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THE SPORES
El Paseo, Monday, Feb. 20
If puppets could talk…oh wait, they sort of can talk. Or at least they sang at last Monday's Spores show. But if the puppets employed by the Spores could really talk, they'd tell you how their masters are one of the best bands to ever drop by our little burg. The LA trio and their rock 'n' roll Punch and Judy extravaganza did two remarkable things: They yanked people off their couches and got them out to a show on a Santa Fe Monday night; and they blew everyone's fucking socks off, actually causing bar patrons to turn away from their Herradura and toward the tiny light-strewn stage to absorb the music slowly and with great appreciation. Lead Spore Molly McGuire proved equal parts oddball (At one point she noted the band was from Canada; at one point they were from LA; and finally they were from New Orleans. All this while wearing a giant creepy sock puppet on her hand) and genius, beautiful-voiced and possessing an almost Cat Power-like charm. The band, though boasting a heavy-rock CV, actually crept slyly toward a sort of dark Goldfrapp-esque dance zone, kept bottom-heavy by McGuire's bass and rock-centered with Greg Biribauer's modernistic/minimalistic/mechanistic guitar shreds. It frightened. It rocked. It ruled.
