West Indian Girl

troubadour 12.15

Fran’s Flashback

random historic note – we played our last show as 5 piece as we will be adding a 6th member. we played this show with 2 other la bands – test your reflex and wartapes. this show was an adventure. we pulled out a version of train in vain by the clash as well as a piece of gimme shelter at the end of a solarized 9 minute jam. thanx to all of my friends (like director joe plonsky below) that came out to support.

dressing room and rider wrap up: the troubadour is one of my favorite places to play in los angeles. come to think of it, as far as 500 seat venues go it is one of the best in the country.

the facilities 20 points. the troub has so many good things going for it. the venue has a nice balcony to watch the show from, a separate bar that merch is set up in, a private dressing room with a view of the stage, a shower, easy load in blah blah blah. not sure about wi fi cos i live so close to the venue i never have a need for it when im there.

rider/amenities 18 points. they always hook it up – plenty of food and alcohol. always solid spread. the dressing room at the troub always seems to have tons of people in it when we play. its a great place to have people over after the show.

stage, sound, lights 19 points. stage is great. perfect size – the sound crew there is always cool to work with. the lights at the troub also rock except its really up to you to make the most out of them. for this show i think there was something a bit off between our lights and stefan’s visuals. it didnt seem to gel. not sure why that happened but lighting is tricky. at least the troub has some great lights.

promoter 20 points. brian who books the troub did a good job. the show was promoted well and promoted often. kcrw presented the show, posters were in the club and ads were in all the papers. solid.

staff 20 points. the area where the troub always wins out. the staff is always cool to us. michael is great to work with and his loading crew always makes the night that much less of a head ache. never ever a hassle.

TOTAL OVERALL SCORE = 97. a straight up 97 aint no chopped liver. (click here for a detailed explanation of my scoring system’s categories). grades out with an A+ i would be speechles too.

nathan and jeremy after the show

joe puleio – my sicilian brother

lewscious, q and josh

q’s entourage

we took a trip down to long beach last night to see our friends from kansas city. our friends happen to be in a rad band called roman numerals. shawn, steve and my lost love billy. billy and i have spent many a lonely hour on the phone talking about booking shows and booking in general. that’s how we became friends. they played at the prospector and even though it wasnt the best place to see a band it was still the only place to be on that particular evening. i’m gonna set up a show with them soon because they rule.

shawn (q’ friend), me, q, and shawn and billy from roman numerals

true romance #1

true romance #2

college show + dry erase board = professor ten

Fran’s Flashback we played first on a 2 band bill at san diego state university as direct support for hello goodbye. hello goodbye can best be described as oc pop. i didnt really get to talk to them because i think they think they are really famous. its difficult being famous – i have to remind myself of that all the time. “fran, talk to the lowly peons that serve as your opening bands”. speaking of peons…we had an awesome show – played the hits and kept it simple. thanx to a slew of sd friends that showed up – leo, andrew and halloran from 94.9, walt and doug etc etc etc.

dressing room and rider wrap up: college shows are like shows played in a bubble. there was a movie about a boy in a bubble wasnt there? well that’s what a college show is like. netflix that bitch.

the facilities 17 points. sdsu has very little to worry about as far as their facilities go. this school is dialed in and the campus looks great. i sort of wish i went to school there. obviously there was no bar but as far as the basics went it was great. there were clean bathrooms, security guards, safe parking etc etc.

rider/amenities 17 points. not only did we have our own private room (pic) but it was stocked and stacked with tons of food and drink. obviously it was a dry rider but even so, it was all there except the booze. great job.

stage, sound, lights 15 points. jesus, this was a college that totally had its act together. (look at the pic above….looks more like a club!) the stage and system they had was big and pro and pro and big. not what i was expecting. it was actually way better than most of the smaller venues around the country. they hired a good sound team for this event.

promoter 20 points. sold out – job well done. laura robertson we salute you.

staff 20 points. the event staff at the school was cool. no hassles and very helpful especially during load in. college kids are always helpful. its probably because they havent become jaded by the real world. – genuinely nice people to play in front of because they havent been tainted by the cruelties that is life outside of the collegiate bubble. i miss school – but then again the michigan student body wasnt 70% female like this school is. if only i had known.

intangibles 3 points. im playing the religion card here. its not often that im surrounded by a bunch of catholics or at least in a catholic institution so im throwing in some extra points just cos im part of this often maligned club. so here’s three pts for the father son and the holy g. plus look at mary praying we sell merch.

