West Indian Girl

we have a great show planned for this friday at the troubadour. check it out if you can make it. and once again – our guest list is already past capacity. i can’t get anyone else in….full, finished, no can do, out of my control, sorry, try next time. we’re even buying a few tickets for some of the people that need to get in, that’s how full it is. bottom line…support your local artist – spend the 10 bucks and just pretend you bought a drink with it…rationalize…or you can look at it this way, you paid 2 bucks per band to see an amazing night of music. that’s the real steal. see you at the show and say hi. we go on at 11 but vela starts the show and i love them

is this flyer great or what? jonathan from vela made it. — F. TEN 7:09pm

god damn! thanx for all emails san diego! we couldnt decide on just 2 winners so we picked 4, count ’em, FOUR lucky winners. Leo Stezano, Krystal Kumpula, Christina McDermott and Dana Ralston come on down to the casbah and say “yeah, i’m on the list bitch”.

all the emails we received were awesome. leo got lucky after we read this:I have no pants!!! That’s my entry. I was playing in this soccer game last night, the game ended, I went to my bag to get dressed and go for after-game drinks with the team, and everything is there but my pants. Wallet, keys, cell phone, other clothes, no pants. I swear they were in the bag when I got to the field. I have no idea what happened, but I know that I lost my pants BEFORE the drinking began, and that’s just embarrassing. And that’s been my whole week in a nutshell, so I think I should get two of the tix, so that forever and ever, when I tell the story about how I lost my pants at the soccer game, it can end with “and then I randomly told my story to one of the guys in West Indian Girl and got free tickets to the show.” See, if I win, you’re not just appreciating a good story, you’re helping to create one.

and krystal scored with this one: What’s up guys! I totally deserve the free tickets… my roommate spoiled me last month and bought me tickets to see you and gomez and now I would like to treat her… she’s a music buff… we deserve them cause we have been pumping you guys up to everyone we know! Let alone the fact that Fran is HOT!(flattery will get you everywhere)

anyway, i’ve been really sick the last few days with the flu that everyone seems to have. even though rehearsals have been a bitch we have been up to some interesting stuff. for example, we’re extending what are you afraid of in a doors/mars volta kind of way – i think the song is clocking in around 15 minutes now. the middle break is now a song within a song – it’s a different jam every time we play it which is cool. still lost also has a face lift – it got way more sexier as we changed the bass and drums a bit – we basically stripped it down and gave it a more laid back feel (i’m playing behind the beat a bit) rather than a rock feel. it totally works and i’m glad we re-approached that tune. for tomorrow’s show we are planning on playing 7 songs so for all u bootleggers out there the set is going to be:

trip
monterey
hollywood
still lost
green
northern sky
what r u afraid

anyway, i would like to thank my boy tana for helping me advance this tour. he did great work. this tour is going to be a blast. we have a sick crew going out with us. troy is back as the lead tech/tour manager along with carlos who will be doing sound and kevin reid who will be doing all the visuals as well as documenting the tour.

ever google “high five”? well i just did…funny stuff

—F.TEN 2:25am

we’re giving away 2 pairs of tickets to our show at The Casbah

Here’s the deal – just tell us why YOU deserve to be on OUR guest list in san diego. simple…best answer wins. “best” could mean a lot of things by the way…maybe funny, maybe creative, who knows how we are going to judge this. 2 lucky winners will each be taking a guest to see a great show this sunday so act fast cos this contest ends on friday night. send answers to info@westindiangirl.com and you might be walking down the red carpet too. (i think the club is 21 and over so if you aren’t old enough you can’t get in and therefore you can’t win…sorry)

good luck! winners will be notified on saturday and their responses will be posted…of course —F.TEN 1:31AM

pretty psyched about some of the new merch we are gonna have going for this spring. we will be getting in our second shipment of caribbean astral strength candles – these babies are tough to come by especially when you’re importing them. pretty wicked though, all glass screen printed with secret french caribbean spell on the back. we’re also getting some more shirts made – we will have 3 designs available for both men and women. i can’t wait to get these.

video director update – well, all the treatments are in and now comes the waiting game for the big decision. i think we will know later this week who is going to be directing “what are you afraid of”

photo shoot is also this wed and friday – looks like we will be at 3 different locations…the beach, at a bar in hollywood and our studio/loft/roof.

tonight we’re going to the emi grammy party. this should be pretty funny – i will bring the camera to document

Valentine’s Day – i don’t have a valentine’s day date…kind of a drag, oh well…please send in resume with photo attached. —F.TEN 3:46pm

check it out. our tour is going to start out in southern california and then head up the coast to seattle. from seattle we will be heading east and then south until we make it to austin and SXSW on the 19th of march. as of now i only have a few of the dates confirmed but more will be coming in over the next few days.

