“Next day’s function high class luncheon/ Food is served and you’re stone-cold munchin’/ Music comes on people start to dance/ But then you ate so much you nearly split your pants/ A girl starts walking guys start gawking/ Sits down next to you and starts talking/ Says she wants to dance cause she likes to groove/ So come on fatso and just bust a move”—The words of Young MC, historically known as “Bust a Move.”Come Monday morning, I glanced with trepidation at the week’s calendar and had been resisting doing the writing part—but certainly not the dopesmoking part—of this week’s concert preview column until I could have a glimpse of that monstrosity.But the week began cold and clear with summer certainly out the door and autumn beckoning. Or something like that, because I noticed there were were a heck of a lot of super decent concerts visiting themselves upon the Duke City during the coming week. In many cases there may be two great gigs per night with which I will regale your sense of anticipation, ultimately necessitating the activation of your free will, dear reader. I won’t make the choice for you in such cases; you know what comes next, hey …
Show Up!: Friday Part I
Red Mesa
courtesy of the artist
Every year near the end of October, for some odd reason, Launchpad (618 Central Ave. SW) lets out with a primal scream—yeah I mean the building, dude; imagine that place morphing into a thing with a toothy mouth and infinite vocal capacities—before hosting one of Burque’s most effectively awesome group rock sessions. Night of the Living Cover Bands has become a multi-night tradition in this town, providing a chance to see and hear the scene through its costumed, most creative incarnations. This year night one on Friday, Oct. 19 features several intense musical instances featuring Black Tie as Soundgarden, The Despots doing the Stray Cats, Red Mesa performing as Hank Williams Sr., MRDRBRD as Queens of the Stone Age, The Wads as Buzzcocks, Dust City Opera inhabiting Cake, Arcade Rivals assuming the identity of Fall Out Boy, SugarMotor becoming The Smiths, Port Alice as Ween, Goddex & Pits as the Human League, Concepto Tambor rocking Miami Sound Machine, SHREWD re-imagining Billy Idol and Blame it on Rebekkah fronting Madonna. Damn it, a splendid time is guaranteed for all and this is just the beginning of a great year’s iteration of rocked out Halloween badassery. 7pm • $5 in advance, $10 at the door • 21+.
Show Up!: Friday Part Ii
The Game
Eva Rinaldi
I feel ya, maybe you’re just not in the mood for rockers in the guise of other rockers who sometimes performed in the style or mode of yet other rockers who are therefore all in disguise and so in retrospect, just a bit spoopy. I get it and so if you are game then go with someone you really dig to the Albuquerque Convention Center (401 Second Street NW) on Friday, Oct. 19 for a mad, mad, mad rap extravaganza featuring The Game, Pusha T and Jadakiss—we can forget about all that rock stuff for a while okay? The whole schmear is called Illfest and in the sense that it is indeed time to get ill (in a good way) then this might be the show for you. As you recall, The Game is a fellow from Compton who rocks the West Coast style well enough to be considered one of Dre’s discoveries. Though he has since diverged from that association, his beats are still very thick. Contrariwise, Pusha T and Jadakiss rep the best in early 21st century East Coast flavas—and those continental divides, as it were, will make for very interesting rhythmic and poetic contrasts at a show that will also be damn loud, one hopes. 5:30pm • $57 to $152 • 13+.
Show Up!: Saturday Part I
Red Light Cameras
courtesy of the artist
Saturday night at the event called Night of the Living Cover Bands 2 gets really interesting, in this reporter’s opinion. Here’s the massive lineup, in case you want to share in the holy glory that will be generated by such news as it grows into fruition on Saturday night, Oct. 20 at Launchpad (618 Central Ave. SW). For one thing, you’ll get to see Sun Dog perform as The Flaming Lips. That should be something, but the night will also be filled with notable performances by notable performers including the Red Light Cameras as The Max Martin Project (what, as in Backstreet Boys and Taylor Swift?), Ashes of Jupiter as Green Day, Fad Vandals as The Killers, The JD Three as Generation X, Los Metamorfos channeling Selena, Crime Lab inhabiting Nirvana, Stem Ivory reflecting The Offspring and Maria and Alexis unifying as Dolly Parton. Rock on until you can’t stand it anymore while engendering precious memories of your favorite local rockers turned into their favorite galactic entities. Yow! 7pm • $5 in advance, $10 at the door • 21+.
