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Concert update: NDMF '13 date, Belanova, Morrissey, Sister Hazel, Mystikal and more

Plans are well underway for the third edition of the Neon Desert Music Festival, which returns May 25, according to its website.

This will mark the second year it will be staged that weekend.

"We love Memorial Day weekend, it is perfect for Neon Desert," NDMF's Zach Paul said via email.

He's part of Austin's Splendid Sun Productions, a group of former El Pasoans, who put on the festival. They recently posted a 5-minute and 6-second video of 2012 NDMF highlights, which you can see here.

In the meantime, Paul said that they're working on headliners for the alternative music festival, which drew 12,000 people last May 26, 2,000 more than the first one on April 30, 2011.

NDMF organizers officially will announce next year's date and the on-sale date for "early bird" tickets on Dec. 3.

The video by El Paso's Beard of Zeus Productions, on their Facebook page since Oct. 9, is set to "Glitter" by Austin's Ghostland Observatory, one of more than 30 acts on four stages.

It includes images of, among others, El Paso-connected international acts Les Butcherettes (with At the Drive-In and The Mars Volta guitarist Omar Rodriguez Lopez on bass), a festival standout, and Sparta (including fellow ATDIers Jim Ward and Tony Hajjar).

In other concert news:

• Mexican synthpop trio Belanova, who played this year's NDMF, return Thanksgiving weekend to headline Pop Music Festival 2012 at 8 p.m. Nov. 24 at the Coliseum.

They'll be joined by fellow Mexican bands Moedia and Moderatto, who recently did some recording at Sonic Ranch.

Tickets are $37.50, $47.50 and $57.50, plus service charges, on sale at the box office, Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com and 800.745.3000.

• Still waiting for news on a Morrissey makeup date?

Me, too.

A Tricky Falls official said that the new date should be announced "soon." He postponed the rest of his fall U.S. tour, including a Nov. 27 at TF, to return to England to attend to his mother, who is ill.

In the meantime, DJ and self-described "die-hard Moz fan" Rene Romo will host a Smiths vs. the Cure tribute night at 9 p.m. Nov. 24 at Club Dedo, 204 Rio Grande.

There's no cover, but Romo promises "plenty of Morrissey tunes to drown your sorrows to."

• Don't know if you noticed, but the Tiguas' have updated their website for Speaking Rock Entertainment Center and its new sister venue, the Socorro Entertainment Center. 

They've also added a show by Florida rockers Sister Hazel. The show will be at 8 p.m. Nov. 2 at Speaking Rock.

The band, probably best known for its 1990s hit "All For You," includes bassist Jett Beres, whose mother-in-law, Connie Haddad Glass, lives in El Paso.

Speaking Rock also has an Ozomatli show planned for New Year's Eve.

The SEC will host Jackyl on Nov. 11, Enrique Bunbury on Dec. 9 and Blue October on Dec. 31.

• Remember Mystikal?

The once-promising rapper, best-known for the ubiquitous "Shake Ya Ass," has been in and out of jail and prison for several years, including a six-year prison sentence on sex and extortion charges that ended in 2010.

He's coming to El Paso's Ambrosia nightclub, 3233 N. Mesa, at 9 p.m. Nov. 2. He's expected to go on around 11:30 p.m. It's 18-and-older only.

Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door, at the club or email djblack2002@yahoo.com.

• Hapa Martinez will celebrate his 33rd birthday and sixth anniversary of his band, Low Luster League, with a free show at 9 p.m. Nov. 2 at Thirsty's Bar and Lounge, 1709 Saul Kleinfeld.

The band, which played the local stage at last year's Warped tour stop in Las Cruces, is working on new album "Daddyo" and may play some of the new songs.

Los Deambulantes and Lava Snake will open the show.

• The city's Museums and Cultural Affairs Department has extended the deadline for musicians to apply for slots for next year's Music Under the Stars and Dancing in the City series.

The deadline was pushed back from Nov. 1 to Nov. 5.

MUTS turns 30 this coming summer and will run nine Sundays from June 9-Aug. 11, with a July 4 concert. 

DITC turns four this summer and will run eight Saturdays June 1-July 27.

Only electronic submissions will be taken.