Feb 20 Sunday – San Diego at The Casbah also on the bill will be Jolie Holland and Sean Hayes. Actually, i think we are the middle slot on this bill. it should be an interesting singer songwriter sandwich.

Feb 25 Saturday – Los Angeles at The Troubadour This show is going to sell out so get your tickets now. More visuals and more cool bands. Opening the show will be our friends Vela. These guys are fucking cool and i’m so happy they are on the bill with us. The middle band is Simon Dawes. I don’t know anything about these guys and cant find anything on the web about them but i think they are signed to a label and are from LA. who knows. Oh yeah, i will have 3 new t-shirt designs and brand new caribean vodoo votive candles for sale – they are pretty dope. update 2/4 well, it seems like this show just got one band bigger – a band called Every Move A Picture just got added to the bill effectively bumping my friends Vela to the 1st slot of the night. this was out of my control and kinda bums me out cos i have been in vela’s shoes before and it sucks. so let me at least say i’m sorry you got bumped to the first slot.

Feb 27 Sunday – San Francisco at Cafe Du Nord. Looking forward to playing here cos i heard cafe du nord is pretty cool. not sure who else is on this bill yet.

Feb 28 Monday – Eugene at John Henry’s. This show should be cool cos we are playing with Gram Rabbit, they’re another band that our managers manage that i have never seen so it will be cool to hang with them. our friends Mercir, from seattle, will be opening the show.

March 1 Tuesday – Portland at Doug Fir Lounge This show is is going to be FREE! our friends Mercir are going to be opening this show along with a Nordic from portland.

March 2 Wednesday – Seattle at Chop Suey. We love this place. KEXP is presenting this show which should be off the hook cos we are playing with Brazilian Girls and Mercir. hmmm west indian girl and brazilian girls….expect lots of carmel skin and thongs.

as soon as more dates get confirmed i will add them to this post so check back often. bring your minidiscs so you can bootleg the show and remember, don’t be shy, come up and say hi to us – we will be hanging out at the merch booth so come talk to us! —F.Ten 6:07PM

robert james working on an edit for “what are you afraid of”

check it out, in the very near future we are gonna be filming a video for the song “what are you afraid of”. i’m not sure who is directing it yet but i do know that we have some amazing directors writing treatments for it. i can’t wait to see what happens with this. we are also doing a new publicity shoot next week with marc goldstein. this should be epic because goldstein always has something creative up his sleeve. i think there will be a few locations so its gonna kick ass. it’s nice working with people that you know wont fuck things up. case in point – bernie our local cali soundman – when he is mixing our shows we dont worry about how we’re gonna sound out front cos we know he is on top of his game. as a musician, removing that one level of second guessing/questioning of your sound is priceless cos it allows u to relax when you’re on stage.

guest list notes – i’m implementing a new first come first serve only if i really really really like you policy regarding the “list”. if you want to be on the guest list for some of our upcoming shows just ask and i will see what i can do. considering we have 5 people in the band our list is always close to capacity. if i can put you on i will – if i cant put you on dont get mad. if i never ever talk to you and u just call me up out of the blue like one “friend” i know did (3 hours before i was going to play at the house of blues) asking if he could get in i’m gonna tell you to lick my balls. this guy hasnt called me in a year and then it’s only to get a free pass into the show…lame. my other friend, jen hung, did however call me 2 hours before we played in sf and asked me to get 4 of her friends in. i absolutely love jen – she sang “miles from monterey” so of course i made it happen. moral of the story – don’t just love me for the guest list – love me all year round

parking troubles downtown – well it seems that carter is the second person to get his car busted into while parking downtown in front of our loft. lewscious was the first. both had their windows smashed in. this makes me worried so i stepped up my protection money with the street people outside. my boy ronnie still says he’s got my back but when he is snoozin’ wasted off his ass i have a tough time believing he is going to be deterring the assholes that are looking for car stereos. but hey, at the end of the day i will take the false sense of security over nothing. before rehearsal i go buy all the guys i park in front of a couple of 40’s and they seem to have stepped up the security over my precious 89 landcruiser. since i had my car stereo jacked twice a few years ago i decided to put the cd player under my seat and intall the cheapest piece of shit receiver (with tape dack!) in the dash so that would be car thieves would bum out when they took a look at my sound system. hahah, i even ripped the knobs off it to make it look even more undesirable. so far so good.

