📝 Exclusive: When Life Gives You Limos
Wam Dingis on music production, DIY, and the appeal of the limousine
Along West College Street in Downtown, in front of the Kaiser Mental Health Center and up the street from the most expensive gas station on this side of the 405, there is a white limousine.
At one point, it had been parked there for months – no parking tickets – dangerously close to the red part of the curb. Weird, for sure, in a city where it seems that you can’t leave your car anywhere for more than an hour without incurring a small booklet of parking tickets.
Weirder still was that, on the rear door, the words “WAM DINGIS LIMO” were spelled out with poorly-kerned vinyl letter stickers. I drove by this limo almost weekly, and it became somewhat of a landmark:
“I’ll pick you up on the corner, across from the Wam Dingis.”
“I’m almost there, I just passed the Dingis Limo.”
On one of my drive-bys, I noticed that the Wam Dingis limo had been (inevitably) smashed-and-grabbed, leaving its front and back windows shattered. The next week, its windows were still shattered, and a single white rose had been laid gingerly on the back seat. It sat like that for weeks, almost like a piece of performance art.
And then the limo vanished… Leaving me with no pickup spot landmark and a lot of questions.
Eventually, curiosity got the best of me, and I finally googled “Wam Dingis.” To my delight, I discovered a local art rock band with a storied history, a penchant for the absurd, and a long-running passion for limousines.
Formed more than 20 years ago in 2002, Wam Dingis is Jor Avila on guitar and vocals, Darren Cochran on drums, and Angela Vasquez on bass and vocals. They describe themselves as “best served live or at home over ice,” leaving you “slightly shaken, but never stirred.”
It’s an apt description: inspired by artists from The Breeders to David Bowie, Wam Dingis’ is high-energy rock and roll with a little something for everyone. The three-piece has worked with Jeff Schroeder from Smashing Pumpkins, HOTT MT, and Bogan Via, among others, and played hundreds of shows at venues both iconic and unknown.
I was lucky enough to make it to one of those shows, at a hole-in-the-wall venue called Three Clubs on Vine. Now, some things I noticed at my first Wam Dingis show: first, these people looked 35 years old at most, which meant that either they had found the magnum opus of anti-aging serums, or they had formed Wam Dingis as actual children. Second, their Instagram listed their upcoming shows as being in Shibuya and Asagaya, Japan, yet my ticket for their LA show was only $10. And then, of course, there was their cream colored branded limousine with a smashed window and a white rose.
“We played an open mic, and he was like, ‘we’ve gotta be called Wam Dingis.’ I think his older brother came up with it. It sounded Canadian. That’s how it started.”
My initial interview with Jor, the lead singer, was postponed because he was meeting with Paul McCartney. This was an intimidating start.
But I came to find out that Wam Dingis are anything but intimidating. In fact, they lean into a creative and DIY approach to production and performance, and despite having been around for 23 years, they’re a humble and really fun bunch.
The band was, as I’d theorized, formed when Jor and drummer Darren were barely teenagers. Darren’s older brother had started it, but only ever learned one Cars song. When Jor and Darren met at camp, they decided to revive it.
“Me and Darren became best friends in summer camp in eighth grade,” Jor explained. “We played an open mic, and he said his older brother came up with the name. It sounded Canadian. That’s how it started.”
They didn’t bother to ask what “Wam Dingis” meant for ten years, until curiosity finally got the best of them.
“I think of it as an abstract concept,” Jor initially told me. “It means whatever you want it to mean.”
Their manager Liz Chun cut him off: “Do you want to tell her what it actually means?”
“Well,” Jor continued.
“Dick punch,” she says. “It does, literally, mean ‘dick punch.’”
With a band called something similar to “dick punch,” a few pieces of equipment, and a passion for good old-fashioned rock-and-roll, 13-year-old Darren and Jor eventually started playing local coffee shops and recording tracks. In 2015, Angela happened upon an open mic at The Charity Shop, a vintage store that Jor was running.
“They were looking for a bass player, and they asked my husband – then boyfriend – if he played bass. He was like, no, but my girlfriend does. So I showed up and practiced with them, and just haven’t stopped since then.”
In 2016, Wam Dingis released their debut album It’s Not That Hard, recorded at The Dojo in Chino Hills, a former Manley Amplification testing ground run by Adam Valdez (aka Boom Felazi, who is also a glass blower). It’s Not That Hard features my two personal favorites: “Gallery Girl,” a twangy acid rock fever dream, and “Shelly,” a track with gritty guitar that could single-handedly advertise the capabilities of Ableton’s overdrive effect.
Three years later, the band was signed to Night City Publishing, the label under which they re-released their debut in 2019. Wam Dingis and Night City have since parted ways – they wanted more creative freedom than the label (or any label) could provide.
“It’s hard, especially in this new world of streaming, you have to do things a certain way,” says Angela. “We really, really like the DIY of it all. We do everything ourselves and always have, so the label was nice to have, but independent is just how we’ve always done it.”
“We do it all ourselves,” Jor agrees. “We all write together, we produce it ourselves, we get input from our friends. We collaborate, we get our friends’ two cents, we have friends who help with our music videos and stuff. It’s a win-win.”
“Everyone has their specific fingerprint,” Angela explains. For her part, Angela contributes a darker, Siouxsie and the Banshees inspired sound to songs like Dark Parlor. She also designed the cover of their most recent EP 4HS. Her husband has directed some of their music videos, as have other friends of theirs, and much of their discography was recorded in home studios.
They do their own merch (including a “footkini” sticker, featuring the band’s logo emblazoned on a cartoon foot with a butt crack and a thong bikini), from designing to screen printing. They do their own promotion. They design the sets for their music videos, converting garages into stop-motion sets.
