BLOOD AMBITION 2007

Nathaniel is the GRILLED CHEESUS!

2009-04-30T17:13:00.000-07:00

Nathaniel was recently interviewed by Molly Bergen of the LAist at the Grilled Cheese Invitational, which has to be one of the greatest events we have ever been to.

Check out the interview HERE.

-Ben Lee Handler

THE BLOOD ARM! SWEATERS! THURSDAY!

2009-04-27T20:30:00.001-07:00

Come get your touch on, and bring your best-looking friends... shit is going to get sweaty.

THE BLOOD ARM IS PLAYING ON THURSDAY NIGHT.

Also, you know SWEATERS?

The band we love more than JESUS?

They're playing, too.

SAVE THE DATE:

4/30/2009 10:00 PM
BORDELLO
901 E. 1st Street
Los Angeles, California 90012

Can I get an unwanted pregnancy?

Ben Lee Handler + The Blood Arm

Fuck the Creditors!

2009-04-16T14:09:00.000-07:00

Friends!

Sick of "clever" radio stations playing "Taxman" and "Money" all day? We of The Blood Arm feel your pain. That is why we are giving you a delicious taste of our album-in-progress, a rough mix of our take on the global recession and financial meltdown: "The Creditors." Stream it here (http://www.myspace.com/thebloodarm) until the end of the week, in (dis)honor of Tax Day 2009!

Then come see us play with Sweaters at Bordello in Downtown Los Angeles on Thursday, April 30!

And then come see us in Europe at one or all of the following dates:

May 12 Innsbruck, Austria – Weekender
May 13 Munich, Germany – Atomic Cafe
May 14 Koln, Germany – Luxor (w/ Art Brut)
May 15 Hamburg, Germany – Molotow
May 16 Berlin, Germany – Kesselhaus (Jagermeister Rock:Liga Finale)

We love you!

xoxoxo The Blood Arm

choose your adventure and GERMANY fun junx!

2009-02-08T18:16:00.000-08:00

It's A NEW, NEW Gossip Girl! (Also, New, New Year's Show!)

2008-12-22T13:51:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes, we of The Blood Arm are SO EXCITED to carve another notch into our "television shows about rich teenagers misbehaving that have used a TBA song" belt. Check out the promo for the new season of GOSSIP GIRL:

All this ATTENTION has made us kind of frisky, actually. SO, we've decided to play a show that would enable each of us to touch you inappropriately in the opening seconds of 2009.

Please, all of you, put on your easiest-to-grope-through outfit and head over to the ECHO on New Year's Eve!

We love you!

Ben Lee Handler + The Blood Arm

UNDERGROUND NEW YEARS EVE
DECEMBER 31ST

FEATURING LIVE PERORMANCES BY
THE BLOOD ARM
WE ARE THE WORLD

DJ SETS BY
EDDIE ARGOS (ART BRUT)
UNDERGROUND DJS
DJ LARRY G.
DJ DIANA
DJ SHANE
DJ MARK

PHOTOS BY MATADOR Y TOROS
FREE CHAMPAGNE

DOORS AT 8.30

THE ECHO
1822 SUNSET BLVD
ECHO PARK CA 90026

$10 PRESALE TICKETS AVAILABLE THROUGH TICKETWEB.COM

UNDERGROUND – OFTEN IMITATED, NEVER DUPLICATED

BLOG PARTY!

2008-12-14T14:40:00.000-08:00

So we're doing a show tomorrow with some VERY SERIOUS ROCKERS.

Orange County, are you ready to VERY SERIOUSLY rock out?

Come on, get your Grove on:

Monday, December 15
BLOC PARTY, THE BLOOD ARM
The Grove in Anaheim
Buy tickets HERE.

Get Your All Night On, Friday

2008-10-16T23:14:00.000-07:00

Pop quiz hot shot:
THE BLOOD ARM and THE GOLDEN YEARS are playing TONIGHT (Friday, 10/16) at DOWNTOWN 81,
what do you do... what do you do?

11:30 The Golden Years
12:15 The Blood Arm

First 40 people to RSVP to freersvpdowntown81@gmail.com get in free, second 40 get in half price. Show is $8 at the door.

(You can dance and drink all night, shit goes after hours.)

Silver Factory Studios
915 Mateo St (south of 7th St)
Downtown LA, CA 90021

We love you,

Ben Lee + The Blood Arm

Music That You Can Dance To

2008-09-19T09:01:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Sarah in Detroit for sending us this adorable video!

Stuff We Are SO Into Right NOw

2008-09-13T03:33:00.001-07:00

Do you like THE BLOOD ARM?

We LOVE THE FRANKS!

Blowing Minds with Frank Black

2008-08-18T16:48:00.000-07:00

The Magic Benino!

2008-08-06T11:30:00.001-07:00

Woah!

Oh no he didn't!

SHOW TOMORROW @ THE ECHO!

2008-08-05T10:14:00.000-07:00

Help us welcome home DJ Paulie and L-Train at the Echo!
9pm till late!

The Echo
1822 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Q: Are We Still Alive? A: YES. (Figuratively.)

2008-06-16T19:48:00.000-07:00

Listen! News!

We are going on a mini-tour with our mini-friends whom we love a lot, even if they are small in stature (though not in the pants). (Their pants are quite large.) One friend is called the We Are Scientists, and the other friend is called Cut Off Your Hands.

These are dates you'll remember, never before and never since, I promise:

(Click on a venue for tickets.)

July 1, The El Rey (Los Angeles).

July 2, The Casbah (San Diego).

July 3, The Glass House (Pomona).

There are new songs being written for a new album, which is exciting.

In the mean time--and the nice time, too--let us remember all the books we've ever read and judge them harshly. Come on, good read with us!

Love you long time,

Ben Lee + The Blood Arm

The Blood Arm: As American As Apple Pie, Baseball, Chevrolet...

2008-03-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

We of The Blood Arm posse love baseball, but to physically engage in the sport requires a certain level of coordination, athleticism, and anabolic steroid abuse--three things we decidedly lack. This is why MLB '08: The Show is such a godsend; we can get our fill of our nation's pastime virtually, and the only performance enhancers it requires are a kick-ass soundtrack (it comes standard with the game!) and occasional below-the-belt joystick action from our bandmates (also standard with the game!). Check out the preview:

We are particularly honored that they used 'Suspicious Character' for the trailer, as the soundtrack also features such luminaries as The Ramones, Thin Lizzy, Franz Ferdinand, and ZZ Top. The Blood Arm: just a breath away from the canon!

I love you more than Miss American Pie,

Ben Lee Handler

SPACELAND IS THROWING A BAR MITZVAH BASH! "MAZEL TOV," SAY THE BLOOD ARM!

2008-02-29T13:02:00.001-08:00

SPACELAND'S 13th BIRTHDAY ON SUNDAY, MARCH 2 IS GONNA GET ALL TORAH UP!

OUR SET STARTS A LITTLE AFTER NINE, BUT THE PARTY KICKS OFF AT ONE PM... WHY NOT MAKE A DAY OF THIS BLESSED, BRISSFUL EVENT?

11:00pm – 11:30 The Vacation
10:10pm – 10:40 Run Run Run
9:20pm – 9:50 The Blood Arm
8:30pm – 9:00 400 Blows
7:40pm – 8:10 Wiskey Biscuit
6:50pm – 7:20 Special Guest
6:00pm – 6:30 Earlimart
5:10pm – 5:40 Radar Bros.
4:20pm – 4:50 The Movies
3:30pm – 4:00 Oliver Future
2:40pm – 3:10 The Broken West
1:50pm – 2:20 The Tyde
1:00pm – 1:30 Let’s Go Sailing

WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH EVEN THOUGH YOU NEVER CALL HOME!

Oh! You Weary Pointer Fingers!

2008-02-06T14:57:00.000-08:00

In case you were too busy to go down far enough on our last post to see the new video for The Blood Arm's Do I Have Your Attention? duet with Anais, here it is again, scroll-free this time!

Also, Nathaniel has been keeping a blog for his AAnchors AAweigh project--now featuring Dyan and the best parts of The Ettes and Tall Hands!--at http://aanchorsaaweigh.blogspot.com/! Czech that shit out!

Peace in the Middle East.

THE BLOOD ARM NOT EATEN BY GIANT SEA MONSTER, STILL ALIVE AND DOING STUFF

2008-02-02T13:26:00.000-08:00

You know that movie Cloverfield? You know, the #1 film in the country? It's a FRAUD! Seriously. Manhattan totally wasn't destroyed by a giant sea monster. It would have been nice if someone had told us this before we saw the flick. We were so convinced by the realistic hand-held camera footage, we thought we had been eaten ourselves!

Oh yeah, The Blood Arm was playing Rob's party in the movie before the monster attack. Well, playing on the stereo. Check it out:

So yeah, you should totally buy the Cloverfield soundtrack.

Other things we've been up to:

- Drinking!

- Perez Hilton-ing! (We've never felt so famous!)

- Taratata-ing avec Anaïs!

- Making videos avec Anaïs!

Do I have your attention ? (en duo avec The Blood Arm)

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- Side projecting! (Well, Nathaniel and Dyan have.)

- Taking pictures of AAnchors AAweigh! (That's Nathaniel's side project!)

- Drinking!

I love you!

Ben Lee Handler!

NUDE YEARS EVE!

2007-12-25T18:21:00.000-08:00

The Blood Arm: Past, Present and Future (au Francais)

2007-11-21T11:09:00.000-08:00

What we've been up to, what we're up to, and what we will be up to...

Thank you to Case Simmons and Andrew Burke for their patience with our ineptitude at photoshop.

NME.com Blog Updates for Los Angeles, San Diego, Tempe

2007-11-11T17:36:00.000-08:00

I've posted words for our time L.A., San Diego, and Tempe on my NME.com blog.

To read about our time in Los Angeles and San Diego, click HERE.

To read about the Tempe party, which was insane, click HERE.

Click them! Click it!

Los Angeles party:

Sandy Eggo party:

xxxooo,

Ben Lee Handler

ICE FACE CHALLENGE

2007-11-08T01:32:00.000-08:00

For words to go along with these photos on my NME.com blog, click HERE.

Nathaniel vs. Franz of The Hold Steady. Victor: Nathaniel.

Dyan vs. Ian of Art Brut. Victor: Dyan.

Myself vs. Eddie of Art Brut. Victor: Myself.

Dyan vs. Jasper of Ar Brut. Victor: Dyan.

Zachary vs. Keith Boadwee. Victor: Zachary.

Oh, the spoils of victory.

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

HOOTERS Photos, Feminism, Tacoma, Seattle

2007-11-05T19:28:00.000-08:00

For words to go along with the following photos, check out our NME.com blog HERE.

To see my updated NME.com makeout guide to the Hold Steady and Art Brut, click HERE.

HOOTERS:

New Feminist Book Club:

Nathaniel trapped in a glass cage of emotion:

I love you so much it hurts,

Ben Lee Handler

The Portland Dance Dance Revolution Will Be Blogged About

2007-11-04T09:47:00.000-08:00

For the words that go along with these pictures, click HERE, then click on the words 'bypass this message'.

A pre-DDR pep talk for Zachary by our boyfriends Ryan and Jazmina:

Nathaniel loses his mojo by the feet of our other boyfriend, Fabiana:

The hot hot heat of battle:

Zebastian congratulates Ryan on his revolutionary tactics:

Why Zachary and I eat vegetarian:

San Francisco, ho!

2007-11-03T02:50:00.000-07:00

For more words to go along with these images, click HERE.

Zachary comandeers the White Lightning:

We find love in a trucker's hands:

Our favorite East Bay, West Bay, or any bay art gallery, Blankspace. Kerri and J.B. are the best ever:

Alcoholism:

Love love love,
Ben Lee Handler

NME Rock 'N' Roll Riot Tour 2007

2007-11-01T02:24:00.000-07:00

In addition to this blog, I'll be keeping another for the NME HERE.