what else? hmmm…well, i posted a show report from sf! – check the postings list on right side column to check it out.

i also took a few pictures from the last 2 practices we had this week. that couch rocks – got it for 60 bucks from some lady in santa monica.

carter and mariqueen sleeping

lewscious and tony taking a nap

zzz…zzz…zzz…

—F.TEN 1:45AM

hi everyone! sorry for slacking. i just want to let you all know that i havent forgotten you. i was just really busy this past week and didnt get a chance to update the blog at all…my apologies. right now i am working on a show report from the san fran show along with a new 10 with Ten (with mariqueen!) as well as info on our next shows/tour. stay tuned ok. and once again, thanx for taking the time to check in with us and especially for the emails you send. very cool to get them. by the way – our main website will be getting a tiny facelift in the next week or so – just a few tweaks – hopefully i can get the message boards going and the store up because we have some really cool shirts available now. oh yeah, i will also be adding another sub-heading on the right side of the blog page that will list all of the “show reports”. it will be just like the “10 with Ten” sub-heading that was added tonight. anyway, take care and talk to you soon! — F. Ten 2:13am

remember – you can reach us by either posting a comment here or by sending us an email at – info@westindiangirl.com

oh yeah – i almost forgot – happy birthday dad!

Hey, our song What Are You Afraid Of will appear in tonight’s episode of Point Pleasant on Fox 9PM est. Check it out and tell me how it is cos i won’t be able to….we have rehearsal . —F. TEN 3:09 PM

well, we just resumed practicing on a regular schedule again. normally we rehearse in the evenings – i would say from 9pm to 3am usually. our studio is so cold it becomes almost unbearable. we need to buy space heaters that work.

i got an interesting comment to a post the other day and it got me thinking. the comment was from a dude that goes by the name of Afrakkah-Dukkah. haha, i like that name. he said he would “appreciate any trivia or stories about the songs, the song writing process or the recording process, (what instruments used, what recording equipment– I read an interview where you guys said you used all real instruments– really like to know how you pulled this off with the layering) or how you manage to reproduce this album sound live”. i thought it was cool that afrakkah was requesting specific info cos most people dont – they just read my babble. so, in honor of the dukkah i’m gonna try to drop some “musical” knowledge every now and then so you guys can see how we do things west indian girl style. im going to start by describing a new song we are working on called (working title) i hope i dont forget – personally i like calling the song i hope but who knows if either one of these will end up as the title. if you were at the last los angeles show you saw us open the set with this jam.

so…how did this song become a song you ask. well, this song started out when rob started playing this ambient sort of riff/texture. he asked mark and i to play something “dubby”. lewscious kicked in with a solid simple beat and i played something that was loose, sparse yet flowing. i think the bass line is pretty average but everyone else seems to love it and it sort of provided the meat to which the song revolves around. it reminded me of a gang of four meets U2 bass line when i first played it. i guess that’s where you can say i drew my inspiration from. normally i’m not thinking of another group’s sound but for some reason i kept thinking about 2 specific songs… weird. anyway, we jammed on that for a while and recorded it. then, at the next practice carter joined in and we played it forever. after a while when u play the same riff over and over u just need to go somewhere else with it — the change forces itself. so when we were in this jam rob and i and started experimenting with changing chords – just testing out what path would work. the part we were looking for turned into the “chorus”. this chorus has a real unusual structure to it because the chord change is actually starts on the same note that the verse starts on so when you hit it the song slowly changes gears rather than immediately jumping into a chorus. for a second after it hits you arent sure whether its the beginning of another verse or not. anyway, at first rob wasnt into the change because it seeped into a “chorus” but carter and i lobbied hard for this. finally after experimenting with other ways and notes we decided on the original way. the thing to note here is that there was something special or vibey about this change and that’s what makes it a classic west indian girl part. it just has this vibe to it. it was like butter. sweet and smooth. anyway, the chorus is highlighted by playing a D chord half way through it—- thats the chord that makes the chorus so gratifying for me. i love going to that D and hearing how it just steers the song in different direction.

