New Music! New Myspace Page!
Current mood: excited
Category: Music

Dear Friends,

I have just created a new myspace page for my solo music, and I would like to invite you to please lend me your ear, drop me a note (it's been a long time!), and add me as a friend! In addition to solo music, I have also been spending the past few months working on songwriting, commercial projects, and soundtracks -- more information will be available on my page.

http://www.myspace.com/dominicmatar

Much love,
Dominic

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Post-Mortem: Narcissist’s Waltz on the BBC

In the wake of the end of Die Romantik, here's a piece of good news:

'Narcissist's Waltz' will be played on BBC Introducing... in Wales with Bethan Elfyn.

You can listen live on Radio 1 in Wales from midnight Wednesday night into Thursday morning, or online at bbc.co.uk/radio1/bethanelfyn live and for the next 7 days afterwards.

6:25 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Thank you and farewell

Dear friends,

After several great years of playing music together, Die Romantik has made the difficult decision to close shop. We are grateful for all your support and we hope that our videos and recordings continue to bring you enjoyment.

We will also be continuing music separately, so please do not stray too far!

Love and best wishes to all,
Dominic, Eric, and Olivier

12:18 PM - 11 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

Goodbye, 2007
Category: Music

Dear Friends,
 
Happy holidays and a wonderful year 2008!
 
In the spirit of our "A Die Romantik Christmas" of 2005, we have composed and recorded a new Christmas song as a present to you all who support us and help us keep going! Hopefully, we help you keep going as well.
 
Our present to you is a song called "Christmas Eve", we hope you enjoy it:
http://www.dieromantikmusic.com/christmas.html
 
Love,
 
Eric, Olivier, Dominic

11:38 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Our Evening With Steph Price
Category: Music

We have a new interview up, for Kruger Magazine!

We met with Steph Price from Kruger a couple of weeks back, and here is her account of our evening:
http://www.krugermagazine.com/content/view/1267/10988/

Thank you Steph and Kruger Mag!

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Die Romantik and Danny DeVito
Category: Music

We scored a short film starring Danny DeVito for GOOD Magazine. Henry Joost and Rel Schulman (Supermarche) created it. It's really funny and we were very excited to be a part of the project!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4gZwK5lhLA

1:56 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Die Romantik on PRI - 11/14 at 8:00 pm
Category: Music

Fair Game, with Faith Salie:  Tonight at 8pm

 

- In New York City, the show will air on WNYC-AM, on 820 AM.

 

- For those of you outside NYC who want to hear it on the radio, you can find out what station the show will air:

http://www2.pri.org/publicsite/listeners/programlocator.asp

 

- For those of you outside the U.S., or who prefer podcasts, you can subscribe using this link:

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/fairgame/.jukebox?action=viewPodcast&podcastId=2743

(In iTunes, you can do that by going to Advanced>Subscribe to Podcast... and pasting the link above)

 

- Finally, if you miss it, the show will be archived and accessible on their website:

http://pri.morefairgame.org/index.html

 

8:38 AM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Die Romantik in Montreal: A Tragicomic Photo Journal
Current mood: nostalgic
Category: Travel and Places

Seeing as how Die Romantik is back from its first International performance of all time, a trip to Montreal, I thought I might proceed forthwith, post haste, and without even one more second's delay! to deliver a humble Photojournal, offering a  visual glimpse of our trip to any readers tickled with even the mildest curiosity as to its progress.

We arrived in Montreal on a Thursday, having been invited by a great band that is based there, entitled Les Handclaps, to play the following evening. (Also on the bill were an equally great band called Chinatown.)

Friday was our designated Sight-seeing day, so everyone split up into separate groups, as it was most logical to do, and I, Eric, the drummer, spent the day in the company of our good friend Rob.

Due to a stroke of incredible bad luck, the weather that day was: Rain. More precisely, it was: Rain, and also: Wind. It was also unlucky that all I had packed in my modest sack, which I brought to Montreal, were: T-shirts. T-shirts, and not enough: Underpants. Also I could have used another pair of Socks, because those I brought got soacking: Wet.

In any case, on Friday we decided to visit Vieux Montreal - cobblestone roads, Olde-looking restaurants, beautiful architecture - in short, what I was sort of imagining the entire city to look like, but was proven woefully wrong immediately upon arrival Thursday evening.

The first order of business was the procurement of something with which to fend off the rainwater relentlessly pounding us and making it very unpleasant to stroll around this otherwise lovely district. Rob bought an Umbrella. Not one to sacrifice comfort at the altar of fashion, I went for a green poncho, hoping that it might double as a light jacket because I was incidentally freezing and contracting pneumonia by the second.

...fastening the drawstrings on the Poncho.

We strolled at a leisurely clip within a radius of about 1.5 blocks, and saw some lovely architecture...

...though it was rather windy.

Rob and I stopped in a brasserie for a Ricard and a lemonade, cultivating in the process a considerable appetite. We examined the menus of several establishments, including a bistro called Chez Eric which we had no trouble passing up, ultimately deciding unanimously and without reservation to try our palates at a fine restaurant known as Le Cabaret du Roy. In the dry warmth and dim lighting of the cavernous, practically empty hall, we were waited upon by Medieval serving-wenches not unlike this one:

In the merry company of these otherworldly maidens we dined succulently, guided by our respective whims to the following - Rob, venison sausages with an apple cider sauce - I, an ox cheek stewed in juniper berries. The meal was preceded by a bread basket and cream of vegetable (really a pottage). The sweet summation of such a rich repast was a maple syrup pie with a berry.

Alas, we bade farewell to those gentlest and most accommodating of damsels, whom I shan't forget for their warmth and hospitality as long as I live, only to face anew the weather which had so pummeled and pommeled us such a short time before.

It was now time to make our way to the venue where Die Romantik would be performing that evening, for a souncheck. Due to a decided dearth of parking spaces near the venue, Rob and I left the car something like 10 miles away from the venue and carried what equipment we had in our keep across that distance. This was the least fun part of the trip, and possibly my life...

No less wet than if I had dived headlong into my bathtub, with every step my feet making the sound of a sponge being squeezed out, I arrived at the venue shortly after the others, Dominic and Olivier, had arrived.


It was in this particular context that occurred what will undoubtedly go down in music history and "Die Romantik lore" as The Soundcheck Meltdown, which entailed me losing my temper in a wholly unexpected way, and to an absolute degree, due to something Olivier said, causing the soundcheck to degenerate into me bashing the drums as hard as possible for a few seconds and the engineer turning off the PA in disgust. Fortunately, being such good friends as we are we recovered in record time and went on to play a show which we unanimously deemed to have been, at least as far as we were concerned, a success.


Any tale is incomplete without an ending. The ending of this tale brings us to the morning of our departure, Saturday morning at about 7:45, when Rob and I said goodbye once and for good to the bed and breakfast which was our home for 2 days, and goodbye to the poncho that truly was the undisputed star of this most enjoyable reminiscence on a pleasant sojourn in Canada.

Currently listening : Bach- Famous Organ Works- Sergei Tsatsorin

8:31 PM - 5 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

New Live Video, New Inverview, and Band of the Month!

Hello friends!

We are overdue for some news, so here are a few treats:

1. Our friend Henry Joost posted a video of the band on youtube, performing Hantise d'Enfance at our CD release (Mercury Lounge, 06/02/2007). 

2. We have a new interview by jinners on Lifeskool TV !

3. You all on myspace and our email list responded in mass to our appeal to be the Deli Magazine's band of the month, and we won! This month we are staring at every Deli Magazine reader from our banner at the top of the front page! Thank you all for helping us get this recognition and exposure!

We have two shows this month, the first in Montreal, and the second back at Mercury Lounge, where we will be opening for Nicole Atkins & the Sea - stay tuned for more info, and to be sure you don't miss it, don't forget to sign up to our mailing list - all you have to do is enter your email in the box on our myspace page and click submit!

Much love,

Eric, Olivier and Dominic

3:33 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

We're .20 on Insound's Top Sellers list!
Current mood: good
Category: Music

We thought that you might like to know that our album "Narcissist's Waltz" has been selling real well, placing us at #20 on Insound's list of top sellers (snuggly wedged between Okkervil River and LCD Soundsystem). We thank everyone who has purchased the album - if you haven't already, we urge you to do so!!!

The album is currently on sale exclusively through Insound, right here.

Also, if you haven't already - please vote for us as the Deli Magazine's Band of the Month. All it takes is a click. If we win it will be a great boost for us at this critical time for the band. Thanks for all your support!!!

Currently listening : The Essential Toto By Toto Release date: 30 September, 2003

1:59 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment