MASTERS OF PUPPETS
A tall preacher with a twisted face and a permanent sneer lectures on damnation. An impossibly old, wrinkled man sits quietly frowning as a cacophonous rock show careens around him, his juxtaposition with the youth in the club proves unsettling, reminding us of our mortality. A fetus, uh, takes a stroll, then pops a Johnny Cash 8-track in a car stereo and goes for a drive.
These are odd, disturbing images culled from the Web site videos of a band called the
, who will take the stage in Santa Fe this week (8 pm Monday, Feb. 20. $5. El Paseo, 208 Galisteo St., 992-2848).
Judging from their videos and stage show, the LA trio, consisting of bassist/vocalist/leader Molly McGuire, guitarist Greg Biribauer and drummer Kenny Pierce, emphasizes visual artistic components as much as sonic ones when it comes to performance. The video for the song "Big Brother," for instance, features quickly spliced weird images-an eyeball here, an aerial view of Katrina flooding there, the word "terror" quickly flitting in and out of view-all with a sweeping, stylized perspective. It's beautiful and creepy. In this day and age, sometimes it takes more than just music to make a statement, to take a particular medium and expand it into something, if not meaningful, at the very least interesting.
The latter is what the Spores have done, pushing the boundaries of music into a striking new area.
Like another band that favors enhancing their music with intense visual, artistic components, the Flaming Lips, the Spores often focus on the macabre-at the very least the weird-side. Besides the disturbing sights found in many of their videos, Spores shows are known for the use of puppetry. But this ain't no Punch and Judy show: The band members share the stage with the likes of Preacher, the aforementioned character from their videos, who, though he's made of fabricated materials, is frightening because he's just this side of real, only a slight parody of the person he reminds us of-Fred Phelps. Stunbunny, Miss Fishnets, Mcmbreyo and other puppet characters loom, covered in blood or with twisted grimaces.
OK, it sounds intense, but the pop elements of the Spores' music help offset the potential to overwhelm the audience, and the sheer beauty of the Spores' songs, while heavy, allows a temperance and balance that makes it all work. Which is not to say it's the job of the music to hold a secondary place. Rather, songs like "Don't Kill Yourself" stand on their own. "Don't" starts off with a delicate guitar line which trickles through the entire tune, and McGuire's surprisingly delicate voice carries the whole thing with poise and humor. There are keyboards, spot-on drumming, guitar that careens from sweeping to light and focused. While "Don't" proves the Spores' most pop-driven song, the rest of their oeuvre drives a little harder, sometimes incorporating the Nirvana-esque loud/soft trick, other times barrelling along into a crescendo.
"Big Brother," for instance, makes use of McGuire's bass prowess (she's played with Queens of the Stone Age and Peaches, among others), starting off with a drone-y keys/guitar bit, then shifting into a dark, complicated, catchy bass line that drives the entire song, which is simultaneously accessible, spooky and engrossing. "Something out of Nothing," meanwhile, shifts to the other extreme; it's all retro-disco keyboards and sultry understated vocals, with a simple melody and shadowy undertones-Goldfrapp in a haunted house.
That the music is so good, and so varied, is no surprise considering the group cites influences from Kraftwerk to Miles Davis. Yet the Spores transcend their own influences-there are a million points of reference to describe them, yet none at all. They've created something new under the sun, and for all those who say nothing happens musically in Santa Fe, if you miss this show, you have no one to blame but yourself.
GRAMMY TRIPLE-WHAMMY
On a much different note, a few northern New Mexicans won Grammy Awards at last week's ceremony. Best Native American album went to producer
for Sacred Ground, which stars local favorite
. Best New Age album went to Paul Winter's Silver Solstice, produced by
.
These are great achievements, so where the hell is the parade? As much as New Mexico struggles to define itself as a cultural mecca, I don't think we're celebrating enough. I say, round up the floats, declare a state holiday and have Gov. Richardson buy the first round of drinks. Congrats, guys. In the meantime, I'll keep waiting for the day the Hollis Wake wins their first "Best Single" award, because we all know they're better than Green Day anyway.