I love you so much!

Ben Lee Handler

Hank Schmidt in der Beek: AWESOME -or- How We Landed Our Tour with The Hold Steady and Art Brut

2007-10-30T01:07:00.000-07:00

Apologies for being silent all these years, or months, or however long it's been. I wish I could say my lack of current updates has been because I've been terribly busy, but I haven't. My absence probably has more to do with my recent discovery of YouPorn.com than anything. (YouPorn: It's like YouTube, but with pornography!) I probably wouldn't even be typing now had I not happened into Hank Schmidt in der Beek.

Meet Hank:

Hank is very important.

Take a moment to get a little better acquainted with him.

You know how you have your AWESOME days, where everything that happens is just TOTALLY AWESOME? Like, your hair is rockin', you got plenty of sleep the night before, you just did your laundry so you can wear your favorite pair of jeans with that Madonna t-shirt you finally rediscovered after years of thinking your mom had thrown it in the garbage but she had really just put in that drawer you never open, the rockabilly kid you always thought was cool but were slightly afraid of invites you to his party and you build up enough guts to ask your crush to come with you and she says yes... those kind of days? Those kind of days happen, like, once every four years for most people. Most of the time, an ordinary person's time on earth will fluctuate between slightly awesome and completely shitty, usually lingering somewhere in the gray area in-between.

Hank never lives in the gray area. Hank's days are AWESOME ALL THE TIME. If you're ever lucky enough to hang out with Hank, a little of his AWESOME will rub off on you, too.

Case in point: The very day we met Hank, The Blood Arm were flown to France to tape a performance on TARATATA with Anaïs and Babyshambles, and our upcoming stint on the U.S. leg of the NME's Rock 'n'Roll Riot Tour 2007 with The Hold Steady and Art Brut was announced. TOTALLY AWESOME, right?

And we owe it all to Hank Schmidt in der Beek.

I've missed you, but now that I've found my muse, we won't have to be apart for long. (Hank has also assumed the role of my muse.)

Love you always,

Ben Lee Handler

Nathaniel Starts New French Renaissance in Southern California; Sings 'Do I Have Your Attention?' in French with Anaïs

2007-09-17T18:16:00.000-07:00

When Zachary and I were still in high school together two years ago, one of the requirements for graduation was that we take a class called 'Health.' Health class consisted of horror stories about what happens when one does drugs while having sex before he/she gets married.

Here's an actual question from our final examination:

What happens when you have sex while doing drugs before you get married?

And this was the correct answer:

You get a nasty hybrid of hepatitis, AIDS, and herpes, your parents stop loving you, and you die lonely and hungry with absolutely no hope of salvation from Jesus H. Christ or any other recognized deity.

This is probably why Zachary and I remain virgins to this day--the Orange County high school system terrorized the libido straight out of us.

Of course, Health class also taught us about the 'gateways' that lead to drug-induced premarital fornication, and French Kissing was the leading culprit. Sure, kissing with tongue seems innocent enough, but keep at it and you'll be smoking crack while sandwiched between two Adam Carolla lookalikes in a Turkish bathhouse before you can say "high school never taught me anything!"

So Zachary and I swore off French Kissing and everything else associated with it, and the most obvious thing we could associate with French Kissing was the French. For two years we went without French bread, French toast, French fries, berets, Paris Hilton, and anyone whose first name ended with the letters q-u-e.

Then we met Nathaniel.

Nathaniel not only embraced French Kissing, but he embraced the whole of French society as well. Sure, he had most of the diseases Health class had warned us about, but he also had more fun than anyone we had ever met before, and his parents still loved him, and he had a lot of friends. Before we knew it we were French Kissing Nathaniel in France and other French-ish countries, and the Blood Arm was a real band, and Zachary and I starting thinking about losing our respective virginities while on drugs. This is about where we're at now.

To celebrate the buddings of a Blood Arm Renaissance, Nathaniel went to Paris and recorded a French version of 'Do I Have Your Attention?' with the French pop sensation Anaïs. It's frisky and flirty and all kinds of awesome, just like French Kissing.

Check it out on our MySpace, or just listen along with the adorable making-of video below!

Je t'aime,

Ben Lee Handler

Duo The Blood Arm / Anais: Do I have Your Attention?

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FUCK YEAH FEST in FULL EFFECT!

2007-08-25T15:06:00.000-07:00

Sisters, Brothers, Lovers from other mothers,

The time has come to give our hometown its due.
Let us shout it from the rooftops, let it reverberate in the deepest hollows of hell:
"Los Angeles! We are The Blood Arm! We are all over your Eastside tomorrow!"

Come take part in history, the funnest weekend in Los Angeles, the best festival to hit the Eastside, ever:

Sunday, August 26
FUCK YEAH FEST IV
(Our set starts circa 9pm at the Echo)
1822 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

May our reunion be holy and full-frontal,

Ben Lee Handler + THE BLOOD ARM

Our love for you springs eternal.

Festival Guy

2007-08-15T01:04:00.000-07:00

This is our best friend Grant's impersonation of Festival Guy.

You've probably met Festival Guy before... He hangs out at a lot of Radiohead, Coldplay, and Dave Matthews Band concerts, and just about every open-air festival you've ever heard of.

(Grant's performance took place at the ALMOND JOY, home of TBA favorites Keith Boadwee and Kenny Beans.)

Can I Get A 'FUCK YEAH'?! East Side REPREZZZENT!

2007-08-08T13:10:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles, we love you so much we'd send our favoritest golden spaniels to battle a striped hyena--a fight they'd surely lose--if it meant you'd give us oral.

Other things we'd do (for you to give us oral):

•Take you out for hot wings.

•Wash your car.

•Pretend not to notice that you're getting a little thicker around the waist.

•Play the FUCK YEAH FEST on August 26th.

Okay, I was just kidding about the last one. We actually had to give a lot of oral to get that slot. (One thing we've learned: The more oral we give, the more often we get the slot. Holla!)

The FUCK YEAH FEST has been one of the funnest weekends in Los Angeles for the past few years, and we're all SUPER excited to get naughty at the Echo again.

We looooooooooooooooove El Lay!

xxxooo,

Ben Lee Handler

Happy Birthday to Me...

2007-08-06T20:58:00.000-07:00

Almost.

If you're trying to figure out what to get me, here are a few suggestions.

Hurry! I get old on Wednesday!

Also, Richard Gear--a team member of the backline crew at the ArtSonic festival, not the gerbilphile--recently sent us this video.

MVI_4657
Uploaded by Richard-Gear

Holla!

xxxooo,

Ben Lee Handler

Anders Gives Our Recent Tour A Harsh Review

2007-07-31T00:22:00.000-07:00

What's that Anders? You have magic binoculars that allow you see the whole of history as if it were right in front of you?

Yes Ben Lee. Yes I do. And yes they can. I can see that you and your friends have been busy of late.

Well, I mean, we just got back from the SECOND HELPING DESIRED, REQUIRED 2007 UK and European Tour. It was five weeks long. A lot of stuff happens on the road.

I can see that. And I must say I find your behavior downright repulsive. ALL of your behavior.

Oh, come now. The Blood Arm, we're grown adults. We're allowed to do some things and say some things that kids your age just plain aren't. Like snort goofballs and say 'shit' and 'damn.' Them's the brokes.

I understand this, but your recent activities would shame a person of average moral constitution into confession for thirty years. Shame--have you none? Do I have to detail your offenses for you?

I dare you to. I bet you can't name three.

Here are dozens. Heaven forbid what I'd have found had I REALLY looked:

Dyan Writes From London - In which the piano player exposes her bare arms and ankles for the world to see, tempting married men all over the globe to reconsider their vows of faithfulness and monogamy.

Intentional Accidentalism; Glastonbury, Southside Festival
- In which you reduce the masses at Glastonbury and the Southside Festivals to quivering blobs of Jello, then use the Jello as lubrication with which you forcefully violate the Euro Tunnel.

How We Roll: The Hurricane Festival - In which you sully the sacred name of Eddie Vedder with the flowers of a thousand German virgins.

We saw the Brementown Musicians and... - In which you photograph a ghostly Zebastian with spunk in his eye.

Innsbruck is Alive with the Sound of the Blood Arm... - In which you repeatedly douse the lovely Weekender Club with golden showers in the name of the Rolling Stones.

Some Festival Pics... - In which you vainly encourage the Internets to look at you, you, you.

Hard Up in Gay Paris - In which you glorify the desecration of the most beloved Disney character and wholeheartedly endorse necrophilia in public places.

The State of Our Hearts is IN LOVE with Wiesen - In which you bowl without using balls or pins and fornicate in large groups without mind or heart.

Our Sovereign State of Love - In which you manipulate the Abart and Hafenkneipe clubs into believing that the baby ISN'T yours, thereby allowing your hellspawn to continue to parisitically suck the years off their lives.

Paris is Sexy and Underage - In which Paris tells you she's sixteen, but you swear she's twenty-three and thrust yourselves upon her like a pack of starving wolves.

Les Ardentes Festival, Weinheim Party - In which you treat children's toys as if they were made for adults, forever tainting their structural integrity and youthful innocence.

Every Day is the Greatest Day Ever - In which you talk up your extravagant lifestyle so high that everyone's else's seem little by comparison. I mean really, jet skiing?

Bastille Day on Fire, London on Fire, The Blood Arm on Fire - In which you slaughter the sanctity of childbirth by celebrating Dyan's exit from the womb a full day before its actual anniversary.

A Thunderstorm of AWESOME - In which you ride on the coattails of MUSE into a huge sold-out arena and attempt to play Prometheus to their Zeus.

Obstwiesen Festival is Possessed by Devil, Wholly Embraces The Blood Arm - In which you accept the sweetest affection from the beast solely responsible for every last drop of human suffering.

Art Sonic Festival = Buckwild - In which your Zachary offends everyone who has worn clothes EVER.

How We Roll: The Death Star - In which you make a belated stab at giving credit to perhaps the most important member of your entourage, further drawing attention to your earlier negligence.

Shall I continue? I mean, your base vulgarity physically hurts me... tell me you don't see it!

Okay Anders, point taken. Why don't you forget about this for a while and let me buy you some ice cream?

Eat with you? You make me ill! I'd be surprised if the cream didn't curdle and sour as soon as you approached! You are cholera! The plague! A human stain!

Let's calm down a little. Take a deep breath. Think some happy thoughts. Say, why don't you focus those magic binoculars on something happy?

...............

Anders?

...............

Anders?

Quiet please, I am trying to heed your advice.

Well, what are you looking at, then?

THE END

How We Roll: The Death Star

2007-07-26T04:25:00.000-07:00

See that guy above? The one with the 'stache? That's Ed Stringfellow, he books our tours. Sometimes he gets a little rough. We like it rough. When he says Innsbruck, Austria to Paris to Wiesen, Austria in three days, in that order, we say, please master, may we have some more? We get off on this sort of thing.

Of course, we have a little help getting it up along the way--a fluffer, so to speak. This is where the DEATH STAR comes in. The DEATH STAR is our big blue bus, the lubrication to make the hardships of the road slide along a little more smoothly.

Check it out:

That's what she looks like from the outside.

Here are her innards:

So yeah, that's how we got around for the past few weeks... on the backs of alcohol and DVDs and a big blue bus.

A full tour synopsis is coming shortly.

xxxooo,

Ben Lee Handler

Art Sonic Festival = Buckwild

2007-07-24T14:16:00.000-07:00

The last date of this Second Helping Desired, Required 2007 Summer Tour was a muddy extramarital affair. (Muddy because it rained and rained on the dirt. Extramarital because they let you marry extra in France if you're into fancy cheese.) We went so buckwild that our avocados grew shrimp, Tour Manager Chalkie grew a mole, and Zachary lost a pant leg.

The show was all kinds of brilliant, though all photodocumentation has been exported to the States. (My re-entry has been forbidden; Germany is my home now.)