so now we have 2 parts to this song that we would play over and over — eventually and naturally some vocal ideas started popping up. rob and mariqueen just started singing some great parts over the chorus. this song is perfect for mariqueen’s voice. we then started to restructure and restructure it. right now we play it by starting with rhodes, bass and drums….guitar comes in after 4 and then we bust into an instrumental chorus one time. i still think one time is too short but for now we go only once and then the verses kick in. we deliberately wanted to wait with vocals so we could establish a musical dreamy vibe. after another chorus we kind of got stuck. on our last tour we actually played the structure described above just to see how it would fair live. after the shows we realized we needed something else. this missing part was discovered in the same way we discovered the chorus..by just jamming. the strange thing about this new part is that carter and i are playing a chords progression completely different from the guitar chords rob is playing.. somehow this works – it’s all part of the west indian girl sound….it doesnt seem like it would make sense on paper but it does sonically. right now we lead into this new part with a tiny bridge and land on an A – lewscious then starts to pulse his kick drum and we break into an electro sort of french pop change. we jammed on this for a while and lyrics started coming out of robs’s mouth. so that’s where we are with this song as of right now. it is far from finished. the lyrics will probably be the last thing to get solidified. i’m not sure we all know what the current structure even is. i will let you know after the next practice.

on the stranger/funnier side of things we are now trying to figure out who is going to direct the video for what are you afraid of. presently we are getting video treatment ideas in from a bunch of directors and writers. they are all so different. some are interesting and some are complete pieces of dog shit. it is going to be a tough decision. i would rather do a video for hollywood myself. — F. TEN 4:36AM

ok, well our show schedule for january has been announced and im bummed cos we only have 4 shows. they are great shows though and will be a ton of fun but there are only 4 of them!!! so here is the deal. our first show is in costa mesa at detroit bar. on thursday the 13th. i really enjoyed playing there last november. we are playing with a cool band called the album leaf on sub pop records. this show, which is being presented by KCRW,(thanx kcrw!!!!) is a no brainer. come on, 6 damn dollars to see this bill is a fucking steal. get ready cos we are bringing the visuals too. yup, stefan viterstedt is gonna be there to freak your brains out while we play. this show is gonna be dope – speaking of which, you might want to smoke some before we go on.

ok- the next 3 shows we are very happy and honored to be opening for gomez. what a perfect bill – it will be real nice to play in some bigger venues. thanx for having us on the bill with you gomez!!! the 3 shows are as follows – sat the 15th in solana beach at belly up, monday the 17th (MLK day) in hollywood at the house of blues, and sat the 22nd in san fran at the fillmore. we all hope to see you there, and remember – don’t be shy, come up and say hi —F.Ten 12:01AM

how weird, my bad, but i just noticed our site doesn’t have an easy way (or any way for that matter) to get in touch with us. that has now changed…just email robert, chris, mark, mariqueen or myself at info@westindiangirl.com and i will make sure your letter gets to the right person. we love getting mail and we answer it all so come on… i know you want to…just do it! thanx, we look forward to getting close and nurturing potential stalkers. by the way – the comments that people have been leaving on the journal have been great – keep it up, i appreciate the fact that you read this stuff.

fyi – my tour updates and show reports are on the way. talk to you soon — F. Ten 5:17pm

mariqueen and i went to the employee party for the EMI people at the sunset room on thurs night. I gotta say, in comparison to the artists only party this was way better. A long time ago i vowed never again to go to the Sunset Room again but i’m glad i broke down and got over myself. They did it right — open bar from 7 til 11 and great great food! i was starving when i got there and had 5 glasses of champagne along with roast beef, sauteed spinach and some caprese salad. mariqueen, my official west indian girl rep/dbd(date-by-default)is always good to go. big thanx to brien terranova who helped get us in along with ray gmeiner for the inside scoop. it was a real chill time – i would also like to tell phil q, rebecca barkin, casey portland (i dont know your real last name) and kevin flaherty that we love them. seriosly, these people are genuinely great. so far everyone at the EMI/Virgin family that i have met have been really fucking cool – i expect to see all of you guys backstage at our next show….no excuses—F.Ten 12:15pm

