Here's another suggestion for locals, and out-of-towners, going to the Sun Bowl game this year.
Head to the El Paso Comic Strip, where local favorite B.T. headlines this year's 26th annual New Year's Eve concerts.
They'll be at 7:30 and 10 p.m. Dec. 31, the latter being the club's annual ring-in-the-new-year soiree.
Gretchen Hess will open both shows.
Tickets are $10 for the early show, $20 for the late show, which will be done Vegas style, with party favors and what owner Bart Reed calls a "crazy champagne toast" at midnight.
Tickets are on sale at the club, ticketweb.com and comicstripelpaso.com.
In other Comic Strip news, hard-working big man comic Ralphie May will perform there at 8 p.m. Jan. 10 and 8 and 10:45 p.m. Jan. 11.
May, who is married with two kids, was a disciple of Sam Kinison. He was on the first season of NBC's "Last Comic Standing" competition, and has since had four popular Comedy Central specials and DVDs, the last of which, "Too Big to Ignore," came out last May.
His stuff can range from observational to fat jokes, and his new podcast, "Perfect 10," reveals there's more to this potty-mouthed comedian than meets the eye.
Tickets are $22.50 for the Jan. 10 show, $27.50 to the Jan. 11 shows, on sale at the club and ticketweb.com.
In other news:
• "Stomp," in which a cast of performers make music and tell nonverbal stories with various traditional and untraditional percussion instruments, comes to NMSU's Pan Am Center at 8 p.m. Feb. 1.
The company, which started as a London street act, uses all kinds of objects in its pursuit of percussive happiness, including brooms, trash cans and hubcaps. The Pan Am stop is likely to include two new bits, said to include shopping carts and "plumbing fixtures," according to a release.
Tickets are $28.50, $38.50 and $48.50, plus service charges, on sale at 10 a.m. Dec. 21 at the box office, Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com and 800.745.3000.
A presale runs from 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Dec. 20.
• Speaking of NMSU, Hawthorne Heights will be returning to the Vans Warped Tour next year, including a June 26 show at the Practice Field.
They're among the next wave of bands that were announced last Friday, including Black Mahlia Murder, Anarbor, letlive., Hands Like Houses, Wallpaper and Stick to Your Guns.
They join the previously announced Woe Is Me, Go Radio, I See Stars, Big Chocolate, The Story So Far and Like Moths to Flames.
More band will be announced each Friday during the weekly episode of Fuse's "Warped Roadies" until the full compliment of about 70 acts has been announced.
Notice the ad on the tour website for those Vans Iron Maiden tennis shoes? Is that a not-so-subtle hint that they'll join this year's tour? Just asking.
Tickets are $23.50, on sale now at the Pan Am box office and Ticketmaster. The price will go up to $35 once those tickets have sold out.
• The Inn of the Mountain Gods has added shows by three oldies acts, two from the '60s and one from the '80s.
The soulful Johnny Rivers will play there at 8 p.m Jan. 18 ($25, $35, $55, $65 and $70), followed by Peter Noone and Herman's Hermits at 8 p.m. Feb. 15 ($25, $35, $45, $55 and $70) and the Little River Band at 8 p.m. Feb. 16 ($25, $35, $55, $65 and $70).
Tickets for all shows are available at the box office, Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com and 800.745.3000.
• We all know all this Mayan calendar-Dec. 21-end of the world nonsense is just that, right? Still, if you need a little reassuring after Friday, check out the always lively Frontera Bugalu, who'll play a galactic alignment show at 9 p.m. Dec. 22 at the Soho Cocktail Lounge, 500 N. Oregon.
The date marks the alignment of the winter solstice sun and the galactic equator, the roots-conscious modern cumbia band notes on its Facebook page.
"Our ancestors were not fortune tellers, they were scientists," they write. "This only marks another event on their calendar, among many."
It's a $5 cover, 21 and over.
• Expect a night of experimental sounds Dec. 23 when El Paso prog-rockers Thieves of Always and Eureka the Butcher, the electronic music project featuring The Mars Volta/Zechs Marquise keyboardist-percussionist Marcel Rodriguez Lopez and his bellydancer girlfriend Sadah Luna, perform at the Black Market.
Villes and the Pharos also will play.
Show time is 10 p.m. It's a $5 cover, cheap considering the talent level involved.
• The date of the free Pepe Aguilar concert at the Socorro Entertainment Center has moved. It's now Feb. 15. It was Feb. 9.
• Don't you wish you were in Detroit for New Year's Eve?
Seriously, at least if your an EDM fan.
Not only are Skrillex and Boys Noize (who performs tonight at Tricky Falls) doing separate sets, they plan to bring their Dogblood collab to the show's after party.
• Adam Marshall, one of the guys who puts on the FirstFridays El Paso events at La Parada, is bringing veteran rapper Aceyalone ("Project Blowed"), rapper/fashion designer JNatural, Pat Maine and DJ Tramlife to the House of Rock Life.
Their "Aces High" tour stops at the club at 9 p.m. Jan. 11.
It's an 18-and-older show.
Cover is $6.
• El Paso's gunfighter past (vs. Juarez's gunfighter present) will come to life in "Elvis, El Paso and the Real Wild West," a free program from 1-4 p.m. Dec. 30 at the El Paso Museum of History.
It will tie together, somehow, El Paso's Old West past with Elvis Presley, who performed here and once stayed at a hotel across from where the history museum stands.
Elvis impersonator Doug Wilson will perform at 2 and 3:30 p.m.
El Paso's Six Guns and Shady Ladies, the Wild Bunch Gunfighters and Old West Thunder will be in costume doing some re-enacting.
Several hands-on activities are planned, including churning butter, rope-making and more.
Comments