The Blood Arm Get Married, and it is Brutiful

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.

Manchester!

Manchester! Mancunia! Birthplace of Morrissey! The show at the Apollo was a little intimidating at first as the venue is so fucking huge, but fortunately the Blood Arm's sound is big enough to fill the most gaping of holes, and the show got off without any delays owing to flaccidity. (To parse Zebastian, innuendo is my crutch, especially when I'm drunk. (I'm drunk.) But what is music without sex? And what is sex without music? (I'm asking you this earnestly... as a practicing virgin, I don't know???))

The show was so hot that we all had to strip down to our nothings in order to recuperate afterwards.


But then as soon as the sweat dried we sped off to see Little Barrie at the Manchester Roadhouse, and they had us hot and bothered again in no time. Little Barrie is one of those bands you have to see live to believe, and I'm not just saying this because they invited me to guest MC. I expected the show to be good, as Chalkie--our Tour Manager and Spiritual Guru--is a big fan, but their soulful precision and Dyanmic awesomeness simply blew me six ways from Tuesday, and Tuesday is not until tomorrow. This is some future shit, with a healthy dose of retrosexual. It was one of those shows that one doesn't forget, even after a massive headwound. (I wouldn't type that if it wasn't true. Like, literally.) Fucking amazing.

Barrie is like two guitar players in one--we were asking each other where the second guitar man was hiding for the first half of the set--Lewis, the bass player, drives everything along so effortlessly it seems as if he could be blindfolded and handless and still carry a tune, and if there was ever any question that the drummer was born to play, his God-given name is Billy Skinner.

Okay, time to type about us again. Look how small the band looks from the back of the Apollo:


And this is what Dyan looks like with her morning breakfast:


And here is Zachary giving a fifteen year-old boy a hickey:



More tomorrow, including a special guest entry from We Are Scientist Chris Cain.

I love you,

Ben Lee Handler

Thing Get Awesome in Norwich, Sheffied; Pete's Corner, Installment #1

Our first show was in Norwich (pronounced Norrich, as its residents are quick to point out), and we quickly fell in love with the beautiful ladies of Au Revoir Simone, who are opening for the entirety of We Are Scientists Tour. (Their name is not random jibberish, apparently it means something in French. “Simone Birthed an Beautiful Sandwich,” or some derivative of that.) They are so hot that they quickly became my favorite band ever, and then I saw them play. Now they are my favoritest band ever. If Dyan were to part ways with the Blood Arm and join their camp, their collective hotness would sear a hole directly to the core of the Earth, altering our planet’s orbit, placing it on a collision course with the Sun. Totally apocalyptic. So it’s a good thing Dyan is staying with us.

One of the best things about shows at Universities is that the majority of the kids at the shows are in University, and after the shows we get to party with them. In Norwich we found ourselves in someone’s dorm room along with Au Revoir Simone and the We Are Scientists, and we were Golden Gods. For one, most of us are older than the typical University student, and for two, the bulk of us aren’t virgins anymore. This makes us fucking cool. We spent the majority of the evening spreading our wisdom, dancing, and signing our names on young skin. The awesomeness overflowed. (The above is basically a ploy to get you to invite us to your parties, because our parents didn’t hug us enough as children, and we crave the attention. (TBA parents: I was just kidding about the not getting hugged enough thing. (Mom: I will call soon, I promise!)))


Also awesome: Crazy Pete of Stealer, our part-time lover, full-time favorite Scouser. He came to the show (which was bad ass), then proceeded to drink us under the table. In the meantime, he started a serial novel starring us (which he will hopefully add to again in the near future). In fact, I’m going to make it a Fucking Feature, with an emphasis on fucking, as Pete is so fucking awesome. It’s called Pete’s Corner and the following is the first installment:

Hello alrighty you beautiful lovely people. The Blood Arm asks for your assisstance. They have lost their pet Great White Shark in Sheffield & are desperate to receive it back as soon as possible. Their concern is that the Shark itself was not the property of the band. It was on loaned from a close family friends after many strong arm tactics and Chinese burns. The performed a séance to contact the erstwhile spirit of Abraham Lincoln. In order to a. find the whereabout of beloved Great White Shark and b. to find out what colour the underwear he was wearing was.

After being sidetracked by The Blood Arm, Abraham began to reveal the secrets of The Great Biscuit Connection. A shortcake conspiracy. This was an attempt to sieze power from the almighty biscuit hordes of Superworld leaders of whose constituency was the pensioners of the world. After a tsunami disturbed proceedings slightly, the black market collapsed and Crazy Pete could no longer subsidise his humble band to perform with his earnings as Blackpool’s leading ventrilioquist. He was unable to even make Cheeky Derek talk while drinking a glass of fucking water.

