(meaning: leftover crap from last year)

The B-52's, Beefcake In Chains, the Blue Rose Ramblers, Bonetar, Dead On Point 5, the Devil and His Due, the Dirty Novels, the Drinking Class, Fando, the Foxx (2x), Inner Parlors, Leiahdorus,Lionhead Bunny, Lousy Robot, My Brightest Diamond, New Pornographers, North America, the Old Main, the Platforms, Puddin' Tang, Punk Bunny, Rasputina, the Rondelles, Roñoso, the Rum Fits, Seis Pistos, Sleestaks, the Strawberry Zots, Unit 7 Drain (2x), the X-Khans, Ya Ya Boom Project

7 Seconds, Bad Brains, the Bollweevils, The Casualties, Dillinger Four, Lower Class Brats, Nekromantix, The Queers, Sludgeworth, Stiff Little Fingers, Youth Brigade

Sleestaks, Dead On Point 5, The Drinking Class, The Old Main
@ Burt's Tiki Lounge
5/04/07
See show photos here

Dead On Point 5 won my best of show tonight with ear bustin' musical menace. Unlike your average workingman's rock outfit, my man Dom's originals are intricate and never rely on over-played riffs. Dominic is the consummate showman, delivering the goods on the guitar, with eye popping vocals and full-on fuck modesty stage presence.  With exquisite timing, Tim Nixon drums like no one else in town. He relies on muscle -- not just flailing around - to bash the skins with controlled power. Andrew on bass provides the anchor beneath the stormy seas. And welcome back to the fold (ta-daa!) second guitar Jay augmenting Dom's licks with his own metal squeals. These guys are atop our hard rock heap, bar fucking none. Everyone else is just loud.
Opening was the Old Main with George Harrison-style hollowbody guitar licks, snappy drumming and whumping bass, sounding like a C&W Nirvana. With personnel from the Zoltan Trio, they tag themselves "Americana" but a boogie blues base is much more evident. And less appealing. The Drinking Class tore out some Offspring speed funk with AC/DC and Stooges references, as good as a motley melánge like that can be.  For my money, not very.
This being the Sleestaks CD release show, they played mostly stuff off the new disc, Beer Garden of Eden.  that title says it all:  cheap booze and cheaper beer, loose slots and looser women, all in a thick and bubbling Southern rock/John Lee Hooker stew  heavy on the meat, heavy on the potatoes, little in the way of refined or delicate herbs and spices.  By my oblique request,they pulled out one of their best: an older tune, Cigarettes and Regrets, but riffed it up, almost unrecognizable from its original sad country lament: sitting in a roadside bar watching the butts pile up in the ashtray wondering what the hell went wrong. The surprise of the evening was the cover of Trans Am, a scorching rocker from the mighty, Elephant, long ago one of 'burque's best sludge punk affairs (later turned outstanding pop). A bravura choice by Los 'Staks.
Spring Crabwalk: North America, Lionhead Bunny, Bonetar, Fando,  Roñoso @ Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice 5/11/07 See show photos here The first annual Spring Crabwalk started at 9:03PM sharp.  Billed as a "Band Tagteam Sound Ritual", it's a novel idea:  five bands set up at the edges of the room in a circle (or is it a pentagram?) taking turns with strange and wonderful noise. The audience stands in the center, rotating to follow the progression as one band's set leads to the next.  Earplugs a must, culmination was an all-band hippie love jam.
North America kicked it off, a drum and guitar duo, with pulsating indie ambient melodies plus a Roland f/x box.  Next, Lionhead Bunny played plucky drone-mania on violin and a banjo that at times sounded like a samisen, Asian musical scales and all.
Then Bonetar picked it up with guitar and the biggest damn trombone ever seen.  With the 'bone mostly muted, this duo sounded like a slo-mo sonar beast from 20,000 fathoms. The Fando boys brought out all their toys tonight: trumpet, tape loops, keening guitars and power-mad drums. They played their now melodic, now bonecrushing, now whale-talk compositions. One of the more innovative and challenging outfits around here these days. Roñoso closed the evil circle with ear-splitting, throat-wrenching grindus maximus.  Render unto Seitan what is Seitan's...
There was supposed to be five rounds but because of late start time and long sets, it was cut to about four to make room for the voodoo tribal jam raising a cacophony of gigando proportions, with sounds that only dogs and bats can hear.