Go to elpasotexas.gov/mcad/summerprograms.asp to read the guidelines and download applications.

Submit them to mcadevents@elpasotexas.gov.

• Ezequiel Pena, Las Colibris and Marichi Cobre headline the 19th annual Las Cruces International Mariachi Conference concert at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 17 at NMSU's Pan Am Center.

The conference, which includes workshops and a mariachi mass, will be Nov. 17-18.

Tickets for the concert are $19, $29, $39 and $54; $16, $26, $36 and $51 for military; $17, $27, $37 and $52 for NMSU students, faculty and alumni, on sale at the box office, Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com and 800.745.3000.

• EP ska punks Fixed Idea have organized a Coats for Kids concert at 9 p.m. Nov. 24 at the House of Rock Live.

The Pinsetters also will perform. Other acts haven't been announced yet.

They're asking for three articles of children's clothing, or a blanket or a $5 donation at the door. The Ysleta Lutheran Mission will handle the distribution of the items.

It's an 18-and-older show.

• Pat Mahoney, late of LCD Soundsystem, will headline the Late Nite Social Club's Supernite series at 9 p.m. Nov. 24 at the Lowbrow.

Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 day of show, on sale at fla.vor.us/2218591-Late-Nite-Social-Club-tickets.html.

Mahoney played drums and synths in the group, which disbanded last year.

• 2Cellos, the Croatian duo of Luka Sulic and Stjepan Hauser, just released a video of their version of the AC/DC classic "Highway to Hell." It features guitarist Steve Vai.

The song is featured on their new album, "In2ition," produced by Bob Ezrin (Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd), which comes out Jan. 15. It also includes versions of Fleetwood Mac's "Oh, Well" (with Elton John), Coldplay's "Clocks" (with Lang Lang), the Police's "Every Breath You Take" and Muse's "Supermassive Black Hole."

Why am I telling you this?

Because the duo will close the Signature Series, a new cultural series produced by Lola Productions and the UTEP Special Events Office.

Their concert will be April 17 at UTEP's Magoffin Auditorium.

The series opens at 7 p.m. Nov. 11 with "Sacred Music Sacred Dance," featuring Tibetan monks from the Drepeng Loseling Monastery in India, also at Magoffin.

Tickets for 2Cellos are $34 and $39.

Tickets for "Sacred Music Sacred Dance" are $33 and $38.

Tickets for both shows are on sale at the UTEP Ticket Center, Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com and 800.745.3000.

Also scheduled: "Creole Christmas," with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, 7:30 p.m. Dec. 22 ($35, $40); cabaret singer Meow Meow, 8 p.m. Feb. 9 ($27, $32); Bella Gaia, 7 p.m. Feb. 21 ($30, $35); Juan DeMarcos and the Afro-Cuban Jazz Allstars, 7 p.m. March 3 ($35, $40); and Les Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo, 7:30 p.m. April 13 ($35, $40).

• Cinemark, which has three El Paso theaters, continues its series of digitally restored classic movies with a holiday lineup that begins Nov. 20 with "2001: A Space Odyssey" (nothing says Thanksgiving than a future where computers take over).

Also planned: "The Sound of Music" (Nov. 28); "It's a Wonderful Life" (Dec. 5); "The Ten Commandments" (Dec. 12); "Miracle on 34th Street" (Dec. 19); and "Rocky" (Dec. 26).

• Speaking of the holidays, the El Paso Community Foundation and Plaza Classic Film Festival will have its fifth annual "Holiday Movies at the Plaza" on Dec. 1-2 at the Plaza Theatre.

Titles haven't been announced yet, but one movie will be shown Dec. 1, the others on Dec. 2.

The El Paso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce's annual "A Holiday Afternoon" concert will be at 2 p.m. Dec. 1 at the Plaza, thus the scheduling quirk.

This year's concert will feature the El Paso Symphony Youth Orchestras, conducted by Andy Moran.

• "Bless Me, Ultima," which got a test run here recently, will be shown Nov. 9-15 at the Fountain Theatre in Mesilla.

It's still playing at Cielo Vista Cinemas at least through Nov. 8.

 

 

 

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Concert update: Comedians stage benefit for cancer patient on Nov. 2

El Paso comedian Sam Butler is putting together a benefit comedy show Nov. 2 for someone close to his heart — sister Martha E. Butler.

