"With Voices Out of Nowhere, Put On Specially by the Children, for a Lark"

By Rudolfo Carrillo

Hey there, people of Albuquerque!

Here is something for you to read on your Sunday evening, even as the thunder crashes and the rain you prayed for comes seeping, drenchingly out of big, fat gray clouds that look really, really beautiful in their aqueous magnificence.

I am going to warn you, though, it will probably piss you off. That’s okay as far as I am concerned. I already have the reputation of being a pugnacious, overly literate asshole, whose work is as difficult as it is charming.

So, I’m going to pose a question. You don’t have to answer it, but maybe you can think about its implications -- for me, for you, for the parallel cyberspace that permeates Albuquerque and its participating human membership.

Here’s the question, in case you are interested.

What the hell is up with Duke City Fix?

What started out as a quirky repository for Burque’s writerly talents has descended into a mediocre and somewhat poorly designed reflection of abandoned possibilities, cliquish commenter culture and obscenely bland poetics.

Now, before you get to the point where you point at the sour grapes that are just out of my reach on yonder rain-soaked cottonwood tree, let me tell you about my experience with DCF.

After the site debuted in 2005, I was mostly content to sit back and comfortably read the offerings therein. After a while, I thought I could do better than what I read and set out to do just that. Though I admired the work of some of the scribblers I encountered (Nora Heineman-Fleck and Paul Krza, for example) I was sure that I could contribute meaningfully and substantively to the Fix, as well.

After a meeting at the Frontier Restaurant with their managing editor in 2008, I was assigned a weekly column and given full reign over the contents of those yet-to-be observations, memoirs and eccentric interpretations of my life in Albuquerque.

As it turned out, I contributed 167 weekly columns for DCF. When called upon, I happily filled in for other weekly columnists as well. Most people liked my work and thought it was intense and thoughtful, though I have to admit some of it was snarky nonsense, mostly aimed at exasperating a growing readership which mostly (in my opinion) consisted of a sort of bourgeois clientele that was pleased as punch to be told where to eat and what to do, as opposed to having their imaginations uncomfortably stretched to the limits of sanity by what I penned on a weekly basis.

Besides, that, I had to contend with the other writers. One of their writers decided he would ape my style. Predictably, he was an adman whose life was apparently based on the clever appropriation of other’s work. Lucky for him, he didn’t read Infinity Report he didn’t have time for such abstruse sci-fi excursions, I reckon, plus which, it probably would have fried his Clear-Channel driven acquisitive mind.


On the few occasions I met with the rest of the staff, the results were predictable, and sometimes downright insulting. I remember one springtime gathering where the publisher made fun of my nascent obesity, offering me a tiny DCF t-shirt as a prize for my hard work.

Well, push finally came to shove in November 2010. I complained about the quality of the work on the site and the well-known fact that I was the only volunteer who contributed on a regular basis. The groupthink stuff came seeping out in an email the editor sent me. She told me plainly that she didn’t care how hard I worked because the others involved were part of an intimate community and, therefore, their positions on the masthead were sacrosanct.

Damn.

In my usually fierce way of doing business, I responded by removing all my work from the site and moving on to better things.

The publisher wrote me to tell me thanks for my “creative posts” and that she thought her thankfulness meant we parted well. I responded by saying no way, further pointing out the hypocrisy of her words and intentions. Since I didn’t care for her further responses, I blocked her email address.

I would have blocked her on Facebook too, but over the three years I knew and worked with her, she never deigned to respond to my friend requests, as if I was an embarrassing presence in the midst of her high and mighty creative-class friends list.

From there, it seemed like it was all downhill, for them anyway, as the number of posts dwindled, longtime members abandoned the site and the awkward design of the place came into question by more than a few folks in the blogosphere.

Flash forward to summer 2011. The site is a mess. The managing editor disappeared into thin air. Editorial guidelines for posts and their accompanying graphics are all but ignored. Poor writing and self-promotional posts seem to have triumphed. The number of posts has dwindled to under 50 per month, when it used to average about three times that number. The main readership draw, The Morning Fix, was abandoned for lack of interest among the staff.

Oh, you still get occasional updates from the Whataburger man, but my marketing-savvy doppelganger has vanished to concentrate on conquering the world for Clear Channel. Otherwise, there’s not much to report, except occasional screeds by self-righteous bicyclists, the same group of local poets every week (as if on queue) and a bevy of overly concerned if utterly misplaced Nob Hill-centric commenters. You think they would at least try to fill in the gaps left by writing something meaningful about their experiences out here in the mysterious and eccentric west.

And it’s okay that I left. I went on to find my voice here in the desert. Infinity Report has more visitors than ever. I’m writing art and music criticism too.

But still, every pore in my body pours out sadness when I visit my old stomping ground. Though, as a native and a writer, I was the perpetual outsider.

I think of all those possibilities, vanquished by arrogance and cliquish certainty and wonder when DCF will finally be reduced to an occasionally viewed page at the Wayback Machine.

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Frightening Examples from the Animal Kingdom: Albuquerque Edition

By Rudolfo Carrillo

I had a boatload of clicks on the ticker to kill this weekend, so I spent part of those languid hours watching a teevee show my partner Samantha suggested for me.

The program she recommended is called National Geographic's Deadly Dozen and in case you are interested, it is about the eldritch collection of human-death-inducing creatures that hauntingly roam the planet earth in search of bipedal primates with which to negatively interact.

We watched a couple of episodes; one of them was about South America.

I’ve been to the Amazon Jungle before, so I kept waiting for the narrator to talk about the dreaded Candiru fish. That’s the tiny river denizen that follows the urine streams of warm blooded creatures who swim in the river and its tributaries. The Candiru fish does its dirty deed so it can swim up into the host’s bladder for food gathering and reproductive purposes.

