Saturday, June 27th

Monday we left Ace Hotel, off to our journey away from the wind mills. Our next destination was Fresno! We didn’t know where we were going to be sleeping that night so Eric searched on couchsurfing.com and we found an awesome place to stay with a beautiful and sweet girl named Brenda.

She was so stoked once we arrived even though it was the first time we all met. We met up with James later who booked our radio show at KFSR and then played that night at Aqua Shi, a sushi restaurant in Fresno. David Kyle’s cousin came out to see us.

We slept nicely after the show and hung out in the dry Fresno hot weather as our host, Brenda, showed us around town. 20 limes for a dollar…hell yea.

Next we were off to Merced where a lot of my extended family live. I was nervous to see my dad. He came out with my cousins, but it was actually really nice. My cousin Noelia gave me the picture of my Grandpa’s Mexican voting registration card from 1977 (see the above photo). We played at the partisan along with another Portland band, Minmae. It was a fun night that we finished off with a good ol’ sword fight.

After the show, we drove straight through the night to Santa Cruz and arrived at 4 am. Stopped at a cheap hotel. slept in the van. Woke up at 11 am and we went to a crappy coffee shop and Eric (our accordion player) had some words about the barista’s skills.

Eric quotes – 1) Grind to order, bitch.

2) Level and tamp goddamit

3) Watch your f*king pour come out

4) What the hell are you doing to the milk?

5) Oh God, don’t drink that. Funny, he really likes his coffee.

We walked around the town and had a really good espresso experience at Lu Lu Carpenters. We shopped around and then went to the board walk where we had a blast!!

Had an awesome show that night at Sabrosa Info Shop! Beat Beat Whisper was awesome!!! And when Roberto Miguel opened up his set with “Volver Volver,” an old mariachi song that I grew up listening to, I started to cry.

We left with warm smiles and Ariel hosted us at his house later that night. Good kids. We left the next morning to explore the beaches on our way to Oakland when Mike got a text about Michael Jackson’s death. Crazy, I guess we didn’t know how to register it at the moment. We got in to Oakland with Michael Jackson as our soundtrack as we got closer to our next venue, the Stork Club.

We had a spontaneous show 10 min before our real show at an art space. All those kids came over to the Stork Club and were so stoked. After the show everyone went to a 24 hour burger joint that had crappy glossy cheese fries…gross.

Anyway, we drove through the night to Davis where Eric’s aunt was expecting our arrival.
Joan was her name…so sweet, so hospitable and talented!! The next morning we went in to Sacramento and had coffee. Sarah and I had Pho and hung out there for awhile before our show back in Davis at Sophia’s Thai Restaurant. Holy shit was that a awesome place to play at! Good people! After the show we went to a house party to hang out with all of the kids who where at there. Good times!

Next morning we sat around Joan’s house and listened to her play the pipe organ that she had built into her home…that was awesome. Beautiful lady…I told her that the day I go crazy I was going to hide away in her home so she can show me how to play the organ (as my grey hair sprouts more than ever.)

We left the oasis and drove to Redding where I am writing at the moment. We’re about to play a house show and its 110 degrees outside!

Tomorrow we play in Ashland at Alex’s with Jared Mees and the Grown Children (which will be our last show). I cant wait!

Next week, July 2nd we will be playin at the Doug Fir with Nurses and Morning Teleportation. That will also be an awesome show, so please come and support us as it will be our welcome home show.

Yay!

Bless,

YLB

Links:
Y La BambaSpace

Picture courtesy of Luz Elena Mendoza

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