it’s sumer contest time again. think about it — you could win a ticket for you and your significant other to the outside lands festival in san fran or street scene in san diego. interested? check out the contest page/tab for all the details on how u get to hang out and watch the show from up on stage with us.
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.
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here are 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.
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.
super 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.
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 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…
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.
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
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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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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
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in 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
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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 
speaking of black…here’s something off the clash’s super black market clash - it’s actually a b-side
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