Tomorrow I'm going to give you a belated tour of the bus that carried us, the next day I'm going to to give you a tour synopsis.

I love you in German,

Ben Lee Handler

Obstwiesen Festival is Possessed by Devil, Wholly Embraces The Blood Arm

2007-07-21T12:43:00.000-07:00

We should have known when the sign of the beast appeared on Zachary's new snare head yesterday that the Obstwiesen Festival was going to be special, but we carried on like it would just be a regular day on the job. It WAS NOT a regular day on the job.

First, a savage appetite overtook us, and we ate the lovely Au Revoir Simone for dinner.

They were delicious. Normally we would feel a tad guilty after such a binge, but the feast filled us with a curious rage and all-enveloping horniness. We were very horny.

When this happens under ordinary circumstances, we usually find the nearest member of the Hidden Cameras and take him in the angry demon position.

Things weren't that different from usual, I guess. But after we were finished, there was still something to be desired--one might say our horniness was superhuman. We needed something to absolve this, and we needed it BAD. Then out of nowhere, lo and behold, our hero appeared.

It was just the miracle we were praying for.

We're in Briouze, France now, and I'm off to drink more...

With eight arms to hold you,

Ben Lee Handler

A Thunderstorm of AWESOME

2007-07-20T07:57:00.000-07:00

See Zachary down there? No? Look a little closer, that's him right in the center. Still no?

Well this is what he looks like up close:

Oh yes, I forgot to mention... We opened for MUSE the other night at the Nimes Arena in France. (That's Matt and Dominic with Zach above.) It was the best night of our lives, basically.

Stuff happened after that, as well. A unicorn. A parking lot. A thunderstorm on Zebastian's clothes.

No one's gonna take me alive,

Ben Lee Handler

Bastille Day on Fire, London on Fire, The Blood Arm on Fire

2007-07-18T07:53:00.000-07:00

We went to Paris a few days ago on Bastille Day, and it was good. There were fireworks outside and inside and under the sheets. Then I puked, lost consciousness, and fell out from under the sheets, and it was a little cold. It was good, messy fun, and we fell in love all over again with Jack Penate and his band.

Then we went to London, where Keith Top of the Pops took us under his wing and showed us how to really party. The show at the 93 Feet East was grand, especially as it gave us an opportunity to celebrate the day before Dyan's birthday.

Now we're at some massive Roman Arena in Nimes, France, waiting to open for MUSE. I'll tell you how it went tomorrow...

I love you more,

Ben Lee Handler

Every Day is the Greatest Day Ever

2007-07-14T05:12:00.000-07:00

Every day is the Greatest Day Ever for the Blood Arm on this Second Helping Desired, Required 2007 European Tour.

We went to Dortmund, Deutchland the other day and did a show, drank the German beer, German-kissed the German people, said to ourselves, it can't get any better than this, hopped on our big blue bus and waved goodbye with tears of longing in our eyes. Thanks for the memories, we whispered, then prayed in our bunks for some mishap in the cosmic time continuum that would allow us to relive that day over and over for the rest of our lives.

Instead, our big blue bus took us to St. Tropez on the French Riviera. We were given golden all-access tickets which not only entitled us to drinks on the beach, but jet skiing and golf-carting as well. We went jet-skiing. We worked on our tans. We made love with each other in the sand, and, almost miraculously, the coarse granules didn't get everywhere. The show took place fifty feet from the beach. We kissed the ground and crossed ourselves, convinced we had died and gone to heaven. Heaven is in St. Tropez, we said, please let this be our eternity.

Then we woke up on a stage in front of 25,000 dancing people next to Lake Aix-Les-Bains at the Musilac Festival. We schmoozed with Frank Black, oogled a topless Johnny Borrell, stood in awe of Muse (perhaps one of the best live bands we have ever seen, and definitely Zachary's favorite group), and were serenaded by Mumm-Ra on the way to the bus.

Okay, this is getting sort of ridiculous, we said. Then this morning we woke up in Paris...

I love you a little more every day,

Ben Lee Handler

Les Ardentes Festival, Weinheim Party

2007-07-10T07:32:00.000-07:00

The Les Ardentes Festival in Liege, Belgium was all kinds of awesome. We're pretty sure we're best friends with Good Shoes, Clinic, Ladytron, and a Belgian band called Ghinzu now, but we can't remember entirely how it came to be. Something involving a swing set, a teacup, thirty Mars Bars, and a fuckload of booze. It was a good day.

Then we went to Weinheim in Germany, where Nathaniel stood on a table and sang and Milla Jovovich beat Dyan at arm wrestling.

Today we traded in the van for a big blue bus.

I love you madly,

Ben Lee Handler

Paris is Sexy and Underage

2007-07-06T15:22:00.000-07:00

We went to Paris to play one of the fashion week parties. Something about diamond bracelets by Cartier--we weren't given any free samples. Everyone in attendance was young and sexy, or old and sexy pretending to be young and sexy, or too young and sexy pretending to be post-puberty. It was all very confusing. And arousing.

We met our European labelmates Second Sex for the first time. We knew they were all seventeen, nineteen at the oldest. Yet they walked up to all of us and immediately began kissing us with tongue. We thought, SCORE! Then we thought, but they can't be older than nineteen, is this wrong? And then they they started French kissing everyone else in the room and it made us so jealous, then angry with ourselves for being so jealous over a bunch of young boys that we had to sit in the corner for ten minutes with bags over our heads just to calm down. Then we went and tried to kiss them with tongue again, or at least find some other fourteen year-olds pretending to be seventeen to get off with. Paris makes us crazy, and we totally love it.

Today we drove to Liege in Belgium where we're going to perform at a festival tomorrow. On the way, we happened into the official theme park for Asterix and Obelix, cartoon characters that Yiannis (our lovable Grecian Sound Technician) always talks about, and we had always assumed were figments of his imagination (he smokes a lot of weed). Yiannis had the last laugh, but then everyone's a winner at the Official Astrix theme park.

I love the shit out of you,

Ben Lee Handler

Our Sovereign State of Love

2007-07-05T05:39:00.000-07:00

Zürich is for lovers. It's impossible for us not to fall in love every time we come here. Granted, we've only been here twice, but both times have given us memories (and diseases--love diseases) that will warm our hearts for years to come.

After a brilliant show at the Abart, our dear friends Richard and Robert took us to the Hafenkneipe, our favorite bar in Europe, and partied us under the table and out of our clothes.

Oh, it's grand to be in love...

Yours forever,

Ben Lee Handler

The State of Our Hearts is IN LOVE with Wiesen

2007-07-02T02:42:00.000-07:00

We performed at the State of the Heart Festival the other day in Wiesen, Austria. Not only were the crowds great and the bands top-notch, but they had Nintendo Wii backstage, where Dyan proved again and again to be the best bowler.

Coming Soon: Video of the raucous orgy that took place onstage during 'P.S. I Love You But I Don't Miss You.'

Wiesen, you're the best.

xxxooo,

Ben Lee Handler

Hard Up in Gay Paris

2007-06-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

I woke up about four AM yesterday morning backstage at the Paris Paris club in Paris a little out of sorts, and rightfully so. For one, I was backstage at the Paris Paris club in Paris, instead of in bed at our hotel. And then there was all this other shit: Yiannis, our Grecian Sound Technician, was repeatedly putting-on and peeling-off a sticker from my right cheek, a creepy tall French dude was pinching my left hand black and blue, and one of the club's DJs plopped herself on my lap and had, according to Nathaniel, been making out with my corpse for some time before I began to stir.

One's morning-after instinct when this sort of thing happens--and it happens more than we of the Blood Arm Posse would like to admit--is to blame it all on whatever township we happened to be in the night before. Oh, those Parisians/Londoners/Dusseldorfians/Orange Countians are just CRAZY, we say, pouring ourselves a third eye-opener. How they rejoice in forcing us to party all night, inject goofballs and have unprotected sex with farm animals! The monsters!

Then we go off in Paris/London/Dusseldorf/Orange County/whatever city we happen to be in and cross our fingers that its citizens will attempt to outparty wherever we were the previous evening. Funny thing, it seems that everyone we meet in every city is crazy.

But especially in Paris.

Upon entering the Paris Paris club, partygoers are greeted by a pink Mickey Mouse with a giant boner:

Then they walk downstairs, and there we are with bigger boners:

It was a good night, basically.

I love you so much it's making me crazy,

Ben Lee Handler

Some Festival Pics...

2007-06-28T10:37:00.000-07:00

From the Glastonbury and South Side Festivals, courtesy of our lovable Grecian Sound Technician, Yiannis:

Innsbruck is Alive with the Sound of the Blood Arm...

2007-06-26T10:01:00.000-07:00

Innsbruck in Austria is hands down the most beautiful city we have ever visited. Sandwiched between the Nordkette, Patscherkofel, and Serles Mountains, this federal state capitol is an international hub for winter sports. In the summer, however, the city doesn't have much to do besides sit around and look pretty. This is where we come in. If rock and roll has taught us anything, it's that 'pretty' is pretty boring if it's not shaking its ass and throwing its hands in the air like it just don't care.

Consider Innsbruck rocked.

I love you to pieces,

Benjamin Lee Handler

Oh yes, I would be forever angry with myself if I forgot to mention that the Weekender Club in Innsbruck is one of the best venues ever.

Q: How awesome is it?

A: Well, awesome enough to have Rolling Stones inspired urinals.

We saw the Brementown Musicians and...

2007-06-25T16:23:00.000-07:00

Oh, travel days. After approximately 15,000,000 hours in the bus, one can laugh at just about anything.

Not photographed: About 100 ausfahrts, Bum Bum ice cream bars, the billboard with the sexy lady eating a sausage...

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

How We Roll: The Hurricane Festival

2007-06-24T04:31:00.000-07:00

I should probably say something about the surreal backstage Southside and Hurricane festival scene. This is how we roll*: We check-in, load our equipment onto the stage, then make our way to catering. We rub elbows with what is destine to become the cast of some 'Remember the Nineties' reality show on VH1--Eddie Vedder, Juliette Lewis, Perry Farrell, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Mark Ibold--over squid ink pasta and Alaskan Sea Bass. After lunch, we perform, then it's time to hit up the Artist Bar, where we pick up bottles of champagne--one each--to keep us company on the walk to take in the Sonic Youth set. (Their live show is amazing.) We're kind of tired and very drunk by this point, so we head to the on-site masseuse to work out the kinks in our backs, then drink with Art Brut until we can't remember our names. It's a rough life.

We love Germany so much we want to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant.

Other things we love: You.

More than this there is nothing,

Benjamin Lee Handler

*The collective 'we' on this post does not include Zachary. Zachary's festival activities consist only of sleeping face-down on the dressing room floor and playing the drums for forty-five minutes.

Intentional Accidentalism; Glastonbury, Southside Festival

2007-06-23T06:39:00.000-07:00

We make a lot of mistakes on the road. We say 'whoops' a lot. But after about the 30,000,000th 'whoops,' one starts to wonder if all these mistakes are really mistakes. Like, every time we say, "okay, no more service station sandwiches," we get drunk and eat a service station sandwich. Or every time we say, "okay no more adopting pet rodents at venues and keeping them in our suitcases," we get drunk and do just that. Or every time we say, "okay, no more throwing dead identical twins boys into the river after we lure them into the van with candy and have our way with them," we get drunk and lure identical twin boys into the van with candy, have our way with them, throttle them in their sleep and throw them into the river. Whoops.

It says a lot about us, I think, that we always wind up doing the things we say we don't want to do. Three things, specifically: First, we are ashamed of a good portion of our desires. Second, we use alcohol as an excuse to do the things we are ashamed to do. Third, we get away with doing the shit we would be ashamed to do at home on the road. And this is just one of the reasons why touring is totally awesome.

Some shit we are definitely NOT ashamed of:

- Nathaniel, Zachary, Zebastian and I taking three different airlines and stopping in two different countries before we are finally reunited with Dyan, Tour Manager Chalkie, and Sound Tech Yiannis in London.

