Hey hey, night fights day/ There’s food for the thinkers/ And the innocents can all live slowly/ All live slowly/ My, my, the sky will cry/ Jewels for the thirsty/ And the guilty one’s can all die slowly/ All die slowly/ And all the world is biscuit-shaped/ It’s just for me to feed my face/ And I can see, hear, smell, touch, taste/ And I’ve got one, two, three, four, five/ Senses working overtime … “Senses Working Overtime,” by XTC, from the album English Settlement.Reasons to go see a show this week (as if you really need one, dearest fellow concert-goer): As summer approaches the nights get shorter and the days stretch out into languid evenings. Nighttime is at a premium and it’s where all the action is, so go get some now, before you find yourself back in the midst of another forlorn winter. Further, music certainly provides food for thought. While it might be easy to envision the musical world as a big chunk of food designed to feed your head, your heart and your belly—and it certainly is something that should therefore be glorified—we at Alibi central continue to maintain that by focusing on the best, maintaining due diligence and continuing to operate in the middle of things while still considering the edges of one’s path, you can make your sensory indulgences certain and sublime without having to work overtime.
Show Up!: Thursday
L.A. Witch
Courtesy of the artist
Thursday’s a good enough night to get lost within, says the magically lo-fi, studiously arcane and symbol-laden announcement for the show at Sister (407 Central NW) on May 4. That’s when L.A. Witch—a trio that proclaims its affinity for and parallels to another, darker time on the Left Coast—will be headlining a show that also includes action from Phoenix-based pop rockers Pro Teens. Additionally, some of this town’s most awesome local rock acts will be providing support. While L.A. Witch invokes the heady combination of sacred and profane cultural mojo that came out of late 1960s Los Angeles, their music is not nearly as retro as their promotional materials imply, but rather a combination of languorous folk-rock conceits, shoe-gaze style vocals and haunting harmonies following plangent guitar-playing fantasias. Check out songs like “Heart of Darkness” or “Get Lost” for the details, you devils. I’m not sure how they ended up on tour with Pro Teens. Although both share a love of the lo-fi as well as a round and reverb-soaked guitar prominence that alludes to the world of dreams, they’re otherwise very divergent. Locals Train Conductor (Will Byrne, James Sturgis and Andy Ward) make searching, swarthy and sumptuous psych rock while Tear Pressure, who opens, have taken Burque by storm with their no-nonsense no wave niceties. Taking this 21+ trip to the land of floating flowers in the vibrating vacuum of psychedelic experience only costs a Lincoln and begins at 9pm. If you ever come down you’ll want to tell all your friends how much it rocked and how they ought to try it too.
Show Up!: Friday
Entourage Jazz
Although the mindset and perceptions encountered during the so-called psychedelic experience can be illuminating or damning—depending on one’s personal point of view—experiencing jazz can be a totally different kind of head trip. Some aficionados of the genre attest to the fact that they enter a sort of trance while on the jazz train. This effect is made even more formidable if cool jazz is being played. When players jam to progressions that involve seconds, sixths, thirds and ninths, listeners can be guaranteed of an alluring aural experience that stretches sonic boundaries and begs one to ask for more. Getting your fill of this so-called jazz music has never been easier in this town, thanks to the folks over at Entourage Jazz. Led by vocalist Emerson Corley and featuring some of the premier musicians around town, the ever-evolving ensemble has helped redefine jazz—and its audience in our humble burg. Entourage, featuring the subtly shocking sounds of the likes of pianist Roger Baker, bassist Maren Hatch, drummer John Bartlit and guitarist Dimi DiSanti, has a gig on Friday, May 5 at Hotel Andaluz (125 Second Street NW). They’ll be laying down standards and favorites from the big book of traditional and cool jazz; it’s music that one can dance to or just sit and contemplate as time goes by and dinner appears from the hotel’s superior scullery. Entourage begins their weekend journey into jazzland beginning at 7pm. It’s free to join them for this 21+ soulful sojourn, by the way. But if you do wander off into a trance, make sure and tell the waitstaff it’s the music and not the wine doing you a much sought-after sonic solid.
