The Artshole

Anyways, we played a fun show at The Artshole in Sta Barbara on Friday night with The Littlest Viking, Cawcaw, and Bastidas. We got there early and caught up with Bastidas to get some really good Indian Food. After a little bit of chit-chat with everyone, The Littlest Viking opened up the set with their amazing guitar and drums interplay. They even managed to shake things up with a little dance number where Chris, the drummer used a sampler. It sounds really great and i was totally digging it. I told Chris after their set that I could totally see them experimenting with samplers and using weird sounds and samples. His style is very distinct and hi playing is so full of power, I wonder what other textures he could contribute to their sound if he could uses something like the SPD-S that I use. Either way, The Littlest Viking transcends any idea i had about music that appears to be mathy by nature (only coz im bad at math!)-they simply are a great band who have many things ahead of them. It was a pretty great place to play, its literally a commune of all these artists and we played at their yard which was filled with all these strange things hanging from the trees. They have a pretty good DIY community over there and there seems to be a regular people that support them. We also got to see Hoshwa and Rachel of Watercolor Paintings, who was making the cover for their vinyl release, which i assume is on Yay! Records. Cawcaw played next and I dig their sound, at first its hard to distinguish their sound but later on you simply get use dto the fact that they are Cawcaw. The vocals has this weird, quirky whiny voice and somehow he make sit work. I was really digging the rhythm section, with their dubby grooves. I got a Cd afterwards but were dissapointed to find out they d ont have any of the songs they played in their set. Its still a good recording in its own right though. We played a rather interesting set that night, a lot of experimenting with structure and sounds. I think wea re getting more used to our set-up. We were not sure on the drive there how the set is going to turn out but while we were playing it it somehow just made sense. It was a fun trip to play all the way to Goleta especially with our friends. Bastidas ended the night with two encores. They played all my favorites, "Mediterranean Oasis", "Dominos" and "Insects". These guys need to be playing for bigger audiences. I'm telling you.

Also, Goleta has a bad-ass market called the Isla Vista Co-op Market which we went into and got some Yerba Mate, healthy food and some good beer. Got pretty blazed up with a gravity bong that Shane, one of the guys that lived at The Artshole made. We drove back at around 2 in the morning and got home an hour and a half later. We could have stayed but we choose to go home so we can go the small press event at USC that day. Thats it for now, I'll post some pics laters yo!