TOTAL OVERALL SCORE = 92. setting the mark high for all college shows to follow sdsu grades out with an A. (click here for a detailed explanation of my scoring system’s categories).

Nathan’s Nonsense
here is my show report in haiku format.

we done brought the boom
to the multi-purpose room.
did we bring too much?

college shows, no booze.
we made up for it later
down at the dive bar.

shared stories and drinks
with laura and her sister,
jacqueline. très hott.

Tony’s Take
I was absolutely glowing to be down in southern so cal again. love the air down there. i feel free when i get close to mexican border. nature everywhere. i went on a nice walk before the show and got to run around after. it was business as usual. speaking of business, i was able to conduct a lot of that while i was down there. plenty of office space.

taking care of business

taking care of more important business

lewscious

not bad for a campus view

thanx for the poster mark

FRIDAY DECEMBER 15th at the TROUBADOUR! Opening the show will be the war tapes (formerly the pop kids) and test your reflex. during our set visual artist stefan viterstedt will be performing – his mix of images and visuals is insane and not to be missed. Expect 13 songs including a very rare version of “Dream” as well as extended versions of “monterey, still lost, solar eyes, trip, and what are you afraid of” as well as some guest musicians. Tickets are only $10 in advance….GET THEM NOW!!!!! This will be our last show before the new record comes out!

this was the spread i rocked for thanxgiving

since my birthday show at spaceland in may i started a numeric rating system (1-10) under the category “dressing room and rider wrap up” in our show report blogs to sum up my overall experience with the clubs we play. going forward, in order to be less arbitrary and more objective/credible im changing this rating system to the classic school grading system:

A = Excellent or Superior; (90 to 100)
B = Above Average or Above Average Expectation; (80-89)
C = Average or Average Expectation; (70-79)
D = Below average but passing; (60-69)
F (or E): Failure or Exceptionally Poor; (0-59)

the 100 pt scoring system consists of 5 categories (20 points each) clearly defined below. a letter grade will be assigned based on the club’s grand total:

1. the facilities – is there a dressing room, is there a shower, is there laundry, is there wifi, is there a backstage area, does it smell of vomit, is there a separate bathroom for us to take a dump in, how is the parking, is load-in brutal–all of these things matter. bigger clubs like the house of blues usually coast through this area – smaller clubs sometimes have problems but a place like dantes in portland or hotel congress in tucson make up for this in their layout and ambiance.

2. rider/amenities – this is a real tough category to excel in for the smaller venues. it really depends on the effort….did the promoter read the rider (it’s ok if they read it and laugh at it because i get a kick out of telling them why socks are on it) . as of now the holy grail on our rider is the bottle of heidsieck and co monopole rose champagne although the socks arent too far behind. if they read it and make some sort of effort to accommodate points are rewarded. a pack of gum or a fluffy towel dont go unappreciated. sometimes clubs will just give us cash for dinner…hey that’s cool cos we are always starving when we get to a club. it’s the thought that counts. having to pay for our drinks is never a good sign. a note on the champagne…heidsieck is roughly the same price as veuve clicquot but its way better. if you are gonna get champagne…make it french, make it rose and make it over 30 dollars and you’ll do just fine.

3. stage, sound, lights – these are the nuts and bolts of a show. is the stage big, do they have lights that work and change, is the sound decent, do they have monitors, do they have enough gear.

4. promoter – basically describes what the promoter did to promote the show. were there posters in the clubs, was it advertised at all, did they provide loaders, did the promoter show up? did they read this blog? sometimes promoters are right there for ya like ted wigler in ocean beach making sure everything runs smoothly.

