It's funny how, for a city so old, Santa Fe struggles so much to figure out its own identity.
Well, some things we can pin down: We are a difficult, talented, often smart, often really stupid, cheesy, multi-racial group of self-conscious upstarts. And we happen to live smack-dab in the middle of one of the strangest parts of the country. Our context is one of UFO crashes, metaphysical meanderings and the birth of the atomic bomb, all acknowledged with a certain blasé acceptance. Oh sure, we live in the midst of uncanny creepiness-hear those muffled explosions? Those are uranium-tipped bunker busters being tested up the hill-but, hey, wadda ya gonna do? Our proximity to Los Alamos is surreal enough, but it's a few miles away, so it gets tucked into the creases and crevices of our cerebellums for selective moments of pondering, perhaps fueled by illicit substances sprinkled with just a pinch of peyote. Los Alamos, UFOs, crystals, ghosts, burial grounds-all these things inform our identity, but indirectly.
But directly, damn, how does the human psyche deal with trying to live a day-to-day existence amidst a pretend adobe playground? People come here to get away from asphalt, strip-mall no-man's-lands like Plano, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona. And Santa Fe does its best to accommodate the escapist fantasy. And that's fine. Except, do you ever come home after a hard day's work, earning a living, participating in the real world, and think, "What the fuck am I doing living in an adobe house?" or, "I have absolutely no business eating fry bread!"? Even in a "normal" city, it's a life-long struggle to figure out your identity. When you live in a town focused on perpetuating myth and surrounded by transient, escapist tourists, it's almost impossible. No wonder the philosophical investigations of St. John's College appeal to so many of us. No wonder that citizens with usually intelligent, healthily cynical noggins end up poring over aromatherapy candles and overpriced crystals. No wonder we have no idea who we are.
Such is the backdrop of
Tales from a Tourist Town
, the brainchild of local singer-songwriter Chris McCarty, a project for which he has written or co-written several songs with a variety of Santa Fe talents. He's not done recording an entire CD, but I did receive a preview copy with six songs, along with press material that reads in part, "Apocalyptic forest fires. Missing Los Alamos nuclear secrets. The peculiar goings-on in nearby Area 51. From amid the cosmic chaos and the strange and potent energies that permeate the high desert hills of New Mexico has emerged a new musical force…" Well, it may be premature to call six unreleased songs a "force," but clearly McCarty's on to something. The songs he has finished recording offer a glimpse of our collective weirdness, our collective potential and our collective inability to pin down just who we are as a city. Or at least as an artistic community.
Tales
kicks off with a sweet little Richard and Linda Thompson-esque homage to flamenco dancers. Co-written by the Manzanares brothers and McCarty, the music is comprised of delicate acoustic Spanish guitar flutters and plaintive-but not cloying-vocals, softly harmonizing with each other. The lyrics, to my ears, sound like white-boy jealousy of the lithe grace and carefree ability exhibited by the dancers: "I wish I could dance like that/Someday, I'll dance like that." Upon hearing it, you think, "Oh,
this
is Santa Fe: two cultures not quite mixing, two cultures a little jealous of each other, with a Latin soundtrack behind them."
Well, yes and no. Song two, "Turquoise Saddle" is McCarty's collaboration with Joe West. The country tune takes its time in a two-step, boot scoot groove along with West's suggestive narrative about a wild Santa Fe heartbreakin' mama. Aha, wait,
this
is Santa Fe: An eccentric middle aged man singing off-kilter tunes about a sexed-out middle aged woman.
Until, of course, you hit the third song, McCarty's own ballad about a Santa Fe painter, and then move along through the remainder of the disc: Busy McCarroll and local piano badass Sharon Shaheen, then grinning rockabilly upstart Jono Manson, then the introspective Matthew Andrae. Most of the work is pretty good-some of it great, some of it a little maudlin-but by the time you get to the end, you're as confused about Santa Fe as you were when you began. Which just might be the point.
McCarty tells me he's got several more songs to record before the disc is released, and he hopes to shop it around to record labels and maybe put on a showcase, complete with local art, as both a community gathering and national event. Which sounds great. Now if we could just figure out what our community is…
