West Indian Girl

strippin it down in vegas 1.19

Fran’s Flashback
There was a big sign on the side of the art bar letting the good people of vegas know that it was voted the best “place to have a conversation”. i guess it would have been a bit more encouraging to see a sign that read “best place to see live music”. as far as little bars go, the art bar is great – its not a place made for bands with more than 4 people though. this show was essentially a dress rehearsal for our gigs at sundance. it was also the first time we played with amy white on moog satellite. this show couldnt have been a better one for her “first time”. in fact it was eerily reminiscent of q’s first show. it was a rushed, hurry up show with no soundcheck, poor sound, no monitors etc etc etc. one of those shows where you just have to go for it. amy did well. after the show i went out with a bunch of drunk people – i should have known better and instead taken a cab to a casino and rolled dice and played some cards but alas i didnt do so.

dressing room and rider wrap up:
the facilities 6 points. the art bar had a cool vibe to it. there was no dressing room or anything just for the bands. just regular bathrooms (men’s had puke in it when i went in there), there was an outside area which is probably cool in the summer. the bar did have wi-fi though!!! as far as ambiance goes it wouldnt have been vegas without the video slot machines lining the bar. points for a secure parking lot and relative ease of load in.

rider/amenities 1 point. the extent of the hospitality was 6 bottled waters and 6 beers.

stage,sound,lights 2 points. this stage had some problems. mirrored walls on 2 sides of it made it seem ideal for naked chicks but not for sound. the lights were fucking horrible. come to think of it there werent any real stage lights it was just the lights coming off the dance floor. they didnt have enough vocal mics or stands or inputs to fully mic us. it was so bad it was funny… after doing this long enough you pretty much know what kind of night its gonna be like the minute you see a stage set up like this. we didnt bitch (although this may seem like it — remember im just reporting the facts people) but made the best of it. no sound check at all. the sound man looked lost to me. i think he was overwhelmed by our set up as well as limited by the stage and gear he was in charge of.

promoter 10 points. brandy brandy brandy. she hooked us up with a show on short notice and made it happen. she bought me a shot and a high life after the show. no probs with brandy. i have no idea how well it was promoted though. i dont think we sent over posters so i really cant bltch about not seeing any in the club.

staff 10 points. the bartenders and door people were all cool to me when i had to deal with them.

intangibles 2 points. the fact that the bars stay open past 2 am deserves points. we ended up finishing our set at 3 which is officially the latest we have ever played. not having a curfew is the best thing about vegas clubs

TOTAL OVERALL SCORE = 31. Obviously with a score of 31 the art bar grades out with an F as it failed miserably in most areas. (click here for a detailed explanation of my scoring system’s categories). i think the art bar should move the pole back to the center of the room, bring in the strippers and get more slots.

Mariqueen’s Mind
The City: it’s not really my cup of tea. if i had to do vegas, i’d need tons of money so i could see every cirque du soleil show. twice.

The Venue: as far as bars go, the art bar is a great place to hang out and booze with your friends. if i felt like spending all my cash on cirque du soleil shows i’d start the evening at “the best conversation bar” for sure. as far as playing a show there ever again, i dont see that happening. the stage wasnt ready for a band that has as much equipment as we do. they didnt even have enough cables for us. their soundman seemed stressed out at our very existence and i couldnt even hear myself the whole entire show. they had mirrors everywhere which seemed more appropriate for the pole that was hanging out in the middle of the room and they had more lights on the dance floor than they did on stage which makes me think that this venue is more suited for really cool sleazy rock and roll dance nights than a show from west indian girl.

The Show: aha. well let’s see… we didnt even go on until two in the morning, we didnt have enough mics or cables set up, i couldnt hear myself, our sound man was a tool bag, we played to about 25 people, we didn’t get a sound check… how do you think the show went?

What Were You Thinking While Playing: why god why?

Interesting Things After The Show: amy and i did that whole girly band bonding thing over shots of patron. my insane friend mary kept telling random people who would never think twice to come up and talk to me to mozy over and introduce themselves. we brought together a crew to search for some much needed fun. our band of misfits consisted of me, mark, nathan, mary, fabby and kevin with fran, slightly intrigued, asking us to come along. he was pretty sorry he did — after about a billion drinks at the art bar we spent twenty agonizing minutes sitting in fabby’s bmw trying to figure out why the locals we were with, didnt know where to go at 4:30 in the morning. mark wanted to go to the golden nugget but was too drunk and tired to say anything, fabiola mentioned some club named pure which pretty much had all of us booing and hissing, and i think mary, in a drunken slut moment, might’ve suggested spearmint rhinos but we’re not sure if she was talking to us or flirting with kevin [or if it was a figment of my incredible imagination]. we couldnt take listening to the heinous vegas radio stations so we stopped at caesars palace [i think] and walked around wondering what the hell we were doing there in the first place. i exclaimed starvation so we went to a liquor store and i argued with the attendant on duty that they had no organic food for me to buy and preached about the cons of having fried chicken with cheese dip as a midnight snack. mark bought more heinekens to shut up everyone’s bitching and we decided to go back to the humongous house my mom hooked us up with to have a cartwheel party. i made a bee line for the sketchy leftover mediterranean fries from dinner. after inhaling them i was overwhelmed by euphoria and fatigue or maybe it was food poisoning — im not sure but whatever it was, i became impassioned over the lack of ketchup in the house. i verbalized the importance of condiments at times like this as mary rallied behind me demanding that people find me ketchup. yyyyyyyeah.
the next morning i woke up in the fetal position with mary to my left mirroring me. great minds — they drink, think and sleep alike. wohorrd.