5. staff – this includes bartenders, door man, sound guy, door people, loaders etc etc. sometimes its as simple as these people just being nice and not treating you like you are the inconvenience. its amazing how one dickhead can sour things. michael and the staff at the troub in la always score high for having their staff treat you with respect – they are very helpful.

intangibles – does the club let me bring tony in during sound check and load out at the end of the night? after the club closes do they let you hang for a bit or try to immediately kick you out? usually if the club/owner are cool everything goes smoothly and we love ya. scott from the saint in asbury park let our crew chill out and drink after hours. stuff like this never gets forgetton – it was the perfect way to wrap up a long day and have us leave with smiles on our faces.

i feel that writing a blog is about being honest. with that simple fact stated, i dont believe in always having to, or trying to put a positive spin on what happens with the band. in the past some band members have frowned upon me voicing this honest opinion in fear that it would hurt us because the club wouldnt want us back. my response…fuck that….if the club sucked that much in the first place then why would we want to go back and play there right? hopefully other bands will find this part of the blog interesting because its a side of the business that i never see discussed in other journals/blogs.i hope club owners and promoters will take note because often times you have bands by the balls never really expecting them to call you out if you do a shitty job. this isnt just about calling you out though because if you do a good job you get praised. this is actually a big deal to a band that spends most of its time working their ass off for little or no money when it’s all said and done so these details can help make or break an evening for the band. this should be fun, read it and weep. F10

our official rider: (motto – it never hurts to ask aka ask and ye shall receive)
Dinner – 7 hot dinners to be available 30 minutes after sound check, or $100 cash buyout, payable at the beginning of sound check. NO FAST FOOD PLEASE!!

Dressing Room setup (must be available immediately before sound check)

1- Case of bottled water (Fiji is preferred, not chilled)
Assortment of bottles of juice (preferably Cranberry & Pineapple)
1- case of Heineken
1- Six pack of Miller High Life
1- Six pack of local Micro Brew
1- Bottle of reasonable quality red wine
1- Box of Throat Coat Tea with honey and lemon
2- Bottles Kombucha Tea (found at Whole Foods)
1- Deli tray consisting of Turkey, Cheese, Lettuce, Tomato and Vegetables with condiments (mayo and must)
1- Loaf of wheat bread
1- Bowl of Fresh (organic) Fruit consisting of mainly apples (at least 4 green), bananas, grapes, oranges
2- packs of sugarless gum
5- Bath size fluffy towels
Ample and continuous supply ice, cups and napkins

Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday
1- Bag of Tortilla Chips
1- Jar of Salsa (medium)
Assortment of sugarless gum (various flavors)
1- Pack of White tube socks (men’s sizes 9-11)
1- Bottle of Champagne (Heidsieck and Co rose)
1- pack AA Batteries
1- pack white tube socks (men size 9-11)

Monday/Wednesday/Friday/Saturday
1- package of Pita Bread
1- tub of hummus
Assorted Clif bars
1- Bottle of Ketel One Vodka
1- Bottle of Tonic Water
1- Bottle of Soda water.
1- travel size toothpaste

i know you’re asking “what’s with all the alcohol?” but theres at least 8 of us and we like to entertain and have guests after the show.

washed ashore on ocean beach 11.3

Fran’s Flashback
well, it seems q and nathan have finally decided to contribute to a show report again (its about time). that’s music to my ears because it gets old only having my perspective on things doesnt it? because of this im giving tony this show report off. so…after the 94.9 interview we went back to the bar for sound check. after sound check we went to sean simpson’s house for a 6 course home cooked meal. it was tight to say the least. oddly enough we had never met sean before but everything seemed to work out well. he is now a permanent part of west indian girl lore. after hanging at sean’s house q, tony and i walked over to doug’s place where we regrouped with some tea, beer and whisky. the crowd and show at winston’s was awesome and the evening so much fun to be a part of. the set list changed a little from the night before and i felt like the changes we made really kept the energy up. it was an exciting show that we needed.

