“So everybody put your best suit or dress on/ Let’s make believe that we are wealthy for just this once/ Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn/ As thirty dialogues bleed into one” … “The New Year,” a song lyric by Ben Gibbard that references time and distance.If you would like more information about this week’s episode of “Show Up!,” a music preview column in an underground newspaper known affectionately as Weekly Alibi, I will provide some background—mostly concerning the things that influenced and informed this parade of text—in order to dispense with the usual formality created by the relationship between writer and audience.• I’m writing this week’s iteration on Christmas day, a period of time during which I continue to be both fascinated and concerned with the life of Christ, even as memories of his supposed birth pass yet again under the frothing bridge of life on a planet that is continuously spinning memories out into space, into the infinite void that contains our existence.• You’re damn straight that after spending the previous two weeks deeply ensconced in spiritual matters—which more than served to remind me that the year I spent in Nepal and Tibet were like having Christmas every dang day—I am more than ready to put down the accoutrements of inquiry and take up those noises which I truly believe rock the divine.
Show Up!: Thursday
It’s quite possible that the subgenre known to many listeners as “stoner rock” got its first fecund bellyful of mojo out in the bleak and beauteous desert east of El Lay thanks to bands called Yawning Man and Kyuss. In case you’ve missed out on the general direction of these scribblings collectively known as “Show Up!,” we here in the music department at Weekly Alibi put a lot of stock into that movement forward which pretty much began with two discrete groups of Californios who ultimately begat rockin’ sound units like Queens of the Stone Age and Mondo Generator, deeply influencing local cosmonauts SuperGiant in the process.Though this historicism is certainly something to contemplate on Thursday, Jan. 3 at Sister (407 Central Ave. NW) it’s also totally cool to dispense with esoteric tangents just so you can rock the hell out. Besides the profound progenitors themselves (Yawning Man has been at it since 1986), Mondo Generator features a dude named Nick Oliveri on bass. In addition to having done it all dank and dirty with the aforementioned West Coast outfits, Oliveri also jams in the Moistboyz, one of the Deaner’s prized projects. Plus, SuperGiant takes the first toke, the green hit, you know? Portents show that this show has got to be bitchin’ and flying birds don’t lie, folks. 8pm • $13 • 21+.
Show Up!: Friday
Once upon at time en el Duque, there was this thing called the psychedelic sound which the kids rocked out to with a combination of ecstatic movements and heartfelt feels. In variants of this same enterprise, listeners sometimes found themselves digging these sublime sounds while gazing provocatively at the tips of their own shoes.Oh, yeah, in the rush to quantify such clearly divine emanations, I almost forgot to tell you that several bands—some with local, lauded connections—continue to manifest such magic, here and far away from here. More importantly, some of these said psychedelic shoegaze units will be putting out the eternal fire and replacing it with the dark doings of destiny when they visit Sister (407 Central Ave. NW) on Friday, Jan. 4. That’s right rockers, Adult Beverage, NQQV and Train Conductor are in the house and on transcendence duty that night, prepared to blast you into another musical dimension where you can casually dance while being transported to a place The Rolling Stones called “Another Land.” Serio, lads and lassies, set your defroster to high and head on down. 9pm • $5 • 21+
Show Up!: Saturday
Albuquerque has a metal music scene, by the way. Ask our mayor, the honorable Timothy Keller. He’ll tell you all about it after he informs you gently yet with intense vision about his progressive agenda for the future of Albuquerque. If you still need further convincing, however, after said encounter with our city’s avatar of leadership, then I suggest you give the Launchpad (618 Central Ave. SW) a try on Saturday, Jan. 5 for the sake of kicks; it’s Roman Barham’s annual birthday bash after all! Barham, just in case you still don’t know, is one of the proprietors of local rock retail repository, ARISE. Further the dude is a member in good standing of legendary Burque rock god group Black Maria as well as a player in Red Mesa, the next generation at our town’s Plutonic party.I guess one can expect this night to be super fun and super loud because of the artists and bands who will be feting Roman. They include local hip-hop master DJ Buddhafunk, the inimitably star-seeking soujurners known as SuperGiant, the acutet atmospherics of Shrewd as well as the massive mood-swinging melodies invoked by Walls Within, Brother Strange and Musnttouchit. Clearly the bomb for this coming weekend, maybe you’ll even catch a glimpse of hizzoner. 8pm • $5 • 21+.
Show Up!: Sunday
But wait a minute! New Mexico also has a vibrant world music scene. Thank you globe-hopping dudes Neal Copperman in Burque and Jamie Lenfesty in Santa for setting us all straight on that account.If you are still not finding it easy to grok where this discursive discourse leads, here’s anothe clue. AMP Concerts is bringing Juan Carmona to town on Sunday, Jan. 6 for a concert at the KiMo Theatre (401 Central Ave. NW). Carmona is a virtuoso guitarist and complex composer who happens to be the forefront of a movement dedicated to evolving ethnic folk music—notably flamenco guitar—by threading its tropes through the needle’s eye of postmodern performance, classical aesthetics and innovative, even instructive examples of a new beauty buoyed by the rhythms of Andalusia. Carmona will be gigging with his ensemble for this concert. That should provide a particularly potent opportunity to get lost in the sound of the sublime; check out Carmona’s latest live recording, Perla de Oriente for a more accurate reflection of that last overarching statement. 7:30pm • $8 to $30 • All-ages.
