|
Issue # 44 Dec 2002 thewigwambam.com |
|||||||
|
||||||||
| Ignoring Objectivity Since 1998
WIG WAM BAM “Albuquerque zine of music & nepotism” |
||||||||
|
||||||||
| Black Elf Speaks, Alchemical Burn, Abandon
All Hope, 60-Foot Queenie, Jen Sincero, Melt-Banana, Bulletrainmafia, the
Applicators, 12 Step Rebels, the Epoxies, Throwrag |
||||||||
by Marvel Girl |
||||||||
|
||||||||
| LOCAL
SHOWS |
||||||||
| Black Elf Speaks, Alchemical Burn, Abandon All Hope 10/28/02 @ Field & Frame 107 Tulane SE When I was growing up, we had a word for bands that played ambitious psychedelic-jam tribal rock-operas dressed in elf-y costumes pounding on drums. We called them “hippies” (ditto for the fire-jugglers in the back alley). They looked & sounded like the Flintstones on methadone and metamphetamine. Considering that psychedelic drugs could be a factor in this kind of stuff, they might be better be referred to as Black Elf Peaks. An A for effort, I guess, but totally left me cold. Alchemical Burn too was a good idea--one guy, a turntable and some city-of-industry effects--although not much fun to stand around and watch but better appreciated as background in a dark room full of people on plush couches with coolers of icy beer. The slammin’ melodicore of Abandon All Hope was my favorite of the night (any band with Eben on drums has gotta be good) as well as being at a show somewhere besides the same old. F& F is a good room that I hope sees more gigs soon. 60-Foot Queenie & Jen Sincero reading 10/28/02 Launchpad After bailing on Black Elf, I zipped over to check out Jen Sincero’s reading/show. Although I never much cared for the Jenny Clinkscales Band, I was curious about this ex-Alburquerquena’s rocknroll novel--Don’t Sleep With Your Drummer (MTV Books) -- from what I’d heard based heavily on real people & places, our own Dirt City and its denizens among them. And though I never knew Sincero or her crowd, it was obvious who in the crowd did by the elbow jabbing and backslapping when they recognized themselves or someone else in her words. So I dutifully bought and read it. It’s a fun quick read but relentless in its barrage of wit-filled observations. There’s a wiseass punchline in or at the end of nearly every sentence which gives you little room to breathe. The goofy lyrics of many Clinkscales tunes is why never got into the band; I hate novelty-type songs. The novel is worth reading if you’re at all interested in the music biz and its players (many of which are sort-of parody proof, being parodies to begin with but let it pass). 60 Foot Queenie is heroine Jenny Troanni’s new-girl-in-town-makes-good band in the novel but in an inspired move, also the pick-up band assembled for this very show including GoMotorCar’s Lenny D’wayne and a couple other folks I’ve never seen before. They were somewhat tongue-in-cheek but rocked, funked and grooved, a great treat and surprise. The scariest thing was seeing how suave Len actually looks in polyester leisurewear. I hear he’s got a closetful… Melt-Banana, Bulletrainmafia 10/29/02 @ Launchpad The worst part of this night had nothing to do with the music but the photo-taking duo (especially the camerawoman) who seemed to think that jostling and pushing their way past everyone to block their view and set up shop front & center is excusable and, even worse, that a lone tossed-off superior over-the-shoulder “sorry” is adequate.Photography is your art? Fine. You’re press? Go for it. But courtesy and discretion go a long way and you had absolute zero of either. Pull your head out of your smug ass. … Not having heard Bulletrainmafia for months, this set was impressive: tough & tight, less metal, true hardcore and kick-fucking-ass. Shades of Word Salad, Jacobins and the finest of Albuquerque Shitcore! The stage was set for the absolute finest in the j-core noise genre. Melt-Banana is far & away above any comparable band: incredibly inspiring, twelve tons of gojira-rock! Their lesson is whatever you do--even merely scrambling an egg--do it right and don’t fuck around. Singer Yasuko O pulls barely-contained extra-exuberant vocals from somewhere--who knows where--but channeled from someplace deep that’s hardly possible from her small frame. Bass player mm’ Rika is utterly brilliant, from her solid self-dueling melodic/anti-melodic basslines to the inspired slide(!) breaks. With an elaborate array of pedals, Agata’s guitarwork is complex, reaching out in all directions at once but somehow cohesive and his “mixer-on-a-stick” breaks were ultra cool. Best of all, they look like average people, even crusties love ‘em and they demonstrate that Japanese pop culture is more (much more) multi-faceted than Hello, Kitty treacle or manga porn. the Applicators, 12-Step Rebels 11/4/02 @ Launchpad The 12-Step Rebels slam-opened this all-ages gig and are coming right along but I think they could use a fourth, a guitar to fill out the sparse sound. I’m hoping for great things from them… I didn’t come out or even stay for the two headliners (Nekromantix, One-Man Army--never heard ‘em and didn’t care to) but for the second act, Austin’s the Applicators. These gals have incredibly great taste in covers; in fact, it’s a bit unfortunate that some (but not all, I hasten to add) of their best songs are covers: Sleater-Kinney’s Good Things, the Dead Milkmen’s Violence School, and tonight’s I Want In, by the legendary Avengers. I like this old-school punk band well enough as it is but anyone who covers Penelope Houston is a friend of mine. My sole disappointment was to find only a new 7” to complement last year’s What’s Your Excuse release. I was hoping for another full-length. The best thing about their old-school-ness is that they’re not bonehead mohawk or pandering girly pop--unlike many other female bands who at times overcompensate for the public’s prevailing oh, they’re-just-a-girl-band attitude with excessive skin or belching-into-the-mike or singing about their twats the way boy punks rhapsodize about their dicks. The Applicators are just four women rockin’ -- half-pop, half-tough and the third half (huh?) the spirit of plain ol’ DIY punk n’roll . Extra punk-points for guitar-player Erica gigging on a broken ankle and with a busted wrist. Now that’s tough. the Epoxies, Throwrag 11/7/02 @ Wildhare’s, 4025 North Mesa, El Paso TX Whenever I pull into a town not my own for a show, I locate the club by day so I don’t cause multiple-car pile-ups doing 8mph on the strip trying to find some hole-in-the-wall after dark. West El Paso, 4 PM: Just found Wildhare’s; cool. Now to catch a room somewhere nearby so I can stumble over to the gig later. Who, then, do I spot strolling past the stripmalls and auto-paint shops but Roxy Epoxy (you couldn’t miss Roxy in broad daylight anywhere). Of course I had to pull over and accost her, saying that I made sure my work-trip in nearby Las Cruces coincided with the show. I’d been on the road a couple of days and was worn out but felt much happier after that. Nothing like seeing a weirdo on the street in a new town to make you feel right at home! West El Paso’s kind of a strange place. Its built in the hills much like Albuquerque’s far northeast Heights but unlike that plastic yup-zone, this place is past its high-dollar prime. Old and seedy neighborhoods have a wonderful charm that I love but not if built post-50s. Trashy burned-out diners are cool; not so trashy burned-out Popeye’s Chicken franchises. Hence, the motel I found looked old-school-cool from the outside but the room was not. This was one of those places that use too much room deodorizer… makes you wonder what they’re trying to cover up. A quick look around the room revealed no dead bodies, syringes or shit piles so I figured I was safe. Almost. The lock on my door was as secure as the one on your hallway closet and most of the tenants roomed here by the week. The saving grace was a great Mexican food restaurant up front and as-yet un-renovated lounge complete with neon cocktail glass. A big bowl of caldo de res, a side of tacos barbacoas and a biopic of the Temptations on VH1 soon lulled me into a false security. Soon after, I got to Wildhare’s in time (?) to catch Throwrag who I saw at the Vegas Shakedown last year. I didn’t like them then either: a modicum of rockn’roll under a drunken bonehead white trash ethic that --believe me--was not ironic. The saddest news of the night was that the only other “punk” club in town, the venerable Cantina La Tuya shut down this past summer. Run by the same people, I was told by the door guy that La Tuya just wasn’t cutting it, moneywise. Que triste! Besides being much larger, it had more going for it like ...um…well, like more space and… I don’t know, I just liked it better. More room to move around or slink back in the shadows if ya feel like it. After Throwrag was done, I was embarrassed to not recognize the guy who came up and said ‘hi’ like we hadn’t seen each other forever. Actually we hadn’t; I tried to play it cool but eventually had to ask him (drat! There goes my indie cred! Again!). He was one of the Crash Kills Four guys and lately moved to ‘Paso via L.A. from ‘burque (Jon, Jason, Jerome, Jake? Fuck, all those guys had J-names, I couldn’t [and still] don’t remember which is his).He elected to talk to me anyway, telling about the CD he’s working on, playing what and with whoever he feels like in the Tornillo studio. Somehow Fiona Apple ended up in this story as we discussed genre-fans versus music-fans. When the Epoxies were sufficiently duct-taped, goggle-eyed and ready to play, I excused myself to get right up front for the set (unlike the Throwrag set where everyone kept faraway from the stage area to avoid pieces of chairs and fat sweaty drunk singers). I liked them immediately at their NM set in September but became a bigger fan after buying the record and really hearing the lyrics and wonderful hooks that get buried during a live show. It was a great energetic set that blew Throwrag away with sincerity instead of forced theatrics; this especially considering that FM Static (synth, vox) told me that most of them