Instead of waxing swimmingly on those possibilities though, the folks at National Geographic were content to plumb darker waters. They dramatized an anaconda attack on an unsuspecting fisherman ( it can be further imagined that the dude never got out of his boat for fear of the dreaded Candiru fish) who nearly lost his leg in the process. Lots of ketchup was lost in the filming of that episode, I'm sad to report.

They also had a segment on huge tarantulas, with lots of scary close-ups. All the hairy mandibles and carapaces made me wonder if the cinematographer had graduated to this project due to his continued success in the porn industry.

And I'll be damned if all of this got me to thinking about Burque's equivalent; you know the rottenest and most damned animals of the Middle Rio Grande Valley, or something like that. After entering a state of disturbed and twitchy meditation, I finally came up with my own list. It went something like this:

• The Western Diamondback Rattler: In the thirty-five years I've lived in Burque, I've only seen three in their natural environment. I nearly stepped on one in 1988, while trippingly hiking through Embudito Canyon. As it passed between my clumsy hiking boots, it hissed and flicked its tongue at me.

• The Black Widow Spider: I generally declare war on this species every summer, and have come up with a book-length treatise on bellicose activities designed to shorten their individual life spans. Last night, SAS spotted one living in a roll of carpet I have stored out on the carport. I'm giving that arachnid twenty-four hours to abandon its post, elsewise it's an oily Armageddon that awaits.

• The Scorpion: As far as I can tell, these critters are rare in town but dwell with some impunity and in significant numbers on the western mesas. The only reason I'd want to even see one of these scary little animals has to do with the simple fact that they fluoresce under black light. I suppose that could be really groovy if one had a glass jar in which to keep them. Okay, maybe not.
  

• The Desert Centipede: When I was a child my aunt Annie told me that these poisonous arthropods crawled under the skin, that the only way to remove them after such a disastrous interaction involved the use of a hot iron. I'm just glad I've never had to find out. I found one hanging around the toilet the other day and let it crawl up a pencil I had layed out nearby (never know when the writing bug will strike, ha ha). I flicked it into the porcelain moat and flushed mightily.

• The Coyote: I used to hike up around Supper Rock a lot. In the summer, at twilight, I'd hear whole packs of them whooping it up and waiting for dark, so that they could creep on down to the placid subdivisions below, for meals of fresh garbage, roaming kitty cats and the odd chihuahua. One time my old dog Arnold surprised a big male on the trail, it was hiding behind a scrub oak. They battled it out pretty fierce, but in the end Arnold sent his mangy cousin howling back up into the hills, forlorn and bloody.

• Darren White: I reckon you know all about this one, so I won't wax on about him. Suffice it to say that he tops this backwards list.

Blogger's note: That banner at the top of this post is a photo of a vinegaroon, a type of arachnid common in the wilderness areas surrounding our fine burg. They are ugly as hell and smell bad, but are totally harmless.

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Report From Albuquerque, July 2031

By Rudolfo Carrillo

So, since I was a little bit bored today and waiting for the rain to come, I decided to use the technology available in my backyard shed to send my mentor and sometime time-traveling companion, the eminent local writer Kilgore Trout, into the future. I asked him to report back to me when he had gotten a clear glimpse of Burque's destiny.

This is the transmission he sent me via subspace channel 859702678.0870987.83.

By the time any significant amount of rainfall had gathered itself up into big puffy gray-white clouds (and then in an act of miraculous physical transformation - explainable only by a nearly mystical acceptance of atmospheric physics as they operated in the third dimension and upon a tiny clump of rock and poisonous salt water floating in a atramentous abyss on the edge of an even greater and darker void - lovingly fallen from the sky like the hand of a restoring angel or in a manner similar to those depicted in ancient images of waterfalls and fun parks) most of the city had been abandoned to hardy species of succulent plants; heavily armed survivalists with decidedly anarchist leanings and a formidable knowledge of solar energy-gathering techniques; black widow spiders and lots and lots of flies.

The best part of that summer, though, had to do with the approximately 3,521 nuclear devices stored at the dilapidated military base and forsaken government laboratories at the edge of town. In the year 2031, the territorial government, under the auspices of Grand Wazoo of the Western Lands (who is believed to be the bastard son of a former governor of what was once known as the state of California, though he claims to have been hatched under divine circumstances) decided to use telepathy in an attempt to remove the nukes to another planet or even, a passing comet.

I am told that this operation will be undertaken in August, after the yearly reign of fire ends and the water gathering spaceships that Richard Branson donated to the New Mexico Spaceport (right before he was lost in the chronosynclastic infindibulum that appeared on Ridgecrest Boulevard in the year 2019, incidentally) return from their thirty-third lunar expedition.

In the mean time, I am going to try and find someone who can pilot one of the old locomotives stored downtown, to take me up north and out of the smoke and radiation. There's still plenty of folks living near Denver, I hear. Besides Salt Lake City, it's apparently the only place nowadays to get a decent plate of enchiladas.

I'll send you another report next week.
Yer Pal,
Kilgore

End Transmission.

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In the Garage, Where I Feel Safe on the Eve of Bloomsday Whilst Channelling Enid Coleslaw

By Rudolfo Carrillo


There's a song by the american pop-punk flavoured rocanrol band named weezer that has lyrics that speak in plaintive tones of the journey of the mystical or mythical, if you will, outcast. The song is cast in a form built from the irony inherent in proclaiming one's triumph over the establishment, over the defining and restraining nature of the universe. You know, what that fellow up above pronounced as the ineluctable modality of the visible.

in case you are wondering, the song lyrics of the Weezer song include the line, "I write these stupid words and I love every one". One refering to the word, I presume, for purposes related to the nature of this post, I reckon. You know, the word and all that, right?

The musical content on In the Garage isn't jazz, but rather, a relatively simple form of rocanrol. rather than relying on musical complexity, the short tune focuses on rhythm, dynamics, and repetition. Melody seems reserved and awkward, a consequential effect.

