Welcome to RockSquawk.com, magical web portal to Albuquerque’s local music scene. Come here to find out when local shows are happening, post your own shows, look for a new band member, discuss your amp, trade equipment or
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Bluegrass stalwarts Young Edward sling a mean standup bass, spot-on clawhammer banjo playing and great three-part harmonies.
Eleven bands hit the stage on Thursday, Jan. 28, to raise money for the Red Cross relief effort on the ground in Haiti. We took in $1,050, which is fantastic.
We’re grateful to Launchpad, Eclipse Production Services and Ecco Gelato for helping us do this thing. Thanks to Jessica Billey, Minie Gonzales and Maya Malloy, who contributed art for the silent auction. Love to the Alibi family for helping out and chasing down prizes for the raffle. Further ups to all the bands who put on great shows. (Guys, if you want any pictures for your websites, I’ve got tons from that night.)
Up the Holler. I can still hear the pitch-perfect, old-timey country inflection.
Zack Freeman. Years ago he was on “America’s Got Talent” and was robbed—robbed!—by a guy who played guitar with eggbeaters. If you haven’t seen this 505er yet, get it done.
The raffle ticket and silent auction table. That’s Minie Gonzales’ face staring at you over and over from the tabletop.
Blue Rose Ramblers in blue light. “This one’s called ‘Buy a Raffle Ticket.’ “ Jessica Billey’s on the right. She donated gorgeous art, too.
Beatbox queen Saywut!? Where have you been all our lives?
Nastia von BonBon of the Five-Star Motelles. We were supposed to play, but drummer Frau got snowed in. (She could have clawed her way out of Moriarty with her bare hands and iron will, but whatever.)
Jeffie of Vertigo Venus is, IMHO, the most stylish, well-dressed rockstar in town.
Monica and Carlos of Ya Ya Boom, the worst band on planet Earth. We all had neck-aches the next day.
Ecco Gelato showed up and gave out free gelato all night, to the delight of Melissa the bartender (pictured) and everyone else (not pictured).
Somehow (beerhow) we failed to take pictures of World on Fyre. Here’s the cover of their new EP instead. Buy one. It’s great. Kind of like if a Sonic Youth truck smacked into a The Cure deer at night on a lonely road when you were driving on mushrooms. Man, you’re a jerk.
Brian of Dirty Novels. I’ve been admiring this band’s songwriting lately. Hoarse, bar-banging garage rock on top. Thoughtful precision underneath.
The Scrams! These guys will sweat on you. This is Juan Carlos on guitar, with Joe singing behind him. Strange to see them on a big stage like this. I’m used to Scrams in scooter shops and on house party-like stage/floors. Didn’t lose anything in the translation, though.
Made in Bangladesh closed out the night. The singer ran up the wall at one point. That’s nice work.
Today’s the day to vote on the February 2010 Mill Levy / School Bond Election. If you vote “yes,” you’ll be approving $617 million for APS, “most of which will be going directly to brick & mortar construction/design,” says the school district. “The remainder will be used to upgrade instructional technology.” APS maintains 143 schools. If it’s approved, property taxes will hold steady at their current rates. So, no tax increase.
“It will make an enormous difference in schools throughout the city,” wrote APS music teacher Robb Janov in an e-mailed entreaty. “Proposed construction for my school, Jefferson Middle School, includes a new track, a parent/student drop-off road (to alleviate the chaos before and after school) and ... $2.3 million dollars to renovate and expand facilities for our thriving music department!”
As is customary, I made a snack and turned on the TV this weekend after coming home late from the bar. (This is probably the source of many Things-I-Thought-Were-a-Dream-But-Actually-Happened moments.) And then I went to bed, probably around 3:30 a.m.
Come Sunday, I’m at my parents house with the family, and “The Soup” is on in the background. And I look up and see a clip from the TITWaDBAH. Turns out, the Swedish Grammys (P3 Guld) really did happen. And, it turns out, the winner of dance artist of the year really did accept her award like this. And the crowd really did seem kind of charmed but ultimately unfazed by it. ... Hunh.
Q: Is Le Chat Lunatique performing at SXSW in March?
With some lobbying from the Alibi, but mostly just superhuman amounts of their own talent and hard work, organizers of the South By Southwest music festival tell us that Le Chat Lunatique made it into the official showcase in Austin. The music portion of the festival runs March 17-21 this year. Get the festival lowdown at sxsw.com.
Trailer for Glocal Scene, a documentary about global music scenes, including Albuquerque’s. (But that’s not really what this post is about.)
I had totally forgotten about this. A few years ago, a music journalist from Detroit (my ancestral homeland) rolled into town. His name was Ryan Bartek, and he was staying with Chris and Jeffy MacCannon from Vertigo Venus, also from Detroit, while working on this giant book about underground music in the U.S. It was going to be his Great American Novel, in every sense.
