It never ceases to amaze me, upon entering any bar in this town, how many Santa Feans smoke American Spirit cigarettes. You know what I'm talking about: Those folks at the Cowgirl, chain-smoking the "acceptable" kind of cancer sticks-cuz, you know, any other brand would be unhealthy.
Many times, these are just plain unhealthy people, ones who have been hunkered over the bar for four hours; other times-and this is what gets me-they are pink-cheeked, fresh-faced vegans who just came down from a five-mile hike or a gazillion-mile bike ride from here to Gallup and back, you know, just for kicks. What's up with the healthy smokers in this town? It's a question I ask as one myself (well, a former one), and one that's a subset of the bigger issue of the damn contradictory nature of our beloved burg.
Take radio station KLBU 102.9 FM, or blu 102 as it's known. Blu began as a good idea, in a sense: Take a genre of music that is popular but underground-in this case, so-called "chill" or "blue" music-a genre that hasn't really been mined as far as radio airplay goes, and start a station that plays it exclusively. Chill is sort of nouveau smooth jazz-a mid-to-low-tempo hybrid of techno and jazz-and apparently Blu thinks it's an umbrella aesthetic for a whole mindset. According to blu's Web site,
, the goal of bluVentures (the station's parent company) "is to become the definitive contemporary lifestyle brand through the distribution of our unique media network and the synergies of like-minded people."
Synergies? Judging from the other blu ventures and again from the website, those synergies involve out-of-focus photographs, Moby and a propensity toward eating "blu sushi." Blu listeners, it all seems to say, are very thin, ski all day in streamlined Prada snow suits and aprés with a gorgeous cosmo in a design-oriented glass.
I've never been one to get behind the idea of "lifestyle" branding-marketing that often involves blurry, high-end graphics of people swilling fancy, strange-colored drinks or snacking on tiny bits of hipster food, often with inexplicably obtuse slogans underneath. Think of Starbucks' giant posters of steaming concoctions in fuzzy focus, with marketing phrases at the bottom that say things like, "Collapse Into Cool." What exactly does it mean to collapse into cool? In their obtuseness the wording on these posters resembles
The Lord of the Rings
' Gollum mumbling-"It likes the chocolate latte…" It's all airy and meaningless, this idea of a "lifestyle" that can be conjured out of thin air with the help of a few well-placed posters and slogans that people mistake for meaning something because they're so confusing. Blu's lifestyle marketing is a touch more subtle, but it's there, from the cool, calming voiceovers the station plays between songs to the Web site's slick hypnotic effect.
But here's the contradictory part: As much as blu participates in this sort of cheesy "lifestyle" marketing, the station has not only survived, it's done some pretty cool stuff for this town. Maybe it's a frenetic attempt to keep a newbie enterprise afloat, but as soon as blu arrived here two years ago, the station made an immediate impact on the local scene, organizing shows, getting involved-doing more than just throwing up a banner and calling it a "sponsorship." Just this past October, for instance, Blu has done the following:
1) Thrown a Halloween roller disco party at Rockin' Rollers, an under-utilized local venue.
2) Co-organized-along with the Santa Fe Film Center and Bert's Taqueria-a screening of the documentary
8 Wheels and Some Soul Brother Music
and a Q&A with director Tyrone Dixon.
3) Sponsored a cool event at the Chuck Jones Gallery with
Simpsons
director David Silverman as part of the "Blu salon series," in which Blu links up with local galleries.
4) Sponsored the Santa Fe Green and Sustainable Business Networking Breakfast
And, last but not least, let it be noted that, as I write this, the Blu website is currently streaming a track from the local experimental dance band Ray Charles Ives.
How's that for community involvement?
The Simpsons
, roller disco, sustainable businesses-oh my god, these people actually have their fingers on the pulse. Hence the contradiction: The whole lifestyle manipulation, which appears to be part of bluVentures' grand plan, is weird and gross. But the radio station's actually a vibrant part of this community or, at least, striving to be, and there's nothing more heartening than a visible effort.
The plans for Blu's two-year anniversary party (8 pm tonight, $10), then, are appropriately prescient, as the party also serves as one of the inaugural events for the El Paseo Music Hall (208 Galisteo St., 992-2848), an annex space adjacent to the El Paseo Bar and Grill. The Music Hall is slated to become a gallery in the spring, so its time as a music venue will be short-lived and, I suspect, intense. For a few months, it will be a place to be (there are a number of shows scheduled there-see SFR Talk), and Blu has jumped right on it, associating the station's name with a spot that will prove vital during Santa Fe's transition to the post-Paramount era.
Equally telling: Along with several of Santa Fe's better and more cutting-edge DJs (Melanie Moore, Feathericci, 13 Pieces, Donovan and JonRa), the headliners at the party are German collective Boozoo Bajou. Boozoo Bajou stands out from other "blu" artists by combining mainly American aesthetics-blues and jazz-with trip-hop and electronica. It is, to say the least, a contradictory mix. But it works; Bajou somehow manages to stay soulful and clinical, European and American, smart and playful (check the group's new single, "Dust My Broom," to get a taste). If you want a preview of the future of our town's music endeavors, I suggest you hightail it to the Music Hall before it's gone.
