COW PUNK
Sunday night, the Santa Fe Brewing company is a stew of giddy humanity, people of all ages jacked up on Chicken Killer Ale and the absolute torch and twang of some damn fine American music. There are CD giveaways in the corner, T-shirts for sale, a crowd studded with local music luminaries-Boris McCutcheon, Joe West, Ira Gordon-and local brew being slung. There's even a little football on if anyone cares to watch.
Which most don't.
Superseding interest in the final NFL playoff game is the vibe, the energy and the music of KBAC's 10th anniversary party, starring Hundred Year Flood and James McMurtry, attended by hundreds of Santa Feans who braved the clear chill of the night and the drive down Hwy. 14 to pack the Brewing Company.
Is it a sacrilege to say our very own Flood blew McMurtry away? Maybe, but while the Flood's set of updated country/pop started off a little draggy, it suddenly kick-started and took off like a hot chick on a Harley, and dammit, it was a hard act to follow.
Which is not to say McMurtry disappointed. This was my first time to hear him live, and, given his writerly legacy, I expected him to spin yarns while tuning his guitar and sing epic songs about ol' cowhands-in other words, to bore me silly. But that wasn't the case at all. Who knew he was such a rocker? His backing band The Heartless Bastards proved as tight as a Santa Fean's budget, and McMurtry spared us the chit-chat, replacing it with staight-ahead country-rock, a little bit Stones, a little bit Americana, and a little bit
Last Picture Show
.
But the evening brought up some issues beyond the stellar performances of both bands. For one, Santa Fe has such a conflicted relationship with KBAC, now that it's owned by the much-hated Clear Channel corporation. It's odd: Much of the current KBAC playlist is similar to what the station has played in the past and the on-air DJs are real live people with individualistic personalities who pretty much say what they want. My own experience as a weekly guest on The Big Show with Honey Harris-8:30 am Wednesday mornings-has been that I can make outrageous/political/highly suggestive/borderline offensive statements at will, and play songs I guarantee would never be played on any other Clear Channel station in the country. And yet, boy, is Santa Fe pissed at KBAC. We can't bitch enough about how Clear Channel ruined the station, how it used to be a "community" entity, how the people who work there are evil brainwashed minions who want nothing more than to force your children to listen to bad corporate rock and then eat them.
Well, there's a validity to the anti-Clear Channel anger, but Sunday night KBAC seemed pretty damn community-oriented to me. The sweet combination of two amazing bands-one from a local record company, one nationally known-an up-and-coming venue around which a scene is growing, a packed dance floor and a cheap ticket price, worked in conjunction with a local production company-sounds like home cookin', don't it?
Meantime, it's no secret Frogville Records (the Flood's record company) like any other small homegrown Santa Fe business, has to struggle to keep its product out there, the product in this case being some of the most stunning music ever to come out of the desert.
And yet, all this took place just a few days after the mayoral candidate's arts and culture forum held at CCA, which proved that the powers that be still-
still
-do not have a grasp of how hard it is for any local music entity to achieve even marginal success (see Zane's World for a more detailed assessment). Sunday night featured a (once) local radio station that has existed for 10 years, a venue that has reopened and is thriving and a band that is a core part of the cultural heartbeat of our city, but as I looked around the Brewing Company, I noticed a conspicuous absence of local politicians. Nobody other than local music fans cared, and as heartening as that is, it's just not enough.
It's no wonder then that corporations like Clear Channel move in. It's clear we as consumers are doing our part: Santa Feans may be torn about our little radio station's loss of innocence, but folks still came to the party; shows by Frogville bands are some of the most well-attended shows in town; and the folks out at the Brewing Company have revamped the place into a family-friendly music venue that works. But music in this town has been ghettoized; politically, everything works against it-zoning rules, liquor licenses, distribution of the arts budget. And until that changes, I fear for KBAC, Frogville, the Brewing Company, and all the good things they represent. And, in the meantime, I'll say it: Ignored by those in power, relying on a DIY aesthetic necessitated by marginalization and full of balls-out bravado, the nouveau-country artists of Frogville Records resemble another fine old underground American tradition-punk rock.
BALE BONDS
Speaking of country, one thing Bill Hearne represents is an appreciation of good, old-school honky-tonk from the glory days of North Texas AM radio station WBAP. Hearne recently got to thinking about the music he grew up on (pre-'80s C&W) after catching a band in Austin called Haybale, a group of young 'uns who have brought a little rocking sensibility to a genre that has been emasculated by Nashville. So check Hearne's new side project, Santa Fe Bale, at various venues around town, if you were ever country before country was cool. Expect Hearne's usual mellowness, but augmented by pedal steel guitar, more uptempo energy and cuts from bands that pre-date
Urban Cowboy
. Yee-haw.
