Whether or not the people who live outside of New Mexico understand our fair state’s cultural contributions to the broader American artistic landscape matters very little when those who’ve called Santa Fe and the area home know something about our regional music to be true: We’ve got a whole mess-load of badass musicians around here. And one show later this week aims to highlight as many of them as possible (not, like, punk and metal, but that’s a story for another day) while setting the stage for a forthcoming documentary film highlighting New Mexico music.
For this Friday’s Big New-Mex Review: A Musical Journey Through the Land of Enchantment, at Tumbleroot Brewery & Distillery, composer/promoter/musician Lance Bendiksen has gathered a veritable who’s-who of New Mexico acts including Euforia, Innastate, Danny T and the Stealing Thunder Band, Onist, Cali Shaw, Nosotros and others for a tour through various homegrown styles. The idea, he tells SFR, is to celebrate local music, but also to produce a film that might better illustrate the bands who call New Mexico home.
“Two things—I’ve been a music producer for 30 years prior to working in the film business, and the inspiration is that I really believe music transcends race, color, creed, religion, politics,” Bendiksen says. As as longtime producer working with a lot of music over the years, moving to New Mexico, I was very, very, very much impressed with how the music is so culture-based, yet there’s a fusion and unity amongst musicians.”
That’s precisely why, he also says, in other words, a reggae band like Innastate can work so well with the mariachi style of Euforia,
“Nosotros can do a transition from a rap artist so well,” Bendiksen says. “I’ve been coming here for years, but when we moved here I completely and totally fell in love with the music—and I mean all of it.”
The evening’s host? None other than legendary actor, Oscar recipient and Santa Fe resident Wes Studi (Cherokee), himself a bit of a musician who might just sing a song or two as part of his emcee duties.
“I worked with Lance on a particular production several years ago, and since he moved here, he’s been very active in the music community,” Studi tells SFR. “I know he’s found the Norteño music to be quite interesting, and I join him in that assessment.”
Studi, whose wife Marua will also perform at the event, says that New Mexico-based and southwestern musical styles tend to be overlooked, which is rather odd considering our penchant in America for genre-fying everything.
“In my experience, I’ve never really heard people talk about a ‘northern New Mexico sound,'” he explains. “Other areas have their sound—like Southern rock, for example—or defined sounds that are present in the music.”
New Mexico tends to be a little more varied. Sure, we’ve got folkloric roots coming out the wazoo around here when it comes to styles crafted in small communities, within pueblos or in our weird little DIY spaces and such. Still, anyone who has been to shows in the last 20 years knows it goes deeper than Latin-esque sounds. Santa Fe alone has produced countless rock, punk, funk and metal acts; plus DJs, mariachis, banda players and so many others. Bendiksen’s Big New-Mex Review seems a good start when it comes to highlighting some of those aspects.
“I think New Mexico often gets overlooked in a lot of ways,” Nosotros member Dennis Jasso says.
Jasso’s band has won Best Band in SFR’s Best of Santa Fe poll for so many years now, it’s kind of a wonder we haven’t just changed the name of the category to something about how everyone loves ’em.
“For whatever reason, I think the perception of people outside of New Mexico is that maybe it’s a little backwards here, maybe we don’t have anything to offer,” Jasso continues, “but clearly they’re wrong. This show is totally exciting.”
Part of that excitement could be because of a transitional plan that could find various musicians from disparate acts combining with others you might never otherwise see together on stage. Studi, for example, is set to play a song or two.
“Lance talked me into doing a number,” he says with a laugh. “I wouldn’t say I have a atyle, I just enjoy playing and singing with some extremely talented bands and individuals. I couldn’t resist.”
Please note that the show is free, but they’ll also be filming for a documentary, so you could wind up on camera at some point down the line. That film, Bendiksen says, will take a broader look at New Mexico culture in a way similarly to what the Buena Vista Social Club documentary did for Cuban music and culture.
“We started working on this a few months ago, just before the holidays, and we’re going to get into the story,” he tells SFR. “We’re going to take the lid off—shooting at Ghost Ranch, showing murals and food trucks and people and really trying to dive into the depths of what New Mexico is, from the power of the landscape to the people. We want to make an expansive documentary. The music will be one thread to that.”
Big New-Mex Review: A Musical Journey Through the Land of Enchantment: 7:30 pm Friday, January 30. Free. Tumbleroot Brewery & Distillery, 2791 Agua Fría St., tumblerootbreweryanddistillery.com
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sfreporter.com ’
