"A History of Doubt" Available in the US NOW

The day has arrived. "A History of Doubt" is now available in the US. You can buy it right here from us (check the store). You can buy it from iTunes - press here:



You can buy it on our myspace page. You can get it from the snocap store also on our myspace page. If you live in LA, you can buy it at the Ron Herman Store. So many ways to buy the record, you can't lose.

BUT WAIT - THERE'S MORE...We believe in our music. We want it to be in the hands, minds and ears of as many people as possible. So, we're offering a unique deal to you, the listener, the supporter of our band. You can buy the record here for $8 (plus shipping). We'll send you a brand new CD in a beautiful digi-pack. It will arrive at your house and you'll be stoked.

You can also buy the new CD and a T-Shirt for $20 and we'll throw in a free copy of our old EP for free. It features two tracks that didn't make it onto the full length and slightly different versions of the songs that did.

Finally - we'll give you the option of buying tracks directly from us for whatever price you deem suitable. So, if your name is Hannah and you just gotta have "Hannah, I'm Ready To Go" and you're willing to pay $2.00 for it, then $2 it is. Perhaps your girlfriend's name is Hannah, and you want her to have the track, but you've already spent too much money on her so you want it for free. Then free it shall be. You tell us what songs you want, and how much you want to pay for them, and we'll email them to you after you've paid us. All you'll need to do is download Pando. It's awesome software that enables you to send large files via email. You'll get CD quality MP3s with no copy restrictions. Send an email to david@englishdepartmentrock.com telling us how much you'd like to pay and which tracks you want and we'll send you a pay pal invoice. Those are the options - we hope you enjoy the music. We certainly enjoyed making it.

CD Release Show, June 25th - Let's bash Axl

We're playing at the Knitting Factory on June 25th to celebrate the release of "A History of Doubt". This show is gonna kill. OZMA, Eastern Conference Champions and The Actual are also on the bill. The Actual are the first band signed to Scott Weiland's label. According to Scott's website, they're a power-trio with four members. That's a POWERFUL trio. So powerful in fact, they need four members to contain the power. Needless to say, I'm impressed. Our meager trio has only three members. MORE impressive is that The Actual are touring with Velvet Revolver all summer. Now, I'm not a big VR fan. But holy fuck, I'd sell a nut to spend a summer on the road with Slash and Duff. Imagine the stories? The hi jinx? The Axl bashing? I believe George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld AND W. Axl Rose should all be brought before the tribunal @ The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity.

I'm going to spend 27 seconds searching for the most embarrassing Axl Rose photo I can find....

Ah yes - this one:



But while I'm at it - here's a perfect example of how fame and celebrity can unite anybody:



Photographers are sooooo lazy. "Hey look, two totally disparate famous people. Quick, make them stand next to each other."

I recently downloaded and watched the classic 1988 Guns 'N Roses Live @ The Ritz concert. If you've never seen this show before, stop wasting your time reading this blog and find that shit online. It's so good. This is the classic Guns line up - before they really hit it big. When the audience was still comprised of mostly dudes. This show originally aired on MTV - and I remember being absolutely obsessed with this band after I seeing this as a kid. They don't make bands like this anymore. I have no aspirations to be Axl Rose for instance. I don't want to dance like a snake (or with Mr. Brownstone), sing like a hyena or freak out at any music writer that dare to criticize me. But there was definitely something about a band of five guys that had names like Slash, Duff, Izzy, Axl and Steve - ok, Steve didn't have a good nickname - that was so compelling. Nowadays if your band is made up of dudes with nicknames, you either wear grotesque masks or you're a group of EMCEEs. The English Department would be a weird band if our drummer was called "Ghost Faced Killa". Although, Brett does go by the name "Cosmo". "Ghost Faced Cosmo"? "W. Cosmo Rose"? Hmmm, we'll have to work on that.

I woke up this morning to find that our website was down and our myspace page was no longer a music page. So, I currently hate the Internet. Bless you Blog for still working.

See all you New York area peeps @ The Knitting Factory on June 25th. Axl, if you're out there, get in the ring motherfucker.

Love,

-d

Release Date, Nail Clippings, etc.

Today is Friday. Were I a religious man I would thank God. But I'm not. I digress. The primary reason for today's entry is to recognize the US release of our debut record, "A History of Doubt". It will be available on May 29th. You can buy it at iTunes. You can buy it from our website (or this blog). If you live in LA can also buy it at Ron Herman. If you live in LA but can't afford to shop at Ron Herman, you should buy it from iTunes or us. Or you should stop mooching off your parents and get a job ya bum.

This record means a lot to us. We hope you'll love it as much as we do.

So, yesterday I was thinking. I think it's time for a major innovation to occur in the world of nail clipping. We've been using the same instrument forever, and, I've got to admit, I suck at using a nail clipper. I believe the time is now. REINVENT THE NAIL CLIPPER. Perhaps it could be mechanical. It needn't be a complex machine. Like a paper shredder - but for finger and toe nails. Who's with me?



+



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I'm not sure if that totally translated, but in my brain, it was genius.

Stay tuned, we've got so much to talk about.

-d

An orgy of Blog

I seek to reward you for my rather lackluster output as of late. So, if you're the type of person that enjoys photos, videos, news, and heartwarming tales about impossibly talented and cool children, then this is going to be your sort of blog entry.

Let's start with our two-day reunion with Lola Ray. For those of you who caught either the DC show (um, unlikely) or the NYC show (very likely) you were treated to a melange of emotion, rock and merchandise. We set about our trip to DC early on Saturday March 31st. We don't have a van. Which means when we play shows out of town we are at the (gentle) mercy of our good friends at Zip Car . If you live in a big city like NY where nobody has cars (except the 25 million people creating traffic jams all over the place), Zip Car is the only way to go. They have cars parked in public parking lots in every corner of NY. You reserve your car online and then it's there waiting for you. They give you a membership card that has some fancy barcode on it - and it acts as a car key as well as proof of membership (I don't work for this company, I'm just giving you the scoop). So - you pay by the hour. They pay for gas. You get 125 miles for free. It's so much better and easier than renting a car. Anywho - we picked up the car, loaded it up with gear and headed South towards our nation's capital.

The drive was smooth - Justin really knows how to keep a car moving. Kudos to XM Radio for keeping us laughing with your very funny comedy channel. Upon our arrival at DC9 we were greeted by the most amazing news. Right next door to the club was a parking lot whose first two parking spots were reserved for Zip Car drivers. Guess what? The gentleman manning the lot had definitely never heard of or seen a Zip Car. He also spoke very little English. Which meant that we were treated to the tuneful refrain of a very confused dude saying, "Zip Car?????" over and over. It started with a sort of "what the fuck is a zip car?" kind of sound. Progressing to a general recognition of the sign designating that this was a spot reserved for somebody important kind of "fuck you losers, this spot's for VIP's" sound. Eventually settling on an "ok, ok, I get it, you're driving the right car, but I've never seen one before and to be perfectly honest, I'm unimpressed" inflection. It's also possible that he wanted to nap in our car because he was homeless. Oh, we'll never know. Regardless, we were stoked to have a parking spot right next door, cos let's face it, DC's a bit grimey round those parts.

Of course along with the great parking news, we were also greeted by Brian Spinna, guitarist, chief blogger and all round Big Haired, Bearded genius of Lola Ray. He's always a site for sore eyes. We exchanged hugs, niceties and hair lice. It was perfect. Here's a photo of Brian, looking angelic as ever:



Lola Ray sound great these days. They've got themselves two new members, Beck on drums and Chris on Bass. Having been on tour for the last couple of months they're a well oiled rock machine. Raw, energized and killing it every night. Nothing quite captures that energy like this photo of lead singer, poet, lover of pork, John Balicanta:



The show wasn't our best. Which was a bit disappointing. But we were served cold Pizza Hut. Which was awe-some. Nothing hits the spot quite like Pizza Hut's brand of nuclear pizza. We did see some old friends from NY who used to come see us play which was nice. So thanks to Nomi and Caroline for coming out. We made some new fans who drove all the way from Richmond, VA. And we got to hang out with DC's favorite son Vince Scheuerman from Army of Me. They're debut album came out this week. Cop that shit, yo.

We drove back to NY and readied ourselves for our triumphant return to The Knitting Factory. Truth be told, we like playing The Knitting Factory more than any venue in NY. The sound is always good - they treat us well and it's one of the only all ages venues in town. We wanted to redeem ourselves from the previous night's not quite stellar show - so we came to play. Here's a pic of Justin and Cosmo and one of me selling T-Shirts like my life depends on it:





Playing to a packed room full of excited kids is pretty much what it's all about. But there were two special, very young kids in attendance on this night. Eli and Noah Krauss are (soon to officially be) Justin's nephews. They're nine years old. A set of twins who are incredibly talented and smart. Eli appears on the cover of our new record, on our t-shirts and on our website. Justin's always telling me how much they love our band. But nothing could quite prepare me for how MUCH they LOVE our band. Eli showed up in an English Department t-shirt (the fact that this wasn't captured on film will irk me for the rest of my days) - and brought with him a home-made rendering of our album cover mounted on a skinny cardboard tube. Here's what it looks like:



Eli and Noah stood right in front and sang along to every song. I don't think they'd ever been to a rock show before (their dad is a very accomplished violinist in the NY Philharmonic - and they both play instruments very well). But they were rocking the fuck out. It was incredible. Here's some live footage that the good people at Indigo.TV shot of the show. It's a new song called "How Do You Sleep" that isn't on our record. It's not the greatest footage of all time - but you'll get the point.









In other news, Joost.com, an incredible new program that turns your computer into a TV, are using an old song of ours in all of their promotional ads. You should download the software and then click on "Welcome to Joost" and hear "Volume", a song we haven't played in about two years. Check it here:

That's all for now. Come see us in DC with Army of Me at the Black Cat on April 25th. Oh, and you should make sure to read Lola Ray's blog, it's always entertaining.

Until we meet again (or I write another entry),

-d

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Dustbuster Phone: A BIG Sham?

It's March. It's not winter. It's not spring. Today in Brooklyn it's going to be 70 degrees. But on Sunday it's going to be 39 degrees. I spent 25 minutes this morning helping my girlfriend figure out what shoes to wear in this wacky weather. But, it's all good. That's what boyfriends are for.

So, as I mentioned in our last post, we're going to be reunited with our long lost friends in Lola Ray. However, there's more to the reunion than previously reported. Not only will we be playing The Knitting Factory in NY on April 1st, we're also going to play DC 9 in Washington DC on March 31st. We're so excited about these two shows. In honor of our excitement, we've created this...




For the record, it took me approximately 10 minutes to create that comic. It's taken me a good three hours to figure out how to upload it onto this blog. In the meantime I've considered gorging my own eyes out, throwing my laptop against the wall, killing various species of insects, questioning the importance of being in a band, etc. If it weren't the The Ray we were playing with, I'd have cursed the day I ever picked up a guitar. So you fuckers best come to the shows - and you better have laughed hard at that fucking comic. You fucking ingrates.

Deep Breath,

-d

Thursday, March 1, 2007

What's crappening?

We're going upstate this weekend to play Cosmo's hometown. It should be a good time. We've actually never played upstate before so we're pretty stoked. We're planning to return for a weekend of shows in late April. Apparently, we're on the cover of the local Cortland paper this week. Cosmo and I were both interviewed. It's probably going to be one of those "local boy does good - hooks up with jewish dudes - plays rock - comes home - you should check him out" kind of stories. What could be better??? We'll post the article when we've got it.

In the meantime, April's looking like a banner month for us. We still need to firm up a few things, but there's talk of a Lola Ray / English Department reunion at The Knitting Factory on April 1st. We haven't played together in a long while since they up and left and moved back to LA. They're currently on tour with the The Oohlas, who according to Brian are the best dudes (and dudette) ever. We really hope this show can happen. We'll keep you posted.