Nathan’s Nonsense
as a general rule i tend to avoid spending any significant amount of time in sin city. it’s all kinda snoozy to me. that, and it happens to be where i once got impetuously hitched years ago in what turned out to be an arduous and lengthy entanglement. that was a blast, i tells ya. but i’m afraid that’s another story. as far as the show goes, i thought it went quite well, considering the sound guy was completely disinterested, didn’t really do his job, and not that many people showed up. oh, and we didn’t end up going on until almost 2 am. it was the first official show for our newest member, amy white, who has stepped in to play moog satellite and backing vocals. welcome to the family, amy. it’s nice not having to be the new guy anymore. this show may also go down in history as the last time i was able to get away with using the sustain pedal on my rhodes piano. you see, fran and i have this thing where he doesn’t really approve of my use of sustain while playing. while, in my humble opinion, it flies in the face of all musical reason, i have reluctantly agreed to give it a go and adjust my playing style somewhat. but on this night, it was the sustain pedal’s last hoorah. the pedal has since mysteriously disappeared. there was an unconfirmed sighting of the pedal rod sticking out of a snowdrift somewhere outside salt lake city, but so far nothing else to go on. if anyone has any information as to it’s whereabouts, please contact me right away. i’ll be sure to update everyone on the situation as details become available. so that’s my vegas blurb. the rest is just a flurry of darting about the city in the back of fabiola’s fab mercedes and finishing up the night at the makeshift, unfurnished band house. after not nearly enough sleep, it was off to utah and the high country.

Tony’s Take
i am so fucking happy that fran didnt leave me in that kennel he took me to the other day. it was cool in the fact i would have been next to a bunch of other boxers but sleeping outside in this cold would not have been kosh. instead he packed me a goose down puffy jacket and i was on the A team. first time in vegas…not much to report…never even went in the bar. before the show they took me to a safe-house that Q’s mom had set up for us. it was rad – all shag carpet and an enclosed yard. i took 3 shits there and got to run around til my heart’s content. at night i slept next to fran in his sleeping bag. it was a fantastic stay for me. so far the only bad thing about the trip is my spot in the van – on the floor between the 2 front seats. lewscious is in my usual bench and he doesnt really like to share. i love the guy anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

kicking ass at street scene 8.05

Fran’s Flashback
san diego st scene was awesome. when we played our set at 5pm and had a real nice crowd there to check us out. i was proud of how we did…for the most part we nailed it. rob’s friend julio sat in on percussion for a few songs as well. it was a power set and i thought we especially nailed songs like hollywood, indian ocean and what are you afraid of. there were a bunch of photographers in the front row taking pics and here are some links where you can check out some of their pics. 1. webmoment (great pro pics in here) 2. st scene community board (scroll down to see us) 3. wire image (you can search for anything on here) 4. VH1.com News (no pics but cool mention of Q in last sentence)

dressing room and rider wrap up: in honor of fellini im grading out st scene with my all time high score of 8 1/2. a large part of this score is due to the simple fact we had our own trailer (see picture). not only did the trailer have ac but it had a bathroom. it was kinda small for the whole crew to be in there at once but it was a godsend nonetheless. there was plenty of drink and food available for us too. none of the staff or stage hands or security were dicks at this festival…in fact they were all really nice. plus they even let tony in so i was down with their whole program from the jump. festivals are always hectic with getting bands on and off stage quickly but these guys were super cool – no attitudes and no probs. i even got drove around in one of those carts with josh. how can getting to cruise around in one of golf carts not make your day?

parking lot thanx to: every fan that came out to see us, the promoter for inviting us and all of our friends that found us backstage. extra special thanx goes to julio for sitting in with us for a few songs and taking some great pics. artist mark sgarbossa and kampy are pictured left while music journalist alexander laurence is seen below. alexander goes to see more shows than any one i know. talk about being current – check out his blog called the portable infinite which i have perma linked to our sidebar friends section. a san diego trip wouldnt have complete without doug, walt and tim showing up. once again it was great to see all you guys who are like family now. hmmmm im trying to think of who else i invited but i think i covered it. oh yeah, thanx to kevin for doing our sound that day. you did a great job bro!