- Performing in front of perhaps the biggest crowd the Blood Arm has ever performed before at the Glastonbury Festival.

- Nathaniel forgetting half of the lyrics to his songs at the Southside Festival in Germany.

- Our love of the chunnel.

- Zebastian's newfound love for girlie ice cream bars.

Now Chalkie is in the middle of our 500 mile drive to Bremen, and the others are working on some identical twin boys they lured into the van at the last service station... time for me to get drunk and join in!

I love you madly,

Ben Lee Handler

Dyan Writes From London

2007-06-19T02:52:00.000-07:00

Dyan has been in London for a little bit. Look! She is sending us a letter!

What does it say?

Let's open it and find out!

Dear Rest of The Blood Arm,

Come here! Hurry! Our SECOND HELPING DESIRED, REQUIRED tour begins on Thursday!

Love,

Dyan

How can we forget! The Blood Arm's SECOND HELPING DESIRED, REQUIRED 2007 UK and European festival and headlining tour starts Thusday! We'll be kissing all of you with tongue very soon!

I love you with a vengeance,

Benjamin Lee Handler

Davey Dance Blog vs Harvey Danger: A Challenge to Blood Arm Fans Everywhere

2007-06-04T20:55:00.000-07:00

Check this out:

Q: Pretty awesome, right?

A: Yes, Ben Lee. This is totally awesome.

An impromptu dance party to one of your favorite favourite pop songs in front of a place of historical interest (that I can't recognize, that I can't recognise for the life of me). It's genius, really: This way everyone knows how worldly these kids are, that they dress snappy wherever they go, that they're swell dancers, and that--most importantly--they like the Blood Arm. Davey does this everywhere he goes; he is a sharp dressing jet-setter who dances brilliantly and loves the Blood Arm. Check out Davey's other dance blogs to almost-as-good pop songs HERE. We're sort of completely in love with him.

But then I saw this:

Granted, these kids aren't in front of a place of historical interest that I can't recognize/recognise, they're not nearly as handsome or as sharply dressed as Davey and his dance posse, and Harvey Danger? Come on!

Really, though, their video is all kinds of badass. I mean, it's four minutes of well-choreographed fun in one single take. That's some Scorsese shit right there.

Upon viewing it, I found myself a little dumbstruck, a little threatened. Aren't we of the Blood Arm Posse, we of the Davey Dance Blog Posse, we of the Worldwide Blood Army... aren't we supposed to be better than everyone else, or at least not as dumb? So now I'm challenging you, Blood Arm fans, to come up with a TBA lip dub more cleverer than the Harvey Danger one embedded above. This challenge will extend into the year 3000, and our favorite/favourite responses will be posted on BLOOD AMBITION and rewarded in the best way we deem fit. (The best reward we deem fit = the Best Reward Ever = one hour in the hot tub with Zachary and Zebastian.)

So have fun and get back to us on this one.

I love you so much it hurts,

Ben Lee Handler

Coming soon: A salute to TBA Poet Laureate Lawrence Durrell.

Normal Adolescent Behavior

2007-06-02T17:21:00.000-07:00

A promo clip for the film 'Normal Adolescent Behavior,' shown recently at the TriBeCa film festival.

A One Act in German with Terrible Spelling

2007-06-02T05:52:00.000-07:00

Jodie Foster: Baldwin! Ich will dine freunen zine! Willst du liebe mir?

Alec Baldwin: Nein! Ich liebe meine arbeit, und mein arebit nur!

Jodie Foster: Scheiße! Du bist mein liebe, du bist mein kampf!

Walking Upright in Berlin

2007-05-28T13:17:00.000-07:00

All the traffic lights in Berlin have boners...

Thanks to Juliane for the photo!

Zachy, Youre the Best

2007-05-22T21:00:00.000-07:00

No Don't Take Me!

2007-05-08T11:01:00.000-07:00

No Don't Take Me, by the Blood Arm. Written on-the-spot on 20 April at the Atomic Cafe during some technical difficulties. Nathaniel later had sex with everyone in the audience. Top that Fall Out Boy.

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

My Friend, My Friend... Lover? A Tour Synopsis

2007-04-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

Zebastian found a time machine somewhere in Belgium.

Where to go with this TIME MACHINE? This was the first question we asked ourselves. Courtney Love's shower circa 1997? The emergency room immediately following the Richard Gere gerbil incident? Woodstock? Altamont?

Actually, there wasn't any debate at all. We promptly set the device to stop at each day of the greatest month in the history of rock 'n' roll, and perhaps the history of all mankind. I'm talking about the My friend, my friend... Lover? Tour of course.

Come along... Relive it with us:

My Friend, My Friend… Lover?- In which Zachary is bound, gagged, and cooked with a recyclable kitchen standby, yet we still manage to begin the tour. Thousands rejoice, thousands more enlist their daughters in after school self-defense classes.

Air Force Fun Mixes Metaphors, Sets Sail- In which we meet a few important cast members for the tour, and the York Fibber's club receives an intimate tour of Nathaniel's most important cast member.

Little Sausage is Well Prepared- In which Little Sausage proves his worth; breaks arms. Liverpool is frightened.

Glasgow Kisses, Birmingham Ghosts- In which Scottish facial hair is studied and ultimately eaten. Also, Birmingham takes us six feet under.

More Facial Hair in Leeds- In which our dear friends Alan and Laura bless our upper lips, enabling mustaches en masse.

Cardiff Report Coming Shortly...- In which the Cardiff report is hesitant to exit my brain for fear of being upstaged by a strange Glaswegian.

Let The River Run...- In which Carly Simon squeezes our mind grapes to the point of insanity, and we are unsure if Cardiff, Manchester, and Nottingham actually exist, or if they are merely chubby drops of mind ether sprinkled upon us from the legendary vocalist. Also, we drink a lot of cough syrup.

Bristol Beecham's Fuck You; Brutality in London- In which we continue our journey to the outer reaches of reality on the back of Beecham's All-In-One cough syrup. It is a healthy steed. There might be a show on a boat in Bristol. There is definitely raping and pillaging in London.

The Blood Arm: Outsider Competitor With Only A Little Chance Of Win -OR- We'll Slay Our 70 Virgins Now, Thank You- In which we land in Tourcing, France, and Little Sausage passes gas. Also, Zebastian instructs the masses how to properly light a TBA show.

Caen Can- In which the French city attempts to kill us via delicious pastries and cakes, and Zebastian's lighting instruction pays off.

Zachary Dreams of Lyon, Stuttgart, Cologne- In which it becomes apparent that our adventures are not a product of Carly Simon and cough syrup at all, but rather of our drummer's infinite appetite for sleep. Lyon, Stuttgart, and Köln are wined, dined, then amorously taken in the missionary position so we can look them in the eyes while we do it.

HasselON, Germany! -OR- Heaven Is A Place In Münster, Frankfurt and München- In which we learn that David Hasselhoff really is incredibly popular in Germany. Also, we get high.

Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen: The German Sexcapade Continues- In which Ian (our Tour Manager) flaunts his ability to conjure hot girls, we are accosted by a gnome and a freaky blue dude, I wet my trousers, and we all assume new identities.

Hannover... Ghent... aaaaand Weeeee're Spent!- In which Germany and Belgium erase their borders and join together in connubial embrace. Flerman—a German-Flemmish hybrid—is adopted as the new country's tongue. David Hasselhoff is elected King.

Now I must go back... to the future!

I love you all,

Ben Lee Handler

Oh yes, just because the tour is over, it doesn't mean that there won't be regular updates to this page. KIT! (KIT = 'Keep In Touch' in American.)

Hannover... Ghent... aaaaand Weeeee're Spent!

2007-04-28T03:52:00.000-07:00

Follow Ian's cigarette out the window. (Throw them all out the window, Ian! Smoking kills!) That there town is Ghent in Belgium, and it's beautiful. Before that was Hannover, and it, too, was gorgeous. Some pictures from those magical days:

Really, though, the shows were amazing. We made some lovely friends from Radio Flora in Hannover and the Van Jets in Belgium. (If anyone has any photos from these evenings, please post them to our myspace, as I obviously don't have any.)

I love you so much,

Ben Lee Handler

Stay tuned for a full tour synopsis and plenty more surprises...

Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen: The German Sexcapade Continues

2007-04-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

The handsome man on the right is Ian. (The handsome girl on the left is Katharina. She grew from Ian’s knee in Berlin. Later, Katharina divided into two equally handsome girls—some sort of handsome girl mitosis—then those girls divided into four hot girls… In about an hour our dressing room was filled with beautiful women. Ian has this power.) Ian is very important to us. In addition to filling our dressing room with pretty girls, he can drive Air Force Fun from München/Munich to Berlin (10 1/2 hours!) without stopping to go to the bathroom, wake Zachary up in the morning (Zachary doesn’t do mornings), go for three days without eating just for the hell of it, and deal with angry hotel clerks and promoters when we urinate on/fornicate with/set fire to their property.

Also, he and Little Sausage banter at the front of the van with wit rivalling Statler and Waldorf from the Muppets. You have to hear it, really.

These are the places this Beautiful Angel from Heaven took us in the past few days:

BERLIN

Berlin gave us fifty orgasms in rapid succession, bought us a Thai massage, then coaxed us to anotherfifty orgasms at a more comfortable pace. Then it bought us ice cream and used the dessert as lube to deliver us ANOTHER fifty orgasms, these even more furious than the first batch. Under normal circumstances we’d be totally spent, but man, we are ROCK HARD for this city. And we ROCK HARD for Berlin.

Q: How good was the show at the Lido?

A: 150 orgasms good.

The city basically fick die scheisse raus aus mir in the sexiest way possible.

(We’re pretty sure the German capital likes us too… We reciprocate all ‘favors’ given.)

HAMBURG

Mario (our lovely German promoter), Kat (his girlfriend), and Mario’s magic chicken drowned us in Mexicans. We’re still not quite sure what a German Mexican is, but it comes in a shot glass and tastes like a Bloody Mary. Kind of like Nathaniel! (Holla!)

Shit got scary:

This is what I looked like the next morning:

BREMEN

We died and went to Bremen. We changed our names, burned our passports and took up permanent residence in the Krone hotel, where the beds are made out of magic. New Dyan took a job as a schoolteacher, new Zachary became mayor, new Nathaniel got a residency as a cobbler, new Zebastian was hired as a postman, new Ian and new Little Sausage opened a bed and breakfast, and new me finally earned a medical degree and started a small hospital.

Bremen is the Most Beautiful town in the world. It is home to the Cantina (the best restaurant in the world run by the beautiful people pictured with me below) and some musical animals. We’re never going home.

Farewell… forever!

Ben Lee Handler

HasselON, Germany! -OR- Heaven Is A Place In Münster, Frankfurt and München

2007-04-21T10:15:00.000-07:00

Every day we’ve been in Germany has been the Greatest Day of Our Lives. It’s as if the country gave us all hydrogen sneakers when we crossed the border… We don’t walk around this country, we float on air without care or worry of ever crashing down. Forget the Hindenberg! Fuck Icarus!, we say, We’re the Blood Arm, goddamnit, and in Deutchland we’re flying OVER the sun!

This is as good as it gets, until tomorrow:

In Münster, Zachary found that every time he hit his bass drum, the smell of the sweetest strawberries would arise.

In Frankfurt, Nathaniel got the best blowjob ever, and Zebastian got the most wonderful surprise when the singer finished.

In München /Munich, Dyan conjured a beautiful piano out of thin air, just by thinking about it.

We’ve only been in Berlin a few hours now, and already I’ve had a threesome with a girl on a bicycle and a blue sheep,

and some dudes gave Nathaniel a car with his picture on it.

I would write more, but I’m being poured a champagne bath, and I don’t want to electrocute myself.