We're definitely playing with our old friends Army of Me at The Black Cat in DC on April 25th. We played DC in October and had a blast. Playing with Army of Me in DC is like visiting Philly with Rocky. Shit's gonna be nuts.

Anywho - that's all for now. Stay tuned for more shows, more news, more heartbreak.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Acoustic Baby Fat

Justin and I were interviewed on Indigo TV a couple of weeks back. It was like being on a late night TV show, without the comedy, live audience or cultural impact. But they did have a green room(sort of) and coffee mugs on the desk. So, for all intents and purposes, we were on late night TV. I guess it was comparable to being on Craig Ferguson or Carson Daly in that the hosts were awkward, we were awkward and nobody was watching. Ba-ZING.

They were good people though - and they're coming to film our show @ The Annex on Tuesday night. This show is going to be epic. We're playing with some really good bands, Dark Room, Falcon and Waking Lights. Good times...

Here's a video of us playing an acoustic version of "Baby Fat".

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Invisible DJ, The English Department & YOU: A public service announcement

What a week for The English Department. On Wednesday our record was released in Japan. Here's us on the front page on hmv.com in Japan:



On Thursday, after weeks and months of negotiating, we signed a deal with a US label. Invisible DJ is an LA based indie label that is home to some pretty cool bands like Harlem Shakes, and Seems So Bright. The label was started by the good people at Ron Herman.

For those of you who don't live in LA or read Perezhilton.com and In Touch Magazine every day, the Ron Herman store at Fred Segal is a big deal. They sell a lot of fancy pants out of their stores. Fancy people shop there. So do too skinny celebutantes. As do skinny trendy people who work at American Apparel and blow their pay check on a pair of fancy pants. They originally approached us last summer about being on one of their compilations and the relationship has blossomed from there. I went to visit them when I was in LA last month and was really impressed with the store and the philosophy of the label. I didn't run into Lindsay Lohan or the Olsen Twins, but I did see a lot of really good music for sale.

We haven't figured out exactly when "A History of Doubt" will be released in the US yet, but as soon as we know, we'll let you know. Who knows, come the summer of '07, we could be Lindsay Lohan's favorite band.

Either way, we're really excited that the record will be available in the US.

More soon

-d

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Japan is on like Donkey Kong, or Godzilla, or Mothra if you like

How fitting that we release our debut album the day after W's State of the Union address. Especially as it's called "A History of Doubt". Of course, it's only being released in Japan today, which is a long way from Washington, D.C. However, politics aside, we're unbelievably excited that it's coming out today.

Yesterday we received an email from Kengo, our A&R guy at Star Mole Records. Well, actually, I was copied on an email from Kengo that he sent to all his peeps to promote the release of our album. It was in Japanese. I don't speak Japanese at all, but our good friend Taco the Destroyer does. She's from the Japan. She translated the whole thing for me. Turns out, we're on the radio in Japan. Our video may or may not be on TV and we're in a bunch of magazines. All of which is sweet meat. But nothing could prepare us for this...Star Mole have built their own site dedicated to The English Department that makes us feel like dinosaurs roaming the earth. In a good way. Check it here. Definitely click on "Sounds Info", that's where all the dinosaur action is at.

So, if you live in Japan, or know anybody that lives in Japan, tell them to go to HMV, Tower Records, Virgin Megastore or Shinseido and buy our record. Here's a photo of it on sale at the HMV in Shibuya:



We made a "celebrity" playlist for HMV.com. as well that I think will be online soon. If you refresh that page a bunch of times, an English Department banner will appear. They're offering a free download of an unreleased track there. You can also buy it on Amazon.com for $33.49. That's just crazy. If you want it that badly, let us know, and we'll figure it out...

We're going to have news about the official US release very, very, very soon.

