Well, we’re back from California, and the holiday season has descended upon us with a vengeance. Misha beat me again at rock-paper-scissors and is currently on vacation, while Jack and I are keeping it real up in Portland as best we know how. We’ve got a show or two coming up in January, but are otherwise dead to the world.

I just updated my journal, Misha may or may not have updated his, and Jack doesn’t seem to have one yet, but if you’re looking for something to get you through those early winter doldrums, the incomparable Tyler Huff has posted our latest San Diego show in its entirety up at archive.org.

Thank you, as always, to everyone who came out to see us. You really are, pound for pound, some of the best fans in the world, and we miss the hell out of you when you’re not around. Like, for instance, right now, in this freezing-ass apartment where I can’t figure out how to relight the heater. My kingdom for some spotlights and a throng of warm teens.

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UPDATE 12/18/04: We made a short film about our recent trip to California, which you can download by clicking here. We’ve also updated our merchandise page with some sexxy 80’s slap bracelets, just in time for the holidays.

Cheers,

The Band

It’s far enough behind us now in spacetime that I think I can finally get away with letting my jaw hit the ground.

We just played a show at the Roxy with Jason Mraz.

Like just about every other young woman in America, I’ve been a fan of his since roughly 90 seconds into my first show, which Misha dragged me to back in 2001 after our fourth practice together as SWLLC. Since then, Jason and I have met a few times after shows, in passing, and I’m fairly confident I was the first person to bring his music to sub-Saharan Africa*, but we’d never really had any kind of meaningful interaction until this past week.

Now that we have, all I can say is: guh. I’m still kind of in shock.

The first time we all sat down to work on “I’m Yours”, Misha and I were both a little nervous, not wanting to fuck up in front of The Jason or come across as the rank amateurs we really still are, but by the fourth run-through we were just three dudes making music in a living room, and by the end of the night we were all just friends. His talents are no less mind-bending up close, but he somehow has the the most evenly balanced success-to-humility ratio of any man alive, and…I don’t know. He’s just one genuinely badass motherfucker, and I’m glad we finally got to hang out.

Equally badass were the seemingly endless number of friends we made and reunited with this week, from LA to SD to all points in between. Here’s a picture of Jon Marro and Trizzy P sandwiching the mystery woman I never met:

Jon and Billy christened it “The Mafia of Love,” and it just fucking is. From the she-Capo Annie Bethancourt to Consigliere Tyler Huff, to our countless equally entangled friends and well-wishers all across America, this is pretty much the coolest and lovingest crew I’ve ever encountered in my time on this planet, and I’m downright honored to be a part of it. Hopefully we’ll start having musical knife fights with other gangs once it warms up again.

*A Jason Mraz Demonstration, Burkina Faso, September 2001