West Indian Girl

glad we could lend a hand 6.30

Fran’s Flashback

i had a blast at high sierra. it was our first major music festival. tonight was the first of 2 shows there. we played a late night set at the funkin jamhouse with with alo. alo has some pretty fantastic fans. the show began at 11:45pm and started out rather slowly as i think most people were outside watching the fire breathers. i felt so good at the end of our set in large part to the awesome crowd we had. it was an intense experience, after a few songs the place got jammed and by the end of the set people were going bazonkers. the crowd picked me up and brought me to a higher place. by the set’s end i was just happy to be alive. in retrospect i wish we had run our set differently but to be honest with you im not sure any one of us in the band knew what to expect.

peaceful organic thanx to: all the alo fans that embraced us, our man k-rud from sd who met us there to do our sound, kabir from sb for putting the good word out, andrew from jambase for gettin the word out, and of course the guy in the penguin suit (see below)…he was my favorite.

dressing room and rider wrap up: i had no idea what to expect for stuff like this as it was our first festival experience. i was indeed surprised. our backstage area at the funkin jamhouse was oh so much more than i expected. we shared an elaborately decorated tent with alo. inside the tent there was a couch, a keg, a shrine, and a table with all sorts of food and goodies on it. it was pretty cool. the area was kept secure by the staff and felt like a peaceful little area for the artists and guests. plus there were some port-a-potties in the backstage area that were pretty clean just cos they werent getting used by the masses. the staff that ran things at the f’n j-house were all pro. the monitor guy (i think dave) and the production manager gave us a great sound check and never rushed us. it was easy. im giving it a 7 in honor of the some of the cartoon dwarfs i think i saw there. i would give it a higher score but its our first festival so i have to leave some room at
the top.

Mariqueen’s Mind

The City: i didn’t think much of quincy. i was at some gas station and the attendant seemed like he was amped enough to play the whole festival by himself. i bought cigarettes and he was shaking so much he couldnt even hand them to me. scurrrry. but not as scary as his home made tattoos.

The Venue: the festival itself was intense. five or more stages to check out artists. parades. camping tents everywhere. people walking on stilts. about a thousand hoola hoops. best food ever. we played our late night session at the art barn. it was the awesome. no really. it was. huge stage. the place was laced up with posters reminiscent of tarot cards gypsies use.
we didn’t have a green room, it was more like a huge tent filled with treats [candy, really tasty beer, fruit, couches, a heater, water… but no throat coat] and an altar. check out all the pictures i took as a reference. and yes, i took all of them except for the ones that i’m in. that credit belongs to fran.

The Show: it started off really slow since the fire dancers were right outside of the art barn. but, i’d say, after three songs people started pouring in. then rob’s cookies started kicking in. the show was so much fun. i mean, seriously, the feeling you get when you look out and there are over three hundred people, maybe even more, dancing and responding to you is indescribable. it felt like home. it was fantastic. so fantastic that i didn’t even notice nathan or his drama. that’s not really a good thing, i should be more in touch with the band but the crowd that night captured my spirit and i couldnt break away.

What Were You Thinking While Playing: not so much thinking… a lot of sighing…

Interesting Things After The Show: i went and watched my morning jacket’s late night set. then watched drunk fran. then sat in our tent with mark and watched all the chaos around us… ie-we saw a man dressed as a coach change into a bear, a girl with an octopus on her head, i got a proposal to join a show called girls gone tribal, drunk fran came back to the tent and brought super penguin to me and then this guy, in a rage from the quincy cops acting like dicks, threw something like he was pitching the world series, directly at the keg. thank god he missed it, i was getting thirsty. i’d divulge you with stories, but that would take a couple of pages so i’ll just stop here.

Nathan’s Nonsense

After setting sail from Portland aboard the West Indian pleasure cruise, I curled up on my beer-soaked bench for about 3 hours of much needed sleep. When I awoke just past dawn, Ian was about to pull off for gas about an hour from the Oregon/ CA border, and was ready to turn in himself. I decided to take over, anticipating the gorgeous drive ahead of me. I’m so glad I did, because I wasn’t wrong. As everyone was sleeping away, I commandeered our precious cargo over hill and dale, past lush verandas of green such as a city boy rarely sees, southward past the towering majesty of Mount Shasta. We then veered east along 200 miles of one-lane highway, through a sea of redwoods and limitless foliage. I felt like motherfucking John Muir.

By 2 in the afternoon, we had arrived at the festival and checked in with Jen, our lovely hospitality liaison. Then it was off to the dorms where I promptly crashed out on a couch for what felt like the deepest, most rewarding sleep I experienced for the whole trip. Sound check that evening went very smoothly due to the tight organization of the festival personnel. The sound on stage was amazing, the best I ever remember hearing us sound. It seriously gave me the chills. After sound check, we had the luxury of being able to leave everything in place as there were no bands to precede us that night. We were kicking off a special late night performance as the openers to ALO. Somehow, despite these favorable circumstances, things still ended up going all wrong for us. Me in particular. Once again, my keyboards were all out of whack at the start of the show. This time, however, it became quite clear to me that some yahoo had come up on stage between sound check and show time and had a ball playing around with my whole setup. The fucker even broke off a piece of the wood paneling on the Moog Prodigy. So, not only were two keyboards out of tune this time, but the filters and modulators and volume settings of almost everything that could be affected had been changed. It ended up taking me a good 5 or 6 songs into our set before I finally had things under control. I was fuming mad, especially since I had been so pumped for what could have been one of the best shows of my career. In a way, it sort of worked out though, being that there were only about 5 people in the audience at the start of the show, and by the end there were about 500, all dancing away happily. I still think the asshole who sabotaged my gear should be strung up and castrated though.

a lewis tourist momentsoundcheck – great view of the venuepost show and after five beersoctopus girl meets the familyQ thinks she is hallucinating right nowthe ALO bearmark lewis staring at the ALO bearnathan: pre sabotageattack of the bassistour favoritest ever – andrew

outside the inferno 6.29

dante’s was a breath of fresh air in my portland experience. previously we had only played at one other club in town so this was a welcome change. dante’s has a bit of everything…it had table seating, tvs (you can watch yourself play), food, pool, wi fi, 2 bars, nice big stage and even a brothel upstairs. the thing i liked best about our show was the stage position swap that rob and i made. i dont remember exactly why we switched but we did and it was liberating to be back on patrol of the far left side of the stage…home sweet home at last. portland remains an enigma to me. i still havent gotten a handle on it. i need more a good day to peel apart this city. unfortunately there was no extra sight seeing time for us. i did get to hang with my pal stephen (on right)…good times. i didnt do too much celebrating after the show because we had a long drive to the high sierra festival that we were embarking on THAT night. nuts huh?

dressing room and rider wrap up: i dont remember ever giving out this high of a score but i’m giving dante’s an 8 and here’s why. this score has more to do with the people and promoter than some of the other more tangible items i usually grade clubs out on. first off, mike thrasher is rad for hooking up this show on such short notice. trevor was a cool guy to work the show with and bill the soundman was fucking great…THE most friendly, nicest and easy going house soundman i have come across in quite a long time. after working with so many people at different clubs you really notice when you have nice people to work with. plenty of times i dont think these people expect you to call them out on being such raging tools if they indeed are but this is why this specific section in my blog exists, to call out the bad and to (on rare occassions) give credit where credit is due. as for the nitty gritty, backstage was actually in the basement – it wasnt special but it was away from the action and had a bathroom and shower which was a plus. as far as the food situation went they gave us so-so dinners and plenty of beer. plus they had wifi and plenty of tvs (i dont have cable at home im always a sucker for tv in a bar). once again, good job dante’s you get an 8 bitch.

clean, green and friendly metropolis thanx to: stephen weber for being an all around great guy, lars (pictured with q), stephanie, k and k from olympia and all the fans who came to see us…i appreciate it.

Mariqueen’s Mind

The City: portland boasts having the most strip clubs per capita—hey. that’s great. we played on the other side of the bridge. three words – not so much. downtown portland reminds me too much of downtown la for me to even hint at liking it. when it comes to portland just point me towards east burnside… please and thank you.

The Venue: dante’s was ideal. i loved playing there. great stage, wireless internet, you could smoke inside, free stiff drinks and awesome staff [yet another totally awesome sound man—everyone really, not just bill, you guys were a pleasure to be around]. we got lucky when we decided to play this venue. one of the little factoids i was constantly reminded of, before we got to portland, was, and i quote “dante’s – it’s got a strip club right above it [giggle giggle]”. woo. so a few of them were lame enough to go up there and check it out. anyway, they go upstairs to aja’s and discover that, what was supposed to be, a titty bar, is a full on brothel.

The Show: i had fun. at one point in the set bubbles were blown from a machine behind me onto the stage. there was a smoke machine, i talked, drank beer on stage and had fun. the best part of the set was watching a girl named stephanie, who danced so incredibly perfect to our songs. she mesmerized me and mark. solid dancers are hard to come by so when we see them we get really happy and they help boost our performance.

What Were You Thinking While Playing: i, honestly, cant remember.

Interesting Things After The Show: met stephen and his awesome girlfriend angela, who reminded me a lot of my best friend, cara. we got drunk and hung out til the bar closed. then a homeless hustler recited poetry to me and then expected fran to pay him a dollar after. hilarious. i think fran just gave him the money to go away but not without taking the most awesome picture of me and mark with him. then we piled into the van of love and i ate some of mark’s 3 lb veggie burrito and passed out.

Nathan’s Nonsense

Dante’s Bar & Grill had a very swanky feel to it. Just the layout of the room made this instantly one of the most posh stages we’ve had the privilege of performing on. For one thing, we could actually watch ourselves being videotaped on one of the many large-screen TV’s as we played. That was pretty cool. The backstage area though consisted of this basement with a very low ceiling in which I had to practically walk on my knees in order to avoid slamming my noggin into one of the rafters. I can’t tell you how many times that has happened to me over the years, particularly in backstage areas of venues where I’ve played. It just isn’t easy being 6’4” I tell ya. For this show we decided to switch up the stage setup a bit. Rob switched places with Fran in order to be closer to me, the idea being that maybe it would be beneficial to have the two melodic instruments more locked in together. I’m not sure how well that worked, but it certainly didn’t hurt. Our performance to me seemed to go along fairly smoothly that night. No major problems that I was aware of. If anything, it was perhaps a tad lackluster in spots, partly because the crowd was mostly sitting comfortably at tables spread throughout the room instead of on their feet feeding energy into the performance. But that’s ok. I’m glad it was such a cozy experience all around.

After-show antics: Ok, so there was this, uh, establishment directly upstairs from the venue, right? According to the sound man at Dante’s, one could procure there, if one was so inclined, a relatively inexpensive form of sexual satisfaction. After having loaded up with still an hour or so to spare before having to hit the road, Josh, Mark, and I decided to venture on up to do some investigating. We climbed up three flights of stairs to a red door on which a sign read “Knock Loudly.” So, Josh knocked… we then giggled like schoolgirls in daft anticipation of what would happen. No answer. Josh knocks again, then a third time. Finally, the door creaks open, and out pops a negligee’d girl, tawny complexion and full of shifty smiles. I imagined she had needed time enough time to change out of her comfy sweats and Scooby Doo slippers before answering the door. She invites the three of us in to the living room area of what looks like any nondescript apartment dwelling. Out comes a second girl, taciturn and glazed in a cropped blonde wig. The first girl explains methodically that all services start at $40, but that the girls work on tips. Basically, the more you were willing to pay, the more you would receive. No holds barred. Sensing our befuddled air of indecision, the girls left us alone to decide which, if any, of us would take the plunge. After a moment, we decided unanimously to make a run for it. After that, Rob and Ian joined us for an ultimately unsuccessful attempt at finding an open strip club. Everything was closed up. There was nothing to do but trudge back to the van and begin our 500 mile journey to the High Sierras. No complaints from me though. It was all in all quite a fun night.

can i get more fog and bubbles please? ian and nathan share a tender momentlars and Qdo they look 10 lbs heavier?stephanie and f10 the brakessound with a smile = bill

calm before the storm… 6.28

the afternoon before the show i was finally able to see the fish market. being able to walk around such a beautiful city on a perfect day reminds me that there are some cool perks to being in a band. new sights, scenes and sounds have a way of keeping you in sort of a psuedo stress free vacation mode. who knows, maybe i was still riding the high from having a room at the holiday inn. at night we played at chop suey with trespassers william (from seattle) and the brakes (from philly). the show had a different vibe for me this time around. there was a mellow energy in the club, im not sure what it was but it definitely wasn’t as raucous as our previous 2 seattle shows. two people that did bring a ton of positive energy in with them were misti and my friend ellen. you guys really do rule. as far as the show goes—hmmm i dont know what to say except its par for the course at chop suey…on stage is sounds real bassy and boomy to me but everyone seemed to be into it.

supersonic thanx to: colin and shiho, misti, ellen, my old friend juan who left early…thanx a-hole, nic, blaine o and jacques (if i remember correctly) for telling me the story about hearing trip while he was in iraq. im glad we played it for him.

dressing room and rider wrap up: chop suey gets a four. the staff at chop suey was real cool though. the sound man and monitor guy were easy to work with and didnt have an attitude. way to be guys…i noticed and appreciated it. the back stage area at chop suey is pretty shitty. it’s just a communial band room that all 3 bands had to share along with their cases. for some reason it smelled like puke. i spent a total of about 30 seconds in that room. i remember seeing some some beers and a bag of chips in there. in any case i had no desire to hang out backstage cos it stank. thus a 4. hey, a four isnt too bad, it happens to be my lucky number. i need to start taking pics of these rooms but i always forget.

Mariqueen’s Mind

The City: after our radio show i fled to my hotel room and then went on a little tour of the city with ian, josh and fran. we walked to the market and then had sushi at a restaurant. owned by chinese people. um. ok no! i have never had a good sushi experience in seattle and it bums me out. dear citizens of the city, if you would like to take me to a spectacular sushi meal next time im in town you’ll be on my guestlist for life. no kidding.

The Venue: our good friend, colin, from mercir, is the main booker which automatically makes chop suey super rad in my book. i havent had the best shows there, but i’ve always left the venue really drunk. im still trying to decide if that’s a one or an eight on the awesome scale. chop suey never disappoints on aesthetics but god do their bathrooms stink. terrible. good job on the apples, boys… way to make a little girl giddy.

The Show: let’s just say i walked off the stage completely disappointed. i didnt understand what had just happened. i’d go into detail about how terrible the show was for me but it’s not that important. bottom line – it sucked for everyone except for fran – but he’s in denial or just wants to be argumentative. typical gemini. if nathan had written a show report he would’ve explained why his show was terrible too or maybe not since he likes to focus on the good parts. unfortunately, i didnt see any – i feel that focusing on the bad parts makes me a better performer. anyway, boo hoo, big deal – i’ve moved on. next time we’re in town we’re gonna kick ass. i promise. big thanks to our sound guys, they did a fantastic job taking care of us on the fly.

What Were You Thinking While Playing: are we done yet? these shoes make me look like i have cankles. gross. are we done yet?

Interesting Things After The Show: got to see shiho and colin, which was really great – i love you guys. hung out with my friend chad who i hadnt seen in like, two and a half years. got to see nic before the show too while i was in the bathroom talking to someone – im sorry it seemed like i was preoccupied, i would’ve loved to have hugged you hello, youre the raddest. had a deep discussion about music in seattle with blaine and then got drunk with our sound guys. im sure that isnt that interesting to you, but what’s interesting is i cant remember their names even though i remember exactly what they look like — i do know their signs though… monitor guy: virgo & house guy: sagittarius. you boys were rad. hope we work with you again.

Nathan’s Nonsense

By the time this show was over and in the books, I felt like a big mucky bowl of chop suey myself. But first, allow me to touch on some of the good points. I just listened back finally to our on air performance at KEXP earlier in the day. For the most part, the performance was pretty good, considering 3 of the 4 songs played were new, but the mix was a little bothersome. By song 4 it seemed like the mix was dialed in pretty good, but until then a lot of the instrumentation seemed a bit buried. Even so, it had a nice, soothing sound to it, and the new material really seems like it’s on its way to becoming something special. After KEXP, we all checked into our lavish (meaning non slum-like) hotel rooms at the Holiday Inn Express. Then it was off to get in a good meal and see the sights. I ended up wandering around by myself for a few hours, down to the waterfront, back up past the space needle, taking a few pics along the way on my crappy cell phone camera. Reminisced a bit about the only other time in my life when I had been to this great city: at the age of 15 I kicked off a 1500 mile journey on my 12 speed Peugeot bike all the way back to Moreno Valley (that’s in So. Cal, just east of Riverside).

It was an honor for me personally to be playing with Trespassers William that night. I’ve been a fan of their music for a while, and seeing them live and talking a bit with the members was a real treat for me. The Brakes also proved to be a swell bunch of Philly lads as well. Unfortunately, our own show didn’t go as smoothly as I, or any of us, would have liked. Most of that seemed to center around the fact that somewhere between sound check, moving my keyboards to the side of the stage to make room for the other bands, and moving them back again to start the show, somehow the tuner knob on the back of my moog satellite keyboard must have been inadvertently nudged causing it to go horribly out of tune. These moog keyboards, though they sound amazing when their sounds are properly dialed in, unfortunately go out of tune if you even look at them wrong. So, when we started into our first song, instead of a nice melodic melody, the band heard what must have sounded like a yeti’s discordant mating call. It wasn’t pretty, and worse, it wasn’t a problem that could easily be fixed on the fly. Aside from that train wreck, the show actually seemed to go along pretty good. The venue wasn’t as packed as I would have liked to have seen it, but at least I could see my friend Ian bouncing around, having the time of his life. I love the vibe of this city, and look forward to many warm returns.

sushi sucked but the photos were goodfishmarket – not exactly potpourristage timesstage right view of robstage left view of nathaneveryone’s view of lewsciousfront stage view of fran adjustingQ’s view, since she was photographer, of herselfseattle red light specialjosssh working lightsian-us! always happy working merchshow poster – when did nathan get so short?who can give you what you need? no bhatti!one big copacetic family

mark’s view of our in-studio show… 6.28

wednesday in seattle was a busy day for us. we had 2 shows, the first of which was an in studio at KEXP. cheryl waters (pictured) was the host and a real fun person to get interviewed by. i was starving when we got to the studio but ian got me a tuna sandwich which was pretty awesome of him. This was our second time doing an on air performance at the station. The first time was last july while we were on tour with turin brakes – rob and q did an acoustic set. this time around was much different as we were able to bring the full band in. we played 3 songs off the new record (all my friends…, inspirate, indian ocean) and one old one (trip). it was good playing the new ones live just because we are still working them out as we record them over the summer.KEXP is so rad – it’s in a pretty cool part of downtown too. it’s right near the space needle but more importantly right next to a holiday inn express and yes we were smart enough to get rooms there. those rooms by the way were the nicest ones we’ve stayed in this year. they made me feel more like a human being instead of a hunter and gatherer.

Mariqueen’s Mind

we arrived at the radio station at eleven am. yes… eleven. am. normally this means i’d still be in my bed working on my fifth hour of sleep, so you can imagine how groggy i was. i stood around confused and trying to find out why there were no apples or throat coat anywhere. the station had us set up to perform as a full band in the same exact room rob and i had performed an acoustic set just a year earlier. it was so cute watching the tight little quarters fran and mark had. i think fran might’ve accidently hit mark’s drums at one point. we played four songs i think, or five, i forget. three of them were brand new and im not sure how they sounded because as far as i could tell i was in no real shape to be singing. i mean, this was our first performance in over a month—at an ungodly hour for us to be alive and we had slept in some gross motel the night before. most of the time i was daydreaming about my bed at the holiday inn express. thank god there was a staff member who brought me lots of tea. after our set we took some pictures with cheryl [who looked good in every single one] and then cringed at ourselves when we viewed them on kexp’s digital camera. can anyone say, “gross, sleepy mess”? i gave the show a six out of ten but i had a good time which is all that matters in the end. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again… kexp, your women’s bathroom is so wonderful. thanks for everything. xo.

look how happy they are to get their picture taken at 10 am

-F10

summer lovin… 6.3.06Lewscious invited us all out to a pool party this past weekend. The pool party happened to be at the home office of orthodox clothing. orthodox clothing is an insanely wicked men’s clothing line. eric and mike were our hosts not to mention the heart and soul of orthodox. not only were ginger margaritas flowing but west indian girl and orthodox clothing cemented their bond for the future together. a cool band can never have too many great looking clothes to wear. these men know that and now we are for ever in their debt. eric and mike….we love you.

mike Q & ericgreat backyarddon’t worry more girls in bikinis sooni told you….Q and nathan – drunk? i dont doubt itmark – post party & pre taco bellyou cant see it but Q’s yelling im hungry at the top of her lungspost taco bell – on the way to the studio like good boys & girl-F10

Im thrilled to announce our “short ‘n sweet” northwest tour. why am i so excited? well, we get to play seattle which is one of our most favorite cities to play in not to mention home of the first gig we EVER played (chop suey). our first stop in seattle is at kexp (one of the coolest radio stations in the country) where we’re gonna play some new songs in the studio. in portland we get to play at a new venue for us (dante’s) and then drive all night to play our first major festival – the high sierra. hope to see you there! we wont be back in this area until late fall/early winter if that.

6.28 Seattle, WA – KEXP

6.28 Seattle, WA – Chop Suey

6.29 Portland, OR – Dante’s

6.30 Quincy, CA – High Sierra Festival

7.01 Quincy, CA – High Sierra Festival

our good friend from denver, tim d, is at it again with the poster you see above. we’re actually supposed to be selling the first tour poster he made for us on our last tour but my SLOW AS HELL graphics guy (aka todd calvert) is taking forever uploading it to our online store. hopefully one day soon it will be there along with this one.

-F10