This town never ceases to amaze and perplex me.
My weekend of checking out music, you see, began at the Dragon Room (406 Old Santa Fe Trail, 983-7712), of all places. The cozy little satellite bar to the Pink Adobe, the Dragon Room recently has re-committed itself to showcasing local music. Before the past few months, music at this particular watering hole seemed a bit of an afterthought. A quiet afterthought, at that, comprised mainly of jazz trios or acoustic sets.
That has changed. Oh, there's still jazz to be had on Tuesday nights with Los Hijos de Cain (7 pm, no cover), but the Dragon Room has upped the ante, hosting a number of, uh, louder bands.
Clearly, "loud" was the appropriate adjective Saturday night when the Hollis Wake took up the tiny space allotted to the band, shoved as they were in between the popcorn machine and the tree that grows in the eastern part of the building. Also appropriate: "sloppy," "drunken" and "confusing." All meant in the best way possible. It was indeed confusing to hear the Wake's loud-ass amps blasting through the normally overpowering din created by the teeth-grinding, coke-flecked chatter of the bar crowd. How refreshingly out of context to hear their catchy harmonies in a smallish venue not known for its musical guests. How pleasantly bizarre to see a band known for sloppy drunkeness getting
really
sloppy drunk to the point one band member didn't open her eyes for an entire set, and where the following conversation took place between me and another unidentified band member while waiting for the bathroom:
ME:
Hi.
UNIDENTIFIED BAND MEMBER:
Hi.
ME:
How are you?
UBM:
Humpff.
All this in a place normally frequented by blonde, Kate Spade-toting women who look like they just stepped off the
plane from Dallas, guys with serious goatee fetishes and other folks who fall under the umbrella of not seeming very interested in local rawk. Keep it up, Dragon Room.
Nothing like a little conscious hip-hop to help atone for the sins of a debaucherous evening, so Sunday afternoon's Arrested Development set at "Quadfest" at the College of Santa Fe promised, at the very least, to provide Santa Fe with a collective soul cleansing, a sunny spring festival on the lawn with several hundred people bonding together under a common cause of verdant lounging, booty-shaking and maybe a little frisbee.
Except it rained. Except nobody showed up. Except, I hate to say it, conscious hip-hop generally sucks.
So the scene, at least to start, was dismal: Maybe 200 people-250, tops-found their way down to the CSF Quad for the show. Now, putting aside for a moment my earlier statement about conscious hip-hop (we'll get to that in a minute), it's shocking that Santa Fe couldn't get it up enough to sit outside and listen to a group that won two Grammies, that shaped a good deal of the hip-hop we listen to today and that, at the very least, is known to put on a hell of a show.
Such a good show, in fact, I had to rethink my entire thesis about conscious hip-hop, at least that of the older variety. In 1992, AD made a huge splash and joined De La Soul at the top of the alternative hip-hop heap with the album
3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of…
, which spawned the hit singles "Tennessee" and "Mr. Wendel." Neither of these songs ever struck me as earth-shattering or particularly drove me pell-mell to the dance floor. But I seem to be the exception to that rule. The two tunes, with their laid-back grooves, subtle sampling and sometimes obtuse, sometimes pointedly educational lyrics proved to have a great appeal, especially to a nation a bit jaded already by some of the harder sounds coming out of LA.
And, in theory, the music was great, but the problem with this type of cerebral rap is that sometimes the groove doesn't translate on record. It just doesn't…resonate. The beats are too subtle, the intensity doesn't cross over, even if you have a set of Bose speakers.
But after this weekend, I defy you to find a group that puts on a more intense, and a more fun, show. AD is known to pull out all 28 members of their group to some performances; for Santa Fe, there were less than half that, but it was plenty. The live band-bass, guitar, drums, backup vocals, DJ-provided a deep, tight backdrop for the group's leader, Speech, and his lyric, intelligent flows. AD didn't seem to care that, by mid-set, only about half of the couple hundred folks who originally showed up remained. Speech and company served up was an amazing, passionate set, the tinny timbre of their albums replaced by soul and danceable beats.
Only most of Santa Fe wouldn't know, cuz so few of us got off the couch to check it out. If we can make it out to the Dragon Room, surely we can get out to see one of the best shows of the year. C'mon, ya'll.
