West Indian Girl

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

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

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

see tour page for ticket info
poster art – matt cipov

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

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

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

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

francis 2kTen

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

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

jesper – Modwheelmood : Pearls to Pig dbl. vinyl

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

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

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

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

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

new year’s resolutions:

amy – to finish this record

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

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

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

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

dino -to stop drinking soda….

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

drat. once again, in efforts to abide by my own rules i find myself plagued by the limits of my itunes library. since i can only pick from what i have in the f’s im going with the first 2 artists that jump out to me. alas, they arent new but they both had an instant effect on me when i heard them and have since stood the test of time.
FC Kahuna. is a dj duo from london that made some pretty big beats. at one point they had a band that was touring. anyway, the song i picked called hayling came out in 2002 and features gus gus vocalist haftis helde. many a night i would sit in my truck with this song on repeat. i love the dark sparse bouncy use of electronics (fyi some samples on this song were lifted from tangerine dream). bottom line: this track is full on vibe – its minimal, beautiful, futuristic, trippy and sultry. damn, the cymbals are wonderful in this song too. oh, i first heard this song via a great double disc released my the ministry of sound label called the chillout sessions. this cd was a monster.

in a weird twist of fate my other f happens to have also appeared on the aforementioned double disc. crazy huh…also the first time i heard of this band too!
Fischerspooner. usually when one thinks of fischerspooner a song like the one im posting doesnt come to mind. tone poem has always been my favorite fs song. we opened 3 shows on the west coast for them in 2005. at the time those were probably the biggest shows we played. adding to the fact that i love casey spooner this was a no brainer for me. check out this trip down memory lane. scroll down to june entry toward the middle of the page to see some of those show reports.. wow that’s a trip. ya know if anyone ever questions the amount of work and shit this band has gone through i guess i should just tell them to scroll through the archives of this blog.

ok, on to the “f”uture. f me now please.

Just a little afterthought: wanted to thank everyone for coming out and supporting the new lineup! we’re now back at it in the studio, working hard to make our fast approaching release date. Stay tuned for a teaser coming your way…love you, always.

when i opened itunes on both my computers i wasnt too shocked to discover how few bands i had starting with the letter e. i knew e was going to be one of those trouble letters. luckily i hit the jackpot with my first suggestion. what a relief, and to top it off, i had 3 of their records. enough said, let’s do e bitches.
Enon. enon is a trio from brooklyn that was formed by john schmersal from the band brainiac. they released their first cd believo! in 2000. it was electronic and noisy and i really liked it. i first heard this when i was a content producer for an online music site and i left a track of theirs up on the music featured section for a very long time. enon is extremely interesting largely due to the fact that after this record most of the band members changed. 2 years later the band was still a trio that featured schmersal but now included bassist/vocalist toko yasuda (ex-blonde redhead) and drummer matt schulz. the track i picked, in this city is off of the high society record released in 02. they have gotten a little less noisy on this one but it’s just as cool. enon is eclectic and rich in the musical ground they cover. discover this band.

usually my second choice is difficult because there are sooo many bands to choose from. sadly this was not the case tonight. shit…i wanted to go with something new but it was too difficult to find something. ok, this might surprise a few of you but yes…rap.
Easy-E. despite his bad rap (no pun intended) easy-e was pretty awesome before he lost all credibility when n.w.a broke up. this is the guy that brought all the members of n.w.a together and just for that he deserves a huge amount of credit. his label start up money came from selling drugs – which is pretty dope (again, no pun intended). the track i picked off his only full length titled eazy-duz-it is called eazy-er said than dunn. this has dr dre all over it..it’s heavily produced with layers of samples. it was released a month after n.w.a’s straight outta compton and it’s essentially n.w.a but with eazy front and center. i wonder what it would be like to put your name in almost every title of every song you wrote. i guess it makes song naming pretty easy (again, no pun intended).

ok, now give me your e’s.

for all of those who missed it, i will never be the same played a free show last night at pershing square in beautiful cosmopolitan downtown los angeles no less. i love playing outside in cold weather – ever since west indian girl did a show in sub zero temp at sundance i have longed to do one again. last night wasnt quite as cold but it still counts. check out more pics and news about iwnbts here.

Francis Ten will be moderating a panel at the SF Music Tech Summit Monday Dec 7th.

i’m gonna be moderating a panel at the sf music tech summit next monday dec 7th. if you’re in town please try to make it. i’m pretty sure u can watch it live on web….of course 😉

Psyched to be DJ-ing again! Fran & I will be spinning old and new favorites tonight at The Bar. Set starts at 11:30pm, but come early to hang and sip on those cheap drinks!

Saturdays @ The Bar 11/28/2009

Thank you Colin for letting us have some fun on the decks 🙂
L,
@panterarosa

the letter d was actually pretty tough. im sure everyone thought i would put death in vegas down but since i already wrote a post about them a few weeks ago im gonna go with something that might surprise a few of u. this one goes out to all the guys who keep suggesting female singer songwriters to me. Dot Allison. she’s a scottish singer/songwriter that i fell in love with in 1999 when i heard her debut afterglow. at that moment in time i was working at an online music start up and this record was sent to me by her publicist. to this day i think it’s a great record with a ton of a variety. during that time period she was collaborating with artists like arab strap and death in vegas. in the past few years she has been performing with massive attack and recording and performing with pete doherty. again, afterglow is a record worth listening to… just because of the ground it covers. the track i posted is not surprisingly one of the more deeper hypnotic cuts called morning sun.

wow…choice 2 was difficult…i wanted to go with my favorite deftones song change as well as my fav doves song snowden but i ended up going with a newer band from la called Deathelectric. i first heard about this band because i know the man behind this plan – joseph holiday. he gave me this cd one night a few months ago when i bumped into him outside of the viper room. i put it on while driving down to the studio and i really started to love this one song called no reason (no soul). i have since had that stereo with the deathelectric cd in it stolen from my truck…for the 3rd time. in a ideal world with more hours in the day to accomplish everything i want to do i would have already done a 9XF10 remix of it with josh. anyway, joe—great work on this debut.

random strangeness…i just noticed the name of this cd is in the evening sun…and the track i chose from dot allison was morning sun. strange indeed. i feel better about these choices now.

just cos im a sucker for Double D’s here are 2 more:

Doves – Snowden

Deftones – Change (In the House of Flies)

Hey guys on way to play sd right now. I will have the letter c video response and letter d up on Monday – I’m also planning on bringing back the show reports but this time adding a video for most of it