But besides all that textual and literary hocus-pocus, I am listening to the song I talked about because of how I feel tonight. I can relate to the embedded narrative. In case you haven't heard it, take a listen here:



Now that you are done with that, you may be wondering why I am so inclined toward sentimental ruminations of what was and what was imagined to be, how i survived all that, into the middle of the twenty-first century.

Well, it's been thirty years since i've been in high school at the City of Gold. of course some of the kids, sharing,as they do, that commonality, are planning a thirty year reunion.

in retrospect, the City of Gold was a special place back when I was there. Top flight instructors balanced delicately with advanced students that had sprouted from nuclear scientists, managers of vast defense industries, business people and entrepreneurs with the acumen of laser light and the full funding and intricate interest of the department of defense, and so on and so forth.

Anywho, I went to my twenty year reunion and it sucked. My friends and I felt more like outsiders than ever, even though we were, by that time, teachers and writers and artists and doctors.

Thereafter, through the magic medium we refer reverently to as facebook - which by the way, really is like instant digitized and engergized relational database about anything you want to know, one way or another, even if just a footnoted hyperlink somewhere near the bottom of the pages and it's on all the time. too - i wrote about all that disillusion, to the guy who is organizing the whole thirty year affair.

It was kinda awkward, but as a freak, I had to do it. there was always a sense of marginalization for some of my contemporaries, for my self, while we dwelt at the golden city. And for some of us, high school was a way to get to college, to grad school, to the centers of our shared culture. That contributed to our sense that our tenure at the school was just another vague image, lost across the wide span of years.

Of course I mentioned the twelve-sided die and the dungeon master's guide, because all of that was true. I also implied that an analogy could be drawn between certain characters in Ghost World and my experience in high school.

One of my favorite parts of the filmic version is the Mohammed Rafi tune that Enid listens to at the beginning of the film. Here it is, if you would like to listen to it, before reading on:



I don't know if I will be there, at that gathering which is still a year away and like a distant ship mast from a slow moving boat on the very edge of the horizon. While i think about it, I am going to listen to a couple of the songs we were listening to back in Burque, at the City of Gold in the year commonly refered to as nineteen hundred and eighty-two.

















Be seeing you.

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Rudolfo Carrillo's 116th Dream: Burque Beyond Quirky

by Rudolfo Carrillo

Of course, there is a place called Albuquerque in the other world.

Crickets chirp in the summertime, just like they do here in Ridgecrest. Upon closer inspection, however, they are coloured a deep, bluish violet and resemble our pet dog, Schrödinger. Also, a wide and rushing river separates the Sandia Mountains into two craggy ranges. On one side of the river are homes of considerable wealth made from the smooth white stones of eternity, while on the southern banks, immense tunnels guarded by mangy coyotes and dead rattlesnakes lead into a world populated by old-timey pioneers, gamblers and forlorn cattle thieves.

At the edge of the Manzano Mountains, nestled in pines and aspens made lofty by constant exposure to the sentient radioactive weapons dwelling beneath the blanket of smoke that drifts and hums across the plains and upwards to the peaks, there is a ramshackle amusement park with a large ferris wheel and a famous restaurant. They make the best tortillas in the world there. The enchilada plate is not too shabby, either.

I won't tell you much about the tin and adobe skyscraper next door, except to say that it is abandoned and that all the walls inside are painted the same color they used in the tuberculosis sanitoriums of the early twentieth century. I think that young people use the parking lot for automobile races, now.

All sorts of humans drift through the town in hot-air balloons or else ride in busses back and forth from the foothills to the southern edge of the settlement, where a leaden and tranquil sea provides a natural barrier to the immense military outpost on the far shore. The base is only accessible by hovercraft. The guards there wear crisp blue uniforms in honor of the sky.

At the corner of Louisiana and Montgomery, a complex and chaotically engaged mechanical behemoth rises from the asphalt, giving birth to a plethora of transportation devices, ranging from covered wagons to new, swift locomotives and custom lowriders. Taking one of these vehicular contrivances downtown has been designed by the city fathers to be a pleasant experience, with ample views of the heavy wooden Masonic temple on Coal Avenue available from any perspex viewscreen.

At the center of all this, in the midst of the urban otherness that I can only dream about, a vast, winged and curiously amused cephalopod holds court while fixed gear bicyclists rush arrogantly away from the old one's admonitions, fleeing into alleyways and hotel rooms filled with faceless visitors from Mars, Venus, Los Lunas, and Bernalillo.

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Supernormal Kaleb Wentzel-Fisher Directs New Parenthetical Girls Video

Things in Light featured Supernormal Kaleb Wentzel-Fisher's "bokeh words" technique at the end of March, showcasing the talented local artist's "Light Works." To refresh your memory, click here.

Wentzel-Fisher directed Portland's Parenthetical Girls' new video, "Careful Who You Dance With," utilizing his "bokeh words" technique, chiaroscuro, and creative camerawork. It's gettin' a lot of buzz, y'all. According to Wentzel-Fisher, the video was shot in the basement of the Bank of America building, at Washington and Central. Fellow Parenthetical Girls fans, we now have a hyper-local tribute zone for our PG-love. Tag suggestion: (♀)

Wentzel-Fisher's video is lovely. Check out it below.

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Low Life Cult Flix Screen at Voodoo Scooters

The following communique was disseminated via DCat's subterranean show list. My only comment: BOSS.

"DJ Caterwaul teams up with Voodoo Scooters, on Thursday, May 19, to bring you some of the sickest, grimiest visions of human existence ever committed to celluloid. Well actually, there are sicker ones, but these two cult gems just radiate & revel in human degradation, with a wicked sense of humor at the same time.