She's been battling colon cancer for more than three years, her brother said, including flying back and forth to Houston for treatment at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

The 48-year-old is hoping gene therapy will help, but the price tag is about $25,000, which insurance won't cover, he said.

"She's a fighter," he said.

"Stand-Up for a Cause" will be at 8:30 p.m. Nov. 2 at Leo's Cantina, 315 Mills.

Comedians who'll perform include Gibbs Saad, Aleks with a K, Phfilmer Flungbucket and Butler.

Admission is a $10 donation at the door.

Her brother has set up an online account for donations, just in case people can't go to the show but want to help out. Click here. It should be working tonight.

 

 

Theater update: 'Holidaze,' 'Beauty and the Beast' tickets on sale Nov. 2

Tickets for Plaza Theatre stops by "Cirque Dreams Holidaze" and "Disney's Beauty and the Beast" go on sale this Friday.

"Holidaze" is a Christmas-themed show by Cirque Dreams, sort of a theater version of Cirque du Soleil, though they are different companies.

The show, which comes to the theater at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 11, will feature more than 30 acrobats, aerialists and other circus performers dressed up as toy soldiers, gingerbread men and other familiar holiday characters.

Tickets are $35 and $55, plus service charges, on sale at 10 a.m. Nov. 2.

"Disney's Beauty and the Beast" is the Broadway version of the animated Disney film, with songs by Alan Menken and Tim Rice. It's an add-on to this year's Broadway series, which opens Nov. 19 with "A Chorus Line" and continues with "Holidaze."

It's a return engagement for the show, which sold out there in 2010, and will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 18.

Tickets are $40 and $62.50, plus service charges, on sale at 10 a.m. Nov. 2.

Presales are going on now through 10:59 p.m. Nov. 1.

Tickets will be available at the box office, Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com and 800.745.3000.

Cirque du Soleil, by the way, returns for the third time for eight performances of its arena version of "Quidam" Jan. 23-27 at the Don Haskins Center.

Those tickets are $35-$95, $31.50-$85.50 for seniors, military and students, $28-$76 for children 2-12 and $27.50-$75 for a family four pack (2 adult tickets, 2 child tickets), on sale at the UTEP Ticket Center, Ticketmaster and 800.745.3000.

 

 

Concert update: Morrissey postpones Tricky Falls date

It's bad enough that my Detroit Tigers got swept in the World Series — and looked like kitties in the process — and that someone stole my headphones from work over the weekend.

But a bad weekend got worse when Morrissey had to postpone the 26 remaining shows on his fall tour, including a Nov. 27 stop at Tricky Falls, due to his mother Elizabeth Dwyer's illness. He reportedly returned to England to be with her.

The postponement was posted on the club's website. "Please hold on to your tickets: Future date unknown," reads the posting.

A spokesperson for one promoter, Goldenvoice, told the Los Angeles Times that new dates will be announced shortly.

Tickets purchased the for the show will be honored on the new date. No refund information has been announced yet.

 

Music Review: Delightful evening (and dessert) with EP Opera's 'Fledermaus'

Longtime Times contributor Ruth Taber usually writes about food and travel. But she was a former accompanist and opera coach in New York in the 1950s, so I asked her to review El Paso Opera's recent production of "Die Fledermaus," which concluded a four-performance run today. Here's her review.

By Ruth Taber

An elaborate revenge plot involving mistaken identities and amorous exchanges — laced with humor and champagne — set the stage for El Paso Opera’s latest production, Johan Strauss’ "Die Fledermaus," which was performed Thursday, Friday and Sunday at the Summit Ballroom and Saturday at the Lotus Nightclub.

On opening night Thursday, the audience for this comic operetta was seated at tables around the ballroom floor, becoming part of the action. Early arrivals were treated to waltz lessons, part of director David Grabarkewitz's plan to include these new terpsichoreans in the second act.

The story centers around a partying, philandering husband named Eisenstein, who left his friend, Dr. Falke, overnight in a public park, dressed as a bat after a costume party. The plot is  loosely based on a 19^th century French vaudeville play, "Le Réveillon" (a midnight New Year’s Eve supper party), and Grabarkewitz added playful vaudeville-like touches, including  dance steps with the obligatory cane/umbrella stick, excerpts of pop standards and throw-away comedy lines, including references to sharks and lawyers.

