Tour Telegraph VI: Californication

Welcome!

Here comes the 6^th and last telegraph from our Into Bass And Time US release tour. This time we travelled to sunny California and we really had a blast. Our whole tour was incredible so far with killer gigs all the way through, but it´s always a blessing to go to California. So we flew over to San Francisco to stay there for the next 8 days. Thievery Corporation´s Rob Garza just moved to SF with his family and just launched ESL Music´s west coast studio. The newest member of the ESL family is Pleasuremaker, our soul brother from the Afrolicious crew in SF who helps Rob Garza with the studio. Pleasuremaker together with his brother Oz and their crew of highly talented musicians hold it down strongly in SF for many years.

When we arrived in California we first had an interview with Grown Kids Radio in Oakland (Big Up the crew!) and then played with Afrolicious at the Boom Boom Room, a classic live venue that was owned by John Lee Hooker back in the days. Such a great club where you can nearly breathe music. Next up was the weekly Afrolicious night at the Elbow Room. And it was on fire! People if you ever go to San Francisco you should check out Afrolicious at the Elbow Room. The place is filled with groove and love. trust us!

So after 2 killer nights already it was time for a huge ESL Music night. We smoothly started the night at the Stanford C ourt Renaissance Hotel where we played an early happy hour set at the bar. Then we left for our ESL music night to the great Public Works club. And what a line-up we had: Rob Garza from Thievery Corporation, J-Boogie, Afrolicious and us. Of course all sets were backed by the superb percussionst and musicians from Afrolicious. And on top the Public Works club had some of the coolest and most creative visuals we ever saw in a club. It was strictly amazing.

We also send out our love to Sunset Promotions, Mojito Bar and Six Degrees Records crew. SF we will be back!

From San Francisco we went on to Los Angeles for the first time. It also was our first real meeting with the US team of ETNIES, our new sponsor and partner. We were picked up at the airport by Eladio Correa who is the Entertainment Marketing Manager (and a supernice person) who brought us to our hotel in Hollywood. Eladio also showed us Huntington Beach, Venice Beach and great sites in Orange County. We also had the honor to visit the ETNIES Headquarter, meet the people behind the brand and its sub-brands (Es, Emerica, ThirtyTwo) as well as check out and get some of the newest products. Much love and respect to ETNIES for taking us into their big family! In july there will be the official brand announcement that Ancient Astronauts are the newest add to the worldwide ETNIES artist family. We will keep you updated.

Of course we were not only in LA to meet our new sponsor, but mainly to spread our music and vibe. Jeremy Sole from radio station KCRW invited us to play at the legendary Afrofunke night at Zanzibar that he runs with Cary Sullivan and Rocky Dawuni and we were very excited to play there. So to make this a really special gig we brought our friend Kiran Gandhi from Rhythm & Culture Recordings to add some extra percussion madness to our set. Those of you who saw us already playing with her know what we´re talking about. She just kills it on the percussions and adds perfectly to our music. Zanzibar itself is such a beautiful venue (loving those bass speakers built into the stage) and Jeremy Sole a dope dj and great person, so guess what? The night was off the hook. Much respect to the whole Afrofunke posse and thanks a lot for having us there sharing our beats and grooves!