March 15th @ The Casbah (San Diego, CA)
April 5th @ The Rickshaw (San Francisco. CA)
April 11th @ The Beauty Bar (Las Vegas, NV)
April 13th @ Havasu Half (Lake Havasu, CA)
April 19th @ Tucson Club Crawl (Tucson, AZ)
May 23rd @ Lightning in a Bottle (Santa Barbara, CA)
Hope to see everyone out and supporting!
The rock poster god must be smiling on me because yet another fucking fantastic poster was given birth today by long time friend/artist/remixer, mark sgarbossa. this poster announces our triumphant return to the casbah in march. we’ve had some great shows at the casbah so it will be good to get back there and tear it apart again. tight room, sweaty people, saturday night – sd has always treated us right.
Dear Los Angeles, it’s time to support the arts – we’ve given you 2 FREE shows this past fall and now its time to pony up and pay the piper for what we try to do as a living. what are you gonna get?…you’re gonna get 4 great bands – woven, dios, and drugstore cartel at a great club. we’re gonna rock the visuals again just in case you arent tripping hard enough and i also think a a few new jams never before played are in order. did i say bob dylan cover. did i also say kcrw presents? they play us…we love them. go listen
once again the talented john mavroudis came up big and graced us with this soon to be classic west indian girl poster. yes it will be sold at the show and online. fucking cool huh? need more mavroudis – check it out. i know i told you before but he won 07 cover of the year award for his work on the new yorker.
late night fun after the show….join us at the beauty bar for an after-party immediately following the show. good djs an good drinks.
There has been tons of press on us lately but it’s this kind of press that makes me smile the most. we were mentioned in the horoscope section of this months shojo beat magazine.
If you are like me and didnt know what that mag was all about read below. how awesomely random is this. i guess it’s just a harbinger of our impending deal over in japan.
Welcome to Shojo Beat, the biggest shojo manga magazine ever published in the United States, proudly presenting six series’ worth of manga frontier for you to explore. While we expect that a great many of you have been reading manga (shojo or otherwise) for years, we also have an inkling that a few of you may not know what manga is (shocking!) or why you should care about reading it. Well, we’re here to show you, because while we’re not sure what you’ve been doing all these years, we’re positive that 90 percent of it wasn’t as fun as reading manga. The time has come for you to delve into the drama—to laugh, cry, love, and get inspired via this beautiful and unique art form, and to take a step into the brave new world of manga.
Here’s a bare-bones introduction to shojo manga for the uninitiated—and for those of you who may need a refresher.
Manga (mahn-ga) means “random pictures” or “whimsical pictures” in Japanese. Manga combine pictures and words to convey a story—in short, they’re comics. But unlike American comics, Japanese comics are often first serialized in telephone book-size magazines and then later compiled into complete graphic novels. They are also usually printed in monochrome tones rather than in color.
Shojo (show-joe) means “girl” in Japanese. Shojo manga are often characterized by a moody, abstract art style, with close-ups of characters’ faces intermingling with dreamy backdrops. In contrast to action-oriented shonen (boys’) manga, shojo manga ruminate on themes of emotion, love, identity, and responsibility that often play out internally. That said, shojo manga are by no means just for girls. Shojo stories are about aspects of life that concern everyone—boys and girls, old and young. Note: The word shojo normally appears with a circumflex or macron over the first o, as in shôjo; we removed it for the sake of simplicity and readability in the magazine.
we’re playing a FREE SHOW at the bordello this thursday december 13th. metromixla is our proud sponsor of this event. they have been awesome to work with. even though bordello doesnt list us on their site…forgive them…we are indeed playing for free. i promise. to get in just rsvp at rsvpla@metromix.com. sara melson who just signed to nettwerk records is opening for us and dj scott t sterling will be spinning all evening. scott’s another old friend from detroit – looking forward to hearing him spin. please note that this show is more like an office xmas party. the stage is very tiny so expect to see us on the floor with you. again…prepare yourself for this. its more or less like a glorified office party in downtown. technically there will be no real hookers at the bordello but just go for a walk around the block and you’ll be able to get all that and more. i was parked in front of our studio the other night and some toothless scab of a woman came up to my truck and asked me if i wanted to go get high and party with her in hotel around the corner. im glad i ate dinner earlier cos i involuntarily started to dry heave. poster design by john mavroudis. check out this post about him.