The star of the show was Strauss' familiar lilting music. Conductor and accompanist Benjamin Loeb sat at the piano — miraculously turning his own pages — as he led a well-rehearsed ensemble imparting the exhilaration of the Strauss score. Not an easy task, considering that performers were on stage and also scattered throughout the ballroom.

Baritone Gabriel Preisser’s warm, rich voice was enhanced by his excellent acting skills. His very comfortable stage presence made him a believable Dr. Falke (the perpetrator of the revenge plot), and we rooted for him to succeed in snaring assorted characters into his net.

Mezzo-soprano Jenny Heidtman sang with great feeling as Prince Orlovsky. There was no doubt that her life was “boring” and her laissez-faire attitude to the guests was exemplified by the famous aria "Chacun a' Son Gout," or “each to his own taste.”

A brief intermission after the first act was the signal for waiters to serve dessert (chocolate-drizzled cheesecake with a strawberry on top) accompanied by flutes of champagne, a prelude for the champagne toasts to follow in the operetta’s  second act.

Tenor Wesley Morgan, who played the clueless Eisenstein, was pleasing in a second act duet with Preisser. The chorus work was impressive. The young UTEP chorus sang with feeling and their excellent diction was appreciated,  important when there are no surtitles to fill in missing words.

Better than a seventh inning stretch, audience members were invited to waltz with soloists and chorus members at Prince Orlovsky’s ball in the second act. An orchestral recording of Strauss’ "Blue Danube" waltz provided the music and brought smiles and lots of toe tapping to those who preferred sitting at their tables.

Eisenstein got his comeuppance at the end of the second act. He was escorted to jail, for a former civil offense,  by the prison warden, who also was a guest at the ball. We assume he finally realized how Dr. Falke had planned the ball as part of his revenge.

The bottom line: It was a delightful evening of music and farce with an occasionally overdone bit of shtick. Let’s hope that El Paso Opera has more comic operas planned in the future.

Theater review: EPCC does justice to Simon's 'Brighton Beach'

Times theater reviewer C.B. Goldsmith checked out the EPCC Theater Ensemble production of "Brighton Beach Memoirs," which opened Thursday and repeats next weekend. Here's his review.

By C.B. Goldsmith

There was no more popular or successful playwright on Broadway in the early 1980s than Neil Simon. His plays were funnier and ran longer than anyone else’s. He could have easily rested upon his laurels and retired as the king of comedy.

Instead, the middle-aged Simon created Eugene Jerome, and in doing so found his truest voice. In “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” Simon returned to the roots of his childhood through the character and began a trilogy of plays that brought a depth and gravity that redefined his body of work.

The EPCC Theater Ensemble continues its eighth season with Simon’s funny, true and powerful work, giving it a depth and gravitas all their own.

"Memoirs" tells the story of two nights in the lives of two Jewish families forced by death to live together packed into a small house near Coney Island. The youngest resident is Eugene, the fledgling writer and wit who narrates the play. As Eugene negotiates both puberty and poverty, he shares a universal story of families trapped under one small roof.

Because of the early death of Eugene’s uncle, his aunt and two female cousins now share the tiny house. Though the aunt brings in sewing to try and help. Even with Eugene’s noble father working two jobs and his undependable brother working another, the financial devil is often at their door.

As Europe teeters under Adolph Hitler’s wrath, this Jewish family comes apart with the beautifully written emotion and humor that redefines the artistry of Neil Simon, a guy better known before then for lighter but insightful comedies such as "The Sunshine Boys," "The Odd Couple" and "Barefoot in the Park."

I lucked into tickets for the Broadway production in the early '8os that starred a young Matthew Broderick in the role that launched his career. Unfortunately, I was young, too, and remembered the play merely for its humor and sex. Fortunately, EPCC’s presentation is so powerful that I was able to see the dramatic reach within Simon’s comedy.

Brian Craig Ceely portrays Eugene with a boundless energy and spirit that owns the audience from word one. Not only is Ceely charming and funny, but his vivacity tempers the real-world hardship his family endures. 