Street Trash (J. Michael Muro, 1987) has a lot in common with early Peter Jackson movies in terms of pure grossout glee, but this one’s got a really nasty urban disposition. It was shot in gonzo fashion on location in NYC, during a small window of time when filmmakers could get away with a lot more shock value than now. And boy, do they ever. It’s definitely not for the politically correct or weak of stomach. Some of the scenes still make me cringe, and not for the gore effects alone, which are probably the most enjoyable part of the flick.

What’s the movie about? Oh, umm…the violent social ecosystem of homeless derelicts fighting to survive in pre-Giuliani NYC; dissing, robbing, raping, mutilating & killing each other. Occasionally the bums also drink poisoned rotgut liquor that makes them explode & melt all over the place in neon gore. It’s a sick hoot, and one of a kind- but don’t say you weren’t warned.

The Dark Backward (Adam Rifkin, 1991) is a lot tamer on the gore, but makes up for it in Lynchian weirdity and pure filth. If Street Trash is Bumsploitation, then this is literally Trashploitation, as garbage is practically a main character in the film. Textured layers of grime & scum cover every surface in almost every scene. Sordid & despicable human behavior fills out the rest. The plot follows two garbagemen, one of whom is a miserable failed comedian (that Neil Hamburger has to have been inspired by), the other a cackling, opportunistic degenerate who treats his buddy like shit. Out of nowhere, the comedian develops a bizarre physical mutation that his “friend” sees as a potential goldmine. More gratuitous misery ensues. This existential fable disguised as a cult film stars a nearly unrecognizable Judd Nelson, a maniacal Bill Paxton,Lara Flynn Boyle and freakin’ Wayne Newton as the sleazy promoter! You’ll definitely want a shower after this.

Thursday, May 19 @ Voodoo Scooter/The Shack (2318 Central SE) 8-11:30pm, donations welcome, popcorn on Tha Shack, BYOWhateva. Many thanks to Basement Films for the loan of the projector."

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transit of objects and entities in albuquerque, variation 171

by Rudolfo Carrillo

i am driving a car that is colored like ashes or the far reaches of intergalactic space - and is called the salamander after a book that i like to read - when i will be god-damned if an oil-smeared and dusty like the machinery of oklahoma in the thirties group of humans stops right in the fucking road and i have to turn the wheel sharply to the left, else they be rendered as lifeless components of the inanimate galaxy all around them.

they are waiting for a straggler who is still on the other side of the road and he is busy taking a piss on the big green electrical transformer that sets next to the rubbish dumpster behind the neighborhood pharmacy. they are all yelling and cajoling him to be done with his relief, fearful of the heat which such watery pause often brings. at least one of them is also thinking that they can't spend the rest of their life in jail and so they don't see my car turn the corner on a vector that might well forcefully intercept their desperate but satisfying congregation.

thanks to my lightning fast reflexes, that never happens and I am past them and gliding into a parking space before the group's laggard finishes his work and passes out with his pants around his knees, his associates fairly howling with laughter and recrimination. they head on down the street, leaving him to rot in the bright sunshine while i pull myself out of the drivers seat using a kind of leverage that is reserved for magicians and the chronically ill.

the doors to walgreens slide open automatically when you approach them, but before i am in range of that miraculous technological demonstration, an old dude who is wearing a greasy hat with the name of a natural gas supplier in Lubbock Texas paired up with a flimsy Rat Fink t-shirt ambles up to me casual-like and asks about the weather. i tell him it ain't ordinarily this dry, but when the conversation veers toward money, I draw out a fiver from my left front pocket and hand it over with the gentle admonitions.

since it only takes 'em a few minutes to account for and bag up my supply of medicine and the mysterious high-tech life-saving devices that generally come along, I rush home so that I can spend the rest of the early morning investigating other worlds. i don't see the street people again, but instead dream that a navigable river flows through the midst of the Sandia Mountains, that there is a colorful restaurant on the edge of town, down a muddy road, where anyone who asks for a meal will be fed until they nearly burst.

(cross-posted from the notorious blog known ominously to some as Report on American City 119n)

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what the cool kids listened to before punk rock came to town, part one

by Rudolfo Carrillo

Folks, before punk rock leaked out of the surrounding universe like a glob of very hot metal - the kind produced when welding or alternatively, by cranking the shit out of your mains and destroying expensive musical equipment on stage - and coelesced gloriously and profoundly in albuquerque new mexico (where it continues to dwell perpetually like steel is designed to do), local rocanrol music lovers were known to gather in the desert with transistor radios and the am philco receivers of their parents' abominably huge automobiles and tune into faraway places like Ciudad Juarez or Denver Colorado to get their nightly quotient of those heady nuggets of tunage which drove their souls past ennui and into the blissfully rhythmical unknown.

Actually, it wasn't like that at all. I just wanted to experiment a little. Generate a mythos and all that. Because you know the story. There's been rocanrol played in this town for what I reckon must be about sixty years. I'll prove that to you all someday, but since I can't get the god damned T.A.R.D.I.S. to go back past nineteen hundred and sixty four until i install a new sub-temporal modulator, I'll tell you all about the rocanrol scene that was cooking up a storm in Burque during the later portion of that same decade.

There is already a lot that has been written about those halcyon days, mostly by one of the scene's progenitors. His name is Dick Stewart and he and his mates had a band called the Knights. Heavily influenced by the instrumental surf rock that was seeping onto the playlists at KQEO, the Knights evolved into a proto-psychedelic band as la musica de Califas came to rule youthful imaginations in the west and southwest.

Later on in the game, they changed their name to King Richard and the Knights. Here's what they sounded like in the year called nineteen hundred and sixty six:



Stewart further contributed to the local scene by publishing a seminal music zine that still has life and is planting seeds today. Most significantly, Stewart started a recording studio called Lance Records. He used the electronic technology of the age to document and showcase home grown psychedelic rocanrol, releasing records by space pioneers like The Kreeg and Lincoln Street Exit.

