome, and it was a relief to be away from all the industry jerks and super motivated industry driven bands looking to get signed and whatnot.
I dont think i saw one official sxsw badge at this event, instead was just a bunch of kids going nuts and enjoying some amazing bands. It was all ages, and free, and bands like Woods, Wavves and Oh Sees were incredible. No Age finished the night, it was rad to be at such an inclusive party, with everyone just having a good old time, crowd surfing and behaving like they were 14 and at their first show again.

We've got heaps of flip footage from the week/end so will post some soon as.

cheers!!!
xo

Where we are going

2009-03-11T10:56:00.001-07:00

View Larger Map

It's 3º F today in Minneapolis, that's -16ºc for everyone else in the world. Brent lent me his shoes as the duct tape wore off mine which was pretty rubbish in the snow.

Nostalgia clip

2009-02-11T06:16:00.000-08:00

This is done by our friend Andrew Defreitas, i think it rules

oh man, laneway festival tour was a sweet time, a fitting farewell for mikey..but it's taken it's toll. I've got 1 week to recouperate before we're off to the States for endless tours, with new guitarist in tow...

Brisbane Laneway

2009-02-11T00:59:00.000-08:00

Nick trying to dunk Brent at Brisbane Laneway...

Turn Cold video

2009-01-26T00:05:00.000-08:00

Darlin' im filled with moths

2009-01-09T18:47:00.000-08:00

Darlin' Im filled with tonnes of filthy moths,
that rub till i itch
Im scaled by tiny mouths,
that sink their tiny teeth into my lungs

Darlin' i am old i'm desolate and worn,
-but you are still fresh,
tell me you believe me,
I am not worth the earth you tread with your feet.

Goodbye Mikey

2008-12-25T17:45:00.000-08:00

i hope your holidays are going good, this christmas we're all back in NZ, and busy with writing our 2nd album, and making videos etc...

The new songs sound like something along the lines of the Clean and bailterspace doing ronettes covers with the energy of early mbv....i cant wait to get recording in the new year.

Each week i'm putting new songs and ambient tracks that i've been recording for fun up on my stealinandthievin blog i hope you like :)

We shot a video with our friend Andy Defreitas (sp?) the other night for the song Nostalgia....we had previously made one with the demo of the song and footage from snowjam in NZ earlier this year,(which you can view on the stealinandthievin blog) but this one is going to be way better. The footage was of the lighting of a fire balloon, which is a tradition seen often in south east asian cultures..have a look at these videos for reference.

The main reason for this update though is to announce that our guitarist Mikey has decided to leave the band, there is nothing personal in his decision and we stay good friends and respect his decision completely. Mikey will play through till after Laneway festival in Australia, making his last show in NZ at Rhythm and Vines on 29th Dec.

Mikeys' charming personality and amazing talent will be sorely missed by everyone from the band to our friends and fans:
He's had such a contribution to our lives for the past few years that it'l be strange doing this without mr Ramirez, aka:
'MC Free'
'Big Time'
'Tuck-Shop'
'Ricky Riccardo'
'Richard'
'Bongo'
'Mickey'
'Next Level'
im sure there's others too, i cant recall just at the moment...
And we'll miss his retardedly low alcohol tolerance, his rapping, his rap spew, his vampire drawings, Rickenbacker guitar, Sound Check rituals, love for chicken, 100 metre walks whilst on the phone, love for Chris Brown, Neyo, and related artists, love of comics etc etc basically we'll miss him heaps....

....However there's so much coming up for us in the new year- with Rhythm and Vines, Falls, and Laneway festivals, as well as our USA release of 'you and i' and subsequent USA tours, not to mention the recording of our 2nd record- that us 3 (brent phil and nick) are carrying on as usual and by no means is this in anyway an unravelling or an ending...we're so excited about what 2009 has in store!

(Mikey's replacement guitarist takes over from 21st feb when we begin the Ra Ra Riot tour in Vancouver)

So yeah, we're looking forward to seeing you next week at R&V + Falls, in NZ/Aust, please come and show your appreciation to Mikey, who we will miss dearly, and we wish all the best to for the future.

p.s view Mikey's Drawing Blog here

the old days

2008-12-19T03:20:00.000-08:00

Just to let you know, tomorrow night's show at Kings Arms in Auckland is significant for a particular reason which we may disclose at the show, maybe not...but regardless...we felt like doing something special to mark the event.
So for tomorrow night only we'll be playing some REALLY old songs, ones that we havnt played in close to 3 years, and most likely wont be played again after tomorrow night..
So come and party with us if you're in the area,
we love you
x

the old days

One more vid

2008-12-04T16:11:00.000-08:00

This one is from Utrecht, Netherlands where during the last song of Foals set people got on stage...