I love you in German, today even more than yesterday.

xxxooo,

Ben Lee Handler

Zachary Dreams of Lyon, Stuttgart, Cologne

2007-04-18T10:04:00.000-07:00

Take a place you’ve never thought of going before. Lyon in France, for example. Or Stuttgart and Cologne in Germany. Now hop on a magical blue bus—one with a name: Air Force Fun—and go to all of these cities. See their sights, eat their food, drink their beer, have intercourse with their pets. Think to yourself, Man, there’s no way it could possibly get any better than this.

Then you see him there, sleeping. Dreaming. And this nagging feeling rises up inside you… or maybe it bites you in the shoulder and hits you in the head with a bottle.

What if this—the exotic locales, the exotic beers, the women, the wine, the bestiality—what if none of it’s real? What if all of this is his? What if it's all just Zachary’s Dream?

Please keep dreaming, handsome drummer prince. Keep dreaming…

I love you so much it hurts,

Ben Lee Handler

Caen Can

2007-04-15T11:43:00.000-07:00

And then we traveled to Caen.

Caen is a place of mystical forests, wonderous beasts, and magical sausage.

Actually, it's not just the sausage in France that's magical. Don't get me wrong--the UK knows how to feed a band--but in France they really take it to another level. Like, we get off the bus and there's cheese, bread, meats, candy, pudding and wine already set out for us. We think, okay stomachs, take on what you can now, because it's never going to be this good again. But then after soundcheck, not only is it that good again, but they add quiche and pastries. It's better than lunch. And then they take us to dinner.

So I'm getting fat, basically.

The show was fantastic... look at those lights!

We had so much fun in Caen that we let its citizens give us free local beer on our way out.

Your welcome, Caen! It was delicious!

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

The Blood Arm: Outsider Competitor With Only A Little Chance Of Win -OR- We'll Slay Our 70 Virgins Now, Thank You

2007-04-14T06:04:00.000-07:00

We're in France now. A fortune cookie told Zebastian (in French) that we should look to our underpants--that they would reveal the future to us. None of us wear underpants, so we went to the Supermarché to buy some.

And there it was:

But what does it mean?

We've always viewed ourselves a bit outside the mainstream--ever since we chose to play with matches on windy preschool days when everyone else was experimenting with sex and huffing glue. Or in elementary school, when we were more interested in hardcore music than hardcore drug abuse. Or in high school and college when we were more into writing and dancing than cutting ourselves--self-mutilation was the fashion of the time.

We always assumed our outsider interests made us winners... not that they lessened our chances of achieving the Ultimate Goal. (The Ultimate Goal: 70 virgins at our disposal in heaven.)

How the hell does our outsider status give us only a little chance of win?

You know what we say? We say fuck the fortune cookie. We say fuck the underpants too. Hell, fuck the afterlife as well... We'll slay our 70 virgins now, thank you.

Oh yeah, and rock your pants off in the process.

We're winners no matter what any goddamn cookie or pair of underpants tries to tell us.

Tourcoing was awesome.

This is where we ate:

This is what it looked like when the concert got quiet for a second and Little Sausage (our Sound Man) farted:

This is what Dyan looks like when she's invisible:

And this is how you properly light the Blood Arm on stage:

I love you more than you will ever know,

Ben Lee Handler

Bristol Beecham's Fuck You; Brutality in London

2007-04-11T01:05:00.000-07:00

In Bristol, we invented the Bristol Beecham’s Fuck You*. This took us on a supernatural journey on a supernatural boat. Or something.

No, the boat was real.

As was my subsequent marriage to a child bride.

Then we were in London, and it was brutal. Nathaniel raped and pillaged a lot.

(Bristol brought out the pirate in the singer, and it hasn’t washed off yet—he hasn’t bathed in a while.)

Honestly, I can’t really remember what happened after the show—Beecham’s—but I woke up at Keith Top of the Pops’ house, so the night must have ended there.

We’re in France now, bonjour!, stay tuned for regular updates!

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

———————
*Ingredients:

One part Beecham's All-In-One.
Two parts Jack Daniel's Premium Whiskey.

Mix and enjoy!

Let The River Run...

2007-04-09T13:57:00.000-07:00

Can anyone confirm that the Carly Simon Easter Special did indeed actually happen on BBC Radio 2 yesterday, and that it wasn’t some shared hallucination aboard Air Force Fun on the road from Manchester to Nottingham? (I’m fairly convinced the talking candy bar didn’t exist, and the midget waving from the roadside seems a little unlikely, but the Carly Simon show was so hauntingly real. And it was totally about us. Sorry.)

I should probably mention that this stuff has become my new life’s blood:

Not only does it cure common colds, headaches, nausea and pregnancy, it also makes life taste good again. The colors… so savory to the touch! Like, I can taste them by touching them! Red is strawberry, blue is boysenberry, the orange is mango... Beecham’s All In One is All For Fun, and I’m never gonna come down again.

We’ve been to Cardiff, Manchester and Nottingham in the past few days.

In Cardiff someone wrote the word “Penis” on the air conditioner,

in Manchester Laura and Alan gave us even more facial hair,

and in Nottingham Zachary got fucked.

Nottingham also witnessed what I’ve officially dubbed The Best The Blood Arm Show Ever. Hopefully someone else will blog about it, because my fingers are tired.

This is what Nathaniel looked like at the end:

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

Cardiff Report Coming Shortly...

2007-04-07T13:22:00.000-07:00

In the mean time, check out this guy's moves during 'P.S. I Love You But I Don't Miss You' in Glasgow:

More Facial Hair in Leeds

2007-04-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

If Glasgow is beardly, Leeds is positively mustachioed.

We love Leeds.

I love you,

Glasgow Kisses, Birmingham Ghosts

2007-04-05T07:43:00.000-07:00

Glasgow is a very beardly city. Look at all this facial hair:

For those of you not in the know, there is a citywide law that actually prohibits shaving for the duration of the spring. Something about it being bear season (hear that Grandmaster B?), or rabbit season, or the season of the resurrection, or the wheat harvest, or the beer harvest…

Anyway, the lovely Rory, the freshly coiffed Graham (aka Dolby Anol), and our Franzy friends led us into quite a debauched evening, one which I entirely blacked out. Thankfully—or regrettably—Dyan had enough presence of mind to snap a few pics for posterity.

I was in such a daze by the time we reached Birmingham that I was almost completely oblivious to the fact that the Barfly audience had an (un)healthy contingent of ghosts. Like, seriously. That place is built on a morgue. Creepy.

Alright, I'm tired, and Leeds awaits.

I love you all, passionately.

Ben Lee Handler

Oh yes! We must help my friend and disciple Johnny Spunkhands come up with a new nickname. Such a handsome man deserves a handsome stage name... Any suggestions are welcome!

Little Sausage is Well Prepared

2007-04-03T11:22:00.000-07:00

Remember how I told you yesterday that Little Sausage could build an amp from gravel and tinder sticks? Well that’s absolutely true. There he is below, proving me right.

Oh yes, we’ve just discovered that Tony’s given name is actually ‘Little Sausage.’ (The ‘Tony’ came about when children in primary school nicknamed him ‘Pepperoni,’ which was later amended to ‘Peppertony,’ then finally abbreviated to ‘Tony.’) We’ve decided to go with what his parents gave him, and roll on with Little Sausage.

Little Sausage has had an instant impact on the My Friend, my friend… Lover? Tour, which was witnessed en force last night in Liverpool.

For starters, he created a new bass drum head for Zachary:

Then he helped me determine a topic for my introduction:

Then he broke this guy’s arm when he tried to throttle Nathaniel:

Then he dried the singer’s tears and gave him a special medal for being so brave during the ordeal:

The show—minus the violence—was great, as was the afterparty at the Jazz bar, where Tord from the Wombats’ younger sister and her entourage proved to be the best dancers I have ever seen ever.

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

Air Force Fun Mixes Metaphors, Sets Sail

2007-04-02T07:24:00.000-07:00

And finally, after weeks of waiting, the My Friend, My Friend… Lover? tour is begun. Before I get to the inevitable tales of drunkenness, debauchery, love, rape, and forgiveness, it is imperative that you are introduced to a few new members of our cast.

You see that big guy above? The big blue one standing behind Dyan? That’s Air Force Fun, and she’ll be carrying us around the UK and Mainland Europe for the next month.

Captaining Air Force Fun is Ian. (He’s the guy sitting in the front—for those of you not in the know, UK vehicles have their steering wheels on the wrong side.) Not only is he our tour manager, he’s also met and worked with all of the Beatles, except for John, who Ian shot and killed. Lucky for us, some other guy took the blame.

Not pictured—due to an invisibility cloak he recently conjured—is Tony, who will be doing our sound for the duration of the tour. He looks like a cross between Santa Claus and Che Guevara genetically bred to have the body of Brad Pitt, except with hair of fire… ladies, watch out! Also, he can build an amp from gravel and tinder sticks.

This is what the inside of Air Force Fun looks like, guts and all:

Our first stop was the Fibbers Club in York, where we were supported by the brilliant Metro City Riot, and the Sugars, who are super-sweet, sonically sound, and ever-adorable.

The Blood Arm set went swimmingly as well; apparently Nathaniel was the first person in the history of the venue to get everyone to sit down on the floor for a song. This is an especially monumental achievment because the floors at Fibbers haven't been cleaned since Kurt Cobain's suicide in 1994. (The singer expresses his sincerest apologies to anyone who caught Hepatitis C as a direct result of his actions.)

Anyway, all signs indicate that this tour is going to be an awesome... All Aboard!

I love you,

Ben Lee

My Friend, My Friend... Lover?

2007-03-31T10:14:00.000-07:00

Almost as soon as we were all reunited in London, the beatings began. After about six hours in the Goth Pub--which is so Goth persons not wearing all black are turned away at the door--drinking Goth Juice (cider and blackcurrant--it looks like BLOOD) we caught our dear friends Pull Tiger Tail play at the Forum, then hurried to the Barfly to afterparty, then finally to Keith Top of the Pop's house to after after party.

Things we've learned about ourselves and the world at large:

-No matter what anyone says, Nathaniel can knock you out of your chair.

-Mikey from Art Brut parties harder than anyone.

-Zachary is a Sleepy Tiger Cub.

-Inside the deepest, darkest recesses of Zebastian's soul, there lives a tiny city, and the city's mayor is an absolut tyrant.

-I am a bonafide homosexual.

I love you (in a totally gay way),

Ben Lee

SXSW in Review; We Love Ireland

2007-03-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

So we saw some bands, Zebastian and I were kidnapped by drug dealers (for real), Zachary spent some time in Cincinatti, Ohio on the way from Los Angeles to Austin, the band played perhaps the drunkest set ever (check out THIS eyewitness account), and somehow we wound up partying all night with Lizzy Jagger and a dude wearing Keith Richards' scarf. Also, we met Dave, the Brian Jonestown Massacre's tour manager for the first half of DIG!

The problem--and the best part--with SXSW is that all the alcohol is free, so it makes it sort of hard to remember that you're seeing all kinds of great music. Like, when it's open bar, John Lennon could be roused from the dead to perform an impromptu set with the Traveling Wilburys
right in front of me, and I'd be all, "wait, you're telling me I don't have to pay for drinks?" So even though we saw some great bands, I only kind of remember the whole thing.

Here's a sampling of the music we saw over our last two days at the festival: The Ponys, Bloc Party, Gossip, The Black Lips, Pete and the Pirates, Dengue Fever, The Horrors, The Bravery, Oh No Oh My, Matt and Kim, Stylofone, the Pigeon Detectives.

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

Oh, Ireland! We'll come for you as soon as we can, and we wholeheartedly apologize that we're missing you on the rescheduled tour. Some of our greatest tour experiences have taken place in Belfast and Dublin, so we're trying to get back there as soon as possible!

Sex Bi Sex West Review Coming Shortly...

2007-03-18T21:05:00.000-07:00

If you're not too busy, and even if you are, kill some time by reading a few nice things nice people have written about us:

HERE's an interview at the SceneStar.