were coming down sick but still had about six weeks to go on tour. Although you may not know it to look at ‘em, they’re serious about what they do. I didn’t see a beer downed between them all (unless they’re closet alkies who hide bottles in the gear but I doubt it). Most bizarre of all was that I was back in my fleabag room by 12:45 even after hanging around the club for a half-hour. I’m not used to getting home from a show before two. I watched some crap on cable roulette until I crashed, only to be awakened by the motel-regulars going to work at six AM. Hiding under the covers until check-out time, I had a pile of machaca for breakfast and hit the road back to the ‘burque, already looking forward to their return show next month at the Launchpad that Static hipped me to. |
||||||||
| LOCAL
CONTRIBUTOR |
||||||||
| Rain Vivian, Ben America 10/31/02 @ Oasis Cafe, Espanola by Marvel Girl I got there too late to see Ben America, but he must have played an amazing set the way the members of Rain Vivian were kissing his ass the rest of the night. Rain Vivian= Bush on Valium with a little bit of Lords of the New Church thrown in (but completely by accident mind you, they couldn't possibly be that interesting) and for some reason they kept reminding me of Crazy Town. The genderless singer threaded its vocals through an effects pedal to lend a significantly lower or higher range and an electronic twinge. The synth player did alright. I almost wanted to recruit her for an all-girl synth pop band. I guess you might say overall they have an industrial sound.(but does a 16 year old guitar player really need to take off his shirt to cool off when he's only playing one stroke every twenty minutes?). On a lighter note...I was later informed that this was their first show & ended up being quite impressed by their skill. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
COAS My Bookstore 317 N. Main Las Cruces NM 88001 (505) 524-8471 www.coasbooks.com If you know how to read, you’ll find something you gotta have here. Housed in a sprawling set of about a zillion rooms and storefronts, COAS My Bookstore (don’t ask me, I don’t get the name either) is the anchor of a mostly empty economically downtrodden walking mall/strip in downtown Las Cruces. I had no idea they had a few used CDs (about all of interest I found was alt.rock stuff I already have: Mazzy Star, Letters To Cleo and the like) but the selection of used books is awe-inspiring especially if you’re a New Mexico history geek like me. Page One here in Albuquerque is the only place that may have more southwestern anthro/archaeo books. I stopped into COAS on the way down to El Paso but again on the way back north because I was having pangs of regret for the books I didn’t buy the first time. Dee Dee Ramone’s pitiful biography and a tome about early rockn’roll deejays were my two music-related scores. As a bonus, I instantly spotted people behind the counter who could tell me just where the Dirt record store was (hi Cat, hi Zac!). However, I got lost on my first try so asked another gal on my second day book-buying spree. It’s a thin line as to whether I was using the needing-directions excuse to buy books or the book-buying excuse to get directions. But as you’ll see in the Dirt notice below, all turned out just fine. Damaged Goods Records 3122 Central SE in the rear of Snob Hill Body Jewelry Ignoring the annoying teenage jerk-off fantasy signage of Snob Hill, I went straight to the back to scope out Astro-Zombie Mike’s record-shop-within-a-shop. Open only for a couple of weeks, so far the selection of CD & vinyl is hardcore, crust, oi, grind, emo and whatever else fits under the punk label; in other words, the kind of stuff that gets reviewed in either Maximum Rocknroll or Punk Planet. Since I read Hit List, there was little to interest me (except for a Dead Boys double LP). Still, as with 21st Century Collectibles (which is way off my radar up there in the Heights), its good there’s a place that deals in stuff that few places here carry anymore. I sorta felt the same way about now-defunct Bow Wow Records but took comfort it was there all the same. Whether I like the selection or not is immaterial; selection is the key word. Just as venues for live music diminish from show rooms to “concerts” (casinos and the ill-conceived Journal Pavilion), it would be a shame if music shops diminished to (gag) Best Buy and Borders. The way I figure it, every dollar you give to Mike--or Garth or Rocky-- is a vote against Sam Goody, that bastard. the Dirt Records 1900 South Espina #5 Las Cruces NM (505) 523-0130 Its about time that a real record shop moved into Cruces because otherwise, crapola places like Hastings are about the only choice. Just as I walked in a college chickadee asked owner Adam’ “Do you have the Shins CD?” which was interesting because nowadays, that’s actually a legitimate question that one could ask at Hastings. I was hoping for a little more trash n’ roll but the Stooges were well-represented; in fact, the bases of each alt.genre