dressing room and rider wrap up:the guy i dealt with at winston’s was ted wigler. (appropriate last name for dealing with us wouldnt you say) ted was a great guy and oddly enough due to my crazy schedule that day, really the only one at the club i dealt with. ted gave us an early load in and even helped move gear. the stage at winston’s was nice, it had a lefty slant for the drums but that was cool because it made us flip flop our normal stage positions. the sound and lights were also no problem. everything was easy – we had plenty of time for our sound check and the merch area was big and friendly. load in and load out was also simple. i have no idea if we had a rider or backstage area for the band, or even beer tickets…wow, this is the first time i can say that i dont have a clue about these details because i was so busy with all the other stuff going on. (where is my tour manager ian?). i was only at the bar once and that was after the bar closed. i guess sometimes you throw your ratings system out the window when you have so many friends in the area that serve as your dressing room and rider i guess. im giving winstons a solid 7 and that’s laregly because of a man named wigler.

stuffed zucchini flower thanx to:bill young for his behind the scenes work in getting us over to ocean beach and bringing sean into the fold. sean for the great food, wine and party favors. doug (above), kristi and walt for always being so clutch – it was great chilling even though it was only for a half hour. doug stayed and even helped us load out (kampyesque), call down fire for opening the show, thomas for taking pictures…please send when get them, and all of the great people of san diego’s ocean beach community.

Mariqueen’s Mind

The City: ocean beach reminds me of huntington beach minus all the plastic chicks. it’s what haight street would be if it was a beach community.

The Venue: winston’s was already a legend in my mind. an old sound guy, kevin, used to talk endlessly about winston’s. winston’s this and winston’s that. winston’s winston’s winston’s. i now see why he loves it so much. cool bartenders, fantastic owner and a great stage with quality sound and fun lights.

The Show: went by way too fast… waaaay too fast. to say that performing that night was fun would be an understatement.

What Were You Thinking While Playing: i kept wondering if the guy who had the camera under my nose got any decent shots of my heart shaped nostrils.

Interesting Things After The Show: i reunited with leo — he owns the first article of clothing i had ever signed that wasn’t west indian girl merch. if you look back on our first casbah san diego show report, you’ll see a picture of me signing leo’s backside. to make a long story short, he busted out those jeans that night. word up, leo! there’s nothing like seeing your autograph on a dude’s ass — it makes your evening juuuuust a little bit better. another highlight was catching up and dishing out with my friend, troy rassey, an outstanding photographer. we talked about future projects and he listened to me blabber about life. after loading up our equipment, we said bye to the staff at winston’s and headed back to our gracious host for the evening, sean’s house and pigged out on leftovers. earlier that evening sean was kind enough to cook a six course meal. he had a pre-party with all the fixins ones heart desired. i gravitated towards the cheese and the red wine while others were magnets for beer and greens. back in leftover land, nathan all hopped up from the various delicacies ingested that evening, started writhing on sean’s neighbor’s lawn. please refer to the picture i took below. at around 3am we decided that, despite all the fun we were having, it was time to lock it up and head home. mark and i spent about an hour, out of our minds and taking pictures of everyone, but mostly each other. m&m forever. look into that.

Nathan’s Nonsense

so the dog totally ate all my previous blogs. for reals. that’s ok though. i got no beef with the dog. so our show in san diego went surprisingly well. probably one of our finest moments as a band yet, though there was still room for improvement of course. ocean beach is a pretty laid back community comprised mostly of surfers and left-leaning eccentrics. i’ve always felt very much at home there when visiting, but this was my first time setting foot in winston’s bar. my friend jason hartley
(once the drummer of another inauspicious band of mine), who managed to come down with a group of friends in tow, had informed me that the place was rather small, and that it seemed a significant step down from our last performance at street scene. thankfully, this wasn’t really the case. the place turned out to be a perfectly laid out mid-sized club which we ended up packing to the hilt. before the show, we were all treated to one of the best home-cooked meals i’ve had in a very long time, courtesy of the local OB guru, sean simpson (below). i may as well note now that this was another one of those nights where i met a slew of people whose names i am unable to recall. my memory sucks these days. not just when i’m drinking, but all the damn time. very frustrating business. so sean hosted a lovely little pre (and post) party for the show, fed us like kings, and practically poured wine… and…. stuff… down our throats.
sean also opened up his house to us to use as our own personal dressing room, which was excellent considering the club had no such accommodations. i had fun hanging out with the opening band (can’t remember their name) and talking shop with their keyboardist, uh… paula? i think that’s it. have to say though that just before showtime i was starting to get really worried that some of us- myself especially- may have gone a bit overboard with the festivities. fortunately, this seemed not the case at all. somehow we pulled it together and locked in tightly with the groove. the sound was magical, thanks to our no-nonsense frenchy sound guy, christophe. the crowd was in to it every step of the way, egging us on with their fervent energy. stay classy, san diego. let’s be friends. friends with benefits, even. any city named after a whale’s vagina is alright in my book.

