We've been stenciled!!!

How cool is this! I'd like to think whoever the mystery spray can fan is made this wee ska man just for us :) We're really chuffed with this and there are cool of loads stencils spring up around town, just open your eyes! And yes, that pavement was far too hot to be sitting on, hence the face like a bulldog that's just spat out a wasp. Cheers to Nick the Greek for taking the photo.

Expansion

Sadly it's looking like the 'armchair of rock' might have to go to make way for some more cds racks, which is great for us but bad for your tired feet! As with last time we decided to indulge in some active recyling and go bin dipping again! As this is expansion though no ordainry skip would do, we had to go for a HUGE skip! There was easily enough wood in there to build half a shanty town! But we've decided just the cd rack will do! But this will mean more space for gig posters so keep bringing them in!

Get Dressed!

I can't remember if I've mentioned it yet, but we've got custom clothing! Our clothing is made by the wife of the chap that hand painted our lovely shop sign. Rikki is modeling a lovely tartan zip jacket, unlike some other zippy clothes our zips are real pockets! There's a bunch of other clothing we've got in and we can make stuff for you, just let us know what you want!

With a little help from our friends...

With a lot of help from Marc 'Aflightoremember' Newby we are filling up the online store. We're working our way through the punk section at the moment, but we'll be moving onto other stuff real soon! Cheers Marc!

is this a local shop?

Huzzah, we've got our local bands section off the ground, have a butchers here - http://knowyourproduct.net/punk-shop/index.php/cPath/44

Now we have two shops!

Well kinda, the online store is now open for business at http://www.knowyourproduct.net/punk-shop/ check back as often as you can as we're adding stuff all the time, there should be several thousand items by the time we're done

Headless in a Beat Motel

Issue #5 of Beat Motel is 72 pages of interviews, drunken columnists, mad rants, childish humour and about a billion* reviews, and also features;
Against Me!, Rise Against, any other band we could find with 'against' in their title, Aunty Em, Cougars (RAH!), a beligerant cat, Lagwagon, the best horroscopes, the best album covers in the the world (like the handless organist), Things Found In Sharks, KneeDeep, Ippo News & MORE
You know you want it, you'd better buy it or we'll send the boys round, although that's not much of a threat as they are very nice lads really, and will probably offer to walk the dog or rod your drains or summit.


We've got a bunch of copies in store for £1.50 each so pop along and grab one soon! I'll be adding them to the online store too.

Fat News & Banksy

We're getting new stock in all the time, including some chuffin' great Banksy books that arrived earlier today, and there's tons more to come!

We've just heard word from Fat Wreck Chords that Against Me! Are putting out a live album of a recent London gig, you can watch thier latest vid here -
http://www.fatwreck.com/video_track/lowres_video/24/AM_Energizer.wmv

Fat have also told us there's a new Strike Anywhere! album out very soon.

Here are some smart bands that are currently on tour or about to set off -
THE REAL McKENZIES
30.06. D Waldkirchen - AZ Dorftrottel
01.07. NL Rossum - Rosrock Open Air
02.07. D Roitzschjora - With Full Force Festival
04.07. RUS Moscow - Ikra Club
06.07. D Dietersburg - Blamage
07.07. D Geislingen - Helfenstein Festival
08.07. NL Alkmar - Parkhof - early showtime 5.30pm
08.07. B Gierle - Sjock Rock Festival - late showtime 10.55pm --
www.sjock.com
09.07. NL Den Haag - Morlock Gallery
11.07. D Soest -- Sonic
12.07. NL Arnheim - Goudvishal
13.07. D Goettingen -- Musa
14.07. D Scherleithen(Fraenkische Schweiz) - Klangtherapie Festival
15.07. D Saarwellingen - Rockwell Festival
16.07. B Dour - Dour Festival
18.07. A Dornbirn - Conrads Ohm
19.07. D Karlsruhe/Durmersheim -- JUZ
20.07. D Muenchen - Backstage
21.07. D Fulda -- Kulturzentrum Kreuz
22.07. D Nordenham - Fonstock Festival
24.07. D Osnabrueck -- Tor 3
25.07. CZ Liberec - Casta Club
26.07. HU Budapest - Music Factory
27.07. SLK Bratislava - Klub Randal
28.07. A St. Poelten - Umsonst Und Draussen
29.07. D Dieburg - Traffic Jam Open Air
30.07. D Rostock-Benkenhagen - Force Attack Festival
01.08. PL Gydina - Ucho
02.08. D Cottbus -- Gladhouse
03.08. CZ Ceske Budejovice -- Martys Club
04.08. CH Wasen Im Emmental - Eichlerhuus Open Air
--www.eichel.inventsoft.ch
05.08. CH Gipf-Oberfrick - Freaktal Open Air -- www.openair.freaktal.ch
06.08. D Wiesbaden - Schlachthof
Booking: www.muttis-booking.com

MAD CADDIES
30.06. NL Rotterdam -- Nighttown
01.07. D Bonn -- Rheinkultur
02.07. DK Roskilde -- Roskilde Festival - www.roskilde-festival.dk
07.07. P Quarteira - Pavilhao Escola D. Dinis
08.07. P Almada - Incrivel Almadense
15.07. B Herk-de-Stad - Rock Herk -- www.rockherk.be
16.07. B Dour - Dour Festival -- www.dourfestival.be
Booking: www.destiny-tourbooking.com

LAGWAGON
30.06. SP Lleida -- Senglar Rock -- www.ticktackticket.com
01.07. I Rimini -- Velvet !!! Please note: 2 Shows on the same day!!!
01.07. DK Roskilde -- Roskilde Festival - www.roskilde-festival.dk
Please note: 2 Shows on the same day!!!
02.07. I Ceccano -- Etnika Rock -- www.etnikarock.com
Booking: www.destiny-tourbooking.com

It's the little things in life...

