Hey all, we're in a battle for our lives. Well, not really, just to go on a PacSun tour.

We just entered the battle with 35 bands to see who will go on the tour. If we win, we might play in your town!

So please register, vote, and you can even vote for us multiple times (once a day). We'll owe you one!

http://battleofthebands.pacsun.com/contest.php%3Fsid=123%26aid=53652%26mid=41180%26mtype=1

xoxo, Loquat

Hey! Check out our new video for "Big Key, Little Door," directed by Tuan Le and Jack Birmingham (rabbitwerks.com). It's a little trip down the rabbit hole in the everyday, ho-hum life of our protagonist. She's trying to figure out what the hell to do with her life, and she meets some interesting characters along the way.

See if you can find three references in the video to the song's Alice in Wonderland theme. The first two peeps to email us at loquatmusic@yahoo.com with three of the references will win a free CD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFU_4BZZerI

Hey all, thanks to all the Bay Area peeps for making us the SF Bay Guardian's Best of the Bay "Best Indie Band" this year. That was a really nice surprise!

Speaking of surprises, we wanted introduce someone to you....

It's a bittersweet twist of fate, but our longtime keyboardist, Ryan Manley, has left the Loquat building. Ryan is going to focus on his film/commercial production career, and we wish him the best. We had a lot of fun/surreal/crazy/awesome times hanging out with Ryan, including the very memorable tour we did with a 30-foot RV through the Midwest and East Coast last year, several trips to SXSW in Texas, lots of highway diner stops, lots of scary motels, lots of late-night recording.... It was so much fun, and although we'll still hang out with Ryan, he will be missed in the band. Below is a visual aid of the fun times we had. Never forget the fun times! Ryan is on the left in the Wrigley Field photo. Kylee and Earl are in the middle, and that's Kari, Kylee's BFF and muse for "Swingset Chain," on the right.

A few words from Ryan, aka Pickles: "I just wanted to thank all of the fans, family, and friends who have been so supportive of Loquat over the years. Being in this band has been an amazing experience that I will never forget, and I couldn't be more proud of the music we made together and the friendships that will continue on."



But there are plenty more diners, motels, studios, and new cities in Loquat's future. We are very happy to announce that our new keyboardist is Bay Area native, Christopher Cooper. There are only two problems with this situation. One, when one of us says, "Hey Chris!", both Christopher Lautz and Christopher Cooper respond. So you may hear us call the new Chris "Coop." You may also hear Anthony, our bass player, call the original Chris (the drummer) "Larry," but we have no idea why.

The other issue is that now Kylee is the only band member originally from out of state. So she's totally outnumbered by true-blue Californians. But she will survive. :)

Chris Cooper is awesome. (See the photo of him below. Clearly, you will want to hang out with him 'cause you can just tell from the photo that he's a fun dude.) Coop played keyboards in the Bay Area band The Federalists before joining Loquat. Before The Federalists, he was a rapper in a group called Uneaq. Coop also plays clarinet and xylophone. We think Earl (Loquat guitarist) might actually let Coop play those instruments, unlike me (Kylee) with the saxophone, because Earl hates the saxophone. He was beaten very badly with one when he was a child.
 


Coop also snowboards, and that is awesome, because we like snowboarding quite a bit. And like the rest of us, Coop has played in the high school band (jazz, marching, pep, concert, etc.). There are some embarrassing photos of us all in high school bands, and hopefully you will never see those photos.

Okay, so that's that. We've made a new friend, we keep the old friends, and life just gets better. Lots of stuff coming up: We've written about 15 songs for the new album and will begin recording it fairly soon. We are also getting back into playing shows (Oct. 3 for sure, but more to come), so hopefully we'll get to see some of you soon!

Love, Loquat

"Sit Sideways" was on Paris Hilton's My New BFF show on MTV last night!

http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/parisbff/episode_music.jhtml?episodeId=156693

See the episode here: http://www.mtv.com/videos/..paris-hiltons-my-new-bff-s..eason-2-ep-7-must-have-goo..d-taste/1615512/playlist.j..html

Our cameo is at 17:38. More news to come shortly....

xoxo, Loquat

Hey all,

We're in the midst of writing a new album, so we won't be playing any shows for a couple months, but we'll be back in action soon.

In the meantime, check out our summer merch sale:

http://www.loquatmusic.com/buy-stuff.php

We've got t-shirts for $8 (plus $2 shipping in the U.S.), and we have a very special reappearance of our long-lost 10-inch vinyl EP, Fall. It's a long story about how these last couple boxes were unearthed, but we have them (although we've already sold one box). When they're gone, they're gone.

Hope you're enjoying the summer so far!

Love, Loquat





 

It's been an emotional week. The residency at Du Nord was really fun, but it took a lot out of us: practice, practice, show, video shoot, video shoot, practice, practice, show, Mendocino festival show, practice, practice, show....

