“ … And then you’re in the man from Mars/ You go out at night, eatin’ cars/ You eat Cadillacs, Lincolns too/ Mercuries and Subarus/ And you don’t stop, you keep on eatin’ cars/ Then, when there’s no more cars/ You go out at night and eat up bars where the people meet/ Face to face, dance cheek to cheek.”―“Rapture” by Deborah Harry, Damon Sharpe and Chris SteinThere are are all sorts of things in those lyrics that deserve comment. Halloween’s approaching, and there is the man from Mars bit and something about eating metallic objects. The issue of trying to satisfy a yen for something whose acquisition just leads deeper and deeper into the midst of something resembling rapture is notable. Music is like that. But instead of a lengthy discourse on all that lyrical mierda, I’ll get right to the point: Here are some upcoming shows aimed at sating musical hunger and guaranteed to leave you wanting more.
Show Up! Thursday
Allison Miller knows a thing or two about postmodern space exploration.
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Percussionist/composer Allison Miller returns to Outpost Performance Space (210 Yale SE) on Thursday, Oct. 9, with her band Boom Tic Boom. Miller’s one of the most amazingly delicious drummers on the planet; her compositions, drawing on the improvisatory nature of jazz, explore a variety of genres with taste and texture intact. Miller has garnered critical acclaim from DownBeat Magazine and The New Yorker, but her work speaks clearly on its own terms. Unadorned and precise, it reaches out from well-tended jazz roots and into postmodern space exploration with startling clarity. As a drummer, Miller’s style is generally spare and syncopated, but her flourishes are compelling in their complexity. Boom Tic Boom is a collaboration with pianist Myra Melford, violinist Jenny Scheinman, bassist Todd Sickafoose, cornetist Kirk Knuffke and special guests Steven Bernstein, Erik Friedlander, Rachel Friedman and Ara Anderson.Tickets for this all-ages performance range in price from $15 to $20; doors are at 7pm, and the concert begins at 7:30pm. On Friday night, Oct. 10, Boom Tic Boom plays GiG Performance Space (1808 Second St.) in Santa Fe.
Show Up! Friday
Guitar-driven power trio Ex Hex delivers crispy, believably rocked-out tuneage.
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DC power trio Ex Hex (Mary Timony, Laura Harris and Betsy Wright) brings their crispy, guitar-driven sound to Sister (407 Central NW) on Friday night, Oct. 10. Guitarist Timony led ’90s punkers Helium to dissonant glory. With her cohorts Harris and Wright of the rhythm section delivering believably rocked-out tuneage like “Hot and Cold” through their electrified Joan Jett and Cheap Trick channeling devices, Ex Hex presents a more-than-proper Saturday night rock supper.Noisy, popified and hailing from Massachusetts, Speedy Ortiz, the one-time solo project of Sadie Dupuis, opens the evening’s festivities. Dupuis went full-blown with a band in 2011; the resulting recording, Major Arcana, continues to linger, bright and brazen. Joined by bandmates Mike Falcone, Darl Ferm and Devin McKnight, Dupuis makes music that is intrinsically melodic yet anxiously abrasive.Ten bucks gets you into this aural feast. The buffet line forms at 8pm, and the kind folks start serving up songs at 9pm.
Show Up! Saturday
Gin Blossoms perseveres as a collective, surviving the life-and-death '90s alt.pop scene.
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If your tastes run toward proclamations of the grand, sublime glory that was the late ’80s and early ’90s in American pop, do yourself a solid and check out the Gin Blossoms and Spin Doctors concert. These two purveyors of pure and profound pulp lay their goods out for rapid consumption at the Isleta Casino Showroom (11000 Broadway SE) on Saturday, Oct. 11.Touring on the strength of ancient chart-topping behemoth hits like “Hey Jealousy” and “Found Out About You,” Gin Blossoms have suffered the slings and arrows of life and death in the rock business. Meanwhile, Spin Doctors, notable for a couple of early ’90s chart-toppers too, have similarly persevered. Both outfits continue to deliver catchy, easily digested amplified anthems.Tickets for this exploration of the shadowy yet ironically lilting “before time” rock menu range in price from $25 to $35. It’s an all-ages affair; doors are at 7pm, and the not-so-new, non-miserable experience begins at 8pm. Don’t forget your Pocket Full of Kryptonite!
Show Up! Wednesday
From left, Denis Jasarevic aka Gramatik rocks electro with an instrumental collaborator.
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Electro enigma Denis Jasarevic, better known as Gramatik, brings his vision of a glitched-out, droning hip-hop nation to the El Rey Theater (624 Central SW) on Wednesday, Oct. 15. The DJ and producer’s latest album The Age of Reason combines an impeccable sense of groove and lush melodicism with elements of soul and Euro-prog influences. The resulting sonic storm is as disquieting as it is enveloping.An eloquent advocate of file sharing and digital freedom, Gramatik often releases his work into the electronic aether in simply executed, carefree packages that belie his music’s awesome maximalism. Though he has gone on the record as saying listeners shouldn’t take his oeuvre seriously, that he is the ultimate comedian, Gramatik’s output as a maker of “chillout funkstep soul” is nothing to joke about; in fact, it may leave one wondering wondrously where one genre ends and another begins.Joining in on Gramatik’s multifaceted and fantastic-tasting farce costs $15. It’s an 18-plus show with doors at 8pm. The beats begin dropping at about 8:30pm.
Show Up!
Blondie
So, now you’re in the man from Mars. And it doesn’t stop, does it? The cars, the people in the bars, they were all just appetizers, sabes? What you really needed to satiate yourself was some music. Whether the def drumming of a major jazz demiurge, a definitive display of dead-on American rocanrol, the glorified chart-busting remnants of another age or the maxed-out riffage of a Slovenian electro-wiz, there’s gotta be some satisfaction in there somewhere. And listening just adds assurance—there will certainly be more where that came from. Here in Burque’s produce-laden musical party land, you may never go hungry again.
