“I sleep in late/ Another day/ Oh what a wonder/ Oh what a waste./ It’s a Monday/ It’s so mundane/ What exciting things/ Will happen today?/ The yard is full of hard rubbish, it’s a mess and/ I guess the neighbours must think we run a meth lab/ We should amend that/ I pull the sheets back/ It’s 40 degrees/ And I feel like I’m dying/ Life’s getting hard in here/ So I do some gardening/ Anything to take my mind away from where it’s ’sposed to be.”—“Avant Gardener” by Courtney Barnett from The Double EP: A Sea of Split PeasAussie singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett struggles to find meaning in the mundane, but we just don’t have that luxury here at Alibi music central. With a heap of super concerts on the horizon and materializing every damn week of the year, there’s plenty of substance to be gleaned from a committed involvement in the local rocanrol scene. Life may be hard, but the rock is harder; so tune in to significant sounds while tuning out the cacophony of everyday life—here, there and everywhere in Burque.
Show Up! Friday
REIGHNBEAU
All photos courtesy of artists
On Friday, March 20, listeners can move solidly past the mundane and embrace the slinky-slow possibilities of shoegaze sumptuousness at the REIGHNBEAU album release party at Sister (407 Central NW). Local electro mastermind Bryce Hample dances past the sparse sonic scenery evoked in earlier work with a sizzling stab at full-tilt dream-time explorations of the genre’s underlying darkness; Hample, REIGHNBEAU’s prime mover, captivates with moments of shiny wantonness on latest venture Blood. Evocative, brilliantly experimental and always in touch with his slow-mo demons, Hample’s work has matured tremendously over the past couple years.Joining REIGHNBEAU onstage for this celebration of the heat of rhythm, local composer/guitarist Alexander J. Sugg performs as Glowhouse, providing a vaguely glitchy and always sublime interpretation of reality to the evening’s theoretically endless reflection of shinola-dappled Dr. Martens. BK Beats and The 1960 Sci-Fi Era open. Expect full beards, black eyeglasses and dynamic awesomeness. Tickets are five bucks, and the doors open at 8pm for a timeless journey that begins at 9pm.
Show Up! Saturday
The Rudy Boy Experiment
If your mind is more in tune with traditional interpretations of the rocanrol sound, take a trip out to Madrid, N.M., and stop in on Saturday, March 21, at The Mine Shaft Tavern (2846 NM-14, Madrid) to witness The Rudy Boy Experiment, which features Albuquerque bluesman and 94 Rock regular Rudy Jaramillo. The dude’s power trio, comprised of Jaramillo on guitar, bassist Dave Pankuch and percussionist Ricardo Sanchez, has been zooming through their blues-inflected repertoire of blisteringly evocative tuneage since the early aughts.Jaramillo learned his trade while on patrol in Germany in the ’90s, and he now runs an after-school music program at La Mesa Elementary School. His work reflects a tenderness and affection for what came before, while nodding wakefully to the possibilities inherent in the mastery of all things fretted and amplified. Besides the former home of TJ Trout, Jaramillo has gigged at the Whiskey a Go Go and opened for acts like Buddy Guy and Eric McFadden. Though it’s a 40-minute drive to the middle of the mountains north and east of here, it’s a journey well worth undertaking for music lovers. Jaramillo and company take the stage at 7pm, and admission is free.
Show Up! Monday
Life In Vacuum
Exciting things will be happening on Monday, March 23, at Duke City Sound Stage (2013 Ridgecrest SE) when the newish, all-ages venue presents a concert featuring Canuck post-punk math rockers Life In Vacuum. A septet whose catalog includes intricate output like “Passenger Mr. Funstash” and rollicking rave-up “I Don’t Fit,” Life In Vacuum delves into a spectral, time-shifting genre that is best characterized by adjectives such as formidable and intelligent.Bandwidth No Name, an eclectic seven-piece band from our neck of the woods, also performs during Monday night’s mega-scene. BNN includes emcee Nick Furious, producer Epic Beats, vocalist Mary Stockton, drummer Johnny Ruhulessin, bassist Sean Smock, keyboardist Alex Wilson and guitarist Dave Stewart. Their vibrant mix of funk, reggae and hip-hop is notable for its tremulous attention to beatific rhythm; plus they claim to be from the planet Arrakis, which is a cool if sandworm-infested origin story. On Your Doorstep and Willo also bring the noise. It will run you $10 to get in on this all-ages assemblage of ascendant, melodic aspiration. The doors open at 6:30pm, and the sound starts jumping at 7pm.
Show Up! Tuesday
Weedeater frontman Dave “Dixie” Collins
If, after all that, you still feel like you’re dying—or are otherwise filled with the ennui of life in a town that reminds you of the goings-on in an RV-bound meth lab—check out Launchpad (618 Central SW) on Tuesday, March 24, for a totally rocked-out gig by Weedeater, King Parrot, Hanta and legendary locals Black Maria.Sludgy, doom-obsessed stoner kings Weedeater hail from the not-so-deep south of North Carolina. The group purveys a dank representation of the rock and roll animals hidden inside nearly every head-banging human on Earth. Vocalist and bassist Dave “Dixie” Collins presides over the trio, which is renowned for its destructive capabilities and attention to core values like raging leads and smash-mouthed vocals.Aussie grindcore specialists King Parrot join this doomed expedition to the gates of Hell, while dreadlocked, local deconstruction unit Hanta joins the metallic maelstrom. And if you haven’t heard of Black Maria, you really haven’t been reading or listening as closely as you should, dear Alibi reader. If you need to know, Black Maria rocks the hell out and stars Gordy Andersen, Brian Banks, the Sells brothers and vocalist/frontman Roman Barham. All this plutonic madness can be yours for a wildly affordable $10 ticket. As per custom, the airlocks at Launchpad decompress at 8pm, and this 21-plus show begins at 9pm.
Show Up!
If you wanna know about the exciting things happening in our humble burg—if you really wanna change your mental trajectory—then escape from the mundanity of modern life with a jaunt to one or more of these stellar shows. I might just be there—trying to change my mind—too.