Show Up!: Saturday Part Ii
Third Eye Blind
courtesy of the artist
So it is written: After the untimely death of the frail yet mighty elfin guitar god from the north woods, the path of the one true voice, rocanrol, diverged into many sounds, sometimes creating a cacophony that still reverberates around the shell of this world to this day. One such track was carved out by some deadly combination of stimulant drugs and youthful exuberance. This phenomena resulted in bands like 311, Folk Implosion and more importantly, Third Eye Blind coming into favor among shocked and angst-ridden youths across America looking for an angry yet celebratory hit. Hence monstrosities of ear-candy potential like “Semi-Charmed Life” and “Crystal Baller.” Now it’s about 20 years after the fact and you can still experience that sense of profound loss mixed with a super-sugar-coated high as it flits through a pop sensibility that you can hum nervously forever—after you toddle on over to Route 66 Legends Theater (14500 Central Ave. SW) on Saturday, Oct. 20 for a premier performance by Stephan Jenkins and his band du jour. It’ll for sure rock, but just like that eight-ball you did as a teener, there will be a price to pay, someday. 8pm • $40 to $79 • All-ages.
Show Up!: Saturday Part Iii
Balsac, The Jaws of Death
courtesy of the artist
Yet, if those sorts of things just don’t appeal, surely you will see the majesty inherent in a performance by GWAR. GWAR, performing at Sunshine Theater (120 Central Ave. SW) on Saturday, Oct. 20 is a band from Hell—or wherever it’s horribly hot and everyone is straight-up damned—that comes through Burque as often as summer turns to fall. What the hell, they give a damn good show and this time around the fabulously costumed troupe of for realz performance artists and postmodern magicians is bringing a host of metal and mucus to town as part of the Gore Gore Metal and More Tour. Besides the gut-wrenching, skull-rending noises produced by GWAR’s current incarnation, listeners can also look forward to plutonic performances by metalcore maniacs Hatebreed and Miss May I as well as Cleveland hard core punks Ringworm. Someone’s going to bloody hell because of lineups like this one; it might as well be you. 8pm • $25 • 13+.
Show Up!: Sunday Part I
Five Mile Float
courtesy of the artist
About three years ago, another all-ages venue—this one called Duke City Studios—opened its doors to a growing audience of young-rocker types. Like many similar venues, the place came and went without too much of an effect on the music scene in general—that is unless one considers some of the local bands that played their first gigs there. On the top of that particular, though entirely fictitious list would appear the name of the band called Five Mile Float. They put out a monster of a power-pop album on Bandcamp, they gigged at a couple of places, garnered some fans but kept on going to high school, one supposes, because they totally fucking disappeared after about a year. I thought they’d be forever gone, like some of my other favorite but no more recent local acts—Tear Pressure and Uranium Worker, for example—but I just confirmed they have a gig. Go see Five Mile Float at Moonlight Lounge (120 Central Ave. SW) on Sunday, Oct. 21 for Crissakes. I don’t know about the support acts, The Sex On T.V. and Ten Ten Division; I suppose they rock too, but Five Mile Float is totally worth your Lincoln. Serio. 8pm • $5 • 21+.
Show Up!: Sunday Part Ii
Deafheaven
courtesy of the artist
If you’ve made it this far through the weekend without busting a move to a show that can, will or did make your life something totally and ultimately sublime and without compare, then you have one final chance this time around, I am telling you. Get out, dang it and roll on over to Sister (407 Central Ave. NW) for a a darkly provocative post-rock concert experience featuring Deafheaven and DIIV. There is a moment of boundless experimentalism in both these outfits; while one circles sometimes ambiently above a shiny non-surface, the other can be relentlessly noisy, un-calm, the music of planets in collision or sacred bodies coming apart through age and decay. That’s what they sound like to me, anyway. You can decide for yourself (and get some awesome tacos to boot) if you just remember to Show Up! 8pm • $20 in advance, $25 at the door • 21+