This was a result of his hands being blown clean off by the blast of the wave. After this his act was not in the slightest inspirational or critically challenged, although he did admit to having trouble masturbating.

READ THE REST OF THE BLOG WITHIN YOUR MIND IN THE STYLEE OF JAMES EARL JONES.

This is Not My Beautiful House! This is Not My Beautiful Wife!

Perhaps my favorite part of touring with the Blood Arm—forget the fact that we are not really touring per se, as we’ve been rocking London for the duration of the week—are the what the fuck?! moments. These are the moments that make one say, “what the fuck?!” (When I type “one,” I’m typing about myself, okay? I’ve been told it’s more proper than typing “me,” or “you,” even. And regardless, I’m the boss of this page, so one will do whatever the hell one wants here.) There have been a lot of these wtf?! moments this trip.

Cases in point: Tuesday we found ourselves playing penis and eating day-old salmon souffle in Maximo Park’s studio with four Swedes and one French girl, and Paul from Maximo was wearing an XXXXXL Cannibal Corpse t-shirt… What the fuck?! Wednesday we used an arm-wrestling victory over Nick from Intoxica Records as a decisive means of crowning Bruce Springsteen the Best Musician in the World… What the fuck?!

Last night, however, makes all other nights look like little bitches in terms of its what the fuck-upedness. Let’s recount it all down—what one can remember, at least—and lay it to rest, shall we?

-We began the evening at a party at a photo gallery called Proud (which is not a gay bar, by the way… what the fuck?!) to see the dude from the Test Icicles’ new band. Proud has lawn chairs with photos of Carl Barat—who does not look anything like Eric Idle from Monty Python, according to Grandmaster B (who happened to provide the cure to my most recent case of writer’s-block)—emblazoned on them, so one could literally sit on his face... What the fuck?!

-After briefly losing contact with Zebastian and Zachary on Primrose Hill in the rain, I found myself being whisked away to a posh apartment somewhere in Londontown in a Sony BMG company car, which as far as I can tell, the Blood Arm have little to no affiliation with… What the fuck?!

-I awoke topless with a pink polka-dotted scarf draped around my neck. A framed, autographed portrait of Ricky Martin was staring at me. "Bailamos, Ben Lee," it whispered.

Bailamos…

(let’s wait for this one, okay?)


Okay.
What the fuck?!
Ahhhhhhhhhh.

-Upon returning to the Travelodge (our lodging of choice), Dyan and all of our belongings were missing from the hotel room, and the walls, beds, and ceilings were stained with red wine… What the fuck?!

(And this one truly knocked my knees out from under me, stopped my heart, and repeatedly kicked me in the stomach, albeit for only one comical photographical interlude.)


(okay, maybe two photographical interludes.)


I called Chalkie, tour manager of champions (us). Chalkie says, “we’ve moved to the Jury’s Inn up the road, come back and I’ll tell you all about it, everything’s okay.” But there was a tinge of worry in his voice, and I was scared. I walked up the road to the new hotel. Chalkie answers the door to his room, clad in boxer-briefs and a hand-rolled cigarrette, nothing else.

“Have a seat, Ben Lee,” he says, looking grim. I fear the worst. “Apparently the kind folks at Travelodge did not approve of my playing bartender in the bar last night, and they threw us out.”

But the empty room… the wine on the walls… what the fuck?

It seems Dyan, Chalkie and Nathaniel returned to the hotel with with four bottles of wine no means of opening them. The hotel bar was closed, so Chalkie hopped over the counter to nic an opener. While he was behind the bar, he thought he’d help himself to a pint. Then another. And another.

The Travelodge staff did not take too kindly to this. They threatened to throw the threesome out. But our cheery threesome believed their infractions to be smooth-overable. Nathaniel tried to get the staff back on the winning team by belting out the lyrics to the new single ‘Suspicious Character’ (which will be out September 18). Chalkie offered them wine and tea. The staff was unimpressed. They called the cops.

So, under the watchful eye of Britain’s finest, a beyond-intoxicated Dyan, Nathaniel and Chalkie packed up all of our stuff, managed to spill wine all of the entirety of their empty hotel rooms, and relocated to the Jury’s Inn........................
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That’s a pretty-big what the fuck?! right?

The MacBeth is tonight. Let’s do it!

xxxooo,

Ben Lee

P.S. Pictures from the entire trip will be posted as soon as we return to Los Angeles tomorrow!