With Balloonfest behind it, rock station KLAQ is gearing up for its next big festival, the Downtown Street Fest, which returns June 29-30.
The pre-July 4th celebration will bring in headliners Theory of a Deadman, with Filter and Saliva, on June 29, and vintage rockers Kansas and Blue Oyster Cult, with '90s band Candlebox, on June 30.
Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door; $5 for kids. They go on sale June 7 at 7-Eleven Fina locations in EP and Pic Quik stores in Las Cruces.
There will be six stages this year, five of which will showcase various local bands, including one devoted to Latin music.
In other news:
• The Tejano Legends series moves to Buchanan's Event Center, a newer place known mainly for its EDM shows.
This one will be a dance, not a concert, with performances by Jimmy Edward, Johnny Hernandez, the Bob Gallarza Orchestra and El Paso's River City Band.
It's set for 8 p.m. June 9. Tickets are $25 GA, $40 reserved, on sale at All That Music & Video and Ticketbully.
• It's a big CD-release weekend for local jazz fans.
The Candice Reyes Quintet will celebrate its new album, "Crossing Over," with performances at 7:30 p.m. June 1 and 9 p.m. June 2 at the Red & White Wine Bar, 3136 Trawood on the city's East Side.
They'll be joined by Dallas pianist Kelly Durbin on June 1 and well-traveled El Paso saxophonist Mack Goldsbury and Durbin on June 2.
The weekend ends with a June 3 CD release for the Place/Space Project, a jazz quartet started by bassist and UTEP music faculty member Erik Unsworth.
He's joined in the straighahead group by guitarist Arath Corral, recent UTEP grad Abel Mireles on sax and Nico Perkins on drums.
The group will celebrate its new, self-titled CD with a release concert at 5 p.m. June 3 at the Red & White Wine Bar.
Both bands will have CDs for sale at their gigs.
• Tickets for UTEP Dinner Theatre's "Metropolis" go on sale at 8 a.m. June 5.
Yep, it's a musical version of the Fritz Lang silent film classic. Performances will be July 6-29 at the dinner theater in the UTEP Union Building.
Tickets range from $14 to $40. You can get them at the UTEP Ticket Center, Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com, 800.745.3000 or by calling UDT at 747.6060.
• If you went to the Neon Desert Music Festival on May 26, you might have caught El Paso instrumental rockers Zechs Marquise, a progressive rock quintet that includes three of guitar wizard Omar Rodriguez Lopez's younger brothers.
The band played in front of my favorite band of the day, Le Butcherettes, which featured Omar on bass.
Zechs has done a lot of touring in support of its second album, "Getting Paid," released last Sept. 27, including opening for one of Omar's other bands, At the Drive-In, on the four-show Texas club swing of its reunion tour.
The band will be back on the road June 30 for a month-long, 24-city tour with Northern Ireland's And So I Watch You From Afar. It opens in Anaheim and ends in Philadelphia, with stops on New York, Chicago, Baltimore, St. Louis and four Texas cities (Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio).
Meanwhile, Omar's other band, The Mars Volta, is about to launch its European tour, which will take place between ATDI's April return and its festival appearances in late July and August.
The TMV tour starts June 11 in Tel Aviv and ends July 19 in London.
ATDI/TMV singer Cedric Bixler Zavala contributes vocals to three tracks on the self-titled debut album by Anywhere, an Eastern-influenced, acoustic-based band he formed with former Triclops! singer-guitarist Christian Eric Beaulieu.
The album, due July 24, features Minutemen/fiREHOSE bassist Mike Watt and singer Rachel Fannan of Sleepy Suns.
• El Paso rockers The Lusitania and Hillside Gamblers will join a bunch of NM bands for the third annual Bad Ass Mountain Music Festival June 15-17 at Ski Cloudcroft.
Music begins at 7 p.m. June 15, including a set from Albuquerque's Le Chat Lunatique, and 10:30 a.m. June 16, with nine acts, including Lusitania at 6 p.m. and the Gamblers at 8.
The ski resort opens at 4 p.m. June 15 for camping. The festival, which runs on solar power, ends at 1 p.m. June 17.
Camping's free, but the festival costs $20 per person. Kids 12 and under are free; no pets allowed.
Go to bammfestival.com for more info.
• The El Paso Blues Society will host a Blues & BBQ Festival June 30-July 1 in Timberon, NM, 30 miles south of Cloudcroft.
Music will go from noon to 9:30 p.m. on June 30, including sets by the Kat Crosby Band, Guitar Slim and headliners the High Octane Blues Band.
The July 1 bill starts at 11 a.m. with C.W. Ayon, with sets by the Hillside Gamblers at 3 and EP's Austin Jimmy Murphy and the Blues Alliance at 5 p.m.
Tickets are $10 for June 30, $5 for July 1 or $15 for both; $5 each day for military.
They are on sale at All That Music & Video and 474.2245.
• Las Cruces Americana band the Hard Road, led by Steve Smith, will release its new album, "Monticello" on July 21 at the Rio Grande Theater there, its annual benefit for KRWG.
The group also will perform under the full moon at the White Sands National Monument at 8 p.m. July 3, the Flickinger Center Tailgate Concert Series at 8 p.m. Aug. 11 in Alamogordo and LC's Music in the Park series at 7 p.m. Aug. 12 in Young Park.
The group is the subject KRWG's half-hour program, "KRWG Music Spotlight," airing at 10 p.m. June 30 on the NMSU PBS affiliate.
Your note about Anywhere is misleading. Yes, Cedric contributes vocals to three tracks, but the way it reads makes it seem as if Cedric is nothing more than a guest on the album/in the band. You also failed to mention that he plays drums on the album. Also, Rachel Fannan is a guest on the album, not a permanent member as it reads in your blog.
Posted by: Sam | May 31, 2012 at 02:47 PM