West Indian Girl

we will be touring extensively in the new year and are looking for a sound man to become part of our permanent family. if you’re interested and have done sound (on a professional level) before then please contact robert james at info@westindiangirl.com leave your phone number and brief description of your experience. this will be a great job to have.
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well, we are in the middle of working on some new songs for the next record. the songs sound great. i’m really proud of how pro everyone has been in the studio – it’s great working with this crew. this next record is going to be very interesting. we have a few shows coming up in november but that is only for the lucky few in costa mesa and san diego. i think december will be more of the same – recording every night with maybe a few shows in AZ, NV, and CA. oh yeah as far as that pic below goes, that’s mariqueen as a model for plasticgod products. she looks amazing (but what else is new right?) congratulations mariqueen we are all proud of you and looking forward to vogue in the near future. believe it or not she’s modeling a necklace in the pics…i think if you use a magnifying glass you can get a good look at it;)

as far as some other random things go – well, rob is now living at the studio, carter is moving deeper into the heart of hollywood, i’m getting kicked out of my place in 6 months.

Below is our official and obligatory band bio. Basically it’s a bunch of background fluff that the press use to cut and paste  into whatever piece they are writing about the band. usually the writer will take this bio as some sort of gospel. most of the time it’s just a bunch of big words used in efforts to explain how magical a band really isnt. in our case we are magical 😉 but we really dont need all the press pomp and circumstance. i wish our band bio just listed all of us in the band and said we make music that only sounds like west indian girl.  that way it would force lazy writers to do research rather than depending upon the band bio to do it all for them.  i guess that is the industry norm though. anyway – here it is – read it and weep.

The power to transcend common themes of fear, hope and love using only phrasing and imagery is a rare gift, second only to one’s ability to render out the proper combination of notes and chords with which to propel those words into our hearts. As listeners, we gravitate to both the familiar and the unattainable; we are moved by what’s accessible, what’s evocative and what heightens our perception. West Indian Girl’s self-titled debut touches all these points with equal effectiveness. Informed by the triumphant empathy of British rock and roll and the soul-seeking ethos of Sixties psychedelia and modern day jam bands, Robert James and Francis Ten build opulent compositions that revolve around texture, mood and lyrical romanticism-songs that are inspired by ideals and motivated by feeling, much like the two musicians themselves.

Both imbued with a nomadic spirit, James and Ten drifted through various points in the East and Midwest before crossing paths in Detroit in the early Nineties. They became best friends almost instantly, their divergent personalities and physical appearances providing a strong counterbalance to one another. Tall, fair and sinewy, James embodies an air of classic transcendentalism, while Ten’s demonstrative, outgoing persona fits right in with his full-blooded Sicilian heritage. Though their time in Michigan drew to a close, they stayed in close contact, shuttling mix tapes and song ideas back and forth to one another through the mail. By this time, Ten’s travels had brought him out to Los Angeles, while Robert was taking care of his father near Detroit.

“He sent me a demo,” says Ten. “I was sitting in my car at the corner of Hollywood and La Brea listening to it thinking, ‘This is incredible!’ I called him and convinced him to move out here.”

The two defied convention from the very beginning. While most Hollywood bands were caught up in an endless loop of smalltime gigs, James and Ten worked from back to front. They built up a lush bed of guitars and synths over James’ skeletal melody, titled it “Dream,” and circulated the track to anyone who would give it audience. With no band to sell and no repertoire to reference, they did what any inspired, hungry musicians would do: they hustled the idea of what West Indian Girl could become.

“Our imagination of West Indian Girl was so grand that all we could do was paint a picture in people’s minds,” says James. “Our vision of the live show was so conscious altering we sat around for months on end just talking about it.”

The band eventually signed with tastemaking EMI subsidiary Astralwerks, a label Ten explains is a perfect fit in terms of their credible roster and the artistic freedom they impart to their bands. Most importantly, however, they believed in the group’s untapped potential. After all, West Indian Girl had yet to play a single show.

“It gave us a standard by which we wanted to live up to in our minds,” says James of the path they chose to take. “We decided that we wanted to start from more of a conceptual idea and then bring it to fruition.”

“And I think it would have been a lot different in a lot of other cities,” explains Ten. “But LA is kind of an anomaly as far as being in a band is concerned. You can align your own stars here.”

While their music isn’t derivative of a hard rocking Los Angeles sound, it carries a sun drenched optimism that is inherently West Coast, as heavily reverbed guitar licks and modest electronic music expressions shimmer atop acoustic rhythms and steady drums. Gentle and accessible, the songs speak to a wide range of human emotion, but never fall victim to the complex obscurities favored by emo shoegazers. Each track is pure, visionary pop thrown slightly off kilter by James’ psychedelic, stream-of-consciousness lyrics.

“Basically, Rob speaks in tongues,” informs Ten, smiling.

“I can’t sit down and write lyrics with a pen and pad,” confesses James. “I just have to turn off my mind, if there is such a thing to do, and put myself in a trance. At that point, some entity is trying to speak through me and tell a story. That’s exactly what happens. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

This combination of metaphorical, expressive songwriting is prominently showcased on the song, “What Are You Afraid Of?” “There’s no chance of losing when there’s no chance at all,” beckons James as he lashes out stinging chords over a soaring female chorus. Packed to the brim with longing and fortitude, the song’s epic power and dream-like ambiance make it one of the album’s cornerstones. On the hazy, effusive “Miles From Monterey,” James channels the spirit of Roger Waters with a pleading vocal refrain and a well-paced guitar solo. Everything is as it should be. Nothing is what it seems. But then again, what would you expect from a group who took their name from a particularly potent strain of LSD developed in the early Sixties?

Since signing to Astralwerks, James and Ten have galvanized West Indian Girl with a solid group of players, and the jam band variety they bring to their live shows has made them a crowd favorite while opening for groups like Gomez and label-mates Phoenix. Mark Lewis sits in on drums, keyboardist Chris Carter provides the sonic textures, and Mariqueen Maandig expands upon the subtle female support vocals that appear throughout the album. What started as an idea has become a full-fledged band; a band that’s just as liable to get introspective and esoteric as they are to run up the bar tab with family, friends and fans.

“It feels like the possibilities are endless,” says Ten. “We have complete access to our imagination. There’s no limit to where we can go.”

Please contact Alison Tarnofsky for more info: 212.886.7573 or or alison@astralwerks.com

so check out surfline.com right now because there is another aaron chang gallery posted there featuring our song “miles from monterey”. gotta love it. thanx aaron!

if you’ve ever gotten stuck in an elevator you can relate to this post. so last night let me tell you what happened. i went for a walk with tony and when i got back to the studio i couldnt find my phone. i thought i left it outside on a crate where i had stopped to play some cards with one of the street people named “short dog” (he’s a pretty cool guy – like more than a few of those homeless people outside are). so anyway, on my way back outside to look for my phone i asked rob if i could borrow his so i could call mine and hopefully hear it ring. so i get in the elevator and on my way down it stops…like just stops. hmmm, this isnt good. i press the alarm button and start yelling but there is no way rob is going to hear me cos im almost 5 floors down. i kept pressing the alarm but nothing. hmm i thought, what irony is this. on any normal occasion i would just call rob and have him help me find a way out but i look down only to see HIS fucking cell phone in my hand. i also saw 3 cigarettes in my other hand but no matches. fuck….i even left tony up in the studio so i had no company.

i then decide to use the emergency call box in the elevator and see if anyone would really answer it. to my surprise eventually someone picks up and says that they will page the guy who would i guess come save me. ok sure, is this really gonna happen. ok im still bumming out that i dont have my cell with the 500+ numbers it so i decided to look through rob’s phone to see who i knew that he knew that i thought would be up at this hour and would be willing to drive to downtown. of course the only one i could call would be carter who had just gotten home from the studio. i called him and told him the situation and he was a great sport in that he immediately got in his car to help. so ten minutes later i call the emergency call box guy back and i say “so what’s the deal” he tells me that it’s 3 in the morning and that the guy isnt answering his page. at this point i was just mad and lonely so i figured i might as well try get out myself. somehow i pried open the door only to find myself between the 1st and 2nd floor. i jumped up and crawled out to the second floor and that was that ( it was actually not that far off the second floor so it was no big deal).

i rejoiced upon my new found freedom and called carter to laugh about it and then went outside to smoke and ask short dog if he saw my phone and he said no…agian. i told him i was just stuck in the elevator and he was like “was that why the alarm kept going off?” after that i went back up stairs and rob was just about to leave cos he thought i had gotten in some sort of fight outside cos i was gone for so long. i told him the whole story and we were both laughing about it. so then right before we leave i stick my hand in the same couch i had looked in twice early and instantly pull out my cell phone. how fucking weird is that!!!??? we were actually sitting on that couch calling my phone but couldnt hear it for some reason cos the couch is so fluffy it totally muted my ringer. moral of the story…dont ride elevators by yourself, don’t lose your cell phone, always have good guys like carter in your band, and always carry matches with you.

the door to our space – there’s a man sleeping in that box

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check out this cool interview we did for the book la – a great honor to be a part of the book la.

so – we have new shirts and stuff up in our store. they rock – take a look. if you’ve ever ordered from our store you can appreciate how we ship out our merch. wrapped in packages that look like they’re up to no good and should be searched. gangster.

Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com