El Paso rockers The Lusitania have released one DIY, self-titled album in 2007 and a split 7" single with another local band, Buckeye, a little while later.
So why does bassist Blake Duncan call their new album, "Rain and Rivers," their "first professional" album?
Because they recorded it in a proper studio, spending a year off and on working on it, guided by Sleepercar's Jim Ward and Gabe Gonzalez, who co-produced it at their Clap of Thunder studios. It's being released on Ward's Civil Defense League label and will be sold on his tembloroso.com merch site.
Ward will open for his charges at a CD release for "Rain and Rivers" at 7 p.m. Sunday at Ardovino's Desert Crossing in Sunland Park. Admission is 10 bucks at the door and incudes a copy of the 12-song CD, an inspired blend of straightahead country and punk infused rock, topped by singer-guitarist Michael Duncan's cinematic stories of weary, wayward souls and broken hearts.
"All the previous recordings are live recordings. We had the amps next to the drums next to the mics, all live, no editing, just a rough mix," Blake Duncan, Michael's brother, says. "This was tracked separate. We did the drums, then the bass, guitar, keyboards, added little things, put sax in there, some small string parts, did some extra percussion, then put on the vocals. We tracked it in the correct order."
The bassist think the album is "the best representation of our sound," a sound that's been forged over the last few years as the band — guitarist Will Daugherty, keyboardist Adi Kanlic, drummer Charles Berry and the Duncan brothers — worked the local club circuit before branching out to gigs at clubs around the Southwest.
The band's worked some high-profile local shows, including this year's Plaza Classic Film Festival and last year's Warped tour stop at NMSU, but it really has national ambitions and thinks the more accomplished work on "Rain and Rivers" will be the kind of CD people will want to buy after seeing them at clubs in places like Fort Worth, Lubbock, Tucson and Colorado Springs.
"We're trying to get people to listen to our music ... we're not there to be in the background while people drink their beer," the bassist says. "We want you to see us. That's the point. We're playing a show."
The band is equally serious about the music it writes. Michael Duncan's imagistic lyrics are no surprise. He's graduate student at UTEP, where he's studying multi-cultural literature. "He reads. He's a smart guy," says Blake, who graduated from UTEP last year with a degree in music theory and composition.
The new CD includes reworked versions of the old album's "Bottleneck Blues," "The Wolves" and the provocative "The Spoils of War." The two songs from that split single, "Tributaries" and "Down the Tracks," also were re-recorded.
The band and its producers worked around each other's schedules and the band's limited budget, piecing the album together over about a year, Duncan says, with about 30 days of actual recording and 20 days of mixing and mastering.
"We always understood the process and know what's available in the recording process, but never had it at our fingertips before," says Duncan, whose band approach friends and mentors Ward and Gonzalez about collaborating.
Now the goal is to get it out there, starting with Sunday's show on which the band will play the entire album, plus eight new songs. They'll be backed by a horn section assembled for this and future gigs (Sarah Baqla and Angel Guzman on trumpets and Joey Ponce on sax).
"What you can hear on the record is kind of what we want our live show to sound like," Duncan says. "But it's not limited to that. You can do things on a record that you can't do live, and you can do things live you can't do on a record."
A portion of the proceeds from Sunday's show will go to Beans and Outreach, a Ward family favorite, which assists food banks in northern Mexico.
In other concert news:
• Mexican and American Spanish-language pop and rock acts, including Belinda, Christopher Uckerman, Paty Cantu, Playa Limbo and El Paso's Andres Fierro are among the performers on this Exa FM's Exa Concierto 2010, which is from 6-11:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 30 on the grounds of the Sunland Park City Hall at McNutt and Racetrack.
It's free, but you've got to get tickets from the station (Exa FM 98.3). Call 880.5983 to see if there are any left.
• The UTEP Symphonic Winds, a 70-member student concert band led by faculty member Ron Hufstader, will play its first concert of the 2010-2011 season at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Fox Fine Arts Recital Hall.
Fans should note the new name — they used to be the UTEP Wind Symphony.
The varied program includes Gustav Holst's Second Suite in F, Henry Fillmore's "Americans We," Percy Grainger's "Colonial Song" (conducted by graduate teaching assistant Katsuya Morishita) and newer pieces by Robert Jager ("Esprit de Corps"), Philip Sparke ("Dance Movements") and Eric Whitacre ("October").
Tickets are $5 for adults, $3 for kids, on sale at the UTEP Ticket Center, Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com, 800.745.3000 or at the door.
• Tony Melendez, the armless singer who plays guitar with his toes, will play and share his testimony in the 9th annual Hispanic Heritage Celebration at the El Paso Community College Administration Services Building auditorium at 9050 Viscount.
Call 831.3301 for more information.
• This year's Fiesta of Nations will be a cultural melting pot song, food and dance, with everything from Scottish pipe and drums to mariachi, ballet folklorico to Polynesian dance.
The Oct. 8-10 festival is presented by Open Arms Community, a nonprofit Catholic group, in an open field at 8240 North Loop, the future site of the Holy Spirit Catholic Retreat and Renewal Center.
It opens from 5 p.m.-midnight Oct. 8 with "Noche Mexicana," featuring local ranchera queen Malena Cano, who'll present scenes from this year's production of "Viva Mexico!," along with various singers, Ballet Folklorico Aires Internacionales and singer Jose Luis Garcia's charro act.
