Albuquerque singer/songwriters continue to release original work that deserves wider attention. Here are two completely different takes on reality: the sublimely ridiculous Get It Up from Sage and Jared’s Happy Gland Band, and the earnestly searching Stubborn Heart from Kevin Herig.
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That band of maniacs appropriately known as Le Chat Lunatique—Muni Kulasinghe (violin, vocals), John Sandlin (guitar), Jared Putnam (bass, vocals), and Fernando Garavito (drums)—have released several albums loaded with delightfully eccentric covers and originals in a style they call “filthy, mangy jazz,” but their
latest release, Swing Gitan, finds them taking aim at the vintage music that inspired them in the first place—le jazz hot of Django
Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli, and their contemporaries and descendants.
The band’s seriocomic stage presence, literately nonsensical patter, and zany takes on
sphincters, millionairesses, and buses driven by God make their performances madly
entertaining, but ultimately, it’s the music and the musicianship that keeps you in the house and on the dance floor. On Swing Gitan, those two elements are front and center as the band celebrates the classic tunes, and you can celebrate along with them at the CD release party this weekend at Marble Brewery. Continue reading
Things are heating up here as the weather cools down. My non-music-related clients are in a fever to spend their budgets before year-end so that they don’t have their budgets cut in the coming year. So after months with my business afloat in the doldrums, I’ve suddenly picked up a serious trade wind and am making good speed with full sails.
Meanwhile, the musicians, songwriters, and promoters in the Santa Fe/Albuquerque
corridor have gone gonzo with new projects. A half-dozen or so new album releases are forthcoming, the concert series are in
overdrive, and there’s a not-to-be-missed one-off performance that I’ll be writing about in the coming week.
Here’s a review of the first of the fall crop. A CD release party is scheduled: see the details at the bottom.
Flooded Away, Sage and Jared’s Happy Gland Band (indie)
The premiere release from Sage and Jared’s Happy Gland Band, Flooded Away may be the most charmingly peculiar—or maybe that’s peculiarly charming—album I’ve heard since Jared
Putnam’s Brontosaurus on Pluto nearly three years ago. It’s certainly the most seriously silly and whimsical.