HERE's a featurette at NY2LON.

And HERE's Boadwee's blog. (He hasn't written anything about us in a while, but his blog is all kinds of awesome.)

I love you,

Blee

SXSW Preview: Maybe We'll Slaughter An Animal Or Something

2007-03-15T00:58:00.000-07:00

May 13, 2007

Dyan and I arrived in Austin, Texas last night--it is HOTT in HERRRR--but I'm getting ahead of myself, as the plane ride from L.A. to Austin was a party in itself.

Imagine a singles bar where everyone is Jewish, drunk, horny, and if you polled all the people in the establishment, the unanimous reply to Who's the Best Musician EVER? would be Billy Joel. Also, the bar is locked for three hours barring anyone's escape, and the entire place is suspended 30,000 feet over the ground for the duration of that time. Those people would have a lot to talk about, right? There might be some crazy behavior over the course of those three hours, right? Maybe a little sex? A little violence? Intense sororitization? (Sororitization: the act and application of sisterly love.)

Okay, now imagine that instead of a singles bar, the place is an AIRPLANE, and instead of being Jewish, everyone on the airplane is indie rock. Ladies and Gentlemen, THAT AIRPLANE IS REAL! I was on it, and it was awesome.

Here is Dyan and my New Best Friend (from the airplane) on a ten vodka-soda bender at a Jewish singles bar in Austin:

Here I am with the fantastic Cael Kirkland at the same bar, on the same bender:

And, HERE is a preview of our show by Brad Barry with some very quotable Nathaniel moments.

May 14, 2007

With so much free alcohol floating around, one runs the risk of becoming a free alcoholic. Today we became free alcoholics.

Bands we saw and loved: The Young Knives, Mum Ra, Peter Bjorn and John, Donovan, Beirut, and the Mountain Goats.

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

Advice for Starving Students, March Madness

2007-03-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

When it comes to advice, Zebastian is full of it. He recently dished out a steaming serving of helpful tips for the readers of LastBroadcast.co.uk, and they are delicious.

Follow the links to read how he--along with some other bands who have plural names preceded by an indefinite article--can help you save money, recover from a hangover, eat cheap, and pick up babes in the city.

Also, Zebastian and I like to pretend we know a lot about college basketball. As the NCAA Tournament is upon us, we've both filled out brackets in anticipation. If you would like to join our pool, fill out a bracket HERE to see how you measure up. It's free, but you must have it filled out by Thursday in the States in order to join.

Enjoy!

-Blee

Zachary is Aging

2007-03-09T20:17:00.000-08:00

That's right, as of today, our dearest Zachary is another year older.

Let's review the major milestones of his life thus far (and if you've been lucky enough to see them, you know it's the truth when I say his milestones are MAJOR):

March 9, 1979 - Zachary John Amos is born in Santa Ana, California.

March 10, 1979 - Speaks his first word, "Drum." Two hours later he speaks his second, "Sex." These words, coupled with "I want," comprise the entirety of his vocabulary for the next twenty-two years.

March 13, 1979 - With his rattle from his crib, the four-day old successfully keeps rhythm with the entirety of Los Angeles radio station KCBS's Salsa Hour with Santos Del Rio while his mother, Joanne, cleans his room. Joanne instantly recognizes the baby's genius and contacts the radio station, thus beginning young Zachary's ten-year tenure as KCBS's Sensational Salsa Baby. (The moniker is later changed to Sensational Salsa Boy.)

May 25, 1989 - Abruptly fired from KCBS after he is discovered in a utility closet with 42 year-old Patricia Moonves, the station manager's wife. In her subsequent trial for the delinquency of a minor, Moonves is quoted as screeching, "You must understand, he's not just a boy, he's a sexual prodigy!"
Zachary simply bows his head and whispers "I want sex" in response.

May 30, 1989 - June 15, 2002 - Perfects his drum technique. Slays 10,000 virgins. Eats only raw chicken.

June 16, 2002 - Joins the ranks of the Blood Arm, the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the History of the World.

March 9, 2006 - Turns 28.

I love you Zachary,

Ben Lee Handler

German Efficiency

2007-03-08T11:33:00.000-08:00

Our German friends at thebloodarm.de had a party in our honor, only they didn't invite us. It's probably for the best; the last time we hung out with those guys someone tied us to a tree, stripped us nude, threw our lederhosen in the icebox and tickled us with a bratwurst until we cried. Granted, we usually do that sort of thing for fun anyway, but I'm told it can affect our work visas if ever we're caught. We're entertainers, not chew toys goddamnit.

Anyway, you can check out some photos of how are German counterparts throw down HIER.

Dyan and I are going to SXSW on Tuesday, and the others are joining us on Friday. Expect frequent updates in the coming weeks!

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

Suspicious Characters Invade YouTube

2007-03-02T22:07:00.000-08:00

I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record.

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

Watch The Blood Arm on Taratata!

2007-02-14T05:18:00.000-08:00

Hello friends and lovers! Our television debut aired on Friday night. Watch us play "Suspicious Character" on Taratata:

Suspicious character - The blood arm
Uploaded by musiclivesat

...and our cover of the French classic "J'aime Regarder les Filles" featuring the lovely ladies of Plasticines:

J'aime regarder les filles-The blood arm
Uploaded by musiclivesat

After taping the performance, we celebrated at Eurodisney. A good time was had by all!

Happy Valentine's Day, we love you!

THE BLOOD ARM! TARATATA! 9 FéVRIER!

2007-02-01T12:49:00.000-08:00

Les Blood Arm vont détourner les ondes de la télévision française...

N'oubliez pas de regarder TARATATA ou vous le regretterez jusqu'a la fin de vos jours!

Notez les dates:

Le 9 février sur France 4
Le 23 février sur France 2

Nous sommes impatients de vous revoir pour la tournée française!

Je vous aime,

Ben Lee Handler
Maître de Cérémonie
Les Blood Arm

Interviews!

2007-01-24T13:41:00.000-08:00

A particularly drunk one from our last tour, thanks to our friends at Bandidge: Read it HERE.

!!!

2007-01-22T14:15:00.000-08:00

While we're waiting for Dyan to post a synopsis of the band's most recent trip to Paris, here is a riddle to keep you occupied for a while:

Where does the bee keep?

One more:

Why are we?

I promise to post more frequently starting tomorrow...

xxxooo,

Ben Lee Handler

Futuresex/Lovezebastian

2007-01-11T01:51:00.000-08:00

Future.
Sex.
Love.
Sound.

You know what you want,
and that makes you just like me.
See everybody says you're hot baby,
but can you make it hot for me?
Said if you're thinking about holding back,
Don't worry girl,
cause I'm gonna make it so easy.
So slide a little bit closer to me little girl.
See daddy's on a mission to please.
Wait a second.

She's hopped up for me
I've got her in my zone
Her body's pressed up on me
I think she's ready to blow.
Must be my future.
Sex love sound
And when it goes down
Baby all you've got to do is,

Just tell me which way you like that
Tell me which way you like that
do you like it like this
do you like it like that
tell me which way you like that
Tell me which way you like that

You can't stop baby
You can't stop once you've turned me on
And your enemy are your thoughts baby
So just let em go
Cause all I need is a moment alone
To give you my tongue,
and put you outta control
And after you let it in, we'll be skin to skin,
It's just so natural.

Wait a second

She's hopped up for me
I've got her in my zone
Her body's pressed up on me
I think she's ready to blow
Must be my future.
Sex love sound.
And when it goes down
baby all you gotta do is

Just tell me which way u like that
Tell me which way u like that
do u like it like this
do u like it like that
just tell me which way u like that
Tell me which way u like that

Future sex love sound
Future sex love sound
Future sex love sound
Future sex love sound

Wait a second

She's hopped up for me
I've got her in my zone
Her body's pressed up on me me
I think she's ready to blow
Must be my future sex love sound
And when it goes down
baby oh you gotta do is

Just tell me which way you like that
Tell me which way you like that
do you like it like that
tell me which way you like that
Tell me which way you like that

What We've Been Up To Lately

2007-01-08T13:25:00.000-08:00

Nathaniel has been holed-up editing the new video for 'Angela,' the next single from the hit album Lie Lover Lie. (Little known fact: He actually used to do this sort of thing for a living. You know, hole himself up.)

Dyan is currently foraging for free food at her parents' house in San Carlos--and hanging out with them, too--before she takes up transient residence in London prior to our February-March tour. Her tentative plans for her UK stay include picking up a posh London accent. Interviewers beware!

Zebastian is devising a new technique for victory in the strategy game Axis and Allies. When asked why he always insists on playing as the Axis powers, Zebastian declined to comment. (When further pressed, he assured me his prefence of roles in the board game has nothing to do with his decidedly Aryan features.)

Zachary and his wife have adopted a German Shepherd puppy and named it Optimus Prime. Though it has not been house-trained yet, Optimus already excels in attracting the attention of hot girls and homeless people. Zach has also taken up bathing occassionally, and is breaking in a new yellow t-shirt.

I've been taking care of Dyan's apartment while she's gone, watering her nonexistent plants. Also, eating her food. Also, wearing her clothes. Also, introducing myself to people as "Dyan Valdés."

The band takes off to Paris Thursday for a quick promo jaunt, which will include Nathaniel singing in French on National Television. Stay Tuned!

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

Oh yes... I will post more pictures from the 'Angela' shoot as soon as I can find the disc. I think I left it at my friend Hannah's house, so hassle her.

Why Do They Take Your Photograph?

2007-01-04T02:51:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, friends!

Here are some photos from the recent video shoot for 'Angela,' the upcoming single from Lie Lover Lie:

I know what you're thinking... there's an ELEPHANT in the video?!

Well shake your head in disbelief no longer. There is an elephant in the video.

Let's play the "Guess What the Elephant's Name Is" game.

(I'll give you a hint... It starts with an 'A' and ends with an 'ngela.')

(Actually I'm lying. I have no idea what the big guy's name is.)

The video is directed by David Kleiler of 'Say Yes' and 'Suspicious Character' direction fame, and is based on the Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra video for 'Some Velvet Morning.'

Nathaniel grew a mustache specifically for his role, and he had to learn how to ride an elephant. When asked if either of these feats were particularly challenging, he replied, "no."
Is there anything he can't do besides swim?

Dyan gave me another disc of photos from the beach shoot, which took place a day before that which is documented above, but I left it in my car. I'll try to post them tomorrow.

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

Oh yes, and in the spirit of the upcoming single, Angela wins the Your Top Ten of 2006 (A Contest) contest. Congratulations, Angela!

Your Top Ten of 2006 (A Contest)

2006-12-20T16:38:00.000-08:00

Friends,

While we're too busy being too lazy to make our own Top Ten of 2006 lists, I thought I'd give you, the loyal readers of BLOOD AMBITION 2006, a chance to post your favorite things of the year before we become BLOOD AMBITION 2007. Post your lists in the "COMMENTS" section, or email them to info@thebloodarm.com if you're shy.

This is a contest, and we will reward our favorite list handsomely. (We're just going to assume Lie Lover Lie is the unanimous #1, so be creative and use that slot for something else. Like your parents! Wouldn't that be novel!)

Post or email your lists by 2007! Do it!

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

Also, check out Nathaniel's adorable speaking voice on this week's Cross the Pond podcast!

Friday Show Photos; A Warning of Things to Come

2006-12-18T09:19:00.000-08:00

So the show Friday was out of control. Also, fun!

I intended to photodocument the majority of it, but then got drunk and wound up taking pictures of all our friends "so my International lovers can see how beautiful my American ones are." The resulting images are dishearteningly Cobrasnake-esque, only plus a few years, minus the Atkins diet, and a little more EASTSIDE. (There are also a few from our dear friend Jeff's holiday party... Those are all holiday happiness and cheer, with love to spare.)

Check them out HERE.

