“Well, life is short and the world is rough/ And if you’re gonna boogie, boy, you got to be tough/ Nobody knows if I’m dead or alive/ I just drink myself to sleep each night/ And so I pray to the teenage god of rock/ If I make it big let me stay on top/ You got to cut me loose from this one-room dive/ Put me on the ladder keep this boy alive…”—“I’m Going to Be a Teenage Idol,” lyrics by Bernie Taupin.Everyone wants to be a rock star. The adulation, the glory, the people and feria gathering themselves up around you like heaps of pure authentic goodness … what’s there not to want? But as Elton John’s lyricist plaintively notes, an exchange is involved. Suffering might get one a few miles along the path to rocanrol stardom, but in the end it’s a combination of fans and luck that probably, faithfully, make the jump possible.Alibi readers can play a part in the aforementioned scenario. Sure, why not; music is mostly ephemeral but what comes out still belongs to listeners. When you go to your favorite venue and support local artists as well as legendary performers, you become an essential part of the equation whose solution is rocanrol redemption. For realz, go out this weekend and hear what I am merely talking about.
Show Up!: Friday
Bébé La La
courtesy of the artist
This town is full of sometimes obscure but nonetheless accessible venues. Though some may lie without the lofty, rock-club-strewn realm of downtown Burque, the shows they present are just as wondrous. Such is the case with The Kosmos, a joint that’s been an art gallery, a collection of art studios as well as rent-by-the-month rehearsal space for many of our town’s bravest bands. The latest incarnation of the place is as an eatery and performance venue, and on Friday, March 30, The Kosmos (1715 Fifth Street NW) presents a performance by Bébé La La, a fresh folk duo whose music is infused with influences that span the North American continent. This group features singer-songwriter, guitarist and violist Alicia Ultan in musical conversation with vocalist and accordionist Maryse Lapierre. Ultan is from these parts; Lapierre is Canuck. The results of their collaborative interactions have been called “joyful and friendly,” and, “filled with luscious vocal harmonies.” Bébé La La should definitely be on listener’s to hear list and the Kosmos is the perfect place for an artful introduction. 7pm • FREE • All-ages
Show Up!: Friday Part 2
courtesy of the artist
A Hawk and A Hacksaw celebrate the release of their new epic LP, Forest Bathing, on Friday, March 30, at the Old San Ysidro Church (3 Schoolhouse Road, Corrales, N.M.). Weekly Alibi briefly reviewed that work a few weeks ago and use this opportunity to urge readers to sit down and have a listen to this duo. Authentically intense by being actively pinned to the existential terror inherent in joyous musical escapades, this duo of local musicians (Heather Trost and Jeremy Barnes) employ musical techniques gleaned from a world of sound experienced through the dual lenses of both love and lamentation. In their new work, Eastern European aesthetics, allatonceness and microtonal summations are used to demonstrate communion with nature, and that rocks. Serio. Genial folk genius AJ Woods opens. 7:30pm • $10 to $11 • All-ages.
Show Up!: Saturday
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I saw Frank Zappa in concert three times. Once at Johnson Gym at UNM where he recorded part of a crazy, Albuquerque-referencing album called The Man From Utopia, and twice at the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater in Santa Fe. Although I will personally admit that it’s sometimes difficult to really dig Zappa’s tuneage, seeing him and his band perform the material live led me to the conclusion that he is one of the greatest American composers and bandleaders of the modern and post-modern eras. En serio, parts of all those shows are burned into my memory forever. But when Zappa died young, from cancer in the mid ’90s, many of his fans, followers and even detractors wondered how his work would survive. It turns out that his family, fractious and fighting some of the time over the master’s legacy, has had a great deal to do with preserving and performing his seminal work. Son Dweezil Zappa brings his old man back to life and demonstrates his own profound prowess on the electric guitar on Saturday, March 31, at the KiMo Theater (421 Central Ave. NW) for a concert whose theme is “Fifty Years of Frank.” Setlists so far this year have included essential works such as “Help, I’m a Rock,” “Inca Roads,” “Watermelon in Easter Hay” and “The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing.” Wow I could go on and on, but instead will urge you to take in this event, not so much as homage, but to learn how much rock music can be taken apart and reassembled before it deliciously scrambles the brain forever. 8pm • $31 to $77 • All-ages
Show Up!: Tuesday
courtesy of the artist
Tyrone William Griffin, Jr. is a rapper known as Ty Dolla $ign. His father worked with old school funkmasters Lakeside in El Lay, and so Tyrone became hip to music and the music industry at a relatively young age. After some gang involvement with the Bloods, as well as sessions hanging out with the Purple One, Ty put out a mixtape called Raw & Bangin’ Vol. 2. Then Atlantic Records came calling. The rest is history folks, from Beach House to “Paranoid” and later on, through huge-ass hits like Free TC and Beach House 3. Ty Dolla $ign is gigging at Sunshine Theater (120 Central Ave. SW) on Tuesday, April 3, in a must-see show. To me the most fascinating thing about Ty is not so much his style (a combination of West Coast, post-Tupac gangsta and ’70s style R&B, a la “Fantastic Journey”) but the fact that he is one of the most talented multi-instrumentalists on the scene today. Dude can rock the guitar, coax intense beauty from unwieldy pianos and sing like a silken wine with hot-saucy undertones when it all comes down. Go see this show, for sure. 7pm • $27.50 • All-ages.
