LEAVING THE HOUSE
House might be dead, but no one informed the couple hundred people who showed up at the Lodge Saturday night to check out DJ King Britt.
By the time I arrived, the room at the inn-after all, it really is just a hotel bar-was littered with plastic cups and rotting limes, melting ice and beer bottles. The dance floor that had been concocted in front of the DJ area (there's not really a booth) held a smattering of people, but the kind of cool thing about the twisting feng shui logistics of the Lodge is that everybody dances everywhere-there are nooks and crannies it'll take you an hour to find, only to see that some couple wearing matching Kangol caps has already discovered it.
Despite the horrific bar service (A half-hour wait for a $7 drink served in a plastic cup, sans olives, or lime or other garnish? What is this, an Olivia Cruise?), I was glad to be there, surrounded by sticky, happy people dancing at random, making out, hitting on each other. It was local DJ and promoter Adam Gibbons' last party, and he threw a good one. I spoke with Adam at bit about his future plans (he's leaving Santa Fe), but at this point I had consumed a few of those overpriced cocktails, so I can't responsibly report what he had to say. Suffice it to mention that Santa Fe wants so desperately to dance, to have a gathering spot, that we're willing to invade the resting place of several hundred tourists and put up with labyrinthine layouts to do it. And chalk Gibbons up as another casualty of the tough goings of Santa Fe nightlife.
BROTHER E MITOTE
Brother E Clayton of the Mighty Soul Deacons is a strange guy. He appears to have so much he wants to say, his mouth can't work rapidly enough for him to get it out of his mouth.
Which makes an interview a little, you know, rough. When I spoke to Brother E last week, I at least could figure out the following: He's back in town, been here about a year and finally
solidified his new, seven-piece version of the Soul Deacons. The new version is much like the old group, but Clayton wanted a fresh start after leaving Santa Fe for about a year to be closer to his family in North Carolina.
The Deacons have been tucked away in their own studio, finishing up the recording of their new self-produced CD, which will be out in a few months after it's mixed and goes through some post-production. "It's got better production, a better band and certainly better songs," than the group's last output, Clayton tells me. The disc, as yet untitled, features what Clayton hopes to be a hit, a little tune called "Christmas in Jail," which will be used this winter in Gov. Bill Richardson's new round of anti-DWI commercials (which got me to thinking-if you got pulled over for a DWI after hearing that song at a Soul Deacons show, wouldn't that be kind of weird?)
Clayton is chomping at the bit to get this sucker released, and I don't blame him, with its cameo vocals by a number of local notables, including Chris Calloway. "As soon as we started [recording], it was magic," Clayton says of Calloway's performance on the disc.
If you can't wait to listen to the CD, you can get a preview at Brother E's 57th birthday bash, scheduled for Saturday, July 29 at WilLee's (9 pm. $5. 401 S. Guadalupe St., 982-0117). Ken Valdez, Freddy Spencer and Cathy McGill, among others, are expected to appear.
IDOL-OTRY
Wanna be on
American Idol
? C'mon, you know you do. Step one is to enter the New Mexico Idol competition. Here are the rules and regulations, as Patti Smith would say:
Auditions will be held at the New Mexico State Fair Friday, Sept. 8.
Ya gotta pre-qualify. Go to
or
for more details.
Only folks age 16-28 are allowed to audition.
Winner gets a guaranteed audition with an
American Idol
judge, plus a free trip to Seattle for said audition.
Given northern New Mexico's karaoke fetish, we should have plenty of prospects. Scrape all that nicotine off your vocal chords, kids, and get to work!
A FINAL CHUNK OF MITOTE
Speaking of nicotine, I'm not gonna say who, when or where, lest I get somebody in trouble, but in my anecdotal experience, this whole 25-feet-away-from-the-door smoking thing seems to be being ignored in a lot of places. No one is really smoking inside, but the bit of the new Smoke-Free Ordinance that dictates a smoker must be at least that distance away from the entrance of any establishment just wasn't workin', at least as far as the five places I went to. And, to be honest, it looked like no one really cared. Could a tiny rebellion be in the works? Could it be the dictates of our City Council are meaningless scratches on parchment with no real teeth? Could it be we've all been over-reacting to the whole thing, on both sides of the issue? We'll see. In the mean time, put that in your pipe and smoke it.