Until then - here's a photo:



Happy Debut Album Release Day

-d

Thursday, January 18, 2007

2006, The Year That Was

2006 was an interesting year for The English Department. We got off to a fast start with the release of our debut EP entitled, “Stick Figures”. We’d recorded it in the summer/fall of ’05 with producer Jon Kaplan. “Stick Figures” was our first real attempt at committing our sound to tape. It’s a pretty good snap-shot of our live show at that time. We made it our mission to record an EP that we could replicate live. That meant lots of rehearsing, very few overdubs and all the recording was done live in the studio. It was released in March and the packaging featured the artwork of the amazing Daria Tessler.



We had a CD release party on April 18th at the Knitting Factory in NY with two of our favorite bands, Mellowdrone and Lola Ray. It was one of our best shows ever – and was captured on film by Haystack.com. We love playing the Knitting Factory. It’s one of the few all ages clubs in New York – and it always sounds great. If we could change one thing about being a band in New York, it would definitely be the lack of all ages clubs. It seems so stupid to us that at 18 you’re old enough to vote, drive and serve in the military, but still too young to see The English Department.

It was around this time that we were contacted by Kengo Mikami, the head of A&R at Star Mole Records in Japan. This set in motion an incredible few months, punctuated by the recording of our first full length record, “A History of Doubt” in June. We’d written a few songs since recording “Stick Figures” that we were way stoked on – and we couldn’t wait to record them for our debut album. We also dusted off a couple of songs from our original demo that we’d made at the end of 2004. These songs had never been recorded properly, and we thought it would be a good idea to give them the rock star treatment. So along with newer songs like “Baby Fat”, “The Last Time Ever You Saw My Face” and “On Your Knees”, we brought back some early favorites, “No One Sees The Radio” and “Burn The Learned”.

We spent three amazing days at a recording studio in upstate New York called Clubhouse Music. We had a blast living and working at the studio for a few days. Though all of the basic tracks were recorded live, we approached this record with a different philosophy than we did with “Stick Figures”. We wanted to make a record that sounded HUGE. Not that we weren’t happy with the EP, it’s just that we didn’t get the chance to flesh those songs out – to give them texture and color. With Jon Kaplan producing and engineering again, we set out to make the best record we could. To say that we’re happy with how “A History of Doubt” turned out would be an understatement.

In July we suffered a set back when our long time drummer and friend Dan Mintzer left the band. We played our last show together on July 5th at Club Midway in the East Village. This show was memorable for a few reasons:

1) Haystack.com aired some of the footage they’d shot of us at our CD release party back in April
2) It was our last show with Dan ☹
3) I got food poisoned a mere three hours before taking the stage (ugh…salmon)

We played the show regardless – and I managed to make it through the entire set without barfing on anybody (though I promise to indulge any fan who wishes I had).

The summer of ’06 was a frustrating one for us. Without a drummer, there wasn’t much we could do. We moved in with our good friends, The Rinse, which meant we had a kick ass practice space, but we were of course without a drummer. Justin and I spent as much time as we could at Casa De Rinse y English Department – some of it productive, much of it hair splitting. We auditioned fifteen potential drummers. It went from the sublime to the ridiculous. A couple of guys were good, but the wrong fit – a few guys were bad, but most were terrible. There’s nothing quite so infuriating as playing the same three songs over and over again with people who are just butchering your music. Justin and I definitely began to lose faith. When playing your own music isn’t fun – it SUCKS. We were freaking out. We had a new record that was going to be released in Japan and some upcoming shows (including the first ever DAM! Festival in Washington, DC in October) and no drummer. Then in late September, we met Brett “Cosmo” Thorngren.

Cosmo pretty much changed everything. Not only is he an amazing drummer – he’s also a good dude, one who loves to play drums, and one who loves to play our music. From the first minute we played together we knew it was going to work. We got together a few more times and started to put a set together for our debut show with the new dude at Union Pool with Falcon. It was a great night – and the first of a few memorable shows to close out the year.