walt walt walt walt
teddy wigler front and center
kampy kampy kampy we love kampy
rob and chris b
cristophe asleep on the job
with call down fire post show
later ob – see ya in the spring

dont hurt us because we love 94.9

before the ocean beach show q and i got to go hang out with mike halloran at 94.9. we ended up staying there for about an hour and a half and got to play a bunch of songs off my laptop. it was great. maybe im just a geek but meeting mike halloran was a thrill for me. i was really looking forward to being on his show. why you ask? well, for those of you who dont know, halloran has a storied career in radio. he’s a legend as far as im concerned. when i was little kid i listened to his show in detroit and it seriously changed my life. he was playing the coolest shit and it made a serious impact on my musical tastes. we talked about all these great bands from the midwest like the laughing hyenas, the necros, and negative approach. maybe it was a detroit thing i guess but i dont know what else to say about halloran except san diego is really lucky to have a guy like this on radio. it’s a shame that fm radio across the US doesnt have a halloran on every station…oh how much more cooler mass america would be. alas, this isnt the case and 99% of fm radio across america sucks my balls.

ps – special thanx to doug and kristi for picking us up at the club and driving us over the station. you guys rule

we love this station

Fran’s Flashback
i kinda like costa mesa, call me crazy but i rarely get to venture into the OC so it always seems like a mini vacation when i do. life seems easier in the oc….maybe its because they have wider well lit roads, im not sure. the show itself was an adventure in looseness to say the least. the set was vision, monterey, northern sky, indian ocean, solar eyes, still lost, trip, hollywood, get up, up the coast, all my friends, and what are you afraid of. high points for me were vision and solar eyes. vision has a simple hypnotic bass line that i love playing and solar eyes is always changing so it keeps me on my toes every second. i didnt fully enjoy my time on the detroit bar stage simply because i hate the light set up there. they use red lights and red lights really do some weird things to my eyes. it’s a vision problem i have – when im in red light i become semi-blind when it comes to seeing my fretboard. its sort of like playing in the dark which ultimately limits my performance. as a band we were way too loose..i fucked up way too much and am somewhat disgusted with myself. if i was a football team i would feel like the minnesota vikings if that makes any sense. i also had to piss halfway through the set and because of that the show became painful. i should have taken a break during the set to go…would’ve, could’ve, should’ve right?

dressing room and rider wrap up: chris and ken treated us well and ken was very helpful working with cristophe. there wasnt really a dressing room or regular “rider” stuff but we got drink tickets and the bartenders were excellent. overall chris run’s a smooth operation and it was a no hassle deal all the way around. they did GREAT promotion (excellent posters) and have a solid merch set up – it’s band friendly. the staff in general was real accommodating. load in and load out was smooth. im giving costa mesa a 6 – but a strong six. ironically one good thing about not getting food at the club was that q took me to a cool sushi place near where she used to live. it was tasty and great way to get away before the show.

mosta mesa thanx to: the hard core west indian girl friends like chad, yvonne, kampy, frank and raquel. it warms my heart seeing these guys at the shows. kampy even stuck around and helped us load out. i also want to thank eric from orthodox clothing for coming out to the show. go check out his clothes now. thanx again to cristophe for doing sound again and also to Northern for playing the show with us.

