Beren's World by Beren | English, baby! Blogs

Back at English, baby!

Beren — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:26:41 GMT

Back at English, baby!

So I'm back at English, baby! after another two month break. Well, a two month tour to be more precise. Instead of Europe, it was the US this time. We went through the midwest, up to Canada, down the east coast, through the south, and up the west coast back to Portland. We played with many amazing bands, like Kid Congo and the Pink Monkeybirds, the Raincoats, and Wizzard Sleeve.

We had 5 days to check out NYC, 2 days to hang out in New Orleans, and I had my second birthday in a row on the road in Chattanooga, TN. We lost a man in New York, gained one for the night in Memphis, then were back to a four piece for our shows in Los Angeles and San Diego. We got flown from Austin, Texas to Montreal, Quebec for a single day to play a single show. We all had the flu, and played on questionable equipment, but pulled it off with aplomb. We also flew from San Francisco to Portland for our last show, a festival that included Roky Erikson and the Black Lips. But it's nice to be home, and back in the cast!

Eurotrip Wrap-up

Beren — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:28:18 GMT

Eurotrip Wrap-up

So, I realized I left out the end of the European tour, what with the flying back to the West Coast of the US only to fly back east a mere day later.

Our second to last show was in Tours, France. It was a giant festival, and we played with a diverse range of acts including, inexplicably, Busdriver, the rapper from LA. We also played with a group of ladies and gents called the Vedettes. There were at least 14 people in the band, and all the ladies wore matching outfits and ended the evening wearing bridal gowns. I missed the last number because I was busy eating insanely good food in the catering tent, and it being our last night in France, we each had a whole baguette and carafe of red wine.

After having played a few festivals in Europe, I've come to realize a few things:

1. Most people at festivals are there for one band and want to spend the rest of the time eating/drinking and talking through the sets of bands they are not familiar with.

2. European festivals (save Primavera) are typically set up in the middle of nowhere and run by two hippies and all structures/band tents set up have at least one mural with a "rasta" Homer Simpson.

3. The food is always better than any food I have been served at venues in the US, without exception.

After leaving France, we headed back to Amsterdam for our final show. We played at the Paradiso, the nicest venue in town. Unfortunately, we were also playing on the same night as a hip-hop label showcase, and the building got filled to capacity, which meant none of our Intelligence fans could get in! We played to three devoted fans who had snuck past security, and called it a night. We had many miles behind us and a few thousand ahead, and needed to get ready for the long trip home.

All in all, I wouldn't have changed anything about the trip, and somewhere in France, there are two girls in France wearing English Baby bracelets, and an old man wearing an Ebaby t-shirt...

Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinger...

Beren — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:01:43 GMT

Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinger...

So after disembarking from the Rock boat, we took our sea legs and headed to Oslo, Norway. We arrived at the awesome club, Gloria Flames, and headed upstairs to meet up with our friends from Crash Normal, Jerome and Julie. They had been flown over from Paris to play a festival that day and to play with us that night. We all grabbed a seat on the outside deck and ordered some great food from the kitchen, fish for everybody and a salad pizza for me and the other non-meat (or non-trout) fans. Delicious.

The show was a release party for a split 7 inch featuring Crash Normal and the Intelligence on Compost Modern Art recordings. Crash Normal played first and were awesome. The band had been through a couple of lineup changes, so this was the first show with Julie, Jerome's sister, on keyboards and singing. It was rad, and no one would have guessed they hadn't been playing together for years.

The Intelligence set was fun, even though my kick drum went rogue ( thanks for holding it with your leg, Lars). The crowd was really into it, and it was the label dude, Tomas', birthday so we played "Confidence" off of "Icky Baby" for him. Jerome came up and sang on "World is Not a Drag," and the crowd went nuts. Good times.

The next day we headed to Copenhagen, Denmark. We actually played in Christiania, a free city located in the middle of Copenhagen. Does anybody know more about this place? I'm obsessed. Apparently it was settled in 60's as a hippie commune; there aren't any police, they have their own laws and government! It was wild. We played with a Finnish band named Knucklebone Oscar. Knucklebone tried to sell me to their drummer.

We had a little time to walk around Copenhagen and take in the sights. We found the botanical garden and a weird castle in the middle of a park. Very cool.