Tony’s Take
some days are definitely better to be a dog than most. this was not one of them. it was HOT and since there was absolutely no fucking grass in this parking lot festival my paws had to rough it on the burning cement. thank god for that little trailer dressing room they had. i was mostly in there chilling with the likes of lewscious and q and nathan in the hours leading up to the show. after the show i got to walk around not only with fran but the other guys took me for a while too. it was pretty cool because i was literally the ONLY dog at the festival (just like it should be). i met tons of hot chicks cos that’s just what i seem to do when i go out. they never seem like they can get enough sometimes. i tried eating the food that was dropped but never really got a hold of anything under fran’s watchful eye. he fed me at night under the stars. it was groovy. around 11pm we all drove back to the double tree and i jumped in q’s car for a more comfy ride home. i like san diego and the fact that no one gave me a hassle there.

nothing like a great view
rob and julio before sound check
walt and doug helping us move equipment
q with brian on the indie 103 bus
lewscious et all
looking for a dropped kielbasa

really, it’s nothing personal tempe 8.2

Note From F10 – writing a blog is about being honest. with that simple fact stated , i dont believe in always having to, or trying to put a postive spin on our lives or what we do. read it and weep

Fran’s Flashback

we played in tempe at a bar called the sets last night. i had a hunch this gig was going to suck for a few reasons…the main one being that it was booked way too late. the odds are going to be against any band playing a midweek show in a market they’ve never played before with very little time to promote. sure it can be good for the money and the rehearsal but psychologically it exacts a somewhat bigger toll from a band that is not only struggling to make ends meet but at the same time trying to keep morale up. in an ideal world shows get booked with 6 weeks lead time in order to properly promote. i mean its not really the promoters fault because he was at least cool enough to get us in the market for the first time and pay us well but the club was just wrong. i wish our agent cared a bit more because this shouldnt be happening. our show and our effort and our collective life is too good to be taken for granted of like this. but hey, if you arent a big band you arent a big priority and thus you end up getting shitty gigs that sometimes dont make any sense. these are the times when i find myself questioning what im doing.

dressing room and rider wrap up: im giving the sets a score of 2. this now “sets” my all time low (since i have been scoring). unfortunately for this bar it reminded me of the bars i used to avoid when i was in college. the place was basically a sports bar with a big generic lifeless room attached to it for bands to play in. the dressing room was a closet…as far as the rider goes – the promoter bought us out which was cool. dont get me wrong, the people at the club were cordial but they were all very detached. the house sound guy steve was nice enough. the lights were stagnant…just the same few spots on the whole time thus adding the empty feeling i had in my stomach. the promoter’s employee was nice too but it was again it was all very business like and detached. it was just a fucking weird place for us to play. not a weird place to watch sports at though. it probably would have been better if the main room where the sports were on was actually the room we were playing in. that would have at least added to the life in the room and the feeling that we were actually engaging people. depressing depressing depressing.

100 degree thanx to: the 5 people that were actual fans in the crowd, 3 of whom saw us at the high sierra a little while ago. thanx for showing up guys.

Tony’s Take
i woke up in tucson, had breakfast and checked out of the room around noon. fran took me over to a parking lot where i took another shit and ran around off leash. i spent the next hour staring at a pigeon while the band was having lunch at the outside cafe. i really wanted to get at that fucking bird but fran kept pulling that cesar milan stuff on me. after lunch we went back into the club where i pissed on a pole just to mess with fran’s head. anyway, tempe….so damn hot it was killin me. i couldnt even put my paws on the pavement without them getting burned. i got to hang out in the club while the band sound checked. i mostly sat next to my girl q while she played this videogame thing she has been playing all tour. i also got to hang out on stage during the sound check. i liked the bar more than everyone else just cos the ac was crankin and i wasnt always on a leash. after fran ate dinner we went back to the van and he made me dinner and then we both took a nap. fran woke up right before his show and left me in the van with water and the windows rolled half way down but it was still hot as a mofo up in that bitch. i sat in the drivers seat and stared out the window for a while and finally decided to lay down and take a nap and wait for fran to come back. once he came back i took a piss and went back into the club and hung out with q while the band loaded up. when she wasnt looking i wondered off for a bit and got pet by some strangers. now its back in the van for a 6 hour drive and i have to share a seat with fran. im sick of sharing my seat with him.

Mariqueen’s Mind

The City: tempe reminds me of yorba linda, CA circa 1998. take it how you want.

The Venue: if you like going to big sports bars that let underage kids walk everywhere which in turn, restricts you from moving around with a drink in your hand, which in turn confines you to an area that is sectioned off with caution tape, then i guess the sets is right up your alley.

The Show: it was depressing. i was pretending i was having a nightmare the whole entire time…

What Were You Thinking While Playing: i was counting down the end of our set by each song, hoping that mark would miraculously up the tempos to every one of them so we could get out of there.