Show Up!: Saturday
Russian Girlfriends
Via Facebook
After all those doubly deep musical excursions I suggested for Thursday and Friday, I believe that Saturday will provide an opportunity to return forcefully and formidably to planet Earth for some good, old-fashioned, no holds barred, simple and spectacular rocanrol music. The venue next door to Alibi HQ, Sister (407 Central NW), is famous for its rock proclivities, and they’ll be in full force on May 6 when The Bombpops play a show with local legends—and honest-to-god, working-class punks—Russian Girlfriends. You probably already know heaps about the Girlfriends. They’re poptastic, genuine and have skills that kill, including the presence of one of the most engaging rock front men this town has ever seen—well since Jon Little of the Ant Farmers was dancing and frolicking on the stage of Launchpad all those years ago. For realz, Adam Hooks’ singing and on-stage persona are well worth the price of admission. And the rest of the band ain’t slouches either. The guitar playing of Ian Jarrell and Colin Dowell has a surprising, melodically authentic punk gravitas attached—while still being fun to listen to. The band’s rhythm section (bassist Jeremy Keith and drummer Sasha Horn) keep the whole affair ahead of the rock and roll ball, delivering beats that can be brutally big or scathingly subtle. The Bombpops meanwhile—an outfit outta San Diego—balance and blast out their pop-based pronouncements through the efforts of co-frontwomen Jen Razavi and Poli van Dam; they’re touring on the strength of their latest recording on Fat Wreck Chords, Fear of Missing Out. Don’t miss out on this demonstration of local and regional punkified power; $5 in advance or $10 at the door plus a valid 21+ ID will get you into a show that goes off at 9pm.
Show Up!: Sunday
Le Butcherettes
Rui Miguel Pedrosa
If you are thinking of taking Sunday night off to catch up on sleep, sobriety or summertime sex, then forget about it. It may prove to be a much nobler thing indeed to head on over to Launchpad (618 Central SW) for one of the most rocked out shows of the season. Get this: Le Butcherettes will be making an appearance—and presumably getting down to their heavy Guadalajara sound—along with local cultural treasures Leeches of Lore and Prism Bitch. In a show that may very well prove to be the most memorable recital of the spring of 2017, Teri Gender Bender and cohorts Pepe Chuy Salazar and Riko Rodríguez-López are touring their new album around the states. The work is called A Raw Youth and features several rock notables (including John Frusciante) embellishing and illuminating Gender Bender’s peculiar punk, confessional anthemics. The result is a deadly and deconstructed vision of hard rock that is fearless in its quest to break boundaries as it adheres to a brutally honest vision of the band and the world around them—circling, screaming and gesticulating wildly through sounds that are as fashionable as they are freaky. This event is also yet another opportunity to witness one of Burque’s great bands, Leeches of Lore, before they disappear into the mists of time. Prism Bitch, an Albuquerque supergroup that counts totally fine and fantastic bassist Lauren Poole and vocalist Lilah Rose amongst its members, opens this 21+, $12 gig with grungy goodness and grooviness. Be there by 9pm if you want to hear it all come apart and then re-appear like some kinda musical magic, dudes.
Show Up!: Monday
Ty Segall and his dog Fanny
Denee Petracek
Speaking of total freaks, let it be known that madman deluxe Ty Segall has a show in Burque on Monday, May 8, at Sister (407 Central NW). Segall is singular in his approach to the singer-songwriter genre and likes to tell music nerds all around this big blue marble that his favorite band is Hawkwind (you and Alibi Circulation Director Geoffrey Plant, bud), but also shows distinct yet purposely opaque influences as divergent as The Byrds and Black Flag. His brand of lo-fi, self-conscious and annoyingly abstruse pop is definitely an acquired taste, but the results are indeed often tunefully memorable in the same way songs by Thee Oh Sees can get stuck on repeat, even in this listener’s jaded head. The music of Adult Beverage and Nuzzzle are to be featured as opening acts. Adult Beverage, as you may recall, is the project of that huge dude who plays a mean guitar and writes an arch song, Dillon Cullinan. Nuzzle, a new and local rock project starts off the evening’s bill with a hug. The concert begins at 8pm, requires a 21+ ID and has an admission price of $17.
