The giant, temporary but nonetheless intimidating neon highway sign set up on Guadalupe Street this weekend reminded us that alcohol-fueled death-or at least a very unpleasant interaction with the cops-has become an essential part of the holiday season: "SUPERBLITZ!" it blinked happily, "DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE!"
It was an ominous portent considering the car I was in contained two people whose greedy fists clutched VIP passes, which primarily entailed free high-end drinks, for this year's Aid 'n' Comfort gala.
Last Saturday was my first excursion to Santa Fe's annual, swanky and strange AIDS fundraiser and I didn't know what I was in for. Oh, I knew it was a fancy dress-up party, but I wasn't aware that in Santa Fe, "fancy" can mean anything from open-backed leather shirts to G-strings to Roman centurion costumes. Not so much glamorous as a touch seedy, perhaps reflective of a time when Roman centurions stood guard while certain emperors fiddled.
To be honest, I didn't think about AIDS once that evening, except for a brief moment when I spotted someone hot across the room and fancied sauntering over, 'til I decided maybe I'm too old to take certain kinds of risks anymore. Nope, it was better to stumble back to the free alcohol and drum up some therapy fodder, engage in small talk, take in some of the art for sale, watch and listen as Teri Lynn Browning did her best to conquer the crowd noise with her excellent voice.
And Browning succeeded to some extent; she is able and willing to camp it up, to go glam if need be, with a hodgepodge of torch, rock and originals that sound like songs Kate Bush would write if she overdosed on Prozac. Browning was a perfect match for an evening with queer sensibilities and dykes in heels.
The other room, where the nattily dressed DJs succumbed to the dancing needs of a giant mass of people by taking few risks, had the feel of a giant wedding or bar mitzvah reception. There was no house or electronica or electroclash-simply Madonna, Salt 'n' Pepa, tons of '70s disco. And that worked, too-it was fun, in the same way it's fun to dance with your tipsy uncle to "It's Raining Men" at your cousin's wedding, all self-conscious smiles and rapidly running panty hose. You know, as a Roman centurion runs by.
Overall, Aid 'n' Comfort was one of those mixed affairs, where the booze and the clothes and the DJs combined for an evening of fun and, for some, joy, followed by the guilty existential hangover the next morning: What business do I have at a fancy party when HIV is still a giant problem? Should I sell my fancy Ann Taylor suit that I wore to the shindig and donate the proceeds to Southwest Care Center? Would my evening have been better spent sitting at home writing letters to legislators to convince them to support needle exchange programs? No doubt, it was a great party, and the very act of supporting AIDS work is still, to this day, very much an act of defiance and courage. Aid 'n' Comfort engendered a sort of big budget activism-bourgeois rebellion-which is very Santa Fe.
In that, it was the kind of night Calvin Johnson would hate. Johnson is a legendary figure in the world of indie and punk rock, a founding member of Beat Happening, the odd, askew collective that began in 1982, the same year he began K Records in Olympia, Wa. K is the prototype of a truly independent label whose agenda is not just to distribute the work of some very good bands, but also to create a regional, "act locally" consciousness. Eschewing large budgets and major-labels-in fact, actively battling large budgets and major labels-K is clearly rebellious but anything but bourgeois, a superblitz of artistry, integrity and, after 23 years, enthusiasm.
K Records also has an odd affection for Santa Fe. A number of K artists have made their way to the City Different in the past couple of years: Kimya Dawson, Microphones, Mirah and Old Time Relijun, to name a few. And now Johnson himself is set to take the stage at the student union at College of Santa Fe (8 pm, Wednesday, Nov. 30. $5. 1600 St. Michael's Drive, 473-6133) along with label-mate Tender Forever.
What's interesting about both Johnson and Tender Forever is they both inhabit a new musical space, one that's punk rock in its DIY faculties but quiet, introspective and generally acoustic-or at least clean-in its sound. Johnson's solo work, for instance, is marked by his deep, unique voice, disaffected and intelligent, rebellious and petulant. If you know the history behind the voice, a history that involves constantly raging against the machine, you'd think it would be backed with rough-edged power chords and hardcore drums. But Johnson, on his new disc Before the Dream Died, writes spare understated songs, the kind where you have to cock one ear to listen and work to match up the weird, off-center edges yourself, and you realize: Straight-up punk would be too easy for Johnson.
Tender Forever is actually one woman, Melanie Valera, who similarly takes the harder road by rocking raw emotion without the raw music. Behind Valera's personal lyrics are deceptively simple dance beats, doubled-up acoustic guitars and barely-there backing vocals-not exactly the traditional routes of rebellion, but more accessible than Johnson's distant ruminations on love and loss. Where Valera and Johnson meet is at that sweet nexus where genre doesn't matter, but where the low-tech aesthetic necessitated by budget constraints makes for a specifically non-bourgeois type of rebellion. Which is, you know, also very Santa Fe.