Sweet! xo

Some tour footage

2008-12-03T20:35:00.000-08:00

Here are some videos taken from my digi camera from tour:

This one's boring but i like it because it reminds me of how much driving we did, 3000 miles in 10 days which took something like 2 days and 14 hours!

After the show finished we were drinking backstage and Jimmy was convinced to do RAP SPEW, a game that Mikey made up...

Pictures will follow as well as some older tour footage.

Luv, Phil x

in Germany with Foals and Friendly Fires pt1

2008-11-27T04:37:00.000-08:00

We've been in......
Hamburg where we played in the tiniest club ever, where a lady from a stripclub tried to pull me off the street into her club... then to frankfurt where we missed the show cos we got stuck in traffick minutes from the venue, it took us 2 hours to travel 2 miles at one point, we got to the venue as friendly fires were going on stage.
There's been snow and snowing in each town, especially Berlin where we stayed in a hotel opposite a huge old church that was unrestored from its WW2 bombing. We went to a great illegal warehouse bar afterwards where the ceiling was crumbling and falling into our drinks, and there were sausages for sale in huge pots of steaming water. We visited the memorial to the holocaust, which was thousands of massive graves forming a maze in this ampitheatre-like thing.
Each day has been up at 8am and driving for 8 hours, to places like Koln, then Munich, then over the border to Utrecht, which might have been the biggest show of the lot? Anyhow it's been great to see Foals again who are better than ever, and im convinced are amoungst the best live groups out of anyone in the world, and friendly fires, who i was skeptical about before seeing them, but they are brilliant and songs like 'jump in the pool', 'paris' and 'on board' are still stuck in my head. Tonight we're in Rotterdam, Photos and videos from tour to come soon!!!

CMJ + Australasian album release tour

2008-11-17T07:42:00.000-08:00

Some pics from the last month of our travels, starting at our place in Homerton London, through to CMJ in New York, to our album release shows in NZ and Australia...heaps more + videos to be added soon
...oh and thanks fasterlouder.com.au for some of the australian show photos.

Meeson St

Murray..

Special Problems in NYC
Dear Time's Waste

Brand New Math

Tokyo again plz

2008-10-17T17:05:00.000-07:00

we got given a video camera..

2008-10-17T16:46:00.001-07:00

and have been making some sweet videos with it, so gonna put them up as soon as we figure out how, cos we dont know what we're doing and the files take way too long to upload at the moment. But we even made a video for Nostalgia so now we dont have to pay money hngry Kefali ;)

here's some photos from olden days:

FRENCH KISS meets CUT OFF YOUR HANDS

2008-10-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

Back when we were starting this band i went through all the CD's that i thought were awesome, made a list of all their record companies, and attempted to mail everyone of them in a completely naive attempt to get our songs released in countries like the States, UK, Europe, Japan etc.
At the top of that list was a company based out of New York, that i discovered on the back of my favorite record of the time, a record which pretty much inspired me to create a band in the first place. It was 'Zoo Psychology' by Ex Models, and the record company was French Kiss Records. A label i became familiar with as i aquired a collection of recordings by Less Savy Fav, another pivotal band for me and alot of my friends from back home, in NZ.

So you can imagine my excitement when we received an email from them back in late 2006 saying that they loved our songs and wanted to know if we had a label in the States yet. It's now been close to 2 years since that initial contact, and i'm extremely excited to now announce that early next year French Kiss Records will be releasing the debut Cut Off Your Hands record 'You and I'!!!!!!!!!!!

...........In the mean time, we've prepared a little 5 track ep that -on release next week- will become our first FKR's release, (incidentally in time for CMJ)
The Ep is titled 'Happy As Can Be' and the track list is as follows:

1.You Still love me (previously unreleased)
2. Happy As Can Be (from 'You and I')
3. Shorelines (previously unreleased)
4. Nostalgia (from 'You and I')
5. An Iron Sleep (previously unreleased)

Digital format of Happy As Can Be ep AVAILABLE NOW!!!! in USA from the following retailers:
Itunes:
emusic
Napster
Amazon
Physical format is available from Tueday 21st October.