“I have always loved being on set,” says drummer Darren. “I love watching that hustle and being part of it, so music videos are really fun.”
They use Reaper and Logic for production, and even use Audacity for personal projects, a fact that I couldn’t wrap my head around.
All of Wam Dingis have day jobs: Angela is a UI designer, Darren is a luthier and creator at Eighty J. Devices, a small business that he and Liz run out of their garage. Jor works as a professional art handler, gallery curator, and painter – he even ran his own art gallery in Chinatown, Zara Gallery, which he named after his cat. But Jor’s most interesting gig?
“I always thought having a limo tied to the band would be great. You know, branding, marketing, but also just fun. The history of rock music has so many fun little things like that.”
The limo business.
I asked about the story behind the Wam Dingis limo with the assumption that it was just that: the Wam Dingis limo. It was, in fact, only the most recent in a succession of Wam Dingis limos.
“So, I’ve had four limos since the beginning of Wam Dingis,” Jor began. “I always thought having a limo tied to the band would be great. You know, branding, marketing, but also just fun. The history of rock music has so many fun little things like that.”
It all began with a 1994 stretch that Jor bought for $500 on Craigslist. He tells the stories of each limo like they’re his children.
“Oh, it was amazing. White outside – they’ve all been white – with a crimson interior. But that one broke down really quick. The second one I also got on Craigslist, but that one was $1,200. So I traded my car for it. But then it got towed by the cops on our way to a show, which sucked. The third one was $1,500. The story behind that one was… Geez.”
The third Wam Dingis limo turned out – as cars from Craigslist tend to – to have been unregistered for five years.
“So it was going to cost so much money to register it, so I thought maybe I’d take it to Arizona to get a smog. But then my friend sort of held it for ransom. The next limo –”
I cut him off at this point – Jor gets very passionate when talking about limousines. “Someone tried to hold your limousine for ransom?”
“Yeah, so when we took it to Arizona, our buddy said we should start a business. It had sort of become our calling card, it was like our version of a tour bus, and he thought we could rent them out. But then, well, I don’t know what happened for sure, but he basically wouldn’t release the limo without a ransom. I was like, what the hell? It’s a freaking limo. It’s my freaking limo.”
“We had to report it stolen,” Liz says.
“Yeah, we did a whole insurance claim and everything. It worked out, I guess. But anyways, our most recent one, it has Roku TV and WiFi.”
The band’s most recent limo – the one I drove by in Chinatown, with the off-kilter vinyl letters and occasionally smashed windows – has taken them to Arizona, New Mexico, and Vegas. Jor eventually hopes to get it wrapped, though Angela is partial to the DIY flare of the stickers.
“A schmear is the limousine of stains.”
“We live in a world where everything is so polished. But I think with Wam Dingis, there’s an authenticity that resonates. Just like the way those letters are put on the side of the limos.”
After cycling through a small entourage of secondhand limousines, weathering flat tires, break-ins, and ransom requests, Wam Dingis decided to make their limo calling card into a small, community-run business, fueled by word of mouth. He may have held their limo for ransom, but that friend in Arizona was onto something.
You know the old quip: “When life gives you limos, make limonade.”
Or perhaps you’re more familiar with the ubiquitous saying, “A schmear is the limousine of stains.”
In 2023, Jor started Limo Daddy. For $100 an hour, the Wam Dingis limo can be yours for a music video shoot, an afterparty, or the most unique tailgate any of your friends have ever seen.
Limo Daddy’s clients have ranged from movie stars to comedians to friends. Some want a prop for a music video, some want a sleek ride, and some just want the thrill of sitting sideways in a long car that has Roku and WiFi while someone else drives them around. It’s got broad appeal.
It was their manager Liz who connected Limo Daddy with one of our first clients - Erica Gavin, the actress from Vixen and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.
“She was willing to pay to use the limo, so we were like, okay, let’s do this,” Jor remembers.
“She would rent it to roll up at autograph signings and screenings of her films. But people do all kinds of things. We once went to a comedy show, and the guy was talking about limos, so of course I pulled him aside after, and I was like, ‘hey, we have a limo.’”
So he got us to take him to a Flaming Lips show at YouTube theater. And then it just kept growing.”
“If you ever need a limo to go to the desert and spray paint a water park and dress up as Sailor Moon, Limo Daddy is here for you.”
Their current ride is indeed outfitted with Wifi and Roku, and they have since fixed that smashed window. When I asked about the single white rose in the backseat, Jor explained,
“So I went to this sort of sad, conceptual art show, and the artist was giving out roses to symbolize grief. And I went back to the car, and we’d gotten broken into, they’d smashed two windows. I was like, well… There’s some grief, right? So I put the rose back there, because it felt like art.”
Like the birth of the business itself, the rose was an embodiment of Jor’s obsession with the absurd, the artful, and the hilarious.
Limo Daddy operates solely on word of mouth, and it’s become somewhat of an icon. Even those who haven’t taken it for a spin are there to support the business – it was partially donations that funded the fixing of that window.
The Limo Daddy Instagram is a mix of fan selfies, limo spottings, and captions like, “If you ever need a limo to go to the desert and spray paint a water park and dress up as Sailor Moon, Limo Daddy is here for you.”
You, too, can call or text (714)-654-1243 any time for a spin in the limo, and likely a chance to chat up the band.
Wam Dingis’ most recent EP, 4HS, is out now.
You can follow the band on Instagram @wamdingis, and check out their amazing music videos on their YouTube channel.
They play plenty of shows around LA, and I’d highly encourage you to go – you’ll see outfit changes and sunglass-smashing, you’ll get to buy a footkini sticker, and, of course, you’ll see the Wam Dingis limo in the flesh.