Interesting Things After The Show: well at the end of our last song, the bartender, who was a really cool guy, stood on the back of the bar and blew fire. after wallowing our depression in drink, the boys packed up the van as i got lost in my nintendo ds.

seeing the best parts of the countryif only he could really drive

note: out of sheer boredom from being on the road tony, my dog, started writing his own section for the blog…im glad he did.

Tony’s Take
we left la at 4am the morning before. fran drove the whole way. the car ride was a bitch because when he drives no one else will share a bench with me so i have to sit on the cramped floor right next to him…it sucks. i had a pretty rad time in tucson which seemed to be pretty dog friendly. the band stayed at the hotel congress and i loved it cos their employees welcomed me with open arms. they didnt even make the band pay extra for me like most of the classless hotels we stay at do. during their soundcheck i stayed in the club and met a bartender named jessica who would play with me and bring me water every time i saw her. before west indian girl’s show i was feeling kinda sick -i ate my dinner but then threw it all up. fran, (whose no dumb shit) picked it up and left it out for me cos he knows i’ll eat it again….which i did and it was actually better the second time around. i didnt get to see the show cos fran left me in the room during their set. he came back to get me when they finished and seemed pretty happy about things. i hung out in the club while they packed up all the gear and then went for a walk around tucson with lewscious and q. i pissed on a ton of cacti, took a huge shit outside a train station and then walked home. needless to say i slept like a baby…wag wag

Fran’s Flashback

dressing room and rider wrap up: im giving the hotel congress an 8 for many reasons. everyone who worked there was super cool – no attitudes at all. the house sound man, ken (pictured) was the one of the best we’ve had period. he gave us plenty of time for a sound check and was really easy to deal with. i cant stress this enough….i love working with cool sound men. another plus was being able to leave our gear in the club over night and load it out the next day. this rarely happens. as far as rider stuff goes they gave us dinner tickets which were good for any meal at the cafe before 1pm the next day which came in very handy. there was a cooler of beer on the side of the stage but it was for both bands so i didnt really see much of it. there wasnt really a backstage just sort of a curtained off area to the side of the stage that opened out onto the st. this was actually kind of cool. as far as dressing rooms go your hotel room was a minute away from the club downstairs so that was your dressing room. congrats club congress you get an 8 and are now tied with dante’s in portland for my high this year. way to be.

mexican thanx to: mexico for letting us have tucson (which it was once a part of) and the year of acceleration – all those guys were all really great and i hope we get to play more shows with them in the future.

Mariqueen’s Mind

The City: tucson is my favorite city in arizona — quaint, kitschy and picture perfect.

The Venue: i fell in love with the hotel congress. i dont even remember what the actual venue looked like… all i can recall was how awesome the hotel was. the ambience, the great restaurant, wonderful staff [except for a tall, bald bartender in the small bar — he’s a prick] and rotary phones everywhere, i thought i was dreaming it seemed too good to be true.

The Show: i gave it a seven and a half… ken, who was our sound guy for the evening was outstanding and a really great guy to hang out with too… bonus.

What Were You Thinking While Playing: well, since we were in AZ, in the middle of the summer, with no air conditioning and bright lights were a shining, i was incredibly sweaty on stage so i kept worrying about my eye liner bleeding down my face… just because there are only 50 people in the crowd doesnt mean you have an excuse to look like a hot mess.

Interesting Things After The Show: hung out with the cutest band in AZ, the year of acceleration… then got caught up at the bar and got really bored watching my band minus rob pack up the gear. i watched everyone’s favorite boxer run around for awhile, then went on a 3am walk around town with fran, mark and tony. i watched ants crawl on the ground and witnessed tony taking a huge dump… to top off the evening i watched mark and fran eat hard boiled eggs. i know, right? wild night. try hard not to envy my life.

lewscious…post show bliss
q and nathan before the showq and tony after the club closedthe year of accelerationtony working on the blog

high sierra snake charmers 7.1

Fran’s Flashback

our second gig at high sierra was an afternoon show in the vaudeville tent. the vaudeville tent looked like what im assuming wavy gravy’s backyard would look like. i havent seen that much tie dye in one place in a very long time. our daytime set was orchestrated brilliantly as we structured it out as one long build. i think it paid off because as we played the tent steadily filled up until it was one jammed mass of sweaty people dancing around getting swept away by our sound. at one point i remember telling the crowd that it felt like a big ocean of love was washing up on stage…i know it sounds cheesy but i couldnt help myself. overall it was a perfect set where crowd and band were one. after the show we went over to the merch tent and signed cds and met some fans….good times man, we even sold out of cds. check out this review of the festival in jambase.

wheat grass thanx to: everyone in the vaudeville tent during our set, the 3 people that ran back to their tents to get me beer when i asked for some (that’s love), and all the folks at camp harry for having us over to their late night party.

dressing room and rider wrap up: a nice man called pooba (pictured) was in charge of the “vibe” for whole tent and was sort of the backstage “host” if you will. he was making mint juleps and they were tasty. as far as the backstage area for the band goes…there was a tent with food and drink and stuff and even a masseuse. there were no private bathrooms and there were tons of people back there. overall it was a cool vibe given that it was a hectic area to begin with. im grading this out as a 5 – not because of the lack of privacy, toilets, or space but purely on pooba’s hospitality, good vibrations and free rub downs. see you at the derby man.