Eugene’s foil, both comically and emotionally, is the home’s ruler, his mother Kate, played by one of El Paso’s most versatile and gifted actors, Vanessa Keyser. Her Kate boils over in a stew of a Jewish mother’s guilt, worry and resentment. In the hands of a lesser artist, this part could have been mere caricature, but Keyser is too gifted for this to occur.

Director Hector Serrano does remarkable work in several important areas. He allows his two stars the room to own their characters, but reins them in just enough to allow the home’s required claustrophobia to develop. He also tempers the ethnicity sufficiently, which allows a classically Jewish family to represent a universality all can identify with.

He joins with dialect coach Cornelia Patterson to create the finest ensemble of accents in an El Paso production I’ve yet to hear. With seven actors speaking ethnic Brooklynese, this production could have easily become cartoonish but never did. Serrano also designed a beautiful set, managed tricky lighting and the perfect sound design.

As Kate battles to control Eugene and his hormones, her sister Blanche battles to control her wild child, Nora, as well a young widow’s loneliness. Portrayed by Valerie Cadena, Blanche emerges slowly as a complex woman, then, makes every scene simmer with her inherent ache in Act Two.

She is matched by Melissa Flowers, who plays her daughter with the shared longing of an entire household needing more. Flowers saves her power and range for the climactic second act, where she and Cadena collide as many mothers and daughters must.

Yoli Cortez was terrific as Nora’s younger and frail sister, Laurie, and easily achieved the uneasy task of an older actor honestly portraying a “tween.” Jonathan Cantrell also does fine work as Eugene’s older brother, Stanley. The scenes between the two brothers in their bedroom, as the older explains puberty to the sex-crazed younger, could have been unbearably awkward in lesser hands, but was authentic and tender.

Rick Fitzgerald, as the families’ financial anchor, Jack Jerome, brings a powerful yet endearing weariness to the put-upon patriarch. His warmth is the subtle center of Simon’s work and combines with his wife’s overbearing earthiness to make this a real family, rendered truly.

EPCC’s Theater Ensemble continues its evolution with Simon's powerfully funny and poignant play in a production that honors the author and audience.

"Brighton Beach Memoirs" continues at 8 p.m. Nov. 1-3 at the EPCC Transmountain Forum Theatre, 9750 Gateway North. Tickets are $15, $10 for military and non-EPCC students, $7 for EPCC students, faculty and staff. 831-5056, epcc.edu/theater.

 

Concert review: Mencia takes crowd on a funny, provocative hyperspeed ride

Carlos Mencia used to tell a joke years ago about the lack of Latinos in sci-fi movies like "Star Wars" and "Alien." He wondered if it meant there would be no Latinos in the future?

The shortage of Latino characters in pop culture has a changed a lot since the late '70s and early '80s, when those movies came out. There are plenty of Latino comedians in mainstream pop culture, too, including the former star of Comedy Central's "Mind of Mencia."

But the 45-year-old is hardly an ethnic comedy type. "I'll make fun of everybody," he noted Friday at Bart Reed's El Paso Comic Strip, "including myself."

He didn't really make fun of himself much during Friday's 8 p.m. show, the first of two shows Friday and two more Saturday. But it's fitting that the slimmed-down funny man wore a red Millennium Falcon t-shirt for the first show Friday. He needed all that fire power for the two-hours hyperspeed comedic ride on which he took the crowd of nearly 300.

He made fun of a lot of other people, mostly "stupid people," people who aren't honest with themselves and his own crazy family, the source of his often blunt, often graphic brand of adrenalized comedy.

Mencia may not be as popular as he was a few years ago, when he could fill theaters and small arenas (including the Coliseum, where he performed in 2008). But he is funnier, more outrageous, more provocative and more cerebral these days. The immediacy of the comedy club environment, to which he returned two years ago, seemed to fuel his comic catharsis Friday night.

He sees himself as an equal opportunity offender, all in the service of trying to get people to be "real" with themselves. "I'm a bringer of light and happiness," he said with only the slightest hint of sarcasm.

Using his full arsenal of facial expressions, characterizations, voices, accents, gestures and exaggerated movements, Mencia grabbed the audience by its collective collar and pulled it through an assortment of stories and scenarios designed to show the world would be a better place if people were honest with themselves and each other.