We'll have a couple things to announce soon. The times, they are a changing. But Loquat will forge ahead. I, Kylee, am currently hanging out in Minnesota with my family. The Junior Sanchez remix is really coming. Looks like the release date is June 30. I can't wait to share it with everyone.

In the meantime, please check out this very nice writeup on SPIN magazine's site. When I was little, I had a subscription to SPIN, back when it was tabloid-size and people like Juliana Hatfield were on the cover. That magazine has always inspired me, and I'm so honored to get some love from them for Loquat. 

http://www.spinearth.tv/report/loquat-bring-sweet-indie-pop-to-cafe-du-nord

xoxo, Loquat

To promote our last residency show, the San Francisco Chronicle did a little interview with us. In it, you will learn that we love outer space. Who doesn't?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/27/NSQ217N5UA.DTL&hw=Loquat&sn=001&sc=1000

This was such a wonderful preview for our residency shows that are in full swing in San Francisco (another one tonight). The print edition of The Onion will be sorely missed here in SF:

http://sanfrancisco.decider.com/events/loquat-head-like-a-kite-greycoats-and-dj-elise,69316/

Hello party people,

Here's a story in today's San Francisco Chronicle with Loquat's Kylee and Anthony: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/17/LVH9172RAL.DTL&type=living

 It's about our top ten favorite hangouts in San Francisco at the moment. It was 80 degrees in San Francisco today, so we love our city just a little more than normal. We actually spent a few hours of the day in our very dark rehearsal space working on songs for our residency coming up May 7. But at least we started things out by biking to Baker Beach and hanging out with a gazillion other people who had the exact same brilliant idea.

xoxo, Kylee + Loquat

Apparently today is some sort of holiday that happens only nine times in a century. It's Square Root Day: 3/3/09. Next one will be 4/4/2016, so enjoy it while it lasts. I (Kylee) have decided that we will only celebrate these weird holidays from now on. No more Valentine's Day for us.

So it's been too long since we've said hi. Sorry about that. I promise I'll be better. I have lots on my mind. First and foremost, unfortunately, is my hand. I burned the crap out of it about an hour ago because I forgot that I left some boiling water on the stove, and by the time I realized it, there was no more water in the pot. And my first reaction was to grab the handle with my bare hand. Don't ever do that. Not smart. Hurts real bad....

So we're heading over to Austin, TX for SXSW again in a couple weeks. Can't wait. Please come to our shows (there are four this year) if you're in town. We're also announcing a residency in San Francisco coming up in May. All will be revealed in the next couple days.

Also of note, Junior Sanchez, who has produced/remixed Madonna and Katy Perry, remixed our song "Harder Hit." It sounds like a freakin' drug anthem. Love it like crazy. It's supposed to come out in about a month, and we'll have more details on that asap. I also hear AmpLive (Zion-I) is releasing his solo album with his remix of our song "Sit Sideways" in May.

We're also working on writing our next album. We have about 12 songs so far and counting. And here's a freaky awesome twist this week: Bostich of Nortec Collective (they're in our top friends), sent me a song to sing on. It is awesome. Nortec Collective is like Kraftwerk meets Norteño music. Mexican cowboys with electronic bleepy devices. So it's going to be me, accordion, tuba, bajo sexto and dance-y beats/sounds. Might be hard to imagine, but I'm pretty excited about it.

Miss hanging out with you peeps on the road. Hopefully we'll get to see some of you in Austin starting March 19. :)

xoxo, Loquat

Sometimes we're late to the party: We just found out that Marc Hawthorne from The Onion made our album, Secrets of the Sea, #4 on his top ten favorites albums list for 2008. Well, all right! Thanks Marc.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-best-music-of-2008-the-ballots,2559/6/

Also, we just bought our plane tickets to go to SXSW in Austin, TX, so we'll be playing there in March. More details on that to come.

Other than that, we're writing music for our next album and trying to get new stuff out at a slightly faster pace than we have in the past. And we're planning more out-of-town shows this year, so if any of you West Coast bands want to play with us in your hometown, we're totally down.

Hope all is good for everyone so far in 2009. It's tough economic times, and we just have to hang in there until the storm passes. Deep breaths.... :)

xoxo, Loquat

It's an honor to be included in this Los Angeles–based Internet radio station's Best Albums of 2008 list. Thanks!

http://www.kgrl.fm/bestof2008.php

If you're in the Bay Area, come check out this show in Oakland tonight. Lots more to come in 2009. Happy New Year!

TONIGHT, JANUARY 3, 2009
The Uptown with Golden Gram from Rogue Wave and Hélène Renaut
1928 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland, CA 94612
Doors at 9 p.m.; $10

www.uptownnightclub.com
www.myspace.com/loquat
www.loquatmusic.com
http://www.myspace.com/goldengram
http://www.myspace.com/helenerenaut