It's springtime in L.A. and Stacy Ogden is cleaning her apartment. Fresh off The Dollyrot's longest tour to date (10 weeks of performance and travel), Ogden is taking this rare down time to throw away all unnecessary clutter.

"The first thing that went was this gold spray-painted robot guitar," says Ogden. Covered in bolts, wires, junk drawer fugitives, and trailing an ungrounded, defunct plug, the guitar is both unplayable and--at least as I imagine it--tacky to the nines. "I got it in the free pile in my apartment. But I've got enough guitars I actually play, so why keep this?"

Ogden is one of the primary songwriters for Dollyrots, along with Luis Cabezas, the band's guitarist. They're in town tonight to promote Because I'm Awesome, their newest on Blackheart Records. But the road and writing, oh they are incorrigible quarrelers, forever at odds.

"We've been doing six nights a week. That kind of pace makes it difficult to write." So she writes in the interstiticies of a performer's life, those strange calm periods not punctuated by song or travel. It was in one of those torrential peepers, fresh in L.A. from Virginia, that Ogden and Luis wrote. "We've been in L.A. six years now. The first year was figuring outwhat venues were cool and trying to keep day jobs."

That all changed when the 'Rots signed a publishing deal and hit the road.

"We had six weeks on the Vans Warped Tour with Joan Jett and the Blackhearts and everyday I'd see her and not say anything. Finally, on our second to last day, I thought what if something happens and I miss my chance. So I walked up to her, said hello, and gave her the album."

Jett liked it so much she released it on her own label and took the Dollyrots on tour.

"We were in San Francisco, up on this huge stage, and afterwards, I was in front, trying to get backstage, so I decided to duck underneath. I ended up knocking my head into something before I got through and was trying to walk around backstage without anyone seeing me bleeding from the head. But Joan saw me and came over screaming."

Several staples later at a hospital, Ogden was fine. "I don't know what it is. I'm never clumsy until I'm offstage."

Tonight the Dollyrots grace El Corazon with Jaguar Paw, NOVELS, Starshifter, and The Neon Wilderness. "The smaller the place, the more nervous I am," says Ogden. "The sweaty mess of it, to watch people and see if they're going crazy."

You hear that? Ogden will be watching you tonight, so look sharp and misbehave. It's what she'd want to see.

El Corazon
The Dollyrots
Jaguar Paw
NOVELS
Starshifter
The Neon Wilderness