We're also pretty stoked to be playing at CMJ in New York again from next week, last year was great so we're very much looking forward to the repeat. Here are the dates from the French Kiss site:

Thank you, xo
Nick

Fugazi

2008-10-03T11:33:00.000-07:00

I was asked recently to write a little piece on a personal hero of mine music related - for the artrocker online site. I chose to write about Ian Mackaye and Fugazi as i think punk rock and independant music is indebted to him/them in a big way.
Whilst the music of Fugazi is incredible and innovative, what im most inspired by is the staunchly positive approach with which Mackaye has seemingly applied to all his pursuits. Whether that be his strong influence in the rise of Hardcore in the late 70's early 80's with Minor Threat - coining the phrase 'straight edge' a movement of clean living that rebelled against the cliche's of rock n roll excess:

Straight Edge - from Minor Threat The First Demo

"I'm a person just like you
But I've got better things to do
Than sit around and fuck my head
Hang out with the living dead
Snort white shit up my nose
Pass out at the shows
I don't even think about speed
That's something I just don't need

I've got the straight edge

I'm a person just like you
But I've got better things to do
Than sit around and smoke dope
'Cause I know I can cope
Laugh at the thought of eating ludes
Laugh at the thought of sniffing glue
Always gonna keep in touch
Never want to use a crutch

I've got the straight edge

- or the establishment of DISCHORD records, a massively forward thinking DC based label, with a purpose of documenting local DC area bands...A label that has been responsible for the release of quantities of groundbreaking groups since 1980...some of the roster include:
Minor Threat, Fugazi and the Evens,
Rites of Spring,
Bad Brains
El Guapo,
Edie Sedgewick,
Faraquet,
Black Eyes,
Nation of Ulysses
Embrace,
Q and Not U,
the Beauty Pill, to name a few.
All this achieved with a strong foundation of hard working Do it yourself ethics.

Fugazi became infamous for shows charging only the cheapest possible profitable price, often no more than $5, and pretty much always under $10
...Unlike most of their independant contempories they were able to maintain sustainable tours and make profits due to their low overhead touring costs. An example is how instead of paying for light rigs etc, they'd just turn on the house lights at the venue.
Mackaye was well known for his disgust for violent slam dancing at fugazi shows, often escorting repeat offenders to the door where he'd give them an envelope containg a $5 bill, before sending them on their way..Apparently a bunch of these envelopes were carried on tour in case of such incidents.

Fugazi represent to me a real attitude of cutting the bullshit that's so often present in music and more to the point the music industry, they were able to sell hundreds of thousands of records and maintain hectic touring schedules throughout the world for over 18 years, without radio singles or corporate backing.

I know this is a very crude and brief account of an incredible group of musicians, and i havnt even touched on the music or other important personalities that have made up these groups, so im sorry about that, but im not attempting to forge some sort of in depth Ian Mackaye bio. For that kind of thing i can recomend a book called 'Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981–1991'. by Michael Azerrad, (2001)
or watch:
'American Hardcore: The History of American Punk 1980-86' (2006)
or
'the Instrument' a documentary on the band from 1987-1997

I LOVE SCOTLAND!

2008-09-25T08:36:00.000-07:00

Last week we started this month long uni freshers tour in that beautiful country, playing a bunch of shows in Dundee, Edinborough and Glasgow. I don't know why, but it's a place we always enjoy visiting, and is a refreshing change from the urban scrawl of london. The tour moves south this week, and presently i'm in the van between Huddersfield and Preston in the north of England where we play tonight.
Last time we played preston the venga boys were playing downstairs at the same time, and i was experiencing my worst ever come down, we walked off the stage after 5 songs. 'BOOM BOOM BOOM i want you in my room' i hope tonight is better!

So what else? We recorded an album earlier this year which we decided to call 'you and i' and it's about to be released in NZ and Australia next week.
I think you can pre order the album when you buy tickets for the shows here:

http://speaknspellmusic.com/promo/coyh/

So with that you receive the digital album NOW!!, followed by the full physical release on Oct 4th, accompanied by a DVD of all the videos Joel Kefali has done for us, and another bonus disc full of demos and other bits andpieces ive been working on since...this is also featuring cover art from the wonderful world of Michael Ramirez' sketch pad,
here are some of my favorites of his;