West Indian Girl

veronica and mario drove 5 hours to see us!

we played the gypsy tea room on friday night and i barely have any pics from this show. actually, i dont have any of the show. the promoter told me that because of SXSW this was one of the 2 worst days of the year to play in dallas (the other day is xmas eve). even though dallas was deserted it was still fun to play there. the gypsy tea room has a great stage and system. i thought we put on an excellent show. our set list included one new song plus 7 from the cd. still lost, trip, miles from monterey, hollywood, new song (untitled), northern sky, what are you afraid of. we played an extended extended version of what are you afraid of. i really love jamming on that song because i have no idea what’s going to happen from night to night. although the atendance to the show wasnt amazing the people that were there to see us enjoyed a killer set. one guy, jeremy j, even sent us an email saying this: “Your show in Dallas last night was great. I was the guy in the orange shirt taking up the floor space. On behalf of Dallas, I apologize for the piss poor showing. Always merry and bright.” that’s great huh. there was also a couple that drove up from san antonio just to see us – veronica and mario. anyway, they were real cool. i kinda wish we would have played longer just for them cos they drove so far…next time we will. anyway dallas, we’ll meet again soon.

Mariqueen’s Mind
The Venue: The Gypsy Tea Room was kind of gangster. I loved how they had two rooms… one huge performance bar and the not so ginormous one at the front. Our dressing room(s) were probably as big as our rehearsal space. I dig I dig. The Gypsy Tea Room treated West Indian Girl proper. We had an amazing soundcheck, which is rare and they stocked our dressing room with all the water, towels, fruit and chocolate my little figure could handle. I’m all about going back there. Fer Sher…
The City: Downtown Dallas is visually stimulating. It’s urban and dirty but not filthy… you know? I wanted to walk around and take snapshots of all the amazing graffiti art I saw on the various building walls I passed, but I was a little cracked out from my serious lack of sleep. I managed to slip in two hours in between Los Angeles, Phoenix and Dallas. The city was surprisingly dead during the day but at night… oh… oh my… let’s just say the freaks come out. Yee haw. No just kidding, I didn’t see a single cowboy, I did however see lots of freaks. Take it the way you want to… freaks could be a good thing or a bad… but I really really enjoyed Dallas. I went shopping with Lewscious and Carter and got some super choice items at this place called Counter Culture. We went to two other stores but I don’t remember their names so I think my “The City” section should end right here. Moving on…
The Show: I was running on two hours of sleep and a total of six shots espresso. viva la caffeine… ole! I think this show, pardon my french, kicked some serious asshole. No really, we killed it… I think the progression of our performance as a band is just unreal. I fucking love us. Pardon my french again. Too bad there were only like, twenty five people at that bar… whatever though… twenty five people left The Gypsy Tea Room completely in love with West Indian Girl and that’s all that matters.
What Were You Thinking While Playing: I was thinking about how wonderful it is to have caffeine in my life. That was pretty much it. Seriously.
Interesting Things After The Show: After the show we proceeded to journey on to Austin… to my surprise, Bernie drove the big van and he stopped at some czech bakery or whatever and all the boys except for Carter (he was on the same page as I was and was passed out) decided to load up on sammiches at three in the morning. Nothing makes my stomach turn more than eating at three in the morning so I opted for a parliament light and some quality time with the back bench and dreamland. Too bad I got woken up by fucking Fran (pardon my french once more) at like five in the morning. He decided to tenderly wake me by shaking me and yelling “Q bert, Q bert, wake up!” He’s awesome.

Carter’s Conscience LAX international airport. Thusday Morning: Way too many people. Way too little sleep. I have a theory that Mark Lewis used to get trouble a lot back in elementary school for things he didn’t do. He accidently cut in front of a quarter mile line to go through security, and got yelled at by airport security as well as the other people in line. It was funny really, because he honestly just didn’t see the 500 other people standing there. Dallas: Friday. Playing at the Gypsy Tea Room. The particular part of town where the Gypsy Tea Room is located is amazing. Incredible graffiti art everywhere, a tatoo parlor, coffee shops, etc.. Reminded me of the Silverlake area in LA. And the weirdest thing is, it was almost deserted. Hardly any people. That town just has an intense energy to it, you can feel the ghosts. Props to the vintage store there, I think its called Counter Culture. The show itself was a little quiet cuz we booked it last minute, and everyone was at SXSW but the people that were there were really cool and the venue sounded great.

…lewscious

that’s bernie with tony while we were in the van