Seis Pistos, the Platforms, the Foxx @ Burt’s Beefcake In Chains @ Launchpad 5/18/07   New guitarman Daemon upstroked the Foxx into power-glam territory this night with just-sloppy-enough Thunders riffs. All he’s lacking is some Roy Wood glitter in his formidable beard. Zac’s sound was way outfront tonight so we could really hear what the man’s doing. Not mere dum-dum-dum basslines but fine echoes of the melody. Drummer Ryan was celebrating his release from law school for a few months by being generally upbeat, on and off stage. Come to think of it, when is he not? To my approval, Ms Legend concentrated on the keyboard while hitting the upper registers of her operatic glam-packed voice.
A bunch of girls were wandering around the club in matching dresses and Lesley Gore hairdos. We were all wondering whose band they were go-go dancing for when they lugged equipment on stage. Turns out, these were Austin’s self-titled garage fashionistas, the Platforms. Although not untalented, I didn’t see much except for the fashion angle. Tuff girl rock and roll (as tuff as you can be in matching pink dresses), it wasn’t bad but little new. Following a strikingly original band like the Foxx made them pale in comparison. I hung around a bit for Chihuahua’s Seis Pistos (get it?) but after exactly thirty seconds, it was obvious where the set was heading: standard chugga chugga punk rock.
So, over to the Launchpad’s Tenth Anniversary show in time for the first set I’d seen in years from porn punkers Beefcake In Chains. With seven members, they roared and railed. They ripped and rolled with a guy in Amish regalia who (purposely) looked out of place singing “come /come/ come on your face”. Lyrics like that may inspire some but leave me flat-out cold. After hearing one of my favorite Beefcake originals (Punk Rods) I got sprayed with beer by one of girl singer/ornaments for the third time and decided that was enough. Splashing beer on people is not cool or fun unless you just turned twenty-one or have never been in a bar before. Downtown was humming with this anniversary show as well as the Hyperactive Fest with zillions of in-and-out of town bands playing for free everyplace. I wandered the streets a bit but soon headed home to nurse the hangover that was already starting.
The B-52’s @Sandia Casino Amphitheater  6/25/07 Nothing unexpected (even the new songs would slip unnoticed onto a greatest hits collection) but I’ll be damned if this show wasn’t as much fun a barrel of pocket-size lemurs. They --Fred, Cindy and Kate -- are of course all a bit older and a bit puffier but the B52’s still look as if they’re enjoying it and not just doling it out by rote. In fact they looked healthier than they did just a few years ago at the Route 66 Casino. Too bad they’re only on the gambling circuit these days. Guess they’re not hip enough to draw scenester crowds. Hipsters make fun of the puffy oldster crowd stuffed into colorful new wave clothes but they’ll get their turn. When I get really old, I hope someone will wheel me out so I can see all of you whippersnappers at fifty-five with wrinkled tattoos and saggy piercings as you arthritically rock out to bands you first heard and loved as a kid.
Punk Bunny, Beefcake In Chains, The New Strawberry Zots @ Launchpad 7/25/07 Punk Bunny was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen. Just because an act is obviously meant to be over the top doesn’t make it witty or rife with redeeming value. A trio of histrionic prima donnas with dirty decibel-enhanced boombox aerobics? Lyrics like Lick my dirty balls ? Yawn.
You can find any perversion you like-- animal, vegetable or mineral --on the internet these days so I’m just not getting the point. Not offended over the rank and crass performance, I was just irritated. Come to think of it, I don’t really enjoy Beefcake In Chains’ smut angle but at least they sport punk-rockin’ riffage. Punk Bunny was just plain annoying.
The couple songs I caught by the Zots were as good as any I’d heard before but beating my dead horse, I still don’t get the 70% covers aesthetic. I’ll leave it at that.