finally we have our first video from 4th & wall. it’s for the first song on the cd called “to die in LA”. this was directed by jean christophe chamboredon. think eurotrip but with a nice camera video phone. i got to drive around in my truck with tony and a hitchhiker for an hour. two random things to note. on my way to the video my truck got a flat tire. there’s also a great shot of my car stereo in the video. ironically, this car stereo was stolen out of my truck a couple days later. that now marks the third time my car stereo has been stolen in la. thanks to the asshole that it ripped it out of my dashboard – i wish i could have caught you in the act and then beat the fuck out of you with it. merry xmas fucker – i hope the crack was worth whatever you pawned it for.
i love tour posters. it seems like a forgotten art these days. that said, it wouldnt surprise you to see how geeked i was to meet john mavroudis who unbeknownst to me designed and silk screened the poster for the show at the independent. wow, minimal and strong – how i like it. in conjunction with john i will be selling these signed and limited poster in our online store. get them before they’re all gone. they are awesome. you can check out more of john’s work here. um…the dude just won 07 cover of the year award for his work on the new yorker. that’s impressive.
hey great people of northern california, we are playing in san fran for the last time this year. the show is for the 3rd annual d.a. taylor charitable foundation benefit at the independent. also on the bill is earlimart, who im really looking forward to sharing the stage with. they’re another great band from la that ironically i will meet for the first time in san fran. this is also a kcrw presents show. so, to sum up…. great benefit and cause with great bands at a killer venue. see you there.
this show promises to be one of the cooler shows we’ve played in la. its a party put on by the southern california institute of architecture. these sci-art people are nuts in a very very good way. after checking out their space which is rad it made me wish i was going to school there. adding to sci-arc’s mystique is that its not where you would expect it to be…in shitsville downtown la. hey, go figure, we’re neighbors…its just a few blocks east of 4th and wall. pretty cool if you ask me. randy stogsdill approached us about this a while ago and im glad he did. and of course…they’re building a stage for us. 4th and merrick here we come…can we borrow some sugar sci-arc?
thursday is starting to look like a pretty good day in the world of west indian girl. we FINALLY get to play morning becomes eclectic on kcrw. nic harcourt was the first person to ever play our music on the radio (our demos no less) . that’s pretty epic if you ask me. i think it will take the prize as the earliest show we have ever done as well. we’ve done radio shows but most of them have been after noon. load in at 8am…damn…might as well just stay up all night. our second show of the day is the hunnypot party at the highlands. those hunnypot guys are insane so their party should be dope (pun intended there). show starts at 9:30 and its fucking free. tough to beat that price. parking isnt bad in that place either. should be awesome – expect the hits – im trying to get the band to play one of those slap you in face and keep punching you sets…you know, the kind of set that doesnt give the listener time to think about anything except wiping the drool off their face cos they cant believe they’re being rocked that hard. time will tell.
today our song “to die in la” was featured as kcrw’s top tune. kcrw also invited us to be on morning becomes eclectic next thursday, nov 1st. we’re all really pumped for that show. it will be the band’s first time on kcrw. i cant wait to play a few songs on their studio. we have a pretty cool version of to die in la that we just did last week. i hope we decide to include that. it’s true what they….that it feels really nice to be loved. it makes you feel all warm inside. thanx kcrw
I just found a link to an in interview mariqueen did a couple months ago for Vidagirl. As stated on their front page “VidaGIRL is the hip and informative English language online magazine and newsletter that celebrates the life, culture, style and spirit of today’s young Latinas and multi-cultural women. VidaGIRL has created an online community with content that breaks down stereotypes and conveys a positive and inspiring message to its readers.” I guess Q is now our little multicultural girl now. Here is the link to the interview
… Muy bien Q.
we would like to apologize for cancelling our show in dc last night. unfortunately it was a result of poor communication and could have been prevented. another tragic epidsode in the never ending soap opera that we call our “summer tour”. in an effort to make amends to any fans that went to the show we would like to put you on the guest list when we return to the dc area.
now let’s get to pittsburgh. this show was cancelled by the promoter – we have a pretty decent fan base in pittsburgh and are really really bummed out about this. not sure what else i can say except this sucks cos pittsburgh is one of our favorite cities.
show reports should be up next week – dont expect the candy coated version either – this tour hasnt been the summer vacation i thought it was going to be.