Mariqueen’s Mind

The City: it was a good day to wake up in a city named quincy.

The Venue:today we played at the vaudeville tent. i think that’s high sierra’s secret code name for tie dye explosion.

The Show: i mean, it was what it was. i remember thinking i couldnt hear my voice out in the audience and heard later on from my manager that our sound man messed it up and used the excuse that i wasnt singing loud enough. um. despite incompetence from that side, i thought it was pretty decent. we rolled with the audience and by the end of the set we had them grooving. it was a lot of fun.

What Were You Thinking While Playing: i can’t hear myself. my feet hurt. this beer tastes good…

Interesting Things After The Show: puba, the man behind the magic at the vaudeville tent made us delicious mint juleps. i got a massage. we walked around and soaked up the festival. i ate a lot. i drank a lot. i smoked a lot. i laughed a lot. it was great.

Nathan’s Nonsense

Our Saturday set at High Sierra was probably the closest thing to perfection we managed to achieve on the whole trip, which unfortunately still isn’t saying much. We really had no sound check to speak of, just threw our gear up on stage, plugged everything in, and lunged into our set. Once again, one of the Moogs wasn’t quite in tune, but at least it wasn’t as devastating as some of the aforementioned experiences. After a song or two… or three, our sound issues were completely sorted out and we were in full command of the late afternoon audience. For this show, we started with a healthy sized audience, but they were mostly just relaxing, sprawled out languorously on the grass. By midway through the set, they were all on their feet, dancing away and seriously grooving on the tunes. It really felt good to see that.

Afterwards, we met up with some of the wonderful fans at the merch tent, hung out backstage with our friends from Grace Potter and the Nocturnals and My Morning Jacket, cashed in on some much needed free massages for the performers (thanks a million, Ali… that was heavenly), and marveled at the stars which seemed to hang so low and luminescent that you could practically touch them with your tongue. Jesse from the band Lotus joined up with us for a bit, the fire dancers were out in full force, everyone was smiling and seemed to be channeling some universal wellspring of goodness…. Andrew’s trailer was going off late into the night, craziness everywhere, positive energy being shared by everyone. I had a blast. I’ve never been a big fan of festivals, until now. You won’t have to ask me twice to come back again.

josh and ian – team perfectwig + grace potter +mmja rare Q smile caught on filmcosta mesa at the merch tentbo from my morning jacket – good guy
until me meet again high sierra

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

a memoriable show… 5.27

our show at spaceland was possibly our best ever los angeles show.the vibe at spaceland was all west indian girl… it felt good and it felt right. it wasnt quite sold out but it was close…it was also memorial day weekend not to mention my birthday. what was a somewhat jerky set in SF the night before turned out to be (after a few slight adjustments) a smooth operator in LA. we improved the set by moving up monterey and inspirate to the 3rd and 4th position thus making a huge difference in flow. i remember that i liked playing on the stage at spaceland…it is one of those stages that i immediately felt comfortable on. i sort of felt like a a cheerleader. i also remember that q looked awesome in a new dress she “busted’ out for the show. im glad we have that feminine element in the band still despite carter leaving. after the show i took q on a strange drive though los angeles in search pf some greasy food that i never ended up eating.

birthday boy thanks to: everyone that bought me a drink for my birthday, sascha, todd, kampy, frank, raquel, izler, marcos, bernie, chad, yvonne, adam (in pic) and all my friends for paying to get in. john and phil from northern for opening the show, jennifer for booking us, sherry lee for taking all the live pics, carlos for doing our sound and all the veterans that died for us so i could be living the care free life of a broke musician in the united states of america.

dressing room and rider wrap up: basically there wasnt much of a green room at spaceland…just a room right behind the stage. as you know im a pretty honest blogger so its my duty to report the facts and even though there are a ton of positive things to say about spaceland there are a few negs. hey, for all good there is evil, for all light there is dark, well you get the picture. ok, so we got a total of 10 drink tickets and that was it. no water, food, beer, towels or nothing. in that regard it ranks in the bottom 3 of the 70+ shows we have played. besides jennifer and todd (who were super nice) that worked there the staff wasnt overly friendly to us. hey, maybe the bartenders were having a bad day, maybe they were mad they had to work on a holiday weekend, maybe they hated our music….regardless, this attitude was noted not just by me in my birthday haze but a few people in my band and that sucks because we are far from a bunch of assholes.

check out this video footage of the show that my friend T$$$ took. T$$$, yup that’s his name. he is pictured on the left with his friend tanika. T$$$ went way beyond the call of duty and made a cool page of random videos from the show. now that’s a bro for ya. thanx for filming the show T$$$. WATCH IT

for those of you who prefer the newspaper over tv check out a review of the show at the hollywood machine. this is a pretty funny blog. CHECK IT

Mariqueen’s Mind

The City: despite it’s pretentious reputation, i think silverlake is one of the better cities in los angeles. great restaurants, the best bars and it’s completely against everything that is lame about la. look into that.

