Thursday, Dec. 22, 10 p.m.; Martini Grille (21-and-over), $5: As I entered Miles Maeda’s website (milesmaeda.com) my computer’s mouse immediately went into spinning-colorful-disk mode, which indicates that my computer needs a breather before it can allow me to click out of, into or do pretty much anything. This has happened many-a-time, especially when visiting band websites, and it usually results in my looking around pensively to see how annoyed my fellow Alibi pals have become from the blisteringly loud and obnoxious music that has taken over my computer and caused it to fall into paralysis. This time, however, my computer’s ineptitude was not worrisome at all because the music flowing forth was up-tempo without being obtrusive. Maeda’s opening web-track “So Hot” is a song that you can sip your drink to without getting a splitting headache from an inundation of noise pollution. Maeda, who is believed by many to be the major source behind Chicago’s mushroom-jazz scene, has created electronica for the reasonably laid back. Although his songs are pretty different from one another, Maeda tends to find a groove and stick with it; pulling from genres as diverse as acid jazz, house, funk and R&B. Albuquerque’s over-21 crowd can see the Hawaii native along with local act DJ Eldon at the Martini Grille. Fans of hip but unpretentious DJs should take note.
