There is a conundrum that faces those fortunate enough to be considered pundits, or arbiters, or commentators of Santa Fe life. It's fitting that in a place so beset by paradoxes and contradictory values, nothing is ever easy. Think about it: Gorgeous mountains and excruciating sprawl; sophisticated art and provincial attitudes; and that strange battle between spirituality and the fact that everybody here seems, well, lost. The specific conundrum is this: We all want to support local artistic efforts, we wish desperately to raise the banner of local music and fly it high. But what happens when that music is, frankly, not all that exciting?
Fortunately, we haven't had to deal with such a problem lately. The past few local CD releases of note have proved worthy of considerable (though not unreserved) praise: Goshen, Joe West, Hundred Year Flood have dropped some fine records in the past year. The Hollis Wake, Seventh Circle and The Big Boo keep pumping out high-quality pop/punk, progressive death metal and quirky keyboard pop, respectively. Not to mention the many electronica-heads like Brian Botkiller and the High Mayhem experimental freakers and those in between who keep us on our toes.
But, alas, the conundrum reared its ugly head with the appearance of No Address, who've given me paradoxical fits and epileptic dreams with their near-greatness. In all fairness, No Address is not a local group. But their engineer/producer John Kurzweg dragged them out here from California to record their debut album at Stepbridge Studios.
No Address' connection to Santa Fe is a good thing. The band is signed to Atlantic Records, and Kurzweg tells me the label is poised to support the album. There's a good chance, if the group hits it big, that once again Santa Fe will have its own little connection to something of national significance. And, judging from the disc, they do have a chance to hit it big: The songs have an edge, mainly from fuzzed-out, overdriven guitars and singer Ben Lauren's ragged voice, which sounds like he scrubbed his throat with a piñon branch during his City Different stint.
It's an edge dulled, however, by the nature of the songs themselves. Each starts off with a promise of Iggy Pop-type rawk, only to peter out a bit into fairly conventional cock rock-mid-tempo-to-fast songs, sweeping choruses, aggressive lyrics. But cock rock can be good, and at times No Address does the genre great justice. The first song, "Perfect," for instance, kicks off with a promising "Lust for Life" beat, and switches into a flowing Peter Frampton-esque sing-song chorus. It's a great, fun, beer-brawl kinda tune. Moments like this add luster and heat to No Address' output, but they are fewer than one would wish. Judging from their sound in general, I'm guessing that No Address kicks ass on stage, which is a good enough reason to catch them opening for Hundred Year Flood (9 pm, The Paramount, 331 Sandoval St., 982-8999, $7).
It's interesting that No Address made their way to my desk at the same time as local band Racecar's self-titled CD arrived. Racecar's disc is just as paradoxical as anything Santa Fe has to offer. I had my doubts about a locally produced album that featured both a cover illustration of a scantily clad, tattoo-laden, dreadlocked lass
and
a song called "Mystical Ages." It's such a Santa Fe contradiction, objectifying women while at the same time thinking it's OK because the lust-object has tatts, or a piercing, or is Wiccan, and whitewashing the whole thing with a broad brushstroke of mysticism.
The music itself, as I have often heard said of many local bands, is not so bad-decent melodies, some pretty guitar work, lyrics that list towards New Age. But the official Santa Fe Conundrum Rule dictates a great rallying support for both these bands. I can't do that: No Address is a damn solid band, poised for popularity, but not quite right. Racecar is OK, but faulty and confounding. And yet I can say this: Both bands have taken advantage of an embarrassment of resources for a town this size. Both are doing what so many of us don't-damning the torpedoes and churning out their own music, original music that Santa Fe desperately needs. And in that, they are as crucial to this town as Georgia O'Keeffe. Maybe there's no conundrum at all; maybe we all are just thinking too much.