Dear mark sgarbossa – how many times can we tell you that we love you? once again you have helped the cause by designing our july tour poster. I’m not sure where your inspirations come from but i’m glad that we still visually inspire you. keep the black X hearts coming. thank you once again.
as you know we are recording, producing and mixing the next cd on our own. that said, you might understand why it is taking a little longer than usual to finish. are we professional mixers? just watch the videos of me attempting to mix and that should answer that question. i fondly refer to the song in question as “running man”. i think it’s gonna make the cd….one mix or another.
mixing and mismatching
more mixing… more mismatching
confusion and a case of the crazies
Finally! the blog is back and better than ever. now the world can fully appreciate the magnitude of our blog. on the right side column there is a cool “tree branch hierarchy” widget type thing where ALL the old posts are listed….ALL OF THEM… since 2004! these posts are archived not only by date but also by category which means that if your looking for a particular show report, just click on that link and all of the show reports will be listed. it’s pretty cool. another new feature is the calendar – just mouse over the dates for quick info on shows. the new official band website is also up and running so make sure you check that out too. thanx a ton to dave cohen out in nyc for all his hard work on the new site. the multimedia and photo pages kick ass.
we did our first “official” photoshoot for the new record yesterday. what an awesome day for a shoot. the lovely lucy hamblin (from nyc) was our photographer – it was a mellow and relaxed shoot with a few set ups. one inside on a couch and the others outside in and around a pool. we were up at roya’s house (from milan records) in the hills. great house, nice pool, awesome view. that’s la for ya. sometimes it’s just perfect here. check out the video below. nothing special but it’s better than a picture. thanx for letting us run around your place roya.
every now and then i do get to go out. normally it’s work related but sometimes it’s not. anyway, i thought it might be nice to post a picture of one of best friends in los angeles, marcos beltran. marcos is also my running partner when schedules permit – he’s a way better runner than i by the way. you may recognize the stud on the left as tommy alexander who is all over the blog when he went on the road with us during our turin brakes tour. this was taken at cha cha lounge in silver lake
so it was my b-day today (yesterday) and this is how i spent my day. went to bed at 8am the morning. woke up at 2pm. walked tony. ate food. went to pick up marc goldstein for a shoot he was doing for the book la with lisa gerrard. even though i expressly told goldstein not to advertise that it was my b-day the first thing the bastard says to everyone we come across is, yup you guessed it, “hey it’s fran’s b-day!”. great, that said, his big mouth led to lisa gerrard singing me happy b-day which is a pretty cool thing in and of itself. dont know who lisa gerrard is.?…click here to educate. after the shoot we went to real food daily and i had a veggy burrito (with not too many black beans). dropped off marc and then went home. jumped on an hour long conference call with ian and josh. during that call goldstein called to inform me that jason bentley from kcrw wished me a happy b-day on the air and then played “what are you afraid of”. how did he know….yup, goldstein. drats….damn you goldstein thanx for not keeping your mouth shout cos if made my day all the more interesting. after that i went for a great night run with q and tony. i chatted online with my buddy sascha and then q and i went to eat late night sushi at a place downtown. now here we sit in the studio listening to rob mix one of our new songs called “sofia”. – ps thanx to all my other good friends that called me to wish me a happy b-day – like joe and marcos especially. you know who’s got your back.
literally…at my house. yesterday night legendary rock photographer mick rock stopped over my place to say hi. he was in town shooting queens of the stone age and was hanging out with q that evening. if you dont know who he is then refer back to this old blog entry about mick
later on that evening q. mick and nathan all went to a party at tk’s new place. tk’s a great guy – he’s also a dj at indie 103 here in la.
at tk’s house
