WE BELIEVE out today!

Finally, our album of rarities is out today via Origami Records (the rad new vinyl store by the Echo in Echo Park)!

the collection includes 2 b-sides from our debut on Astralwerks; one unreleased remix from our Remix EP; 6 digitally unreleased remixes from 4th on the floor remixes, vol.2; and last but not least, a dreamy and vulnerable interpretation of the Beatles classic, 8 days a week. Available @ all the usual online music retailers or here!

07

07 2009

win VIP tickets to our shows!

listen people, our contest is so f’n easy to win. all u have to do is email your friends some music. you can enter multiple emails at once too so its pretty low on the demanding scale. in fact it cant get any easier – just copy an email addy then put a comma and another email addy….repeat again and again and again and win. check out the contest page/tab for all the details on how u get to hang out and watch the show of your choice with us from backstage. you’ll be photographed and videotaped with all of us – all for sharing our “We Believe” album and our “In The Studio” video with as many friends as possible. this contest doesnt suck.

03

07 2009

the james chamber- chemical girl

Back when we were on Astralwerks, we had a collaboration with the Chemical Brothers. They asked me, Becky and Fran to come up with some vocal ideas for one of their songs. As we came up with ideas, we sent them over to Tom Rowland in England. He would listen, then suggest alternative approaches. We did this for about 2 months. Eventually, they decided to use the song on their album as an instrumental. Here’s the vocal version that I thought worked best. Enjoy!

ps)Tom if you read this, don’t get mad. I tried to reach you but you’re email and number changed. Then Errol got fired.

02

07 2009

springer

here is some behind-the-scenes footage i compiled whilst writing and recording our 3rd LP. the audio i included here is from a live jam session recorded on 2 tracks, unmixed, and unmastered. the track will most likely change, but at least you all get to witness the birth of one of my faves, springer.

29

06 2009

thinking of you

last night i came across this clip from family guy and i couldnt help but think about my old friend jc chamboredom. ahhh…if only stewie was real.

20

06 2009

rong dong silver

rong-sleeve-2super super super super duper stoked that we have a 12″ vinyl single coming out on rong records june 15th. the a-side is “solar eyes – (dirty) wes/coats it’s basically crunk rock remix” and the b-side is “rise from the dead – patterns form remix”. we will be selling a very limited amount of these via our shoppe. this is a UK release so it wont be available here…maybe u can find it in an import bin..not sure. thanx to scotty coats for the cosmic mix and ben from rong for being an all around excellent human being.

08

06 2009

photoshoot and then some

despite temporarily getting stuck in the freight elevator, we had a very zen photoshoot the other night as we sipped on wine and chilled in the hallways of our rehearsal space. the talented charles kang captured some rad photos of the band as did our good friend marcos beltran who caught the raw behind-the-scenes yummyness. the aesthetic eye of daven was also much much appreciated. thank you all. the shoot was super fun and quite the bonding experience. here’s a teaser i compiled to show for it with music from a track called Beach available via Origami.

West Indian Girl – Publicity Shoot – Video edited by our in-house videographer, Amy White.

Records on July 7th: while going through this footage, i came across some mysterious waves of light…see if you can catch a glimpse of our 4th & wall entity…enjoy…

04

06 2009

san diego st scene line up announced

looks like we’re going back to sd for the second straight year. looking forward to killing it again this year. here’s the line up.

fyi – solana beach festival this saturday – we’re playing at 5:30 – be there.

01

06 2009

so indie it hurts

origamicover_front
here’s a look at the front cover of our next release – slated for july 7th on origami records. it’s a collection of rarities and remixes that havent been available or distributed digitally by anyone else. more details soon. great work on the cover ash!

– “so indie it hurts” jared barboza uttered those words during a phone call last night and i considered it an instant classic – give credit where credit is due

awww shit, this song will work

27

05 2009

dark wednesdays again tonight

show starts after midnight…should be super exciting. i think we’re rewiring the studio and testing levels. hahah. hot
REMEMBER THE WEB CAM ONLY APPEARS IN THE TOP MENU NAV BAR JUST PRIOR TO SHOW TIME

27

05 2009

dark wednesdays – live web show

studio web cam tonight. we’re gonna try this again. we will be running our set for tomorrow’s show in hermosa. hopefully the sound will be fixed. if its not then it will be a whole lotta distortion. still dont have 2 cameras yet. glad it wasnt on last night cos im sure i would have been voted off the island for being dickhead of the evening. showtime…around 10pm

OK – here it is. us live…sort of. check back next wednesday…maybe it will get better. it should.

