The Decade in Music, Part 2: Favorite Tucson Albums

I want to stress that this list is one of favorites rather than anything I’m claiming to be the best. I’m good friends with too many on this list to claim any sort of broad objectivity, so it’s hardly definitive. And while it’d be easy to find more expertise on Tucson music, I’ve been an active fan of local music all decade, and started writing about it with the inception of this blog in 2004. I promise every one of these records is amazing.

1. Calexico – Feast of Wire (2003)
A masterpiece from Tucson’s best band.

2. Fourkiller Flats – Fourkiller Flats (2001)
Hard-charging rock ‘n’ roll that’s rough, twangy and loud, and full of raise-your-drink-and-sing-along hooks, the Flats debut barely edges out their 2009 follow-up, mainly because I’ve gotten to soak up these songs for nearly the whole decade.

3. The New Drakes – Staircase Wit (2005)
The return of the Drakes – older and wise, of course – is a mellower, more thoughtful record, but one that shows a versatile band driven by top-quality songs.

4. The Swim – Random Walk (2008)
Indie rock that’s alternately somber and catchy, full of bombast and edgy guitars, Random Walk wins with the anthematic “Margaret With Comets” and the closing eight-minute triumph “Piles on the Floor,” which begins as a wistful slow-build before dissolving into an exultant guitar solo.

5. Giant Sand – proVISIONS (2008)
It’s very tough to pick between the decade’s three excellent Giant Sand albums, but proVISIONS stands out for being the most cohesive package of songs. It combines road music with late night music, pairs the off-kilter with the straight-ahead, and like most of Howe Gelb’s music, turns on a dime from being vaguely unsettling to feeling like you’ve just settled into an easy chair.

6. Greyhound Soul – Alma de Galgo (2001) / Down (2002)
I couldn’t choose between these two albums because I saw Greyhound Soul so much during that period that the songs will always blend together for me. The band ranges between classic rock and what I’ve called peyote blues, and Joey Peña's rough desert drawl holds it all together.

7. Chango Malo – The Whiskey Years (2007)
Loud, heavy and practically vibrating with energy, Chango Malo is known to leave its mark on stage than on record, but here the band comes very close.

8. Golden Boots – Winter of Our Discotheque (2009)
The gypsy country weirdness of the Boots peaked on this year’s Park The Van release.

9. Al Perry – Always A Pleasure (2004)
This is a delicious blend of Congress Street honky-tonk and plenty of Telecaster fireworks from our Great One. I know he didn’t write it, but “We Got Cactus” is pure Al Perry.

10. Tracy Shedd – Cigarettes & Smoke Machines (2008)
Shedd’s dreamy, languorous vocals and buzzing, feedback-prone guitars were in effect well before she moved to Tucson, but her latest record definitely goes down as her best so far.

Calexico & Jim Adkins: The Middle

Here's a stunning collaboration: Horns and pedal steel from Calexico giving a completely new life to Jimmy Eat World's "The Middle," with Jim Adkins joining his fellow Arizonans on stage:



Live Saturday 9/20 at Tucson's Rialto Theatre.

Naim Amor

Photo by Shaun Hendry

I've never understood the Tucson-Europe connection that's made bands like Calexico, Giant Sand and Greyhound Soul more successful in Italy, Spain and Germany than they are in their hometown. So the fact that a French singer-songwriter would relocate here is extra mysterious.

But Naim Amor, born and raised in Paris, made the leap, moving to Tucson in 1995 at the suggestion of countrywoman Marianne Dissard, who'd already settled here, and soon met Howe Gelb and Joey Burns of Giant Sand. He played for years with Thomas Belhom as the Amor Belhom Duo before setting out to record as a solo artist.

The "what the hell?" attitude that led to the move has brought Amor plenty of opportunity. To him, Tucson has strong parallels to New York City's artistic awakening in the 1960s, when folk and rock musicians, painters and filmmakers alike could all settle in a tight-knit area and, more importantly, get by with cheap rent. The space and time afforded musicians and artists by that sort of low overhead is the key to the sort of creative atmosphere that Amor described to KCRW when he gave an in-studio performance last week.

Singing in French, and sometimes English, Amor has a troubadour style that definitely recalls the type of classic French pop that Wes Anderson finds captivating. He has a typically laid back approach, with a strummed or finger-picked electric guitar and a quiet, languorous singing style that isn't too far from Sam Beam of Iron & Wine. But don't think Amor's 13 years in the desert don't also show up in the songs. There's also this atmospheric spaciousness that isn't quite desert rock, but neither does it sound like Amor is singing from the nightlife of Paris.

Amor's KCRW performance drew mostly from his latest record Sanguine, the Joey Burns-produced disc that caught the taste-making Santa Monica station's attention. But he did throw in a nifty version of "It's Not Easy Being Green." Demitri Manos of Golden Boots and Tom Walbank's Ambassadors sat in on drums for the spare and intimate performance.

Amor has two upcoming Tucson shows, July 24 at Plush (with La Cerca) and July 29 at the Arts Incubator Gallery, next to Grill on Congress.

Listen to Naim Amor's KCRW performance/interview here.