Tony’s Take
yeahhhhhh! stuck in the van once again. the ride down was ok – i spooned fran for most of the trip. when we got to the club and i was only able to stretch my legs for a few minutes. then i stayed in the van prison until fran and q took me for a ride in q’s benz. i dont think she digs me getting hair all over her nice seats but she seemed to deal with that drawback well. after spending an hour in the benz prison it was back to my old cell in the van until after the show when kampy took me for a walk. fran let me off leash after that and i really got to run around that parking lot. that was the by far the best part of my night – running free and not answering to my name.

a kevin and fran momenta jess and nathan moment
a vivi and q moment
omar gets the 2 for 1 deal
lewscious in the lot
night vision on my digi camera – classic shot

F10

the irish arent so bad 10.6

Fran’s Flashback
our show for tarfest at molly malone’s was a nice surprise. the last time i was in that club was at least 6 years ago so i was expecting a really shitty small stage to play on. thank god some things do change, it seems molly remodeled and opened up a whole other room with a great stage in it. the place turned out to be a great room for a gig. when we play in la i usually go home after sound check to chill out. tonight i got back to the club about 30 minutes before we went on. i was able to catch one of the other bands on the bill called the oohlas. they were cool. i had some drinks and hung out outside of the club with my boy adam and his brother. adam’s borhter saw one of our best shows ever in seattle at the crocodile so he had some pretty high expectations for tonigh. unfortunatel for him the show started off rather fucked up – i guess the pa amplifier was turned off for the first song so there werent any vocals – major glitch people. by the second song the club had it fixed as we let loose a great version of “indian ocean” which is fast becoming one of our best live songs. its one of my personal favorites to play. another new song called “get up” is also starting to come of age. it was a fun show. i wish some of my other band mates would share their thoughts with you but they seem to have lost that blogging spirit.

dressing room and rider wrap up: as far as our rider went…well lets put it this way….i was having a good laugh about it will the promoters. i think they thought asking for socks and a bottle of vueve clicquot was a bit too much. umm, i respectfully disagree. that being said i think someone handed me one beer ticket that night. the staff at the club was great however – they let us load in extra early and sound check went smooth. load in was especially nice cos the back of the stage faces the street. there were no problems whatsoever. there wasnt a dressing room but what can you expect from an irish pub – it’s more a bar than a club. no biggy, we live in town so home was our dressing room. im giving molly malone’s a 9 for the easy access and sound check but a 4 in the amenities department so their score averages to a healthy 6.5. brilliant.

saber tooth tiger thanx to:all the tarfest people especially jill ettinger (right) who got us involved. joei from cherry lane for buying me drinks. joe, my bud who always leaves before we finish, and all our friends who we havent seen in a while. have i ever said thanx to chad and yvonne for coming to our shows…thanx you two. chad is in the pic above.

Tony’s Take
i love it when these idiots play in town because it means less time stuck in the van for me. before the show i got to hang out with cristophe during sound check. i wasnt allowed in the bar but i was there for almost all of sound check till the bastards had fran take me out. during the show fran left me in is truck which he parked in the back of the club. i spent the next couple hours staring and random molly malone employees smoking ad hanging out. during the bands load out i was able to hang out on the street with a bunch of drunk randoms while the band packed up. i was also able to do a shot with lewscious. he’s always full of love after shows when he’s full of booze. i love that guy.

cristophe dialing it all in
morgun and cathy – happy customers… happy endings
the band waiting for sound check
brooke and q

i just found this link online – it was one year ago to the month that we were the featured band for amc’s frightfest or monsterfest or whatever they called it. i never read the page they put up so that’s why im posting it now. READ IT.
F10

I just found out we will be headlining this year’s TarFest. what is this you ask? well, TarFest is a festival of emerging film, music and art held at the La Brea Tar Pits and the surrounding Museum Row in the historic Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles. For more info check out their official site. We will be playing at a very small irish pub called molly malone’s and the show is gonna be insane cos that pub will be jammed to the gills. im not sure how we’re going to fit on their stage but in the name of Tar we will rock the irish out of that pub no matter what. It sort of feels like its gonna have one of those secret show vibes. Hope to see you there. If you cant make that we will be headlining at the troubadour in december i believe. F10

Tonight we started final mixing on the first 5 songs off the next record. After this batch is done we will finish recording and mixing the remainder before the new year. As of this moment we dont know what label we will be releasing our second effort on. One thing for sure is that it will fall under our own label imprint called Northern Sky. It will be interesting to see how the next few months pan out in regards to the business side of things. We’re also just starting to get in touch with directors for video making plans. If everything goes according to plan a bunch of videos are going to be made for the record. We’re also getting a bunch more remixes made too. It should be a very creative fall and winter. Oh yeah, we are also going to be redesigning our website which i personally cant wait to do. Im so sick of our site i cant even tell you.