Rasputina, My Brightest Diamond, Leiahdorus @ El Rey Theater 7/25/07 The crowd tonight was mostly punked-out goth chic, people whose photo would look the same whether you snapped it in color or black & white. I hadn’t been to the El Rey in years. Things haven’t changed much. They still don’t quite get it. Whatever it is, they don’t get it. Surely they could afford another 25 chairs to fill up all the standing room in the rear of the room. I mean, what do they do at all those Mexicano wedding receptions they host? Surely, abuelita’s got to sit down even if all the kids wanna party. Not knowing the audience (or is that not caring? ) the El management was spinning country on the PA prior to the show. And not good old country either. Talk about ruining the mood. The room full of guys and gals that both look like Marilyn Manson were not amused but sad and perplexed. Locals Leiahdorus looked awfully alone way up there on stage and none of their usual fan base on the dance floor. They gave it their best but no one was moved to move. My Brightest Diamond was a solo gal akin to Tori Amos playing French pop covers from 1935 in a John Fahey guitar style. That about sums it up. Still, there was nothing wrong with it that couldn’t be cured by a crunchy alt.rock band backing her. I’ve never really thought as Rasputina as Goth with a capital G but there’s a shared aesthetic. Featuring creative cello playing, they’re one of the most unique bands to arrive in the last decade and a half. Cellos deliver a low-key punch, deep and ages old. No one has done it quite like Rasputina since no one’s even attempted to emulate them. A good move because they’re unmatched. Catgut was flying from the dual corseted cellists, both leader Melora Creager and second chair, the appropriately named Sarah Bowman who is the latest to take this revolving seat. Drummer Jonathon Tebeest knows when to hold back and when to bring it forward whether a regular trap set or the occasional kettle drum or a triangle, used just once but used perfectly, well worth carrying it around for. When he arches his arms to hit another beat, the Grateful Dead tattoo on his stomach is visible. Another closet Deadhead or a badge of misspent youth? Who’s to say.   Rasputina played selections from most of their releases and, as always, spot-on covers like Heart’s Barracuda or Pink  Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, sweet forbidden guilty treats lacking so much as a hint of tongue in cheek. Their darkling originals kept the pale corpse kids up front in subdued throes of rapture. They have a sincere devotion to all things bleak and strange, with no put-on or window dressing (except for the  Victorian undergarments which cover lots more skin than  your  average teenie girl shows off these days). The younger goths in the crowd -- boy or girl--all wanna grow up to be like Melora. But the noisy drunken asswipe kids who were right up front just need to just grow up period. Rasputina’s singleness of purpose overcame that momentary blip, just as they overcome all rock band contrivances.
The Foxx, Puddin’ Tang, the Rondelles, the Dirty Novels  @ Launchpad 8/3/07 See show photos here The Dirty Novels opened, playing the crowd as they always have, stirring things up on the dance floor with dirty beats. Not that things needed stirring tonight since it was the long-awaited but undreamed of Rondelles reunion. I was disappointed that no rabid fans flew in from, like, Japan. At least our old pal Betty Co-ed made the trip from California so that counts for something, even though she admitted she hadn’t much seen them in their heyday. Neither had many in attendance. It was a short but wondrous set with Ms Legend looking like she hadn’t had so damn much fun in years. Speaking of Juliette’s looks, even one of her current band-mates didn’t recognize her in wig and shades but most of us saw through the charade before she hopped on stage. Oakley looked far from his current supersoul/rockboy guise, what, with his ‘fro tamed while sporting a simple button down shirt and jeans, as was his wont in the ancient Rondelle past. Pauli Novels ably stepped in on bass, subbing for the missing Yukiko. I expected him to dress the part in a little girlie pop outfit but sadly, it wasn’t to be.    From the rollicking opener Boy I Know through the cotton candy & exhaust fumed Drag Strip to the beseeching Rediscover Fire, the Rondelles’ set was frantic fun, enough to make me hope in vain for a new release. Despite a breathless set, I’m not holding my breath on that wish.
A wardrobe change later, Oak was back on stage with Puddin’ Tang serving up some bluesy twang funkin’ hooter- roll, decked out  in hip cocktail attire. His harp playing channeled the spirit if not expertise of the incomparable bluesman Sonny Terry, complete with hoots and grunts. A great set, it jumped, it bumped, it wined and dined. Rondelles aside, this one’s my fave Oakley band yet. Ask me again and I’ll tell you the same! Useless nostalgia note: with myriad spellings, the old saw “What's your name? Pudden tame, ask me again and I'll tell you the same” dates back to at least the early 1900s. Me, I first heard it as a wee lad watching the Little Rascals in School’s Out (1930). Fun stuff, racial epithets and all.
The Foxx closed the show with another glam-packed powerpop set, with much emphasis on the power. Loretta’s Lynn’s You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man) was a treat. All the guitars, including bass, were dueling up a storm. I was all hopped up and dancing like Alfalfa with a barber’s electric clippers down his pants (sorry! another obscure Little Rascals reference).