There's no specific theme for the other two days, which will run from 3 p.m.-midnight Oct. 9 and 3-10 p.m. Oct. 10. Performers include the German Schuplatter from the German Air Defense School at Fort Bliss, Las Cruces' Jewels of the Desert bellydancers, El Paso's Trinatake Polynesian Dance Group and Empyre Scots Pipes and Drums, plus folklorico dancers from Fabens' O'Donnell Middle School, among others.
Best of all: it's free. Though parking is $3.
Want to know more? Call 595.0589.
• Turns out Peelander-Z, the Japanese kids punk band that lives in New York and cut its new album in Austin, will be doing double duty in El Paso.
You probably already know the band will be playing at this year's third Chalk the Block Street Art Festival on Oct. 9 (the very cool fest runs Oct. 8-10 in and around Arts Festival Plaza). The band, touring in support of the just-released "P-TV-Z" CD, performs in colorful action hero costumes, and promises such crowd favorites as human bowling, the Red Squid and "a chance to exercise."
But they'll follow that family friendly show with a club gig on Nov. 3 at the new Low Brow, 111 Robinson. They'll be joined by fellow Japanese rockers TsuShiMaMiRe, who describe their sound as a blend of punk, free jazz, avant-garde, ska, surt and "that funky je ne sais quoi possessed by many Japanese girl bands."
The trio is touring its new album, "Sex on the Beach," which was released on Goo Goo Dolls bassist Robby Takac's Good Charamel label.
• Tucson rockers Rich Hopkins and the Luminarios will make a semi-regular stop here at King's X at 10 p.m. Oct. 9. The quintet, which is prepping for a European tour, includes namesake Hopkins (of the Sand Rubies) and former El Pasoan Ken Andree (of the Texicans).
There's no cover.
• Austin roots rockers Statesboro Revue headline Rocktoberfest, an outdoor concert that starts at 3 p.m. Saturday on the club grounds of House of Rock, 8838 Viscount. Also playing: Jayden's Playground, Mangyna, Insignificance, Karma and Bash.
It's $5 with a can of food, $7 without. The concert's a benefit for the West Texas Food Bank.
• Operation Outreach 2010 is a free, recovery-based Christian outreach concert coming to Cohen Stadium from 4-7 p.m. Oct. 31. It will feature Tucson's Broken and El Paso's Elevation.
It's being organized by Kelly McCullough, who publishes The Messenger. She's looking for sponsors, vendors and more.
Email her at media4him@yahoo.com if you want to know more.
• Once popular country singer T.G. Shepard headlines a benefit for Mescalero children's charities and the area at 7 p.m. Oct. 2 at the Inn of the Mountain Gods near Ruidoso. Tickets are $20 at the box office or the Inn's concierge desk. Info: 888.262.0478 or innofthemountaingods.com.
• Carol McNeal, who runs the Plaza and Chavez theaters, says that a Pollstar listing for a Ladysmith Black Mambazo show at the Chavez in February is erroneous. "We don't have them on our schedule or even on my radar," she said.
The show was listed for Magoffin Auditorium on the El Paso Friends of Jazz Society's website, and at the Chavez on Pollstar. We'll keep you posted if it actually happens.
• An apology and explanation: I had this grandiose notion that I would return to my Detroit-area music critic days last Friday and review two concerts in one night — the El Paso Symphony Orchestra's season-opener (and first since the death of principal bassoonist Sam Rhodes, to whom the season was dedicated) and John Michael Montgomery's show at Whiskey Dicks.
But a funny thing happened on the way. I got sick.
I left EPSO's concert at intermission and probably was in bed about the time JMM sang "I Swear." I slept a good chunk of Saturday and successfully made it through the full EPSO concert on Saturday, but was too sick (and tired) to get a review written that weekend.
So here's a mini-review: I wasn't entirely sure why the orchestra or conductor Sarah Ioannides, beginning her sixth and last season with EPSO, decided to flip flop the announced program, but they did.
The first half was devoted to Brahms' Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in B Flat Major, a lengthy, four-movement piece that channels various moods, from pensive and lovely to aggressive and loud, and a wide array of dynamics.
Particularly impressive was the interplay between the orchestra and guest pianist Valentina Lisitsa, who conjured the right mix of gracefulness and force.
The lanky Russian native moved like a swan during the more delicate moments, slumped with her head down in concentration when she wasn't playing, and banged out the more aggressive sections with an athletic precision. She also seemed to establish a good rapport with Ioannides, who used a light touch on the piece, and her fellow musicians.
The highlight Saturday was her charged encore of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, which required both the lightness and power of the Brahms, but with more muscle and daring. It would have made the perfect finale to a concert full of contrasts. Instead, it ended the first half.
Wagner's familiar "Ride of the Valkryies" originally was to open the concert, but closed it instead. It worked fine, but it's declarative motif might have been more effective in its original slot. It just sounds like something with which you'd open a classical concert.
Then again, Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, which opened the second half, would have been a pretty strong concert-opener, too. It's one of the so-called warhorses in classical music, the kind traditional audiences love to hear, and the conductor and orchestra approached it with vigor. It sounded fresh.
I'm not qualified to comment on Ioannides interpretation of these pieces, or how much faster or slower they may have been than more familiar recorded versions. I am a pop music writer trying to learn about such things. But I can say that this untrained ear was impressed with how united and disciplined the orchestra's playing sounded, particularly the violin section, which sounded more vibrant and precise than last season.
That's a tribute to the orchestra's discipline, not to mention its experience and its conductor. Then again, I wonder if the spirit of Sam Rhodes (who died Sept. 13, 11 days before the first concert) wasn't lurking, reminding them of the importance of setting the bar high.
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