The Venue: once you step into spaceland the first thing you think to yourself is, “why is this not a bar inside tomorrowland?” then you think, “wouldnt it be cool if the door guy was dressed as jabba the hut”. it’s got these awful metallic blue and silver curtains and even it’s disco ball has a ring around it like saturn. tacky and kind of cute at the same time. the best feature was the smoking area. you could play pool, grab a drink sit down and chain smoke and never leave the building. dear space mountain, please look into this as a prospective add on for summer 2007. since they failed to give me throat coat, apples, money so i could eat, or any food at all, i dont really have anything pleasant to say about this place. no offense, but as a singer, i have needs and they were not met. i got two drink tickets for the whole evening… well… at least they were better than the union st. station.

The Show: god, what a difference a new set list makes. i’d like to take this opportunity to give F10 and myself a round of golf claps for rearranging our set. we did it as we drove from san francisco straight to soundcheck. the new set made everything flow beautifully. it seemed like we played a shorter set, though, in all actuality, it was about fifteen minutes longer than san francisco’s show. another round of golf claps goes to rob for making us cookies. mr. james makes the delicacies that get us baked and everyone in the band, except for fran, took one. even carlos, our fantastic sound man for the evening, partook in the magical deliciousness of the cookies. at midnight i announced that fran had turned forever 27 and lead the whole venue in a very enthusiastic rendition of happy birthday. it was a pleasant surprise to see so many of my friends that night. louie, lee, cara, elaine [sorry for hitting you with that maraca], marcos, amber, chris, richard, jason, ryanne, debbie, david, vivi, jeff, brooke and jess… it made my heart very happy that you were there. youre all assholes and i love you.

What Were You Thinking While Playing: is this really happening? am i having an effortlessly great show? fantastic. damn these cookies are the bomb, g!

Interesting Things After The Show: oh you know… the usual. everyone drank but the most interesting drunk of the evening was fran. dude got wasted. hey fran’s posse of “awesome” fans & friends, good job on making him completely retarded and then leaving me to take care of him.

NATHAN’S NONSENSE

LOCAL CURMUDGEONS & SIREN MAKES GOOD AT SPACELAND….

On Saturday, May 27th, LA eastside denizens were treated to a rousing infusion of long vowel sounds and spastic pelvic gyrations. Silverlake’s own Spaceland was the scene for this unilateral swarming of hysteria brought on by local hooligans West Indian Girl. “I was all, like, expecting some kind of Navajo tribal shit or something, but this was like, all…holy fuck balls” said one audience member who declined to give out his name, then proceeded to spontaneously combust on the dance floor after taking a shot of 99 bananas. Luckily, after the show I was able to get in a few words with keyboardist Nathan Van Hullabaloo.

(Me)”So, how do you begin to explain what the hell just happened up there.”
(NV) Just looks back at me with crazy eyes, then exclaims “cookies!”
(ME) ”Ha ha… yes, very good. Wait… what?”
(NV) ”Cookies!”
(ME) “Uh… what kind of cookies, exactly?”
(NV) “Look pal, I don’t know who sent you, but I had nothing to do with the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa if that’s what you’re after. Nowhere in my job description does it say anything about probing or abductions. I’m a son of the soil, betrothed to the stars, melting away in the concave recesses of your cranial crags. I am a column of blood with a voice in it.”

He then attempted to set himself on fire without success, invoked the name of Thor with upheld fists, and quickly bolted away into the black of night. Such is the life of LA musicians i suppose, or at least the ones of this magnitude. Do yourself a favor and get into it.

thanks, sherry lee for the cool live shotssherry captured a moment that’s almost too cute“nathan and his crystal geyser”stonersbuying our vinyl makes your life bettermarcos + fran = bffcamera shy m & deliza & rob slangin merchbernie l’arsen & lewsciousteam mushroomteam heckmanlucky phil in an evil mermaid sandwichteam goldstein – upset they missed the showteam spread the birthday lovetodd doing a great job of molesting q’s faceteam mcmariqueen – is what nathan saw after too many cookies

-F10

good vibes in the yay area… 5.26

so, our day started out pretty mellow, we drove part way to sf the night before so we wouldnt have to make the whole drive that day. we were traveling light this time, no sound guy, no ian, just tony. if you have been keeping up with this blog then you know that i think cafe du nord is my 3rd LEAST favorite club in the US to load into. BUT, despite the painful load in i really do like this club. its got a cool vibe and the bar is fun to hang out in. its also got a pool table in the front that reminds me of the pool table at bovine sex club in toronto. dont ask me why but it does. before the show q and i went over to our friend andrew warren’s place. andrew is a star and his place rules. as far as the the show itself went, well i thought it was passable. i think im becoming a bad judge at how good or bad a show is these days just because im so wrapped up in playing rather than watching. i thought it was decent though but it just felt like it dragged a bit. im gonna see if the guys want to change the set up a bit for LA. we played 3 brand new songs (up the coast, inspirate, and get up) that are gonna be on the next record. its helpful to test drive these bitches before we put them to tape.