The Blue Rose Ramblers @ Old Town Gazebo 8/8/07 Bud Melvin (banjo) and Jessica Billey (fiddle)--going for the Guinness book of World Records “Most Band Memberships”  -- join with Mike Grimes (bass) in the Blue Rose Ramblers, a good match for the sedate Old Town Gazebo crowd who prefer their musical evenings less rambunctious than Bud and Jess’ many noise/art ensembles.   The Ramblers are a little 50’s Tennessee waltz, a little 1920’s vo-dee-oh-doh and a lot of country swing. The swing is more docile than the usual uptempo fancypants cowboy stuff,  making Billey’s fine sawyer work sing out, full of grace rather than empty hot licks. Soon after this gig, she shipped out to resume longtime duty as the Mekons’ touring violinist. Bud’s banjo playing isn’t breakneck breakdowns but akin to the comfortable dignity of five-stringer Happy Traum. Mr Grimes completes the picture and happily had his biggest fan in attendance, a little mite not over three years old, entranced by seeing his daddy onstage for the very first time. The Blue Rose Ramblers aren’t hip alt.country but the music your great-grandpappy might have listened to over the radio when the living room Philco set was the size of a Marshall stack. By Fred Rose (who penned many a Hank Williams tune), we had Roly Poly (“Daddy’s little fatty”). There was Webb (Louisiana Hayride) Pierce’s There Stands the Glass as well as Whispering, one interpreted by everyone from ol’ Satchmo to Little Miss Dynamite herself,  darlin’ Brenda Lee. Old Sugar Moon was penned by Bob Wills but also recorded by Bobby (Jingle Bell Rock) Helms.
The hits of yore never stopped, like the long running show Your Hit Parade (twenty four years on radio and TV). All that was missing was Snooky Lanson. If all these opaque vintage references don’t quite add up, that’s ok since that was the feeling you got here, sitting outside on old folding chairs of a comfortable August night. It was dang familiar but not quite in reach, a collective memory dimming into the darkness. Thank god for outfits like the Ramblers to keep songs like these alive, not only in record collectors’ dusty shelves.
New Pornographers  @ Sunshine Theater 9/22/07 The hooks aren’t as big as they used to be but that’s like saying erosion has shortened Mount Everest in the past few thousand years. Led by Carl “A.C.” Newman, the New Pornographers pack more stick-in-your-head moments per song than other bands’ entire CDs. The sparser (not cheaper) production of their latest release Challengers made many wonder how low-key the current tour would be. We needn’t have worried. It was superb, sublime and every other superlative "s" word I can find in my thesauri. Albuquerque lucked out big time in that the entire “classic” line-up of New Porn showed up on this leg of the tour. With at least eight members, its hard to say which can join any given road trip since all have their own side-projects, most notably eclectic FM radio darling Neko Case whose solo schedule most often conflicts with those of her bandmates. She showed up with bells on in spite of her “replacement” being present, new vocalist Kathryn Calder. Second song-writer/male vocals Dan Bejar kept out of sight, drinking backstage until his numbers came up. A neat trick that, raising my joy when he emerged beer in hand to hit and run the stage like the Shadow. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men: Danny knows. Bejar’s thin and spidery vocals contrast with Newman’s more accessible voice. Calder is similarly distinct from Case but showcases the Pornographers’ brilliance in presenting material that is astoundingly cohesive even with four singers. Most surprising, they played more tunes from previous releases than from Challengers, not expected at all. Upbeat, uptempo, uplifting and uproarious. Pure pop heaven! I must confess that I thoroughly and completely ignored the two opening acts in favor of drunk talking with Lousy Robot frontman Jim Phillips, Newman Fan #1. Jimmy may well have been the only person in the room happier than I.
Inner Parlors, the X-Khans, the Devil & His Due @ Ralli’s 11/15/07 See show photos here I’ve heard Ralli’s horror stories about band money (or lack of) and slipping in the puddles of testosterone left on the floor at the end of the night but without such experience, I’ll pass on any such judgment. Another venue is always for the good. If not for the, uh, scenester bands then to keep the frat-boy edge-type bands away from “our” clubs. Is it pigheaded and arrogant of me to say such a thing? Uh, yeah, sure. And your point is..?
First: the debut of The Devil and His Due who later changed to the Dapper Bandits, due to the presence of another Devil’s Due here in town and that’s the third time I’ve used the word “due” in this sentence (oops! fourth!) so I’ll end it now. The Dapper/Devil is a three piece plus deep fem vocals. With no leads to speak of and grinding bass, it’s sort of plodding poetic rock with lyrics wedged in any which way they’ll fit into the melody, sometimes at oblique angles, sort of like trying to teach an oldster The New Math. I wasn’t impressed but tried to keep in mind it was their first gig.