The next day we headed back north to Helsinger, Denmark. We played a quiet show with Thee Vicars and hung out in the club eating pizza with the locals. Everyone was still tired from the Rock boat, and I still hadn't recovered from my sea legs. The DJ tried his best though, and played "St. Barts" off of "Fake Surfers," the latest Intelligence record. Thanks, dude.

Rock Boat Sweden

Beren — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:52:00 GMT

Rock Boat Sweden

Since so much has happened and I'm a few days away from being home, I've decided to highlight the best part of the tour so far and skip over a few stops (I'll get to them in the next blog).

I played on a cruise ship. While it was moving. The Misfits also played, as did the Black Lips. If you know me, you know that the Black Lips have been one of my favorite bands for a very long time and playing with them was a dream come true.

The cruise was called Rock Batten and set sail from Stockholm and cruised overnight to Helsinki, Finland. There were a ton of bands on board; Monotonix was there, as was Annihilation Time (who got kicked off in and thrown in jail in Helsinki), and Apache. All the bands were awesome, and did I mention it was on a boat? We got to have three delicious meals, buffet style, with all the other people on the cruise, like older people on board to gamble or vacation.

While we were playing, the ship was rocking oh so slightly. I thought our guitar player was going to hurl. The show was good, and I spotted Cole and Jared from the Black Lips up front. Fun times. After we played, Cole and I gambled a bit and lost 5 Euro; not so good times.

After getting back to Stockholm, we made a mad dash to Debaser, the club where we played another show with the Black Lips and danced until it was light out. Wait, it never gets dark in Scandinavia.

Italy and Spain

Beren — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:34:31 GMT

Italy and Spain

Where are my englishbabies? I was in Roma, Torino, Valencia, and somewhere way out in the country and have had nary a sighting. I am going to sweeten the deal a bit: come find me at one of the remaining shows and you will also get a free CD of my band, the Professional Man, featuring one half of the Intelligence.

Anyway, Italy was a blur. i was promised a wild show in Torino and it was delivered. Lars got crowd surfed again, but landed safely on his feet. The young gentlemen who had puked on the previous Intelligence drummers kit last year managed to not get jostled too much this time and puke on me. Thank goodness. Rome was surprisingly tame, but they must have loved the show cos they bought a lot of shirts! Thank you, Rome. After some more quick pit stops, we were in Madrid, Spain. The show was awesome thanks the to the booker Nacho. No one was injured and the other band, Luter, played a killer mix of Krautrock mixed with some good psych revival. Right up my alley.

After Madrid, we headed to Barcelona, a city I had never visited but had dreamed about. We were there to open up the legendary Primavera Festival, an awesome week of shows headlined this year by Neil Young and Sonic Youth. We played the first night in a tiny but packed club; it was awesome. Nacho hooked us up with passes for a day and we caught Art Brut and Spiritualized. Check them out.

Alright, that is all for now. I am doing my laundry at a club and also trying to get my gear together for the evening. Come find me!

Paris to Bologna with a stop in Poitiers.

Beren — Tue, 19 May 2009 11:59:57 GMT

Paris to Bologna with a stop in Poitiers.

Hello Englishbaby! Sorry for the infrequent updates (as in zero), but the whirlwind schedule of touring and lack of a traditional qwerty keyboard has taken its toll. I apologize for the brevity and lack of coherency as well as mispellings of French citites in the last blog. However, we are now in Italy and qwerty is everywhere! Last night we played in Bologna...a cool collective squat type place with a big pot of pasta.

Since quite a lot has happened since my first post, I will backtrack a little. The show in Paris was sold out, and we played with a rad band called Frustration. Definitely check them out! I thought we played decently. We have been playing big venues and it has taken a while to get used to being on a giant stage. However, after a few initial bumps, we finished the set and played an encore. I also took it as an opportunity to stage dive. The crowd sent me to the back of the room and out the door. My apologies to anyone who got hit with sweat; we have been playing longer sets and it gets pretty hot.

We played a few shows along the way to where we currently find ourselves in Italy, the most notable being the show in Poitiers, where Lars ended up getting dropped on the ground after being lifted up by the crowd. He fell. Hard. During the confusion that ensued (we were playing our last song of the encore), it was unclear as to what had exactly happened. I expected him to pop back up onstage and finish the song, having not seen the impact. It looked like your classic stage dive collapse where the whole crowd and crowd surfer end up on the ground in a somewhat gentle manner, but this was not the case. Apparently he fell straight back on his head after being dropped pretty from pretty high up! Blood was pooled on the ground and an overnight hospital stay was in order. Luckily he was fine, and we played a show the next night! A true rock and roll soldier! He actually played better than the rest of the band, and for that, I salute him.