Whilst getting frustrated with the England Vs Portugal game I've been beavering away on our webshite. One small victory is that when you hover your mouse over a link on http://www.knowyourproduct.net/ you get a wee metal hand, hurrah!

Browsing and da punx

Well things are going well, we're having a steady stream of people that all appear to becoming regulars. We've had people demanding soul, telling us that's what people 'actually listen to, not punk'. We've had people telling us they have 'vinyl players' and today we've had members of Condemed 84 and the Addicts stick their heads in as well. Good times, and now we're going to naff off early to go watch the footy.

WE'RE OPENING!!!

Wa-hoo, we're going to have our launch night on Thursday 29th June, whoop whoop!

We're going to be open all day, and in the evening we're going to stay open late so you lovely people can come in and have a good snout round!

We've still got a lot to do, but have a look at these panoramic photos I took yesterday to get an idea of how things are taking shape. When you click on one of these images your browser will probably shrink the image you see, so if you use FireFox then zoom in, and if you use Internet Explorer then hover your mouse over the image till the 'expand' button appears on the bottom right of the image.

The view from the till -
The back room complete with changing cubicle! We've got a LOT more clothes to put out but here's a rough idea. The big green thing is the zine/ patch wall. We've got so many zines we just don't know where to put them all.

And finally here's a photo I took from the centre of the shop turning all the way round

busy busy busy

We've got LOADS done over the last few days. We've figured out the till, hassled BT and Powergen over bills and 'negotiated' a lot with lawyers. But we've also done a lot of smart stuff like put stock out, like the NoFx singles club 7"s Rikki is holding in one of these photos whilst balancing precariously on a cd rack!

We've also spent a lot of time sorry out the clothing we've got for the back room, and oh boy do we have a lot of clothing! We're even going to be doing Know Your Product originals! I've seen them, and they are blinkin' great!


















As you can also see we've back to our bin-diving ways, the Corn Exchange in Ipswich was chucking out some huge notice boards that we decided would look great in our shop!

long arm of the laws

Nobody ever gets that joke, so don't feel bad! The back room of the shop was looks far too empty so before we started putting the clothes in we decided to hang up some camo netting. As with all things 'Know Your Product' no detail has been left unattended to, this netting was used by a certain well known punk band as part of thier backdrop!

Blue Monday

It's our aim not to have any whitespace left anywhere in the shop, and that includes the celing, so Rikki has made the only start to covering the celing that you would expect him to!

Grills, but no bacon

Just to save our ancient and probably antique wafer thin windows we had our mate Andy knock up some grills to stop drunk folk falling through! We were going to paint them a bright colour but as it took poor ole Rikki a week just to put on the undercoat we decided that black was punk anyway. It's great how deciding stuff is punk helps it fit into our plans!

And doncha just think they look amazing, Know Your Product is actually starting to look like a shop! Especially with the dead smart posters we've been sent my Fat Wreck Chords (cheers Nanette), Go Kart Records (cheers Nicole), Household Name Records (cheers Kafren) and even Metal Blade (cheers Anton!)

Hide your shameful body in style!

Wa-hoo, our tee shirts are here. We've got all the usual sizes plus girls skinny fit ones. If you spend more than £30 on our launch night we'll give you a tee shirt for FREE! Wow, sometimes I'm so generous I surprise even myself!

If we've got any left I'm sure we'll be flogging them at some point, get in touch and let us know if you want one!

Are you sitting comfortably?

We always wanted to have a settee in the shop, partly because we like sitting down and stuff, and also so that we could act as a sort of 'man creche' when fellas get dragged into town by their lovely partners. We couldn't find a settee but a big thanks goes out to Craig Unknown for giving us his armchair. Although he struggled a bit to get it out of his flat, which makes us wonder if that was why the last tennant left it in there! It was a bit of a pickle to get into the shop, so I helped Rikki by taking photos of him struggling. But as you can see, it's oh,
so comfortable for reading zines!

well travelled zines

I don't think we've really told you much about the zines we're going to be stocking. Well there will be all big names as well as some really obscure stuff, and all zine lovers love the obscure stuff! This morning a huge packet of 25 zines from Australia arrived, now I bet there's not many shops that have that many Australian zines! They certainly know how to make smart zines down under too, we've got some really original stuff like a book of fake Elvis' (or should that be Elvii for plural?) and three paper bags that just say 'you' on front!

Household Name indeed!

Wa-hoo! Look what we just got sent for the shop from Kafren at Household Name Records

It should be noted that I have that odd look on my face as I was virtually doing a headstand with the camera between my feet to take this photo!

2Tone door matt!

It's funny the things you get excited about when you open a record shop, take this mat for example. Well actually don't take it, we need it, otherwise we're gonna trapse crap all round the shop. This post was funnier in my head...