The potent Peninah Wolpo has been threatening to take her solo (non-Roxieharts) stuff out in public for quite awhile. Privy to Ms. W.’s sweet songster side via cassette tape, we were fully expecting her “hippie crap” as she calls it. We got more than we bargained for. The X-Khans debut rocked the fuck out. Plugged in, cranked up, coked out. The tunes were full throttle versions of Penny’s acoustic strummers and  “covers” of her Roxieharts songs, all winning great acclaim from me. More please.   Well, that last is untrue as far as I can tell but it’s good for the pentameter. Penny’s solid songwriting and strong voice is at least half to blame but the band’s secret weapon is Scott Crago who played some of the smoothest n’ sweet leads I’ve heard in some time from a “new” guitar player around here. Obviously, the man’s not really new at this, but where’s he been hiding?  Not in any band I’ve heard.
The grand climax was the romp n’ roll Inner Parlors. During tune-up/mike check, guitar hero Jeffrey Richards let loose with Thirty-Nine Lashes from 1970’s Jesus Christ Superstar. More properly a riff than an actual song, its repeated over and over while a Roman counts out the whip cracking over Christ’s back, lowdown and badass. No, I’m not Jesus-bashing but its one tough riff. Jeffrey didn’t have time to go through all thirty-nine repetitions but let us pray for the full version one of these days. Lashes or not, the Parlors killed. Frontman Benjamin Harrison-- or is that Ben Jammin’ Harrison?-- put his smoothest garage-Elvis moves on us with success. Drummer Heath “Moon” Dauberman slammed the skins like he was the very Roman Centurion lashing the lord and savior. It was easy to envision the normally gentle Heath as Alex in Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange as he fantasizes: I read all about the scourging … and I could viddy myself helping in and even taking     charge…being dressed in the heighth of Roman fashion.
Bassman Chris Kitchen is a tall drink of contradiction: unobtrusive yet delivering good and insistent basslines. Laying out some ripping Zep jam shit with shades of Grand Funk and a taste of twang, Richards and Harrison were   musically sparring like the Dueling Banjos hunter and inbred hick in that Deliverance movie (I ain’t saying which was which). This may have been my favorite set of theirs yet. Any rocker bar worth the name ought to be proud to host the Inner Parlors. I was proud to see them.
Unit 7 Drain, Ya Ya Boom Project @ Burt’s Rumfits, Unit 7 Drain, Lousy Robot @ Launchpad 11/24/07 Not a fan of big multi-band extravaganzas,  Socyermom Records’ annual Turkey Purge nevertheless got me out the door early to the Launchpad to witness the second sitting of Lousy Robot’s new drummer. He was all lead robot Jimbo Phillips claimed and it was all high praise indeed. Miguel Velasquez is perfect for the spot, fitting into the band like a well-oiled piston with exactly-machined tolerances. Often thought to be interchangeable by indifferent audiences, a drummer can make or break a band by inconsistent tempos, inflicting the band’s heart with a life threatening arrhythmia. If the rhythm’s off, so is everyone else. Keeping that heartbeat in place while adding spark with able rolls, fills and paradiddles is no easy feat. Miguel made it look that way. Because of that, Lousy Robot is still as comfortable as your favorite pair of well-worn slippers. Warm, fuzzy and nicely ragged about the edges. Jack Moffit is part robot himself, efficiently adding flourishes atop his keyboarding (kinda like waterboarding but not as mean).Bassman Dandee Fleming’s fine work is both solid and flexible and never fades into the background like a bad bassist can and must. Pop master Jim Phillips leads the group with the genius of  Brain Wilson on either half or twice his dose of meds, depending on the song. Bravo! Unit 7 Drain was on next with sweeping and grandiose song structure, much like movements in classical music but in the indie post-punk mode. Damn, they’re good. I enjoyed the Rumfits more than I did the last (first) time I saw them. With a drunk punk yaarrgghh! and tighter overall presentation, its still not my style but taps my toes when I’m standing in front of ‘em. For reasons I can’t recall, we ended up at Burt’s. Who was onstage?  The incomparable Unit 7 Drain. Yikes! I felt like a Deadhead, following the band around on tour but in the comfort of my own town rather than spending endless nights on blacktop in a sputtering schoolbus drenched in patchouli and skunkweed stink. Finally the Ya Ya Boom Project ended the night (and my paltry year of shows). Firecracker indie rock with occasional two-tone beats & funk and/or jazz timing. Vocals belted out like Kate Smith with a tall scotch in her hand. Slaphappy bass and rumbling drums. It had the feel of a mambo-themed cocktail party out of control. In the best way possible.

@ Congress Theatre, Chicago, IL
November 17-18, 2007