Artists and bands repping English house, Malian blues, El Lay-via-Mexico punk and SoCal prog rock make the Albuquerque scene this week. Show Up! has all the deets plus A/V.
Gregg Turner is alive and well in Santa Fe, and playing the hits
By Geoffrey Plant
Gregg Turner is known to most as a founding member of the Angry Samoans, a Los Angeles hardcore band that began in 1978. He is also known, perhaps, to a different slice of the population as a record reviewer for Creem Magazine (1976-1998) where he was noted for his inspired hatchet jobs on the likes of Bon Jovi, The Who and even Iggy Pop.
It’s the end of an era for this twang-and-thrash trio. The Alibi chatted by phone with frontman Steve Hammond in his Nob Hill home before he rushed off to Leeches of Lorchestra practice.
Baritone sax player and Dirty Dozen Brass Band founding member Roger Lewis has made a 35-year career out of making the New Orleans brass band tradition vibrate at a different level. His group brought club music—bebop, swing and blues, that is—to streets previously filled with repertoires of hymns and proto-jazz, essentially modernizing the brass band.
Wild Nothing is a one-man project of Brooklynite and Williamsburg, Va. native Jack Tatum. His music unapologetically harkens the twinkling melancholy of ’80s Britpop song and production qualities. In advance of a show at the Sunshine with Beach House, Tatum spoke with the Alibi about past, present and the definition of pop.
Judging from Ocho, the new album from Felix y los Gatos, Felix Peralta (guitar, vocals) has been knee-deep in some hard times lately: relationship problems, too much partying, trying not to party, homesickness (living in the Heights and aching for the South Valley), car trouble and so on.
Recess Records mastermind talks making albums, punks who go folk and nebulous band members
By Geoffrey Plant
Todd Congelliere has been producing punk rock music in the California style for more than two decades. His band Toys That Kill just released its fourth album, Fambly 42, and is playing an all-ages show at The Gasworks on Tuesday. When the Alibi spoke to Congelliere over the phone, he was at his San Pedro home, which also serves as practice space, recording studio and headquarters for his record label Recess Records.
World-renowned guitar aficionado feels right at home
By Margaret Wright
For Michael Eliot, one of the most internationally respected vintage guitar dealers, Albuquerque was the ideal place to set up the western wing of his collection, and not because it's remote and quieter than the New York City of his youth. On the contrary, it was the up-and-coming, hardscrabble energy of the place that drew him in and kept him here.
Every April for nearly three decades, the Gathering of Nations has brought indigenous groups from around the continent to Albuquerque to celebrate Native culture and traditions. The powwow, which claims the title of North America’s largest, is three days of music, dance, markets, food and cross-culturalism.
At a concert this Friday evening at the South Broadway Cultural Center, Blaine Sprouse, Peter Feldmann and Wayne Shrubsall will explore the origins of bluegrass, a genre that hasn’t been around that long, but that’s deeply linked to the ancient, weird, anonymous music sometimes called folk. The idea behind the show is to explore how old-time traditional music from Appalachia, along with elements from gospel and jazz, evolved into the musical form pioneered by Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys in the mid-’40s.
With a name like Glitter Dick, a band isn’t likely to get much commercial airplay. However, as Albuquerque’s newest glam-trash group, Glitter Dick is on everyone’s lips. Figuratively speaking, of course.
This year’s John Donald Robb Composers' Symposium presents 55 contemporary composers with meaningful connections to New Mexico. Themed with the state's centennial celebration in mind, all the featured artists live here, studied at UNM or lived in New Mexico for at least a year.