If you wanna know more about all of that, check out The Lance online. It's the perfect means of remotely viewing and hearing the authentic voice of Burque's rocanrol past, since you aren't privileged with the same awesome devices available to a Time Lord, and all that other sci-fi mumbo jumbo that I am known for espousing.

In the meantime and while you are clicking away, here are two of my favorite recordings from the archives of Lance Records: The Kreeg performing Impressin' and Lincoln Street Exit's recording called The Bummer.

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ABQ MTV: Touch the Shovel of Turbulence

Things in Light is pleased to present the third episode of ABQ MTV. It's a triad, yo. Y'all keep makin' boss music and vids and we'll keep featurin' it. Deal?

First, badass/Supernormal Kaleb Wentzel-Fisher created this dark, delicious slice of desert nightlife -- or is that post-life?! -- for "Hayley's Ghost," a slice of North America from their forthcoming album, Blown Out. Watching in the dark is recommended.

Hayley's Ghost - North America from Supernormals on Vimeo.

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Second, Brian Fejer created a GIF-tastic video for Tenderizor's "Touch the Sword." This video covers all the bases. I recognized GIFs from Somewhere, Leaving Las Vegas, Eraserhead, The Wizard of Oz, American Psycho, Altered States, An American Werewolf in London -- just to name a few. Plus, lots of music video and commercial GIFs, notably Shake Weight and KFC... It's very NSFW, which is likely the point. What do y'all recognize?

Touch the Sword - Tenderizor from Brian Fejer on Vimeo.

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And, last but not least, check out Of God and Science's new video for "Turbulence." Produced by Vizual View, it features stunning cinematography, a tale of childhood friendship, and guys in creepy rabbit masks. Word.

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ABQ MTV: Flashback Film

Image courtesy of cracksinthesidewalk.com/

Things in Light is psyched to present another "episode" of ABQ MTV, featuring local music videos that hark back to '86.

Our first video was broadcast live on Channel 27 in 1986. It features a musical intro by fringe-y Albuquerque new wave keyboard artist Rodger C. Venue. Then, seminal Albuquerque punk rockers Cracks in the Sidewalk share the "Leatherword." Check out youngsters Gordy Anderson (Black Maria, ex-Jerry's Kidz) Chris Partain (ex-Starsky, ex-Elephant, Star Tattoo), Judson Frondorf (designer, "PowerBook-fronter"), and Jez Velasquez (collage artist).

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Was that minute-long Rodger C. Venue intro just enough to whet your appetite for synth? You're in luck, 'cause here's a Venue vid from '86, "Danger City." And there's more synth-y goodness on the Rodger C. Venue Myspace, which indicates Venue is now calling Austin home.

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I would surely be remiss if I failed to include this Cracks in the Sidewalk "Down" video from '88.

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And, for good measure, here's Cracks in the Sidewalk performing in '94 on 5000 Feet High (Ch. 27).

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7inches to Freedom Turns One on Easter

7inches to Freedom, Albuquerque's monthly DJ salon, turns one year old on Sunday, April 24. Held the last Sunday of every month, 7inches to Freedom was the brainchild of artist and DJ Drew Keul. When Keul moved from Austin to Albuquerque last year, he brought with him a love of music, records, and the inspiration for a monthly DJ salon. Modeled after Austin's long-running Love and a 45 record party, 7inches to Freedom came to life in the spirited atmosphere of the now-defunct 1Kind performance space (a/k/a Wunderkind, Coalmine, Rio Grande Satanical Gardens). When that space closed, the salon briefly relocated to The Spot, before finding a permanent home at Blackbird Buvette (509 Central NW). And that's where Albuquerque's hardcore vinyl enthusiasts and dabblers alike can be found tomorrow night, celebrating 7inches to Freedom's birthday.

7inches to Freedom works like this: Vinylphiles and those merely "interested in the lifestyle" bring three or more 45rpm or 7" records and sign up to play three tracks. DJ Caterwaul said, "7"s-only is the main rule - 33 or 45rpm is okay, but we don’t want DJs up there for 15 minutes at a time, so please keep it to one song/track, if there’s more than one on a 33 rpm. And no scratching! No genre specifications, no DJ egos, nothing but a love for vinyl and having a good time." After you play your first set, you can sign up again. Spinning continues in this three-track rotation all night.

Things in Light asked some of 7inches to Freedom's core organizers and enthusiasts to share their thoughts on the eve of its birthday. And here's what they said.

Tahnee Udero/DJ Tahnee: "I knew it was something I wanted to be part of when I saw the first flyer. Originally it was hosted at 1Kind, which is a testament to the attitude and people that fostered the venue. Blackbird Buvette is open to what we are doing and has been a great new home. We want to give the vinyl-collecting community a place to gather and have fun while enjoying what each other have taken the time to dig up. You don't have to call yourself a DJ to play vinyl for your friends. We can take a step back to hear and learn what our friends like."

Drew Keul: "The event is about diggin' through crates. If you dig through crates regularly, then you know what it's like to find treasures. So, it's about the love of digging and letting others hear your personal treasures. This is for people that love music, plain and simple."

DCat/DJ Caterwaul: "For me, the focus of 7inches to Freedom is definitely on the freedom. I love that it's open to any genre or source, as long as it's on 7" vinyl, and DJs have the option to go with the flow or trainwreck it, as they see fit. The short and simple list of rules that accompany this 'freedom' actually make a lot of creative room for those that want to explore it."

Mello Sanchez/DJ Mello: "7inches to Freedom is a gateway drug to record enthusiasm and collecting for those who might not have been into it. I really like the fact that it has created a unique community of record collectors and DJs who listen to all different kinds of music. We all enjoy each other's music and company. It's created an environment for Albuquerque DJs and music lovers to socialize and talk records that didn't exist before."