The pictures posted are of two guest musicians we recently had in. The first (above) is of my man Bomani who played some trumpet on 2 tracks and the second (below) is of Chris Arpad who played steel drums on a track. Both of these guys are super awesome people that i hope we get to work with again. We used little bits of each session as a nice spice for the tracks. If you have never watched a great steel drum player you are missing out. Chris was so much fun to watch jamming on our stuff.
you can see more of chris on his official site by clicking here.

i’ve been getting a ton of calls from people saying that they keep hearing our remix ep getting played on kcrw. almost every single dj there has played a track from this record in the past month. kcrw also made L’arsen’s remix track of monterey their daily download on kcrwmusic.com last monday. for these reasons i wanted to give an official shout out to kcrw for their support. THANK YOU KCRW – we appreciate it! i would have probably heard it played too if the stereo in my truck worked. i keep meaning to get that fixed but like so many things in my life it still remains on my “to do” list right next to “get another tattoo”. F10

flippin out with jay and kabir 9.7

Fran’s Flashback
we played the pristine and lovely city of santa barbara last night. from what i understand the city’s main job is to be beautiful all year round. the weather was great, it was breezy, cool and even rained for a minute. anyway, the whole reason this gig existed was because of a guy named jay archibald. jay is a very talented visual artist who saw both our sets at high sierra. soon there after we became friends and he asked us to play at his “im moving to spain” party. we played a bar called soho and this show turned out to be historic because we played 2 sets for the first time ever. we normally dont roll like that but i think we all kind of liked it. our second set was way better than the first because we were warmed up and energetic. it was our first show with lewscious back in the line up since st scene – it was nice jamming with the ice cream man again.

dressing room and rider wrap up: im giving soho a 6. even though the load in was up an elevator it wasnt that bad. the staff at soho was pretty good but the only drag was that we didnt get enough time to actually sound check with a song. other than that it was cool. the food there was awesome and there was a little dressing room off to the side of the stage. in general soho is pretty cool club and i definitely want to play there again. i think the one area that they could improve upon is having a better section in the bar for merch.

french tech thanx: jay and jessica for making the show happen and christophe deluy for doing our sound. this was christophe’s first time doing sound for us as we kind of just threw him to the sharks. we didnt have a proper sound check so it was one of those learn as you go situations. he came through superbly. in general christophe is wonderful guy with serious sense of humor. he kicked it with everyone and was real easy to be around. expect to see more of mr deluy at upcoming shows.you can check out his music and blog here. i also want to thank santa barbara for having some of the best music fans around (ie kabir).

Tony’s Take
it seems that there was another boxer there cramping my style. his name was miles and i saw him right away when i got to the club. he was jay’s dog so he had priority at hanging out in the club during soundcheck. basically this gig sucked for me cos i spent the majority of the time in the van. fran came back and took a nap, rob did too, and mark stopped in as well so i wasnt completely abandoned. fran took me for a little walk before and after the show but otherwise it was fucking boring in the van. as far as the drive went, well i was stuck sharing the van seat with fran – we’ve learned how to both sleep on the same seat together now and it’s a tetris piece of beauty.

alone on a hill in the summer time
here ya go santa barbara
forgot this guy’s name – he was funny though
q, tone and christophe downtown
i think this store sold jewelry
the not so glamorous side of the night

Question: what do the great bear rainforest and west indian girl have in common?
Answer: the animal planet.