It's the difference between the world that is, he said, and striving for "the world that should be." It's not who we are, he observed, "it's how we act." 

It's how we tend to act as a society that gets his goat. Whites who "hold it in" instead of saying what they feel tend to become serial killers, he joked. People who make excuses for their lack of intelligence, he noted, could wind up burning the fries at McDonald's — and get passed over for promotion by the retarded guy who's smart enough not to "cross the yellow line."

Mencia more blunt about his views on religion, saying he won't attend quinceaneras because he believes they are an outdated Catholic notion that signifies a 15-year-old girl's entrance into womanhood and marriage, not merely a right-of-passage.

He believes God created everything, includling serious diseases and things many Christians abhor, such as homosexuality, cracking that he wished gay Latinos weren't so blatant. "They don't come out of the closet, they fly," he said, illustrating the joke with exaggerated effeminate gestures.

Mencia said some things in the Bible are outdated, including the killing of spouses for infidelity. "My God is the creator of everyhing, even s--- I don't understand," he said. "If you are a Christian, you're not a judge."

Later, after playing Jesus as a gay man deciding the fate of a homophobe at the Pearly Gates, Mencia admitted he may have gotten "a little too real for some of the Christians. We have a hard time laughing at jokes about God and Jesus."

And Mencia's a big believer in laughing at ourselves. The most powerful and occasionally awkward came from his own family life, something Mencia started working more into his live act in recent years.

He was born the 17th of 18 kids in Honduras, a place so poor, he said, even Juarenses feel sorry for him. The son of an overachieving father who bragged he had so many kids because his wife wouldn't perform fellatio. His mother's a tiny whip of a woman who literally whipped her son with an iron cord boiled in water (he showed the audience the 6-inch scar to prove it).

They used humor to guide their kids through difficult situations. Mencia was 4 when a gunfight raged outside the family's house. The future comic lay face down in the grass, noticing his mother watching from a window. Why didn't she rescue him? "Tthere were 17 others," she told him. "I'm not gonna miss you."

His father once defecated in the kitchen sink to protest the lack of bathroom availability in a one-bathroom house overrun with female family.

Mencia intensely recounted a heated exchange with his father in which he questioned how his dad could call him lazy after all his hard work had paid off, paid for their house and other family members' bills, making him the patriarch. His dad countered that was big talk for a guy who worked "three whole f------ hours" a day.

The night opened with MC Elliott Threatt's low-key suburban angst, followed by the syncopated, in-your-face tag team repartee of identical twins Cory and Chad Baumgartner, better known as the Smash Brothers.

Mencia's two-hour performance, which ran 40 minutes past the seating time for the 11 p.m. show, gave the audience a lot to laugh at, sometimes uncomfortably. And, unlike many comics today, he also gave them a lot to think about, often provocatively.

"I'm the guy," he said after his riffs on quinceaneras, "that's honest."

 

 

 

 

Album review: Fagen sharp, funky on new 'Sunken Condos'

I remember interviewing Donald Fagen when the Steely Dan man's last album, "Morph the Cat," came out six years ago. I'd wanted to talk to him for years, but this was the first time. After all, his music was part of my personal soundtrack ever since I was a freshman in high school.

We discussed songs on that album and the Dan's last one, 2003's "Everything Must Go," and I was surprised how open the once seemingly secretive singer and keyboardist was about lyrics that were often cryptic and puzzling.

I don't remember exactly what he said, but he sounded genuinely flummoxed, didn't think he had to or that anyone cared.

Well, of course they do. Fagen has been part of Steely Dan for the better part of 40 years now, a group — duo, really — that had massive success in the '70s, became studio rats, broke up and, in the intervening 12 years, discovered their fans had grown even more devoted, and hungry for more.

Steely Dan started out as a pop-rock band, an ever-changing cast of musicians that revolved around Fagen and cofounder Walter Becker, who played bass and guitar. They had radio hits right ouf of the box, including "Do It Again," "Dirty Work," "Reelin' in the Years," "My Old School" and "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" during their touring days in the first half of the 1970s (I saw them open for Sha Na Na at the Coliseum in 1973).