7inches to Freedom

Blackbird Buvette (509 Central NW)

6 p.m. 'til late

Free

21+

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Get Your Heptagram On At Third Not-Really-Annual Crabwalk

It's hard to draw a perfect heptagram. Console yourself by attending the Third Not-Really-Annual Crabwalk on Thursday evening at the P & J (202 Harvard SE). But what is a crabwalk, exactly? Event organizer DJ Caterwaul briefed Things in Light on the structure and history of the crabwalk. Crabwalks gather a diverse group of musicians - typically five, primarily local - in a performance space and then the musicians play in round-robin, usually pentagram, fashion. The audience is positioned at the center of this vortex. The musicians often band together for an improv session by the end of the performance.

"I think this is the most musically diverse of all the crabwalks that have happened. Hip hop, singer/songwriter, metal, sound collage, noise, experimental, and chiptune music are all represented here, plus some stray subgenres, I reckon," said DJ Caterwaul. This year's crabwalk features seven musical elements. It's formula is : Bud Melvin's "8-bit hacked Gameboy accompanied by banjo/uke" + Chemtrail Pilot's "lone wolf hip hop" + Cinik's "solo-experimental-[ism]" + Iceolus' "proggy high desert 'burnt sienna' metal" + Javelina's songstress Emma Arsonist + Las Cruces-based Lobsterbreath's "mad scientist culture jamming" + a guest appearance by Alan George Ledergerber's Blacker Guise.

According to Bud Melvin (the Grave of Nobody's Darling, Lionhead Bunny, Phantom Lake), "In a crabwalk, the groups form a circle as the primordial point. The audience goes wherever it will. I walk in with a plan and the plan becomes useless, as I end up changing songs at the last minute to compliment or contrast what came immediately before and what maybe my unconscious knows is next."

Cinik said, "Even though I play live occasionally, I'm still always a bit uncomfortable playing for an audience, but, for once, I feel totally comfortable because this group event has a strong purpose -- to illustrate that Albuquerque has an excellently diverse music scene. The concept is less about the traditional performer audience relationship and more about communicating what Albuquerque has going for it."

According to Greg Markham (Roñoso, Iceolus, Prison of Sound), "This event shows our capacity to have seemingly contradicting genres compliment each other. Meanwhile, an audience in the middle is given a ride through five, and now with this year seven, different sonic entities. And, in the end, when all the sounds converge, we hope that if we haven't treaded upon new ground, we can all come out inspired."

The Third Not-Really-Annual Crabwalk will commence at the P&J (202 Harvard SE) on Thursday night at 8 p.m. and end by 11 p.m. All-ages. Donations for the P&J and local artists are welcome.

Scroll on for video of the artists performing at this year's Crabwalk.

VIDEO:

Bud Melvin

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Chemtrail Pilot

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Cinik

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Iceolus

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Javelina

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Lobsterbreath

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Alan George Ledergerber/Blacker Guise

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Boom Baggage: The Haters Bring the Noise to ABQ

GX Jupitter-Larsen, the founder and central protagonist of noise art project The Haters, is disappointed when people refer to The Haters' aural output as “music.” “It's noise to me, and I love noise,” said Jupitter-Larsen, “More than any type of music, noise is the most accurate metaphor for entropy.”

Entropy and decay, professional wrestling, and Jupitter-Larsen's self-created measurement lexicon have been described as primary Haters themes. According to Jupitter-Larsen, this is an accurate description. “Why I'm drawn to such, is movement. Each implies a different aspect of the nature of movement,” said Jupitter-Larsen.

Performing with sound since the late-'70s, Jupitter-Larsen has no formal training in sound, preferring to learn by experience and experimentation. “As a child 'til my late-teens, I had no interest in sound whatsoever. Even as a teen, I never listened to top 40 radio. I was more into talk radio, the nuttier the guest, the better. It wasn't 'til I discovered punk in '77. People at the time talked about punk as if was noise, but it was never noisy enough for me. After that, one thing lead to another,” said Jupitter-Larsen.

Geared toward a sociologically transmitted noise ethos, attending a Haters show is about participating in an unfamiliar communion of noise. Jupitter-Larsen notes that one of his goals for The Haters' shows is fostering cognition in the audience. By failing to conform to preconceptions of The Haters' themes, the project aims to leave audiences guessing and, by extension, thinking.

Jupitter-Larsen is most well known for his work with The Haters, which is understandable as the prolific noise project has released over 300 CDs and records since its inception and performed extensively across the globe. But Jupitter-Larsen is also a novelist, zinester, conceptual artist (working in diverse media, including radio, video, and mail), and an alt-numerologist. Jupitter-Larsen's self-created measurement lexicon includes measurements such as the polywave, the totimorphous, and the xylowave. His transexpansion numeral unit (TNU) “explores distance and separateness between linear and counting locations that do not neighbor each other.” Less arithmetic and more emotional barometer, TNU is inclusive, allowing anyone to create “personal numbers to symbolize any numeral interrelationship.”

Jupitter-Larsen has served as sound engineer for Survival Research Laboratories, employed inside agitators to instigate physical destruction of venues by audience members, and written four “noise novels.” Jupitter-Larsen's noise novels are “collection[s] of philth, poetry, & philosophy, combining different writing techniques into a literary hiss.” As of 2001, Jupitter-Larsen had performed over 3500 hours of live radio art, on 31 stations and in 11 countries.

The Haters will perform in Albuquerque at Small Engine Gallery on Thursday, April 21. Since it's a traveling show, The Haters will be using amplified suitcases. Other noise acts -- New England “fish-man hybrid”/“Dada-mainliner” Crank Sturgeon, Billings, MT-based harsh noise project Pop Culture Rape Victim, experimental electroacoustic ensemble KILT (featuring native son Raven Chacon, Bushwick, NY-based composer Bob Bellerue, and Hungarian-American vocalist and percussionist Sandor Finta), and Oakland, CA-based noise outfit Styrofoam Sanchez -- will also perform at Thursday night's show, before making a pilgrimage to this weekend's Denver Noise Fest.

Thursday, April 21, at 9 p.m.

Small Engine Gallery, 1413 Fourth SW (Barelas)

All-ages, $8

VIDEO

The Haters

The Haters at Neon Marshmallow Fest (Day 2, 8/20/10) from Bullart. on Vimeo.

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Crank Sturgeon

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Pop Culture Rape Victim

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KILT

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Styrofoam Sanchez

Styrofoam Sanchez "Your Blood Is In Our Mouth" live from Ratskin records on Vimeo.

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ABQ MTV: Local Music Videos That Rawk

I love music videos. And, this week, I stumbled across two new, local music videos that I absolutely lurve. Scroll on to get your ABQ A/V fix.

Local indie rawk duo Fart House seems to be following a witch house-esque search engine policy, because googling "Fart House" gets one exactly nowhere. Luckily, one-half of Fart House, uber-talented local artist Brapola! (Luke Hussack) shared this Supernormals-directed video for their song, "Song," on Facebook. Filmed at Small Engine Gallery, this video features so-bad-it's-good stand-up comedy, a couple of photogenic ducklings, face-in-hole paintings, and creative editing. And "Song" is a really good, er, song. Check it out!

"SONG" By Fart House from Supernormals on Vimeo.

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Next up, check out the beautifully abstract, concretely poetic video that Molly Caldera created for RAWWR!'s "MATI."

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Finally, check out the slightly older, but no less fantastic, interstellar road trip video for Monster Paws' "Ray of Light."

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X's and O's: Santa Fe Scribbles George Lewis Jr.'s Name On Its Trapper Keeper

My introduction to Twin Shadow was facilitated by stumbling across the Alex Markman-directed video for "Slow" during the languorous heat of July. The video, an incisive and charming casting couch parody, was interesting enough that I immediately procured Twin Shadow's debut album, Forget (4AD, 2010), and put it into rotation. Sometimes referred to as the "Mexican Morrissey" or the "Bangladeshi Bowie," Dominican Republic-born, Florida-raised, Brooklyn-based George Lewis Jr.'s Twin Shadow is pure, sweet, nostalgic new wave-pop that manages to simultaneously sound as sentimental as a preserved rose and as present-tense as a sunrise.

Via 4AD: "Twin Shadow is the nom de plume of George Lewis Jr. The troubled son of a hairdresser and a 'teacher who lived many lives,' his formative years were spent in suburban Florida. Later, George escaped and travelled north to New York, where the slow gestation of Forget took place over a duration of many months in his Brooklyn apartment. Impressed by the unknown Twin Shadow, Chris Taylor (Grizzly Bear) lent his considerable talents as a co-producer, getting behind the dials to add a final flourish to the eleven tracks that would become Forget."

Check out the aforementioned video for "Slow" and Twin Shadow's new video, for "At My Heels," below. Twin Shadow will open for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, in The Fe at Corazón on Tuesday, April 12 at 7 p.m. All-ages. Bar w/ ID. $10-15.

And check out these The Pains of Being Pure at Heart vids:

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Tuesday's Child is Full of Rawk: Mixed Media Showcase + Doom Crawl in ABQ

Do y'all have plans for Tuesday night? Don't say yes or no before you peruse these killer shows happening Tuesday night in Albuquerque!

▼ Albuquerque Boys Choir, PDX junkyard folk-steampunk jazz quintet Professor Gall, Arcata-based poet Jacqueline Suskin, and Odnila G + Yellow Crystal Star perform at Winning Coffee Co. (111 Harvard SE) at 7 p.m. All-ages. $5.

Albuquerque Boys Choir from Elena Lopez on Vimeo.

▼ Leeches of Lore, Atlanta "brutal-sludge stoner motorcycle metal" foursome Let the Night Roar, Fando, and "Daniel & Joseph's sumpnsum’n" Streights perform at The Kosmos (1715 Fifth NW) at 9 p.m. All-ages. $5.

▼ Chico, CA doom outfit Amarok (ex-Makai), "burnt sienna metal" threesome Iceolus, and "burnt crust" purveyors Deathwülf perform at Burt’s Tiki Lounge (313 Gold SW) at 10 p.m. 21+. No cover.

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Bevvitched: Fielded Incants Monday in ABQ

I've been listening to a lot of Kate Bush and witch house lately. That sort of musical headspace was the perfect place from which to access Fielded. Fielded is the solo project of Lindsay Powell (Ga'an, Festival). It's essentially vox-led incantatory pop. But, really, that sort of label can't do Fielded any justice. I've listened to seven or eight Fielded tunes this evening and was never bored. Fielded will perform on Monday evening at The Gold House (1817 Gold SE) with Cloud Lantern (Decca Sequence members playin' lo-fi) and Joseph Angelo (dark folk, Luperci). 8 p.m. $5. All-ages.

Fielded vinyl and cassettes are available from Catholic Tapes, at Fielded's bandcamp page or at Monday evening's show.

Friendship Bracelet says: "Church drones, beat shards, ghost town tumbleweed specters. Woulda been great for creepo-dungeon Halloween mix, could probably be used in place of "Silent Night" shit on yer Christmastime mix, assuming your Christmas party been thrown in the graveyard. I'm talkin ghost of Christmas future shit, clinkin down in a freshly dug grave, huge blue moon overhead, huge pack of coyotes howlin overhead. Long bouts of shivers."

20jazzfunkgreats says: "There has been a wealth of incantatory music recently, reminiscences of rambles across enchanted forests where the layer that separates us from the spirit world becomes translucent. Fewer have however dared to step into that glowing space. Enter Fielded, who with Demon Seed levitate there washed by the spiritual arpeggio of a thousand white witches, this is the silver statue whose weight equals the pyramid of steaming hearts that the minions of darkness pile on the other side of the cosmic scales."

Dig, below.