Tonight, we play Torino, and I am sure more chaos will ensue.

The above photo of me is by a nice person from Strasbourg. Here's one of Lars. This is a few days before he hit his head.

Paris?

Beren — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:31:26 GMT

Paris?

Here I am in Paris, backstage waiting for the show to begin. So far we have played in Nancy, Limoges, Strasbourg, St Etienne, Roubeix, Nantes, Everuax, and Brussels; Any other cities I have forgotten I apologize to, but so far the trip has been a blur.

We flew into Amsterdam in the 28th of April and have been going ever since. We did have day off in Bordeaux and went and saw Kid Congo of Cramps/Gun Club fame. We had a great time. The photo above is from that show!

The best show so far has been in Brussels, if only because they have a strange tradition of breaking beer bottles on the ground and dancing in the shards of glass. Actually, it might not be a tradition but it should be. I will let you know how tonights show goes!

I'd love to meet some Ebaby! members at the upcoming shows. Take a look at my tour dates and come say hi if you can! I'll give you a free Ebaby! t-shirt.

You Might Have an Evil Twin Too!

Beren — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:55:24 GMT

You Might Have an Evil Twin Too!

Many people ask me about English, baby! They ask, “What is it that you do there?" I usually go into some spiel about colloquial English vocabulary being taught via audio recordings and a somewhat convoluted soap opera, on par with R. Kelly’s Trapped in The Closet, if only for the fact that there seems to be no end to the “story” in sight. While my friends find it hilarious to watch the soap videos of their own accord and out of order, those who have delved into the story have one question: “How is it that your character (Beren) didn’t know she had a twin, let alone an evil one?"

The evil twin story line, to me at least, is crucial to all good soap operas. If I’m not mistaken, Anne Heche played twins (one evil, one good) on Another World. And typically, the evil twin is unknown to the good twin either because of separation at birth or amnesia. I have no idea how Beren didn’t know about the evil Beren. If you have any ideas, let me know.

Oscars Party!

Beren — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:12:12 GMT

Oscars Party!

Ah, the Oscars. All of that glitz and glam confined to one evening. It seemed like a good enough reason to have a party. We would invite 15 of our closest friends over and drink champagne while taking turns speculating on the evening抯 big wins. The only snafu was the realization that the whole ceremony, including the Lisa Rinna hosted red carpet pre-show special, ran at a total of about five hours in length. Five hours of television is about four hours too many on any evening, but include a mind-numbingly terrible dance number complete with Beyonce and those kids from High School Musical and you begin to wonder if a little vacation to Abu Ghraib might be more enjoyable.

All in all, the party was a success. We filled out ballots and seriously considered betting a dollar a category, decided against it due to concerns about the current recession, but still took satisfaction in knowing that we were pretty much like a collective Nostradamus of awards ceremonies. Many bottles of champagne were swilled, and we all laughed at the cut away to Angelina as Jennifer presented the award for Best Animated Feature.

We can't wait till next year.

More on Doubt

Beren — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:10:41 GMT

More on Doubt

After finishing the lesson on Doubt , I realized I left out a lot about why I found the movie so powerful. First, a quick overview: Meryl Streep plays the headmistress of an east coast Catholic school, in charge of the students but wielding less power and persuasion regarding matters at the school than her male counterpart, a priest played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. In the first half of the movie, the strict and orderly lives of the nuns is juxtaposed with that of the priests, who swill bourbon while chainsmoking after dinner.

The second half (or act, as the movie is based on a play titled Doubt: A Parable) highlights the rapidly disintegrating relationship between the headmistress and headmaster after a young, naive, incredibly pious nun witnesses what could be construed as an inappropriate relationship between the headmaster and the only black student in the school, a young boy from a troubled home. Ultimately, the headmaster leaves the school under a cloud of suspicion, and the headmistress continues on at the school, governing in a heavy handed fashion deemed old fashioned and alienating of the students, but steeped in tradition nonetheless.

What made the movie compelling to me is that it leaves the viewer without any clear answer as to where the moral center of the film lies, but with a bigger question regarding the nature of morality and how far one must go to seek the truth. The acting is superb, being more character driven than visually overreaching like alot of Hollywood movies, and will leave you questioning the "truth" of the movie for days.