are well- represented: punk (whatever that means), metal & black metal, indie and rockabilly, all mostly on CD but some 12 & 7” vinyl too, a few oddball cassettes and the usual scruffy selection of ‘ironic’ old lounge and Vegas-style vocalist LPs. The cut-out CDs are the normal motley collection (there’s just about enough copies of the Jingle All the Way soundtrack to include one with each purchase). A small and odd selection of music/pop culture books includes the art of a couple of Franks (Kozik and Sinatra) and a few copies of one on Sarah McLachlan (?). But I’ll still never understand the connection between punk shops and incense. There is some connection, however, between the Dirt and the Cruces punk zine Dirt Culture but what exactly wasn’t apparent to me. But since I’ve yet to see any Cruces scene coverage in that zine, its held little interest for me. In all, Dirt’s off to a good start and I’m betting the selection will continue to improve as time goes by (the place is only a few months old). Adam gets extra points for hosting in-store shows (usually every Friday) which is much-needed in a college town that’s never been noted for its music scene. If you get anywhere near Las Cruces, stop in at the Dirt and leave a few dollars behind, ok? Free Radicals Lead SE If you’ve had the misfortune to meet me, you may understand why I say that the subtleties of a clothing shop are completely lost on me. However, Free Radicals owners John & Nan were kind enough to e-mail me when I left some garbage (this zine) stuffed in their front door when they weren’t lookin’. Free Radicals caught my eye when they moved into the space formerly inhabited by Scotty’s Guitar Shop (“ there’s a hole in Daddy’s Arm/where all the money goes” --John Prine) and trash-culture Wavy Brain (now up in scenester heaven i.e. the northwest). The laundromat on the corner is the only business that’s really lasted on that strip (about twenty if memory serves me). The Spanish Genealogical Society went maybe a year before pulling out, ditto the CPR Center. The Casa de Pinata has made it-- what?-- a year or two so far (that a freakin’ pinata store could survive this far out of the South Valley is a success story onto itself Viva! ) Even that vintage furniture store looks like they’re doing good. Too, the Circle H quickie-mart across the street, run by a Turk family, rocks for no other reason than the quality fresh olives and feta cheese available on the cheap from their deli case. So it appears there’s a resurgence of resiliency in the strip. Too bad the ghetto-izing craphole Family Dollar store got that cool corner space just down the block Here’s hoping an indie biz like Free Radicals can keep it up there too. Oh yeah, the merch..! Free Radicals has faux leopard skin, black vinyl (no, you collector scum--clothes, not records) and all kinds of stuff that many of you gals would look cute wearing ( I don’t give a fuck what you dudes wear so I couldn’t tell ya what’s in it for you). My final word here is that anyone who’d give their hip-clothing money to the godamned Hot Topic instead of someplace like Free Radicals ought to be shot. Stella Blue corner of Central & Dartmouth SE My biggest fear is that, since Stella Blue is featuring live music for the grand opening, there’s a slight chance that eventually a band of interest will play there. While not probable (its more likely they’d host a Phish tribute or a Rat Dog cover band), it could happen… Whether the food is good or not (and all reports indicate it is), I’m embarrassed just to walk past a cafe named after a Grateful Dead song. Christ, what’s next? The Blitzkrieg Bop Sandwich Shop or an espresso joint called Radio Birdman’s? We Buy Music 2622 Central SE Although this used-music shop (plus vids, DVDs and a crackpot selection of oddball books) isn’t new, its moved back from its short-lived indie-forsaken Heights location to a new Nob Hill spot next to greasepit Denny’s. Except for an occasional Makers LP or eX-Girl CD (which I already bought as well as two Factory Records label Joy Division cassettes released in Italy[?!]), don’t expect much used hipster music here. But trust me, you’ll have no problem finding something classic you want deep in the vinyl stacks which is the shop’s real strength no matter whether you’re looking for Sinatra, Cline, Ellington, Costello or (gag) Nugent. Pretty much a one-man show, its certain the guy has stacks of price-guides behind the counter; you can tell just from the bizarre range of prices. What makes one Sidney Bouchet record worth two dollars more than another or how else would a shopkeeper know which records to place in the $30-40 bin? Still, most prices are fair with a few bargains to boot. Its well worth digging around in here some afternoon if you’re not looking for the latest Hot Water Music-- believe me, I’m certainly not. |
||||||||
|
Wig Wam Bam (by Captain America PO BX 4865 Albq NM 87196 captainamerica1941@hotmail.com) |
||||||||
| Wig Wam Bam is written by Captain America |
po box 4865 | albuquerque, nm 87196 |
||||||||