West Indian Girl

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