DOWNLOAD:
Amor Belhom Duo - Elevator Baby
Naim Amor - Les Bruits (from Sanguine)
Naim Amor - La Javanaise (live Solar Culture, 2001)
Get the whole 2001 show live at Solar Culture here.Naim Amor Live w/ Calexico and Friends from TucsonScene.com on Vimeo.

Weekend shows

We're coming up on a hell of a week of great live music, with both really top-notch local and national bands booked every night from Friday through Thursday (at least).

Don't pay any attention to the fact that this isn't the type of thing that's supposed to be happening in July in Tucson... embrace it. Maybe the heat has lost its edge as the sort of cretinous deterrent that robs us of summer visitors.

We'll start with Friday: It's too bad I can't find any promo downloads for Tongue Dried Sun, because from the sound of things on their MySpace, this new record is a tight bunch of hard and melodic 1990s-type rock tunes. And no wonder, because this Tucson quintet settled in with Alice In Chains producer Dave Jerden with a fairly lengthy stint of recording sessions in LA. I've seen the band a couple times, but these tunes are at least a few steps better than what I remember.

Check out "Holiday," which sounds like the super-mad-mega-hit that any grunge/alternative/metal band had when they turned in a simmering champion of a ballad that starts with an acoustic guitar and ends with you wanting to marry Stephanie Seymour.

Opening the record release show at Congress is Pretty Bird. Smash, the new project from intriguing Tucson singer-songwriter Brian Field, who puts this round in the "hardcore anti-folk" realm, saying the sound is rooted in a 12-string guitar with heavy distortion combined with gigantic drums. Damn.

Saturday brings us a narrowly averted dilemma, saved by an early show at Club Congress. Tracy Shedd takes stage there for a teaser performance in advance of her new record, the triumphant Cigarettes & Smoke Machines, her fourth full-length (but first recorded in Tucson) that comes out in September.

Later Saturday, don't miss Greyhound Soul at Che's Lounge. Tucson's most venerable Americana band never plays better than when they're prepping for a European tour, and the band has no less than 16 dates booked in Germany alone this fall. A band of this caliber at a club as intimate as Che's is an undeniable treat. Few bands in the world can sit so confidently at the intersection of folk, blues, classic rock and alt.country

More later on a Sunday show from storytelling troubadour/rocker James McMurtry and Canadian indie heroes Wolf Parade, who hit the Rialto on Monday. And f'ing Steely Dan (who I'll have to miss) on Tuesday! It hardly seems like late July in the forgotten pueblo...

DOWNLOAD:
Brian Field - And She Moved On (demo)
Tracy Shedd - Blue (Blues Explosion version)
Tracy Shedd - Louder Than You Can Hear album download
Greyhound Soul - Rainer (live)
Greyhound Soul - Angelina

Upcoming...

This is shaping up to be a great late spring for live music in Tucson.

Even just at the Rialto Theatre there's a string of shows as good as any I can remember: Calexico, Cowboy Junkies, X, Rancid, the RZA, Drive-By Truckers, Steve Earle & Allison Moorer and Mike Ness, just through the end of June. How's that for variety?

And over at Club Congress we've got Kathleen Edwards, Von Bondies, the Bell-Rays, Helio Sequence and Islands.

Plush is bringing to town American Music Club, Sea Wolf, Clinic, the Liars, Limbeck and Grand Archives.

Solar Culture is hosting Shearwater, Frog Eyes and Fleet Foxes.

And that's surely not all, just what's really jumped out at me already. And there are some fantastic shows already booked for July...

DOWNLOAD:
Kathleen Edwards - Copied Keys
Helio Sequence - Can't Say No
Calexico - Alone Again Or (live)
Steve Earle & Allison Moorer - Coming Around (live)
Mike Ness - Sweet Virginia (live with Eddie Vedder and Beck)
Shearwater - Rooks

UPDATE:
Check out the Tucson Weekly's interview with Kathleen Edwards.

A fine winter weekend

I was kinda taking a breather there at the end of the year, then I got blindsided by the flu. But now I'm mostly recovered and starting to peek around for stuff to listen to and blog about and do.
This weekend is the Dillinger Days, celebrating the (very serendipitous) capture of the notorious bank robber by Tucson police in 1934. I know it sounds like fame on the order of "Largest Free-Standing Pole West of the Mississippi," but everywhere has to be known for something. Besides, it's a good idea for a downtown party, and screw everywhere else where you can't have an outdoor festival in the middle of January.
But the point of this is to say that the tunes are absolutely first rate.

First up are the aptly named Dusty Buskers, "the band that fits on a bike."

They've actually been pretty regular at booking shows, but the first I ran across these guys they were literally busking, with a fiddle, a madolin and a hat set up between them. I love their cover of Woody's "Hard Travelin'" and the Dead Milkmen classic "Punk Rock Girl."

After the Buskers is Tucson's own British bluesman, the lightning hot harmonica player Tom Walbank and his Ambassadors. I've never been short of amazed watching Walbank and his band jam and I don't think many performers around the world have carved out such a unique musical persona.


Playing last is the legendary Al Perry, who can strum an acoustic, lead an all-star Telecaster jam or honky-tonk it up, depending on the mood. He's been called the Unofficial Mayor of Downtown Tucson and I gladly concur.
Download: Al Perry - We Got Cactus