Fielded - Another Time from Hearsay and Hyperbole on Vimeo.

Fire Rock Walls by Fielded

Red Queen by Fielded

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Light Emerges: Akron/Family Perform Sunday in The Fe

Akron/Family's newest album, S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT, is markedly different from 2009's Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free. Supposedly, after hearing several deadlines whoosh by, the band delivered a CDR with four of the albums' tracks and a paranoid Post-it promising to deliver the rest of the album directly to the vinyl pressing plant, and a handwritten note that read:

"It started. a note left for us in an old abandoned space reads:

'Do Not Erase

I Was Ak'

Flourish.Flourish.Flourish. Fuck Shit Up.

We took this to heart.

Hidden out. Abandoned train station Detroit summer. Odd purple light. Rooms converted into serious makeshift portal creation zones to dimensionalize the recording fully in imagination. Honey bee mexican grocery behind. Sky is night. Song construction think back a submarine culture inspired side of Volcano futurism forested in old backbrain Japan.

Birth of early adulthood ideal tribalist experimentation before belief of the best better ways. Little dreams written in communal books. These memories recovered from old coughing hard drives, spliced infinitesimally small and reconstructed into front lobe acid punk outsider emotional music spaces. A true fantasy story that ain't no lie for direct to our fans and for the rest of 'em. All welcome and fuck 'em all or at least the rest of 'em simultaneously.

A great flourishing of friendships and joint creativity and hard work. Brought about by the still stubborn belief in a vision creative and encouraging.

Catching the Big Fish. An Eastern European blue van dream up. Follow the 12-foot yellow paper roll from SE Portland. A dream roll of visions and bulldozers organized by Future Librarians unemployed, Intoxicated, Artistic-bent, Roving Aimlessly Free of expectation 100 years later."

-Akron/Family

So, yeah, I guess it sort of sounds like that. Psych-folk-meets-art-rock is a pretty good descriptor, but words sort of fail me here. Akron/Family are wonderfully freaky. The band of Portland/New York-based drifters will perform on Sunday evening at Corazón. 7 p.m. 21+. $10-12. Delicate Steve, from New Jersey, opens.

Delicate Steve - "Wondervisions" Video (Feat. Nat Baldwin) from stereogum on Vimeo.

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Blurred Vision: Supernormals' "Light Works"

Things in light. Hmm... Light as thing? Thing-in-itself? File under musings induced after viewing Supernormal Kaleb Wentzel-Fisher's "Light Works." According to the short film's description, Wentzel-Fisher used stencils and "a bokeh technique [he's] been working on for a long time." Lovely.

Light Works from Supernormals on Vimeo.

If you're curious about how this film was made, watch the behind-the-scenes footage below.

Light Works - Behind The Scenes from Supernormals on Vimeo.

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No Place Like Home: Red Light Cameras Debut "Home" Video

Do y'all like your indie rock with sincere lyrics, tight instrumentation, and strong female vox? If so, you're in luck. Check out Red Light Cameras' debut music video for the twangy, passionate "Home." According to the band, here's how the vid got made: "Shot on the set for Blackout Theatre's 'A Sparrow's Daughter: A Cuento.' We wanted to shoot something on this gorgeous set, so we did it really quickly on a Saturday afternoon. We used a Canon XH-A1 and played the music twice as fast. We put the camera on a skateboard and slowly scooted it. [Our] guitarist couldn't be there, and our other guitarist was filming. Then, [we] slowed it down using the Optical Flow in Motion 4." Now, click your heels together three times...

See Red Light Cameras live at The Box on April 2.

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ISO MEN in ABQ: Talk About Kurt Russell's Body

Do you like MEN? I do. And, as Mae West once noted, it's not the men in your life that counts, it's the life in your men. Brooklyn disco-electro art-punk collective MEN perform tomorrow night at the Launchpad, 618 Central SW. They'll almost certainly bring the vive. This show will be MEN's 205th performance. Historic, yo. Doors at 8 p.m. 21+. $10. Check out the latest, explosive MEN vid below. For more background and insight into MEN, read the Alibi's Q&A with JD Samson.

Local cyberdelic pop stars The Gatherers will also perform. You can stream and/or download their infectious debut album, Kurt Russell, at their bandcamp profile. Watch a video of their performance at the first annual Albuquerque Experimental fest below.

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As Nasty As Y'all Wanna Be: Burning Paradise Launches Web Show, Zine

I can regularly be found haunting the DVD aisles of UNM's Fine Arts Library. I wander, ghostlike, past videodisk remnants of Alphaville. In these overwhelmingly digital times, these visits always remind me of the precarious position of locally owned video stores when so many humans -- including myself -- regularly access film via the internet. As a fellow obsessive cinephile, I know it's utterly unrealistic to expect y'all to hit up your local video store every time you're itching for a cinematic fix. But buying -- and renting -- locally is more than an overused marketing cliché. Supporting your locally owned video store has a discernible impact on the culture of a city.

Burning Paradise Video has been serving Albuquerque's cult video needs since the summer of '03. While Burning Paradise still has your cult film needs copiously covered, the video outlet has branched out into mainstream video, as well. The best of both worlds, one might muse. So, whether you're in the mood for El Angel Exterminador, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! or Jackass 3, Burning Paradise has what you crave.

Join the Burning Paradise crew and fellow cinephiles tonight for an evening of food, discounts, prizes, and live music, in celebration of Burning Paradise's new aptly titled web show and zine, Video Nasty. Watch a webisode below. Then, scroll on for the Video Nasty Launch Party deets.

New Mexican garage rocanrol institution (and personal favorite!) The Scrams and self-described "Super Punk Rock" upstarts Domestic Violence perform for the love of all that is holy, sacred, and, er, profane. Festivities begin at 7 p.m. All-ages. Food! Prizes! Free! At Burning Paradise's new location, 115 Harvard Dr. SE #2.

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