TV and Radio in Los Angeles

After a relaxing morning at Emily's cousin Owen's house in W. Hollywood (who is awesome and letting us stay with him during our time in LA), we met up with the band at the studios of the internet television station, ManiaTV. They have a great studio space, with a performance stage and a talk show set, on which Kati and Israel couldn't resist posing for a snapshot.

After consuming most of the snacks provided for them in the green room, they recorded two tracks (One Red Thread and Three Rounds and a Sound), with their bikes displayed in front of the stage. They also recorded a short interview and did some "IDs" for the station. Then we shot an ID for the documentary. Hopefully the zoomed-in shot of Ryan goofing around and then stopping to say "We're Blind Pilot, and you're watching Blind Pilot documentary" directly into the camera will be featured somewhere prominantly.

They biked back to the Silverlake neighborhood to spend the night, while we went out to dinner at Garden's of Taxco with Emily's cousin Owen, a delicious five course meal and a fantastic show. The waiter informed us that there were no menus and that he would describe each dish for us with an amazing Hollywood/Mexican accent. Emily could not resist ordering the chicken mole - "the best mole in TOWN." After the five courses and some fruity margaritas, we walked back to Owen's house and checked in on Buzz, who is staying in the den and as far away from Owen's two dogs as possible.

The band had discussed the possibility of renting a van while in the Los Angeles area to get around to all the interviews and gigs they had, but have continued to bike through the streets and seem to be getting pretty good at it. Today they rode out to the KCRW studios in Santa Monica to record a segment for Chris Douridas' Saturday show. The station has been playing the album quite a bit over the past few months, and it is pretty special that they get to do an in-studio interview and performance there. The bicycles also provide a lot of conversation starters for the interviews.


They are off to their last show in Los Angeles at Molly Malone's tonight (Friday). Then we head to San Diego, where they still do not have a confirmed gig. It's hard to believe that we are this close to the end of this part of our adventure with them, and that Molly's may be the last show (in a proper venue) we film. Time flies when you're bike touring.