Like the Beatles, Fagen and Becker became studio hermits after that, crafting the ultra-slick masterpiece "Aja" after giving up the road (they returned, sluggishly, in 1993 but got much better after that). Ever since then, anything Fagen and Becker recorded, together or solo, has had the meticulous laidback sheen of a '50s jazz record, which probably was the idea. 

That's certainly true of Fagen's new solo album, "Sunken Condos," his fourth overall and first since forming the Dukes of September Rhythm Revue with Boz Scaggs and former SD backup singer Michael McDonald. The R&B affection they share carries over onto "Sunken Condos," a nine-song collection of R&B- and funk-inflected jazz-pop that includes a tasty cover of Isaac Hayes' overlooked "Out of the Ghetto."

Fagen is backed by several members of the Dan's crack touring band, including trumpeter Michael Leonhart, who coproduced it with the Donald. The playing is exquisite throughout, the arrangements as precise and tight as expected from a guy who helped perfect this kind of cool antithetical pop.

In a perfect world, a song like "I'm Not the Same Without You," about a guy struggling to recover from a breakup, would be a hit single. In fact, it is in Japan, but its best shot here is Rhapsody, Spotify or public radio. It's a jaunty jazz-rocker, a fitting contrast to the tragic narrative that unfolds.

The album's glassy surface belies a lyrical turbulence that, coupled with Fagen's recent R&B excursion, allows the 64-year-old and his assembled musicians to cut loose here and there, relatively speaking. "Weather in My Head," one of the most personal songs here, is set to an appropriately bluesy backdrop as the doomed narrator pleads: "They may fix the weather in the world/Just like Mr. Gore said/But tell me what's to be done/About the weather in my head?"

Ace guitar man Jon Herington rips off one of the better blues guitar solos I've heard in a long time, just to drive home the point, and Fagen lets him wail on until he's squeezed it all out. Fagen follows it with Hayes' "Out of the Ghetto," the lone cover, which allows the band to play a kind of dignified funk.

There's always been a vulnerability to many of Fagen's narratives, and on "Sunken Condos" he confesses concerns about the advancing years. "Slinky Thing" opens the album with a kind of marijuana-induced mellow clavinet funk line and a story about an older guy, a younger woman and her peers who caution the old man he'd better "hold on to that slinky thing."

"The New Breed" combines a hushed organ line, clicking funk guitars and a subtle brass arrangement with a lyric about a guy who both despises and laments a love interest's affections for a young, strong dotcom kind of guy. "I guess I'll get along somehow," he grumbles.

Other songs seem to draw from the current cultural climate. The woman in "Memorabilia" could be a love terrorist. The guy in "Good Stuff" is a hitman, but sounds like he could be hedge fund manager when he talks about liquidating.

Market concerns don't seem to be a problem for Fagen or Steely Dan. They've managed to do what they do, make it sound fresh and even reinvigorate it without knowing or caring what Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber are up to. While the title "Sunken Condos" suggests a kind of sinking feeling that comes with aging in a young man's world, Fagen sounds like he's on top of his game.

 

 

Older, wiser Taking Back Sunday revisits 'Tell All Your Friends' on tour

Taking Back Sunday's John Nolan says the band resisted the idea of playing all of its first album, "Tell All Your Friends," after that incarnation of the band regrouped two years ago.

"It was something that, ever since the original lineup got back together, people have been requesting and talking about it," the guitarist said in a recent telephone interview.

But the band is playing all 10 songs from its debut album, and more, on a tour coming to Tricky Falls at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 29. Bayside and Gabriel the Marine open. Tickets are $25 in advance, $27 day of show, on sale at All That Music & Video, Bowie Feathers, Maria's Closet and holdmyticket.com.

Why now?

Well, it is the 10th anniversary of the album, a good sales hook. But Nolan, who was out of the band for nearly eight years, said the Long Island, NY group was more intent on playing songs from 2011's "Taking Back Sunday" when it first started touring again last year.

"We tried to hold off from doing it when we first got back together because we felt like we didn't want the reuniting of this lineup to be all about nostalgia," Nolan said, referring to singer Adam Lazzara, guitarist Eddie Reyes, drummer Mark O'Connell and bassist Shaun Cooper.