Bartek had an enormous appreciation for Chris and Jeffy’s band in Michigan, enough to convince him that there must be something good happening in Albuquerque if this is where they ended up. So this is where he came. It was just another stop on his yearlong U.S. tour. Only Bartek wasn’t playing music; he was documenting the little communities that musicians fabricate—the places where underground music comes from. And the only way to do that is pure legwork, and osmosis, talking to musicians and going to shows from one end of the country to another. I wasn’t sure he’d see it all the way through.
Well, now. Here it is. The Big Shiny Prison (History of a Year 12.20.06-10.13.07). He spent quality time in the Duke City, where he was able to ferret out some great sources. Jeff and Chris are priceless, and it’s actually well worth your time to know more about where they’ve come from and what they do. Your band might be mentioned in there. One of mine is. He also talked to the excellent lads of Chestnut Productions, who interviewed me for their documentary Glocal Scene—similar in conceit to Bartek’s book, but filmed on a global scale. You might be in there, too. (Find it here: glocalscene.com.) And since Bartek is giving his book away for free as a PDF, you can do searches for the passages about Albuquerque.
Yep. He put his book out as public domain. “File sharing is approved and encouraged by its author, Ryan Bartek,” he says in the forward. “Having spent a Herculean effort on this project, his only wish is that it be circulated. “
And it turns out, Albuquerque stacks up pretty well. After traveling all over the U.S., he concludes in the epilogue that “the best relocation spot in the Southwest is a definite toss-up between Austin (TX)/Albuquerque (NM).” And “the greatest punk hangouts are the unholy trinity of Burt’s Tiki Lounge (ABQ), The Funhouse (Seattle), and the [now defunct] 2500 Club (Detroit).” That’s a superlative superlative.
Thursday, Jan. 28 at Launchpad. $5 minimum donation. Music starts at 8 p.m.
The Launchpad was thrilled to give us a night. Eclipse Production Services happily donated amps and drums for the stage. Ecco Gelato will be serving up free scoops of gelato all night to attendees.
Jessica Billey, Minie Gonzales and Maya Malloy are contributing art for a raffle. We’re also putting up ski lift tickets, restaurant certificates and a free massage.
If anyone has anything else they’d like to donate to the raffle, call me: 346-0660 x. 245 or e-mail me: marisa@alibi.com.
100 percent of the proceeds benefit the Red Cross efforts on the ground in Haiti.
Today I received an interesting press release from Jägermeister, detailing how the German digestif is going on a country tour. Jägermeister, or “Jäger,” as it’s known by the frat guys heavily associated with it, is likely one of the douchiest boozes around. Is it me, or is it weird that a liquor company would go on tour? Would you want your band to be sponsored by booze? If so, which one?
Jägermeister, the brand known for decades of involvement with rock and metal bands, continues to expand its music presence with the 2010 Jägermeister Country Tour featuring Nashville singer-songwriter Eric Church with special guest and opening act Josh Thompson. The tour, which is Jägermeister’s second in the Country Music genre, kicks off February 9th and visits 32 venues across the nation in celebration of Church's critically acclaimed sophomore release Carolina.
Jägermeister has been supporting musicians through local sponsorships and national music tours since 1994 and continues to evolve with the core consumer's lifestyle and interests. "The brand had tremendous success in 2009 with the introduction of the Jagermeister Country Tour headlined by Pat Green" says Bill Henderson, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Advertising for Sidney Frank Importing Company, Inc. "We are extremely excited to have Eric Church and Josh Thompson on the road with us in 2010 and look forward to a great tour."
"Our shows have been one big party for a while now," says Eric Church. "This tour is going to be unlike anything our fans have seen. We are bringing the level up a notch and I know the fans will do the same. I'm proud to have Jägermeister as a partner for this tour. Not only are they known for bringing the party, but seeing as it tends to get hot at our shows, I want to thank them for keeping the shots ice cold."
Ever heard of the book (or zine, originally) called The Taqwacores? Written by Michael Muhammad Knight (a guy who left Rochester to study Islam), in it he imagines a Muslim punk scene.
His fictional manifesto gave rise in the last few years to a movement of real Taqwacore bands, and, most recently, a documentary about those bands.
I need to ear some new music. So I scoped all the bands in the movie.
The Kominas bounce over to the lighter side, but it’s not pop-punk in the stupid way. Sing-along friendly, especially if you speak Urdu.
The Secret Trial Five fronted by drag king Sena Hussain, is pretty rough around the edges. And I mean that as a high compliment.
Al-Thawra rolls a great deal more metal than punk to my ear. “Doom-crust punk” is the site’s description. Once in a while, a traditional string instrument seeps in. Not my thing, but it could be yours.
Sarmust is Omar Waqar with an acoustic guitar. Up-tempo, a little dark. I don’t usually go for a singer-songwriter unless there’s surprise in something—the chords? the voice? In this case, the lyrics are strong enough to pull.
Co-directed by Eric Wareheim ("Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!")
The site is laying out the decade in music with pitchfork.com/p2k: Start clicking around for The Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s, The Social History of the MP3, The Decade in Pop, The Top 50 Music Videos of the 2000s and much more.
Noface [2/8/10 9:20 PM]