Coming soon: A long-overdue feature on our beloved Greecian soundman Yannis, each of the Blood Arm posse's Top Things of 2006 lists, and a year-end CONTEST... Stay tuned!

I love you,

Blee

The Blood Arm Phone Home

2006-12-15T10:54:00.000-08:00

On the off-chance you didn't already know, Los Angeles is in trouble tonight. We've been out of town for far too long, and we've a score to settle.

The show is at the Echo. There are still a few tickets available here.

Get there by 9pm or so, as the Ettes are supporting, and they're not to be missed. (Also, we haven't seen you in more than two months, for Chrissakes.)

I've missed you,

Ben Lee Handler

Love is a Many Splendored Thing; BALTHAZAR is a Way of Life

2006-12-13T20:21:00.000-08:00

It is only fitting that the Best Tour Ever ended with the Best Plane Ride Ever, but I'm getting ahead of myself... we went to Paris first.

Paris is awesome. I swoon for just about every type of accent--especially that of our favorite Scouser Crazy Pete--but I fall down and die la petite mort just about every time a French person speaks to me in English. Be it basso, alto, or soprano, the accent has just the perfect balance of of sexy and approachability to fall in love with a thousand times over. Compound this with the fact that the worst meal in Paris is better than the best meal anywhere else, that their idea of water is wine, and that their idea of "hello" is kisses on both cheeks, and you'll understand why I was dying little deaths all over that great city. It's grand to be drunk and in love in gay Paris.

There was goodwill to be spread on the Blood Arm's side as well, and hopefully we succeeded in the form of acoustic radio sessions, interviews and a showcase at L'fleche d'or.

(A brief explanation of the photos above: The first is from the RTL2 radio session; the second is of Zebastian with his new law and life partner, Sebastian; the third is the painful au revoir with William, our ever-impeccably dressed driver.)

Of course, what the photos above do not accurately capture is how intoxicated we were by the time William dropped us off at the airport. We were lovedrunk with Paris to begin with, but then around six o'clock Tuesday morning Nathaniel and I invented the French Russian--which is French coffee mixed with French milk and Russian vodka--and the French Greyhound, which is French grapefruit juice mixed with Russian vodka and a French Russian. We drank all of these, then the rest of our Russian vodka on the way to the airport. So by the time we arrived for check-in at eight am, I had no idea how to answer the questions, "are you monsieur Handler?" And, "what is your country of residence?" Fortunately, Dyan had avoided all the earlier Franco-Russo hub-bub and stealthily guided us through security, expertly avoiding any possibility of a diplomatic crisis.

Usually the party ends by the time one boards an American Airlines flight--they charge for drinks and the entertainment options always feature Adam Sandler--but we were sitting by the superfun Ken, Sheran, Nancy, and the superhuman BALTHAZAR. (That's Ken and Sheran next to Zachary and I.)

Ken is a ex-SAS sniper who is currently teaching Frenchmen to be coal miners and alcoholics. He insisted on buying us drinks the entirety of the flight. He helped Zachary and I overcome our fear of military men, and we helped him overcome his fear of Jews.

Sheran was life coach to Jim Morrison (that one didn't turn out too well, whoops!) and Buddy Rich. She now parties with Bob Dylan and Tom Jones. She helped Zachary and I to set short and long term goals in our lives outside of partying on airplanes. (My short term goal: brushing teeth. Zach's long term: growing hair.)

Nancy is the superstar stewardess who continued to let Ken buy us drinks long after it was probably illegal. She helped us to realize that her aunt was the mean secretary at our high school.

BALTHAZAR is the craziest, realest motherfucker we have ever met. BALTHAZAR is less of a two year-old than a hurricane of happiness, honesty, and toy cars. BALTHAZAR refuses to sit down. BALTHAZAR knows that if a society says people can't run up to strangers, hug them and throw their toys at them, then that society deserves to be violently fucked in the ass. BALTHAZAR is zero pretence, all action, and packaged in the cutest red jumper I've ever seen. BALTHAZAR's name is twice as big as he is. We should all aspire to be more like BALTHAZAR.

I am going to get my hair cut like BALTHAZAR's because it is so fucking adorable.

Super-long plane flights should always be so full of awesome.

Now we are home, and had better see you at the show Friday.

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

Party Brut Learns to Pot Luck

2006-12-11T03:47:00.000-08:00

First things first: Forgive me for the nonsensical gibberish on the previous post. I was drunk, and alcoholism is a tough burden to balance with Down's Sydrome. (I also suffer from that.)

Secondly, the show in Southampton was perhaps the best ever Blood Arm perfomance. There was Kabuki, nudity, and I shaved the fuck out of TBA loyalist Ross's head until he bled.

Southampton was also our last show with the phenomenal dance outfit Hey Willpower, and we will miss them sorely. (Outstanding local act Breaking the Girl also performed... They are highly reccommended by us.) Hey Willpower did, however, leave marks on Zachary and I assuring that we will never forget them, barring the sudden onset of blindness or torso scarring.

Then it was time to party. Zachary was obligated to drink four liters of milk, which he promptly did.

He was not obligated to purge the four liters, but he did that anyway. (This photo is actually from our archives, the real proof is much too vile for the Internet.)

London was next on our hitlist. We had the day off, so we threw a Pot Luck at the house of Keith Top of the Pops and Eddie Argos of Art Brut. A Pot Luck--for those of you unfamiliar with the term--is basically an orgy of food and drink, wherein everyone attending brings a dish to share, and then everyone makes out. Making out--for those of you unfamiliar with the term--is basically full body, multi-person lovemaking, without worry of emotional or physical repercussions.

Soon, Keith and Eddie took off to perform at the Part Brut show, which is three fifths of Art Brut playing Art Brut songs and Animals covers. (If you're interested in the latter, look no further than here.) We followed them, and it was awesome. After this, we zipped over to Canvas in time to destroy Pull Tiger Tail's equipment during their last song.Then we went back to Keith and Eddie's and drank until the wee hours of the morning.

Now it's Paris for one quick showcase before we head home.

Au Revoir!

Ben Lee

The Blood Arm Get Married, and it is Brutiful

2006-12-08T03:18:00.000-08:00

We had so much fun at our Wednesday show at London Kings College that we decided to keep it going. As far as I'm concerned, it's still Wednesday, and we're still at Kings College. (Also, I'm still drunk.)

The band debuted their first live cover of another band's song about our hometown in the encore, with a little help from our friends in Pull Tiger Tail, Hey Willpower, and the man who actually penned the song being covered, which I won't write out here so it will be a surprise for all if it's performed again.

Then Dyan, Zachary, Yannis, myself, and our dear friends Nathalie, Handsome Dan (who was wearing his fabulous leather trousers), Teri, Lex, Martin, Hugh and our eighteen year-old boyfriend Jamie headed over to the house Keith Top of the Pops and Eddie Argos so Yannis could do all our makeup and we could swap clothes. This is much better described in pictures--it is downwright horrifying--and I will post them as soon as Nathalie, Yannis, or Teri sends them to me.

When ten o'clock am rolled around and we found our way over to the BBC for a live session, they wouldn't let Zachary in the building. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

Luckily, we had made honest women of the Tiger Tails the night before (with Hey Willpower filling our rolls with their best manship), and Davo was more than capable of taking over the Zachary pants for a few songs. Also, his drum parts.

More pictures of the evening's debauchery coming soon, see you in Southampton!

I love you,

Blee

Oh shit, I found a wallet at the merch booth Wednesday night... if you lost one, email your name and address (all this information is contained within the wallet, so I'll know if you're being sneaky) to info@thebloodarm.com and I'll mail it to you.

Also, special thanks to Kim and David for their badass Holiday cards.

Pulling Tiger Tail

2006-12-06T10:59:00.000-08:00

Over the past week of our headlining tour we have found ourselves falling head-over-heels in love with our main support act, Pull Tiger Tail. It’s a little sickening, really. Like, literally. Every time guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Davo says my name I throw up, Dyan goes into convulsions when drummer/vocalist Jack mistakenly walks into our dressing room, and guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Marcus gave Zachary herpes. We’ve never felt this way about another band before, and as lovesick as we are, we never want to be apart from them ever again.

Don’t take my work for it, see for yourself how adorable they are:

Since Glasgow, we’ve gone on dates with them in Manchester, Sheffield, Belfast, Dublin, and Nottingham, so it’s getting pretty serious. There’s talk of marrying them tonight at King’s College in London, but I don’t want to spill the beans just yet.

Other things we’ve been up to:

-Drinking.

-Eating.

-Drinking.

-Driving. (Well, drinking in the back of the van while Chalkie drives.)

-Drinking.

One more funny story before I sign off: Yannis, our Greecian sound engineer who will have a blog entry entirely devoted to him as soon as I get around to it, loves milk. He drinks a liter in the morning when he wakes up, a liter over the course of the day, and another liter before he goes to bed. Zachary, the drummer, loves alcohol. He drinks a liter of beer in the morning when he wakes up, three liters over the course of the day, then switches to hard alcohol later on. Yannis and Zachary made a bet to see who could last the longest without his favorite poison. To make a long—well, thirteen hour—story short, Yannis won, and now Zachary has to drink four liters of milk in one sitting as punishment. Photo documentation coming soon…

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

Oh, I contributed to Supersweet’s third group story, and my entry is up now. Check it out!

Found: Nathaniel's Manbag

2006-11-29T10:38:00.000-08:00

Where else but Glasgow can a man in a drunken stupor lose a bag full of cash, illegal drugs, and transexual prostitutes and have it returned with everything intact three weeks later? (Answer: Vatican City.)

The lovely Hannah from Glasgow was the finder of the parcel, and for this we punish her with free Blood Arm tickets for life.

In addition to her uncompromising honesty and good will, Hannah is also a poet:

YOU LOST YOUR BAG IN GLASGOW,
I FOUND IT ON THE STREET,
I GUESS A PASS TO HAVE IT BACK
WOULD BE QUITE A LITTLE TREAT,

NOW I'M A HONEST PERSON
I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU SINCE,
AND MY DETECTIVE QUALITIES
HAVE BROUGHT ME TO THIS LINK

I NOTICE YOU HAVE WRITING,
I EMPATHISE WITH THIS,
I CAN'T IMAGINE HOW I'D FEEL
IF MY MOLESKINE WENT AMISS!

I WROTE A LETTER TO LA
BUT I GUESS YOU'VE BEEN LIVING THE TRANSIT WAY
SO TAKE MY DETAILS, WRITE ME BACK,
AND I'LL RETURN TO YOU YOUR MISSING SACK!!

A big round of applause for Hannah.

I've been extremely negligent about posting photos of late, but this is because I've been unable to charge my camera. Here are some images that pop up when one performs a Google image search for the Blood Arm, if this is any consolation:

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

The Blood Arm and Art Brut: Together at Last

2006-11-26T16:08:00.000-08:00

Q: How much do we love Art Brut?

A (Q): How much does a fat kid love cake? How much did Hitler hate the Jews? How much do the deserts miss the rain?

We were finally able to perform with the inimitable Art Brut at the Insomniac's Ball this past Saturday in London. It was epic, though all I really remember is being thrown on the ground by a bouncer when the most Brutiful Eddie Argos called me on stage, and the lovely Christopher Svensson being physically assaulted for defending my honor. When I woke up this morning, Art Brut drummer Mikey was spooning me, Zachary and guitARTist Jarvis were passed out on the floor, and Zachary's head was shaven clean.

Best night ever.

More coming soon, when I figure out a way to charge my computer.

I love you all, but especially Keith Boadwee on his birthday.

-Ben Lee Handler

Tom Cruise, Thanksgiving

2006-11-22T14:57:00.000-08:00

We are now in St. Ives, celebrating the American holiday of Thanksgiving at the house of Tour Manager Chalkie and his beautiful girlfriend, Claire. For those of you who are unaware, Thanksgiving is the American holiday wherein we celebrate our liberation from the horrible alien warlord Xenu and his army of body thetans.