The following week the three we took our newly fashioned show to DC for the first ever DAM! Festival. We played at the Velvet Lounge to a pretty good crowd – thanks to the press we got that week in DC (like this or this or this). We debuted a brand new song that night, “How Do You Sleep”, which is the first song we’d written since Cosmo joined the band, and is also the only song ever written about two ex-girlfriends, a US president and Kurt Cobain.

We also began work on the packaging for “A History of Doubt”. This time, we decided that we wanted a provocative image for the cover. We knew we wanted a photograph, but we didn’t have a concept. We spent some time brainstorming with designer extraordinaire Richard Bloom. We came up with a concept that we all loved. We wanted to combine the album title with the “academic” theme of our band name. It led us to those black and white images from the 50’s of school children sitting under their desks during air raid drills. The idea that a school desk could protect a child from a nuclear bomb is totally absurd. We thought it would be a really striking image to take that concept and put it in a different context. So, we spent an afternoon walking around Brooklyn with a school desk I bought on Craig’s List for $12, our friend Sarah Bereza (who took both the album cover photos and the band photos) and Eli Krauss – the nephew of Justin’s girlfriend Gabby. We took loads of photos of him sitting under the desk in all sorts of locations. When we stumbled upon a school playground, we knew we’d found the perfect spot. We love the image – it’s absurd and provocative. A child, hiding under a desk outside perfectly captured “A History of Doubt” to us. This is what it looks like:



Sarah had a concept for the new band photos that we also really liked. She knew of a big wall in Williamsburg (Brooklyn, not Colonial…) on a deserted street that we could write all over. We each chose a favorite book and wrote excerpts from it on the wall with huge blocks of charcoal. We then stood in front of the wall and she took pictures of us. It’s hard to see what’s written, but we still love the concept. Here’s a couple of pics:





With all of the packaging created, we began work on our first ever video. Kengo and the Star Mole team had decided that “You Don’t Know Anything About Me” would be the first single in Japan, so that’s what we made the video for. It was directed by our friend Matt Ornstein and shot entirely at our practice space. It’s basically a performance video – but also includes both projected images of a bare light bulb we shot in my apartment and an actual bulb that we hung from the ceiling at the space. We think it looks pretty rad (check it here )

We figured shooting the video would be enough excitement for one week. That is until we were offered the opportunity to play at an after-party for the Baja 1000 (a 1000 mile off-road race through the desert) in Baja, Mexico. This was definitely the most surreal three days of the year. We were flown to Cabo San Lucas and then met by a pilot named Julio who flew us in a little plane to the resort we were playing/staying at. Here’s us with Julio:



Here’s a good idea of how small the plane was. Check out how much taller Cosmo is than our flying machine:



Here’s us in the plane with Jim who organized the trip (he’s the keyboard player from 90’s Alt-Rock band, Dishwalla):



Damn that shit was small. You can see the top of my guitar just over Justin’s head. All of our gear was on the seat next to me. Good times…
We spent three days eating and drinking for free and were treated like absolute kings. We stayed in a villa right on the Sea of Cortez that is apparently owned by the kicker of the New Orleans Saints. Even the kickers can afford multi-million dollar villas on the Sea of Cortez. Look at this view:








Here’s the outside of the house:



This is one of the trucks from the race:




Here’s us by the beach:



This is the stage we played on:



Here’s The English Department live from the Bahia De Los Suenos in Baja, Mexico:




We returned from Mexico and took the week off for Thanksgiving. We regrouped in Brooklyn at the beginning of December to work on a new song and to prepare for our final show of the year at The Annex on December 21. We went out with a bang, and a lot of smoke. The smoke machine on stage was out of control. It was so smoky in fact that at times it felt as if we were playing in a swamp that was on fire. It literally made Cosmo cry. But, the crowd dug it, and if this photo is to be believed, we looked like KISS.



It’s been a fantastic year. We thank all of you for your support. It means everything to us. We hope you all have a happy new year – and that you keep up with us in 2007. Our record will be available in Japan on January 24th, details to follow about the US release.

See you all soon.

Love.

-d

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