golden gay thanks to: andrew of course, my best friend scott nicol’s sister for showing up with her girls, kristi and doug for their overall positivity and muscles during load out, erin and drew for the sacto representation, john r for the post show wrap up, and ben for filming the show. i also want to thank our ever growing cool fanbase in san fran for making it a real fun city to play in. oh yeah, i also want to thank tim. tim walked up to me after the show and handed me $20 for “illegally downloading our cd”. he told me that he and his girlfriend listen to it all the time and that he wanted to pay us for it. now is that cool or what. i think that was the coolest thing. that’s only happened once before. again people…how cool is that. thanx tim, we appreciate it.

dressing room and rider wrap up: the dressing room at du nord isnt that great. you know i’ve come to realize that my opinion on a dressing room stems from whether or not i like to hang out in it for more than a couple minutes. i cant put my finger on why i didnt like hanging out at du nord’s but it was probably because is was right next to the stage and wasnt really the “collect your thoughts before a show” green room. it wasnt comfy nor was it quiet cos it’s right next to the stage. the staff at du nord however, was excellent – the bar manager and house sound man were great. they made my life easy. we got some great food before the show and some beer backstage. red stripe no less so that was another little feather in du nord’s hat.

Mariqueen’s Mind

The City: i really enjoyed san fran this time around. i went over to andrew’s [righteousness in all that is jambase.com form] incredible abode. andrew lives in a historic part of san fran where these intricate houses date back to the mid 1850’s. if i could afford to, i would buy a second home in san francisco to live there in the springtime.

The Venue: cafe du nord is always fun times. thanks james for doing our sound that night, you did great as our last minute stand in and you were great to work with.

The Show: was kind of bad, actually… we added three new, never before played songs and it made our set extra long. one of the mistakes of the evening was the order of our set list. it made the set seem longer than it actually was. by the time we did the last two songs of the evening [which i personally refer to as “vocal killers”] i felt like i was going to faint and actually choked up while i was singing. on my own spit, i mean seriously, fatigue is an understatement. it was terrible. maybe i should work out and build up my tolerance to sweat. to add salt on my wounds my monitor mix was screwed up due to effects being put in it. but you know, it was a brand new set and im glad we did it because we’d never know how wrong we could sound.

What Were You Thinking While Playing: oh. no. oh. no. oh… nooooooooooo…

Interesting Things After The Show: we all hung out with protection [yet another great band and awesome new friends] and laughed at the chaos around us. i met some really awesome new people and even squeezed in a shot of jd with my friend mike. by the end of the night mark was wasted with cracker crumbs on his lip and his feet dangling on the side of his own personal bench on the van. i’d say it was good times.

NATHAN’S NONSENSE

first off, i have this little tale to tell. the starter on my car was kaput, so the night before the san fran show i took the metro gold line from my house to the downtown union station. from there i walked the rest of the way- about 10 blocks or so- to the studio. i had my bulging blue sport bag in tow, packed up for the two day jaunt, ipod running on random mode, and a cell phone in my pocket. after crossing 2nd street into the dismal dregs of skid row, i decided to put the ipod away just to be safe. i then pulled out my phone and gave my girl lisa a call. before i could spout my customary salutations, some crackhead came up from behind me and stuck a gun in my face. apparently he wanted me to hand over my phone. without thinking, i started yelling bloody murder, turned and ran full speed down the middle of los angeles street, arms flailing wildly, then north up 3rd. the fucker chased me for a good block or so, gun in hand and aimed in my general vicinity. i’d wager a hefty sum he never had any bullets in that thing, but it sure would’ve sucked if i’d been wrong. after catching my breath and assuring lisa i was out of danger, i walked down main street to pete’s bar and called mark who was quickly able to come to my rescue. what a way to kick off the weekend, eh?

it was great to come back to san francisco finally. cafe du nord is actually just a few short blocks away from where i once lived a very long time ago. i was a young lad then, living with my first real girlfriend… stardust. seriously. ok, ok, her real name was jenny, but she would give you the evil eye and a kick in the shin if you called her that. so anyway, back then all the girls in the beauty supply store where i worked diligently as a stock boy used to call me the saddest boy in the world. i suppose i did seem quite the little mopester, but beneath that stoic façade beat a heart that yearned for adventures far and wide. i think that same yearning serves as my compass even today, but i rarely have time to mope anymore. too busy having fun. and fun was certainly in abundance this fine night in the city by the bay. i took a stroll around the castro, singing journey songs to myself, a deft glide in my stride. it almost didn’t bother me that our set clunked along inharmoniously. fuck it. the crowd was diggin’ it anyway. i met some great people that night and enjoyed myself thoroughly. and of course, by the end of it, i was completely trashed. curtains for the keyboardist.

doompadeedo“trebor” and sunevthe ben jones experiencedont hate us cause we’re…kristi & doug – two of the best people on earthscott nicol’s sister with christine and coleen.mike & co.trouble cubedguess who isn’t the designated driver?