Anyway, we have a day to recover from our last European date in Amsterdam, which was, well, we can't remember? (Just kidding! I'll post a more detailed acount when we're able to post bail and I'm at my own computer!)

Now it's back to Chalkie's Singstar PS2, where I just dominated Zebastian at Cyndi Lauper's 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.'

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

Jarvis Cocker. Also, Europe.

2006-11-18T09:08:00.000-08:00

So first things first... We're in Europe. So far we've partied, performed, and partied some more in Paris, performed, partied, and partied some more in Zurich, then Munich, then Dresden, and now Berlin. If you're keeping track, that's a lot of partying, and our livers doth protest! (Do we listen to our livers? Never! Are the whites of our eyes growing yellower and yellower? Always!)

Here's a brief, city-by-city rundown of the events that have transpired on our European tour thus far, minus those involving hospital vists and violent neck lice infections.

Paris:

After performing at the fabulous Les InRocks festival with the Automatic, Emmanuel, owner and visionary behind our European label, Because, (who sometimes performs under the name Serge Gainsbourg--you may have heard of him) had some very special Parisian surprises for us.

For one, we got to party with our European labelmate, Jarvis Cocker.

For two, we got to party with our European labelmate, Jarvis Cocker.

Additionally, Emmanuel enabled us to party with our European labelmate, Jarvis Cocker.

We also DJ-ed under close supervision of Emmanuel's right-hand woman and superstar club DJ Marie,

performed at the Virgin Megastore directly underneath the Louvre,

found a giant poster with the album cover on it,

and partied with the fabulous Pipettes.

And how can I forget... We acquired a tour bus for the European leg of the tour. Her name is Charlotte.

Then Charlotte took us to Zurich:

We performed at the Hafenkneipe, which apparently means awesome drunken time in German. Our new best friends Ollie, Roger, and Richie ensured we had a good time and drank well. Also, they taught me how to bartend.

(I call that one the Cock Vomit.)

This is the point where my camera ran out of space and my computer ran out of batteries. Please trust that the following day, we did go wine tasting on a grouping of boats in Lake Zurich, that we did actually drink a fuckload of tasty wines, and that Nathaniel and Dyan were actually arrested on charges of wine terrorism, only to be released after Dyan destroyed the evidence.

Things we've done in Germany, with marginal photo documentation:

-Drank too many liters of beer.

-Ate too many Bratwurst. (Including yours truly, who for ten years has fancied himself a vegetarian. This prompted too many hours of puking shortly thereafter.)

-Been kicked out of famous Hof Braus in Munich.

-Watched the film DIG! approximately 300 times on the bus.

Now we're in Berlin with a recharged computer and a camera with ample space, so please check in often for more frequent updates.

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

Kris's KoRner; Identical Twins Stranded on a Deserted Island with a Dumb Nanny

2006-11-09T10:59:00.001-08:00

Did you know that in sixteen hundred and something-or-other, King James of Scotland sent a set of newborn twins to a deserted island with a dumb nanny? And left them there for five years, without any human contact other than one another and their dumb nanny? And that when they were picked up on their fifth birthday, the twins were fluent in ancient Hebrew?

It's true. You can read it in any history book.

We did shows in Edinburgh and Huddersfield, but I will type about them later when I am on my own computer and not the one belonging to the lovely Chris Svensson. For now, you will have to make do with the first installment of 'Kris's Korner,' a column that will appear very irregularly on this site, wherein our dear friend (and sometimes lover) Chris Cain of the We Are Scientists weighs in on the most pressing topics of the day.

Without further ado, here's...

People come to me with questions a lot -- I chalk it up to my mustache, simultaneously avuncular and oracular. And while mind-reading is not among my skill sets, I can, with a 95% confidence interval, predict what someone is about to say when they approach me tentatively, finger raised, eyes narrowed. Inevitably it will go something like this:

"Hey, you know Ben Lee, right?"

or

"But so what about this Ben Lee character? You're part of his gang, right?"

or

"I want to now steer the discussion toward a topic I know most of our audience is... shall we say... VERY eager to hear about: Ben Lee Handler." Calamitous applause.

and

"Let me bounce a name off you: Be--"
"Ben Lee," I interject impatiently. "I know."

Fair enough. I do, famously, associate with Ben Lee. I am, notoriously, a vice-sergeant in his gang, The Ferris Wheels. I can, on a whim, call him up and leave him an encrypted voicemail that sounds, if you listen to it and you are the Uninitiated, very serious, very grave, but is in fact a request for him to pick up a bottle on his way to the party.

That's right, I party with Ben Lee. What's he like at a party? He's like a kangaroo in a pit paved with thumb tacks, and the pit is just a couple feet too deep for him to jump out of. He's flipping nuts. He's like an 80 year-old woman who's been doing adrenaline/PCP shooters.

I structured that last example as a simile, but there's more literal truth to it than you'd guess: I can take you to a certain very underground sex club in Prague where they actually serve a shot that's half adrenaline, half PCP. It costs the equivalent of 60 bucks American. "I'll have a Ben Lee," is all you have to say, and throw down your 1300 Koruny.

The club is called "Ben Lee".

The Blood Arm Visits the Real Wales

2006-11-06T08:37:00.000-08:00

After supporting our fabulous labelmates the Sunshine Underground in Leeds and Newcastle and witnessing the phenomenal Gossip at the Faversham in Leeds following the show, we and found ourselves (and our fabulous labelmates) freezing to death in the middle of a field in Wales. The field has a name: Llanfyllin (pronounced Shlannnnvosssshlin).

The countryfolk were kind, however, and provided us with beverage, shelter, amplifiers and a large bonfire on which to cook our freshly slain lambs. (The countryfolk provided us with freshly slaughtered lambs as well.) The show was a bizarre mix of hot and cold, with a few witches and the devil thrown in for good measure. All said, one of the weirdest nights of my life. We loved every freezing second of it.

I really love you, especially on our beginning-tonight-in-Edinburgh headlining tour,

Ben Lee Handler

Ireland in One Fell Swoop

2006-11-01T07:57:00.000-08:00

“Where’s the party at?”

This is a question we often find ourselves asking.

Zachary is tired. In Belfast, the party is certainly not at Zachary’s space.

Zebastian certainly is down to party, as am I. But we are only a party of two! We want more! More people! More beer! More everything!

Jamie and John, W.A.S's merch and light-tech men, respectively, have a pizza, and pizza parties are always fun, but this is not the kind of party we’re looking for. We want the crazy! We want the clean, wholesome fun!

Au Revoir Simone always know where the party’s at, but they like adult parties, and frankly, we’re not grown up enough for those.

We like parties with music!

And dancing!

Someday…

Someday…

As it turns out, Zebastian soon revealed that he had seen an old Irish woman hovering over Zachary’s bed the night we arrived in Belfast, and Zach was a shell of a man ever since… a curse! Fortunately, something had possessed Nathaniel as well, actually increasing his party aptitude, balancing out Zachary’s virtual disappearance and helping to maintain a net prosepctive party loss of zero.

For the duration of our first trip to Northern and Southern Ireland, the singer insisted on us calling him Shameless O’Drunky, and she spoke only in limericks.

There once was a boy from the bay,
With behaviors so strange friends would say,
“Shameless O’Drunky, you’re one bizarre monkey,
but I’ll drink with you here anyday!”

That kind of thing.

Galway was beautiful, and provided perhaps the best We Are Scientists show I have ever witnessed, and I’ve seen a lot of them lately. Keith was a combination of drunk, inspired, and hopped up on goofballs and held every one of the 225 people in the audience under his thumb for the duration of the set. (There is plenty of room for crowd surfing and dancing like a maniac under Keith's thumb, mind you.) It was pretty amazing.

Then we came to Dublin, where Nathaniel managed to exorcize Zachary of his malaise via a mixture of Irn-Bru and vodka he named the “Irn-Bru Fuck Ben Lee Handler.”

Through the power of this elixir, the old Zachary returned in time to rock the fuck out of Dublin, drink a shitload of Guinness, get in a fight with a bouncer, and set off some fireworks.

How we had missed him!

Other exciting things that happened in Ireland:

-Chalkie had a nice cry at a very emotional gas station.

-We partied with the inimitable Eddie Argos of Art Brut.

-We had cyber-sex with Keith Murray of W.A.S. while we were all in the same room.

-Nathaniel bled a lot, cried a little.

-We spent a very long time in the tasting lab at the Guinness factory.

-A certain someone had a very special day, but I’m not allowed to mention it here.

-We met a horse.

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

Coming very soon: Kris's Korner - A new blog feature wherein Chris Cain will type about how he feels about me at any given moment. Or maybe something else. It's up to him, really.

Glasgow Party; Zachary Pukes on Himself

2006-10-28T13:45:00.000-07:00

First things first: Nathaniel’s bag went missing the evening of 26 October in Glasgow. This is the bag in question.

Although the two were having personal differences at the time of its disappearance, Nathaniel now wants the parcel back, and swears to never ever let it out of his sight again. The bag contains certain irreplaceable personal items of the singer, and the loss has been devastating. Rewards for its return include free admission to every the Blood Arm show for life for the bag’s finder plus a guest, plus a certain to-be-disclosed monetary reward. Please email info@thebloodarm.com with any information that may lead to its whereabouts.

Now a brief explanation for how this separation came to be: There are fireworks in Scotland every time we pass the sign that says “Welcome to Glasgow.” (Not literally. There is no sign that says “Welcome to Glasgow” as one enters the city, and I don’t think foreigners are allowed to carry fireworks in Scotland, either.) But a good time is pretty much guaranteed from the second the town is added to our itinerary.

After the show (which was phenomenal), our dear friends from the Matchsticks (formerly known as the Flying Matchstick Men), Sons and Daughters, and Franz Ferdinand took us to the Capitol Karaoke Bar, where Zachary only relinquished the microphone long enough for people to sing the first few lines of the songs that they requested. (For the record, Zachary can sing very well.) From there, the whole of our massive party reconvened with the fabulous lads and lasses of Au Revoir Simone and We Are Scientists at the Art School Bar for some more heavy drinking, from where—and from here on everything is only alleged—we went to two more house parties and Dyan met a dude from Snow Patrol.

When I awoke in the morning, Zachary was being delivered to our hotel lobby in a police car, Nathaniel had a bloody head, and the singer’s bag was missing.

This is what Zachary looked like in the van on the way to the ferry to Belfast the following morning. Try to guess what that is on his legs. Also, try to guess if he still wearing those trousers today, two days after whatever it was happened on them.

Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. That’s vomit on his legs, and yes, he is still wearing those trousers. This was about the point where Iannis, our Greecian sound technician (who will soon be given a blog entry all his own), began referring to the drummer as it.

The ferry to Belfast was well fast, and now we are sitting in the dressing room, waiting for the show to begin.

Au Revoir for now,

Ben Lee Handler

Revelations, Like in the Movies

2006-10-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

On the journey from Aberdeen to Glasgow this afternoon, we of the Blood Arm posse held a screening of the excellent Robert Rodriguez film From Dusk Till Dawn. In addition to teaching us that teenagers grow up a lot faster when abducted by murderers and forced into Mexican drinking establishments filled with blood-thirsty vampires (which, coincidentally, is how the Blood Arm came to be), the film also cast a keen light on George Clooney. To be precise: He talks exactly like Keith Murray, lead vocalist and guitar-man of We Are Scientists. And they look somewhat similar to boot.

Observe. Here’s George:

Now here’s Keith:

It’s uncanny, really.

Also Uncanny, the fun we had in Leeds, Newcastle, and Aberdeen. Some Highlights:

-The University Refectory, where our show took place, hosted some other legendary performances as well.

-We managed to get our dear friend Robert Willey kissed by a real-live girl.

-Dyan found me the best scarf ever on the ground in Newcastle. (Not the best ever: the neck lice that hitched a ride on the scarf.)

-The Aberdeen Music Hall is so beautiful we cried.

That’s all for now.

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler