West Indian Girl

gesus christ….lots of interesting stuff for the letter g. oh the random trip that listening to these comments will take you on. thinking back on this response i remember guided by voices, gordon voidwell, giant drag and gustav holst. i also noticed that every video i make i start by saying im sorry for posting so late. i guess going forward im just gonna be late and not say sorry about it cos im pretty much just late all the time. hold on cos h’s are next homie

francis 2kTen

thanx to our recent partnership with inticketing we are now offering special ticket deals to members of our fan club. here is how it works: for every headlining show we play we will have a limited number of tickets set aside to sell just for them. you can only buy these tickets thru us…right here on our website. after these tickets are gone you will then have to buy them through the promoter or club’s site. it’s simple and it’s great. best of all these tickets will almost always be priced lower than any other tickets u can find online because we’re allowed to charge a lower service fee. how’s that for fucking awesome?

the first show we have available thru inticketing is our valentine’s day show with pollyn presented by kcrw. it’s at the bootleg theatre and josh/nynex will dj the after party presented by filter. hope you can make it and thanx for being part of our family.

so we just came back from a 3 day run up north and i wanted to post some polaroids that chad elder took of melissa and i right after our last show in goleta. these were last minute shots right before melissa left the club. i couldnt pass up a polaroid moment because they are inevitably classic. i also couldnt pass up the opportunity to say a few things about melissa because i fucking love having her in the band! she’s doing so well and is quickly establishing herself as a force. her performance, energy and enthusiasm is honest, powerful, sincere and infectious. our new material is by far our best stuff to date and that will be evident all too soon when start releasing the shit over the course of the next few months. thanx to everyone who came out to support us this past week! we love u guys too!

ok…yes the 2 with ten was ideally….ideally….in a perfect world scheduled to be once a week but as it turns out it’s just gonna be as soon as i can get to it. i have been listening to all the g’s and was hoping to get the video uploaded before tour but thats not gonna happen – i’m gonna try but as of right now…no. so, what does that mean…it means expect it next week. if all i had to do was work on west indian girl i could have managed it but there has been way too much work on my plate the last 2 weeks with rehearsals a photo shoot and general band business all adding to the chaos. hope to see u at the shows this week!

Here’s a lil’ teaser of a working (unmixed) track entitled “Shangri-La,” one of our new songs to be released later this year. You may have heard various incarnations of this live…enjoy.
shot & edited by Amy White

see tour page for ticket info
poster art – matt cipov

buddyhead just came out with a best and worst of list for 2009. it’s stuff like this that reminds me why i love buddyhead. sometimes brutal honesty is the best policy. this site is worthy of a bookmark because it will make u laugh. and u guys think im harsh?

ok, before we start i think a quick recap of the 2 with ten rules is in order. in a perfect world i would like u to post no more than 2 artists from the letter in question. ideally these bands are found within your own personal itunes library. i would prefer more recent artists but again that’s tough given the limits of the library in question. (if there isnt much to choose from in your library this might be a reminder to stay current and not get complacent with your music.). now post one song link from each artist be it a youtube or myspace link. that’s it. pretty simple. if you want to list just one band/link and ask a question then do that as it will take this blog to even stranger places.

grizzly bear. gb is an indie band from ny that debuted in 04. they are my first g but it’s not because of their most recent and popular record veckatimest that everyone seems to think is so amazing. it’s actually because of their second record yellow house which i think is much better. yellow house came out on warp records in 06. i think that as a whole, from start to finish, it’s a very complete record – it flows extremely well with warm, dreamy, psychedelic, folky, unique and timeless elements to all of it. i don’t even remember how i got this record but i think i got it from amy. the track i picked was called knife.

gabin. this was an easy choice for a few reasons. i discovered gabin when we were signed to astralwerks as they were fellow labelmates…but from italy. gabin is the electro lounge duo of fillippo cary and max bottini. they are both great musicians with a defined style- bottini happens to be a well known jazz bassist in his own right. so here’s the story, before i took a trip to rome in 04 i had my a&r guy get me in touch with their manager. i set up a time to meet with them at their studio and played them our then unreleased debut cd off of a little digital camera that i had it on. they immediately took a liking to the song hollywood and eventually remixed the track. to date it’s one of the most radically interpreted remixes we have ever had made. this track still gets played on chillout stations and appears on our first remix ep which is actually tough to find in print.

francis 2kTen

this year was pretty intense. lots of good changes which i think will lead to a very good 2010. we have a great core of musicians and people on our team (one of which is my intern dino [pictured] who has turned into an all around great stage/crew/tech manager – he’s been a huge help to us this year). in my opinion, we’re writing our most exciting music to date. i asked everyone a few questions last week and this is what got back:

best records of 09
amy – Fever Ray, The XX, Atlas Sound, Mike Snow and Memory Tapes

jesper – Modwheelmood : Pearls to Pig dbl. vinyl

fran – west indian girl – 4th on the floor remixes vol 2, i will never be the same- standby

melissa – The Growlers- Are you in or out, Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavilion,The Avett Brothers- I and Love and You

rob – Freelance Whales – Weathervanes, Passion Pit- Manners, The XX- XX, Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavilion, Jacob Kirkegaard- Fonik Works, Phoenix- Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, The Antlers- Hospice, Laneous and The Family Yah- Shit at Life/Good at Music EP, STS9-AD Exporata, West Indian Girl- 4th on The Floor

dino – Temper Trap- Conditons, The XX- XX, Passion Pit- Manners, MSTRKRFT- Fist Of God, Grizzly Bear- Veckatimest, Julian Casablancas- Phrazes For The Young, Phoenix- Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, UNI- A Love Supreme

dylan – Get Color – HEALTH, Ayrton Senna EP – Delorean, Pearls to Pigs – Modwheelmood, Fever Ray – Fever Ray, Standby – I Will Never Be The Same, Ming & Ping – Ming & Ping, I Feel Cream – Peaches

new year’s resolutions:

amy – to finish this record

jesper – to listen to more music…and to make more !!!

fran – to go running on a beach in malibu with my dog tony 1/wk for 52 weeks

melissa – my new years resolution is to quit smoking AGAIN, to keep my nails painted, to finish the new WIG album, make use of the beach and desert being so close, and to meet lots of new stories and people.

rob – To control my breath…increase my capacity for fuller breathing. Health statistics show the average person uses as little as ten percent of their lung capacity. This shallow breathing is associated with stress response of the sympathetic nervous system and is the cause of many health issues in our fast-paced modern society. With every breath comes a thought. With every thought comes an action. By controlling my breathing I’m attempting to control my thoughts…thereby controlling my state of being.

dino -to stop drinking soda….

dylan – to never get sick again. to graduate and be financially independent.