"We wanted to make the priority putting out a new record and touring on that," he said. "That's the good thing that we think about. It's fun for us to do this tour and see how excited people are about us playing that record. It's definitely something on our mind, but we don't want to make too much of what we do about reminiscing or looking back. It seemed like the right time to do it."

TBS will play two sets on Monday at Tricky Falls, where the reunited lineup performed last year, setting an attendance record of 1,300 for the club, which opened in September 2011.

The first set will include songs from the "Taking Back Sunday" album, several of which, including "El Paso," were written during a two-week stay at Tornillo's Sonic Ranch in the spring of 2010.

The second will feature all 10 songs from "Tell All Your Friends," in sequence, plus two of what Nolan calls "bonus tracks," "The Ballad of Sal Villanueva," released as a bonus on certain configurations of the album, and "Your Own Disaster," included in a 2004 reissue of it.

TBS was a baby band, newly signed to Chicago's Victory Records (label home of El Paso's the Royalty), when it recorded "Tell All Your Friends." It slowly earwormed its way into the consciousness of alternative rock fans, thanks to songs such as "Cute Without the 'E' (Cut from the Team)," "Great Romances of the 20th Century" and "You're So Last Summer."

The band members were in their early 20s then, not that comfortable yet in a studio and not that prepared for all the touring, interviews, partying and everything else that went with being in a nationally emerging rock band.

The songs they wrote, Nolan observed, dealt with romantic jealousy, betrayal and even a rivalry with the band Brand New, themes that seem distant to him today.

"When I think back to everything, yeah, I was almost like somebody else," Nolan said. "It's kind of weird. With a lot of the songs, the subject matter and things we were writing about, it was very real to us then. I think back on the kind of problems we were having, there were some pretty childish things."

Nolan's pretty critical of the band's performances back then, too. "We mostly sounded pretty terrible live, if you were just listening to us musically," the guitarist said. "I think we got by a lot on the excitement of the audience and the excitement level on stage, this energy coming from us. The shows were just insane."

Internally, things fell apart and tensions between the members led Nolan and Cooper left by the end of the touring cycle in 2003 to start the band Straylight Run. Nolan later released a solo album, "Height."

TBS perservered with a series of replacements, releasing two more albums with two different lineups. But when drummer O'Connell contacted the guitarist and bass player about a possible reunion, they were ready to give it a try.

"I was, for the first time, getting kind of nostalgic for the times we had had as a band and kind of for that connection we had had," Nolan said, describing that young version of TBS as "like a weird little family." He also missed writing with Lazzara. 

Now, he said, they can play those old songs with the wisdom that comes from being 10 years older, and they can play some of them, including "The Blue Channel," the way they intended to record them, not the way they turned out after their producer and engineer changed them. The group is also touring with a violinist to recreate some of the album's sounds.

"Something I'm struck by when we play these songs is how simple they are," Nolan said. "I can't believe it sometimes. These songs are literally the same four chords from start to finish."

The "Taking Back Sunday" album is a lot more adventurous than that. "Most of the time we wouldn't let a song go by with the chords going over and over," Nolan laughed.

The band, which played the Vans Warped tour over the summer, is starting to work on new songs for its next record, which will be its sixth overall and third with the "Tell All Your Friends" lineup.

"We were working on four demo songs, all at various levels of being done, but some of the songs are written and we're gonna keep developing them, and we've got a lot of other ideas," Nolan said. "We haven't done recording of a lot of stuff. They're just kind of floating around right now. It's  matter of taking a block of time out to hammer everything out and make them into a record. We're on our way, it's just a matter of time."

 

 

Concert update: Ra Ra Riot books Lowbrow show

Indie rockers Ra Ra Riot, whose new album "Beta Love" comes out Jan. 22, have added an El Paso show to their winter itinerary.

The group will perform at 9 p.m. Feb. 17 at the Lowbrow.

Tickets are $13 in advance, $15 day of show, and go on sale at 10 a.m. Nov. 2 at All That Music & Video, the Headstand, Hommework, Le Trendy and holdmyticket.com.

It's an all-ages show.

Tickets for Toro Y Moi's Jan. 31 show at Tricky Falls, by the way, are on sale now.

They're $12 in advance, $14 day of show, at the same locations.

It's also an all-ages show.