20

05 2009

sanfran music tech summit

sfmtsjfl
on monday i was in sf speaking on a panel at the sf music tech summit. special thanx to jean cook, john mcdermott, and layne fox (pic) and for making our panel rock so fucking hard. this conference is going to get better and better every year – it’s a conference filling a void. as a result of our panel i think more artists or the “artist voice” will be better represented in the future. for real – any musician that is serious about their band should attend and attend with an agenda – dont just go there to listen to most of the speakers pontificate and not really say anything that u can relate to. 9 times out of 10 this stuff will go in one ear and out the other. go there with a plan — how and what and who can help my band improve its quality of life.  if you think about this before hand in conjunction with a possibly semi unpleasant self inventory of your own band then u wont be disappointed. thanx zisk – had a blast! ben cook, heidi richman, tony van veen – u all shoot from the hip and i love it. highlight of the day for me was meeting bram cohen…the guy who wrote bittorrent – that’s a guy we should all thank.

robhood

20

05 2009

dysfunctional tv

this past monday was the historic test drive of our live studio web cam. it wasnt scheduled or announced so u didnt miss anything fantastic. for all of those people who watched and commented – thanx so much. we had people from ny to australia tuning in. ok, as far as the the sound quality issue goes….the sound in our “hang out” room is fine but the big distorted drag was obviously that the “live room” sound absolutely sucked. i think we have that issue sorted out now and are going to retest it next tues and wed. ideally we will have 2 cameras set up – one in our hang out room and one in the studio. should be pretty cool. hopefully everyone will forget the cameras are on but that’s probably wishful thinking.

webcampic

disclaimer/note on the annoying little pop up ads that ustream puts on their viewer. unfortunately they tag the 3 words in our name resulting in advertisements that include the words west, indian, or girl ie “indian personals” or “west point stuff” — sorry about that, its a ustream thing.

it might not be pretty but at the end of the day.

16

05 2009

the james chamber – coming up

We recorded this at our downtown rehearsal studio three years ago after our spring tour. I set up mics in about 10 minutes and off we went. This was a total improv. We never played this before or after as a group. Later, Q and I added some vocals. Mark:drums. Fran:bass. R.James:guitar,vocals, Nathan:keys. Q:vocals

07

05 2009

land of the free

wie_shmlp03-2_black_250 check it out..free downlowds. this is a remix by LIME of a song called “solar eyes” off our latest double remix cd 4th on the floor. the 2nd mix is from one of my fav bands from nyc – cruelblackdove. this track will be available digitally on our upcoming origami records release in a month or so. both tracks sound nothing like the original versions but that’s why we release remixes of all our songs – to create and collaborate with other artists for a final result that usually surprises all of us in the best possible way. hope you enjoy. it’s only good quality – not great but wtf…it’s free so right click it.
solar eyes lime mix
back to you CBD mix

04

05 2009

best wishes q and congrats t

qnrin case u havent heard the news, mariqueen got engaged. everyone in the west indian girl camp is super excited and happy for her. q’s an awesome person, friend and bandmate and she couldnt be marrying a cooler guy. talk about analog and digital love – their kids might all have moogs for arms.

speaking of the future…this song title seems apropos – plus it’s off the fragile which i still consider the best record released in 1999. it’s actually one of the cds i would take with me on a deserted island..along with prince’s 1999 and the clash’s london calling …hmmm come to think of it those are all double cds…guess i should include our last double remix record to that list as well. shit…can’t forget kruder and dorfmeister’s the k&d sessions too – my choice for record of the year in 1998 btw

02

05 2009

the black card has arrived

after a 2 week wait the black cards finally arrived! wanna download our entire catalog? well now u can – 4 zip files totaling 56 songs at the high quality rate of 320kbps. we will of course be selling these special drop cards at the shows but for those who cant wait to see us live you buy them in our shoppe right now wigdropw

speaking of black…here’s something off the clash’s super black market clash – it’s actually a b-side

01

05 2009

web cam action

in the next week or so we are going to start giving our fans and/or any pervs the opportunity to see a side of the band that few get to see. we will be broadcasting a live feed from our studio at 4th and wall to document our times there. the schedule will be posted on the front page of the site and if you check in during those times u will see us in our element….the good the bad and the ugly. this month we will be focusing on writing and recording or next ep which we would like to finish asafp. we will also be rehearsing for a show in may. hopefully this behind the scenes video will prove semi interesting. we were toying with this idea 2 years ago but never acted on it. now we feel like its the perfect time to do it. i think i read something a week or 2 ago about billy corgan doing something similar but actually charging his fans for it. shit….at what point do u stop milking ur fan base? by the way….all our shirts are on sale for 7 bucks 😉

speaking of corgan – if he only got rid of that guitar solo at 3:32 the song could have been timeless. 1979 would have been a better mp3 to post but wtf, this song made me think of another girl in another life in another bed who introduced me to this band

30

04 2009

rip ryan ingram

with a heavy heart all of us in the band would like to send our thoughts and prayers out to maggie de alwis who tragically lost her boyfriend ryan ingram to a brain hemorrhage. we met ryan in sept of 05 at our first show at the roxy. since that show ryan not only became a huge champion of the band but a friend of mine who was always trying to spread the word about our band. the last time i spoke to him was on the phone after our last show at the roxy in jan. i thought i was going to see him there but as it turns out he got busted by the door people for trying to smuggle in a recorder to bootleg the show – sadly he never made it in. ryan, thanx for all your positive support and wonderful spirit – we love and miss you.
ryan

for some reason this track comes to mind right now. remember…every band hopefully has at least one super great song. this is theirs and it fits with how i remember ryan

update…5/2 – went to the funeral today and it was gut wrenching. people shouldnt die this young. stay strong maggie.

29

04 2009

upgrading

spent several hours last night falling into a hot lusty romance with Final Cut Pro. any free time i had is now currently zapped, but as Clark Gable so heartbreakingly put, “frankly my dear, i don’t give a damn.” the time is ripe.

here’s the last iMovie you’ll see from moi. merci a tous!

Shot & Edited by Amy White

24

04 2009