the one night we had off from rehearsal this week was yesterday. it also happened to be the night that vigrin throws its los angeles xmas party. this year it was at a place called “guys” in west hollywood. (go figure, a bar named guys in west hollywood…gee, that’s a creative stretch) anyway, compared to last years grip and grin fest this one fell short. i think the food was better but last year’s vibe was better, maybe cos it was at the chateau marmont which is always a cool place to throw a party. no one in the band showed up except for mariqueen who served as my DBD (date-by-default). you couldn’t ask for better company. if i had a dime for all the times i caught some guy checking out her ass…

i think the best part about the party was rebecca from virgin catalog who greeted us at the door and told us she loved the record. she was so nice and made our night that much more enjoyable. overall the party was was ok for what it was … mostly a sausage fest but free food and drinks. i think liz phair’s boobs walked by me, i saw bonnie raitt and met melissa auf der maur. we were out of there by 11:30. after the party we went to see sondre lerche and the golden republic at the troubadour. these guys are also label mates. i missed the golden republic but did see the end of sondre’s set. very very good – is it me or is 90% of sondre’s fan base comprised of sweet little innocent indie girls. thanx for putting me on the list dayna!

for all of you wondering what mariqueen looks like, well that’s her on the right with her best friend vivi.

i ate a western bacon double cheese burger from carls jr at 4:30 in the morning – oh man – i couldnt resist but was payin for it in the morning…F.TEN 5:46am

last saturday night west indian girl played another party at our loft. it was pretty great considering it was pouring rain out. this was the first official show with our final line up and everything went better than could be expected. rob wasnt sick this time – i thought we played pretty well even though i personally fucked up a few parts. oh well. we played 6 songs – still lost, what r u afraid of, northern sky, monterey, trip, and hollywood. if you are just reading about this show now and you are a friend of mine and are pissed that i didnt invite you well just realize it was a spur of the moment type show and i didnt get a chance to call that many people. my cell phone actually feel in a puddle when i walking tony around the block that night. sucked but it started to work again the next day after it dried out. anyway, we were lucky enough to have a dj, jon thayer spinning. jon is my next door neighbor (literally lives right across the hall from me) and he really knows how to rock the decks. great vibe and flow to his set. he was all over the place but always kept it cool. thayer is now the official house dj. oh yeah, besides it raining out, 9 people got stuck in the elevator in our building. it was kind of a fucked up situation but we were lucky enough (for them that is) to get the door open and get everyone out. i bet they couldnt wait to get a drink, they were stuck in there for like 20 minutes i think…drag. ok here is a low down of the pics that im posting 1- robert james and angela wood in between a song 2 – carter working the rhodes 3,4 – dj jon thayer 5 – my graffiti that the people kept staring at while they were stuck in the elevator 6 – new friend tauvia 7- old friend marcos

—F. Ten 3:15am Oct 19

well the show/glorified rehearsal started out like it wasnt going to happen at all. rob had some sort of stomach flu and was puking when we tried to run through the songs around 8pm. needless to say we were very close to calling all of our friends and telling them the show was off. tough shit though — by the time we thought of that bright idea it was too late. rob went home and tried to puke some more while we all just chilled out as more and more guests arrived. it was a real surprising and nice thing to have so many people come down. i would say 30 or so lucky people got to see west indian girl’s first .. live experiencewe only played 5 songs Still Lost, Monterey, Trip, Dream, and Hollywood because rob was just too sick. hey, the kid’s got heart though. for it being our first time in front of people i think it went pretty well. we definitely have some things to work on but it sounded pretty good. the vibe was all right – there was drinking on the roof and a party in the loft – can’t be beat chris jones our manager even made it down – good to see that guy out late. my friend todd brought his dog down so tony had his girlfriend there. i remember passing around a bottle of tequila at the end of the night. thanx to chris carter for getting the word out – he did a great promo job. and thanx to everyone that was there – you may not know it but this was a key moment in the history of west indian girl.i should post some pictures but i only took a couple and everyone was gone by then. i think scoot took some — i will try to get them and post em up. it’s sat night now and i’m just staying in tonight – we have practice tomorrow night. ok as far as these pics go the first one is of robert james this is after the show when he was feeling better, the second one is of john who played harmonica on the song trip, the third one is of mark lewis in the midst of us doing tequila shots , and the last one is of the lovely gable carr. can you say photogenic? — F. Ten 10:40 PM