check out our music in this episode on Sept 3rd Sun. 5:00PM

i’m not sure what song or song they used but im so glad i can record this kind of stuff with directv.
F10

you know who rules….Mick McCarthy rules. yup, that’s him on the right. Mick is the reason we ended up playing at the SURF benefit last night. mick was my next door neighbor at my last place. we ended up becoming friends and then ended up helping each other out on this benefit. jennifer dawson who is the head of the event was also really great. the party was cool mix of art, film and music. it was fun playing outside to a crowd that we might normally not play in front of. as for the show itself…well it was interesting to say the least. i was playing drums and i use the term “playing” very loosely. let’s put it this way, i really wish i could play drums. i was a pretty tentative percussionist…actually i sucked. next time we should plug in and do a full electric set.

dressing room and rider wrap up:i gotta hand it to these guys. they even gave us a little room in the back corner of the building as a dressing room. it was great but i was only back there for like 2 minutes cos all the action was outside. there was no kind of rider for this gig but they did gave us free food and drink. it was all good and since this really wasnt a proper type venue i refuse to subject it to my usual number rating system.

drug free thanx to: mick and jennifer of course, aaron chang for donating a picture and randy from dakine for hooking them up with raffle gear. hang “F”ten

this saturday on 8.26 we will be performing a 7 song ACOUSTIC set for the surfers united recovery foundation in venice. the S.U.R.F. mission is simple – surfers helping surfers and surf industry employees achieve and sustain recovery from alcoholism and or drug addiction. you can read all about it as well as get all the details about the event right here: S.U.R.F Benefit we will play 2 songs off our next record as well as one from the first record that has never been played live before. since lewscious is out of town it’s basically gonna be rob and q with a little nathan on moog and even less of me on a shaker . hope to see you there.
F10

Im happy to announce that our remix record — aptly titled “remix ep” is now available in stores and online for purchase. there are some pretty sweet remixes on this ep. richard fearless from death in vegas did a sitar-infused version of trip, gabin (my great musical friends from italy) did an incredible bossa nova version of hollywood and los angeles’ own l’arsen gave us a blissly dubbed out version of monterey. we are honored to have some other great remixers such as king britt (philly), dert (la), mercir (seattle) and mark sgarbossa (sd) also appear on this ep. i want to thank all of them for their hard work and creativity. its great to hear these songs interpretted in such a variety of new ways.

BUY IT NOW AND SUPPORT THE ARTS IN LOS ANGELES

F10

i am a dj, i am what i play

we finally got to hang out at our first la based radio station yesterday and INDIE 103.1 was the one to invite us. isnt that weird…we go play and do interviews on radio stations in tons of other cities but have yet (until last night) to be on one in la. anyway, we ended up on TK’s Coup De’tat show sort of by chance. when we were at st scene in san diego last week he was broadcasting from a mobile van which was parked near our trailor. proximity usually breeds love as we ended up doing a quick spot on the air with him that afternoon. he also mentioned that he had heard us on midori’s show in san diego the night before and thought we were fun thus the invite to indie 103. hey, i cant thank tk enough. the dude is rad and i had a blast. we just plugged in our powerbooks and were ready to roll. it was awesome. i need to have my own show on the radio someday – i want a live call in one though. hey indie 103 we just added you to our friend’s list – see ya when our next record comes out.

here is the link to our show’s set list. if you click on pic 12 you will see me, q, and tone in the studio.

tk and q

F10

view from our stage at street scene 8.5

hi everyone! just wanted to let you know what’s ahead on the blog – show reports from tucson, tempe and street scene along with blogs about our in-studio dj fun at 94.9 in san diego and indie 103.1 in los angeles.

speaking of radio we have been getting plenty of action as of late in the so cal area with our remix record – a few plays this past week on kcrw (morning becomes eclectic with nic harcourt and metropolis with jason bentley) as well as from indie 103.1 and 94.9 . last friday we were guests on midori’s big sonic chill show. we were there for 3 hours! yesterday we were TK’s special guests on his coup d’etat show. both shows were a blast – we have pics and blogs about all this stuff coming soon so check back in the next day or two.

sorry the blog hasnt been updated the past 2 weeks but we have been pretty busy – the record is also taking shape – robert james is leading the charge in the studio and burning the candle at both ends. i dont know how this guy can stay awake so late at night. insane. indian ocean is still my favorite new song. remix record comes out next week too.

talk to you soon – F10
phot credit – julio m