Honestly, I spent most of 2011 obsessing over mod music and glam rock from the ’60s and ’70s, and so I don’t feel quite equipped to compose an authoritative or complete list of the year’s best new sounds. (Besides, the Internet is populated by young bloggers on the hipster tip who are doing just that for me—not that I was into Real Estate, Youth Lagoon or Lana Del Mar in the slightest.) I did, however, spend hours obsessing over certain songs. Below are the five I repeated to an embarrassing degree.
Violin-playing performance artist shares her New Year’s Eve with Albuquerque
By Jessica Cassyle Carr
Bitch is a multi-instrumentalist—electric violin, ukulele, bass, keyboard—and solo performance artist. The one-woman band was once upon a time half of Righteous Babe Records alumnus Bitch and Animal. On her own, the exuberant, Technicolor, gender nonconformist singer released her first solo album on Kill Rock Stars and now runs her own label, Short Story Records. Trained as an actor as well, she starred in acclaimed feature film Shortbus by John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch). Her music has appeared on “The L Word,” and she’s worked with the likes of JD Samson, Ani DiFranco and the Indigo Girls.
On 6 Times around the Sun, hubkaphonist Mark Weber presents an abundant collection of strange and wonderful music, teaming up with nine adventurous musicians on 38 improvised duet tracks recorded over six years.
The poster for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 classic thriller now serves as the announcement of a New Year’s Eve party at Dad’s House. Gusher, Great White Buffalo, Fart House, Music is the Enemy and Sputniq play beginning at 9 p.m. (Jessica Cassyle Carr)
As Ludwig von Beethoven once said, “Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.” Those words still carry weight, even now: a thousand years later. And you'll find no better example than the incomparable Alan Jackson, whose voice and countenance rival those of the gods, as though he were hewn from the heart of the sun itself. His honky tonk tunes are swords of righteous terror and beauty which melt the eardrums…
So Chrome Sparks apparently has a few hours open in his schedule to visit ABQ—somewhere in between juggling his gajillion other projects and fulfilling his role as busiest spacey electro-pop composer on the planet. New Mexico seems like the perfect place for those wide-open, expansive tunes of his…
"I change shapes just to hide in this place, but I'm sure not going to hide from this concert." Ladies and gents, I am happy to report that Miike Snow, the Swedish electro-pop band of your dreams, will be performing at our very own Historic El Rey Theater. Imagine Alt-J and Dan Black created a musically inclined love child…
Andrew Jackson Jihad • folk-punk • Diners • surf, indie rock • Kepi Ghoulie • punk folk
By Peter Karlsen
Once upon a time, back in 2004, in the distant land of Arizona, there was born a folk-punk band by the name of Andrew Jackson Jihad. It was a mouthful, so they decided to go by the acronym AJJ. Then they decided to formally change their name to that. Soon they'll be at the Launchpad. People in this town like to shit on the folk-punkers, but fuck those jerks…