-F10

getting carried away 5.06

we played at the hear gallery which is kinda close to downtown los angeles. as shows go this was of the underground variety but it felt really good because of the psuedo house party vibe to it. the scene that’s going down at the hear is cool—good art and good music. i busted out a new look for this show that i like to call the francis tennis look. yup, headband and all. people said i looked like bjorn borg but i thought it was a bit more john mcenroe meets guiillermo vilas. as a general rule of thumb if you have the balls to wear a headband people are gonna say you look like some tennis star no matter what. oh…the show…it was a party man. we jammed as best we could with a PA that had a blown speaker and mics that didnt work and i’m down to do it again. on the bittersweet side of things this was ian’s last show with us as he was leaving town back to new york. let’s book more shows ian. you’re the new glue man dontchyaknow.

la urban thanks to: my boys sascha, todd, joe, nik, doug, walt, and adam for bringin it.

dressing room and rider wrap up: no dressing room or food – this was basically a house party so you can’t expect much. frank and all his homies were cool and treated us well. the load in did suck however – circa brillo box in pittsburgh but not as bad. they let tony run around before the show so they get 2 thumbs up!

Mariqueen’s Mind

The City: we played in the outskirts of echo park, near downtown los angeles, right next to silverlake, on the corner of beverly and something, next to a sidewalk, attached to a parking lot, attached to a gate, attached to a staircase, attached to your mom.

The Venue: the hear gallery is like two really spacious apartments smooshed together. they had a stage, tons of closed off rooms, two bathrooms with showers and a mini kitchen. really cute. a bit grimey, but that just gave it character. isn’t it ironic that we played at a place named after a sense that none of us were doing very well on stage that night? steh. raaange.

The Show: was a huge party, man. we had no monitors, crappy speakers and rob’s microphone stopped working for a little bit… but i still had a lot of fun. one of my best friends and former merch girl extraordinairre, brooke got dubbed captain ouija board that night. brooke, shawn, jess and debbie: you guys are the best. im glad you came out, i couldn’t have asked for a more perfect band of sluts to get shitty with. viva!

What Were You Thinking While Playing: dude, brooke is fucking drunk. weeeeeeee!

Interesting Things After The Show: so many! scandal, riots, dirty dancing, drag queens, booze everywhere, debauchery in the smoking patio, and calories galore… i can’t even type them because they’re that excellent. sorry. you should’ve been there. ian mcevily, we had to say see you later to our beloved tour manager. he left us in the morning to go back to new york. i still breathe in a paper bag when i realize he’s not next to me. you are missed. dear noah goldman, thanks for coming to your second west indian girl show and being a fucking awesome ass and finding the hear gallery and giving me a wonderful hug and then bailing right after and not hanging out with me. i love you.

NATHAN’S NONSENSE

ya heard? ok, so i set this show up myself at the good ol’ hear gallery, a place run by some good friends of mine. frank is the man that makes it all happen, along with a revolving door of other collaborators. sure, it’s a bit small and cramped, and when it’s filled to the brim it can be a real clusterfuck in there, but whatever. at least it’s one of the few places in L.A. where you can still smoke inside. if you’re anywhere near the area, i suggest linking up to the hear gallery on myspace (http://www.myspace.com/theheargallery) in order to get the latest updates of all the various events that go on there. ain’t nothing like a cool, underground club scene that prominently features musicians and artists alike.

ok, so on to the show. ’twas a shame more people didn’t show up, but it was swarming with sweat glands as it was, so we can’t really complain. we knew there was gonna be sound trouble ahead of time due to the PA having a blown speaker. we tried not to worry about it and just rolled with it the best we could. not to boast or anything, but my keyboards were probably the best sounding thing that night due to the amazing stage sound i had going on. uh-huh, that’s right. add to that one of my finest, most together performances to date, and voila! i was on top o’ the world. big burly bear hugs go out to all my friends that showed up and stuck it out, and a special thanks is in order for my good friend dj jason timothy who was spinning all night in the back. unfortunately there are no photos of me from this night that i know of, but i swear to jehovah on high i was really there. or… perhaps this has all been some fantastical, fervid dream? either way, it’s enough to make me soil my skivvies with delight sometimes.

mic blow out 2006tony had just peed on mark’s handsbrooke doesnt remember taking this picturerichard & jason our new favoritesfranko 6000 squadthe most beautiful couple of the evening award goes to…

-F10