{"id":391,"date":"2024-04-05T03:17:31","date_gmt":"2024-04-05T03:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/?p=391"},"modified":"2024-04-05T03:34:54","modified_gmt":"2024-04-05T03:34:54","slug":"4-3-24-albuquerque-new-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/2024\/04\/05\/4-3-24-albuquerque-new-mexico\/","title":{"rendered":"4\/3\/24: Albuquerque, New Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n

In between Mississippi and Albuquerque I stayed in a motel I’d been wanting to stay in for some time, the Blue Swallow in Tucumcari, Arizona, one of the classic Route 66 motels with a beautiful neon sign. I drove into a parking space around sundown and immediately met Robert, who runs the place with his wife. He had a certain midwestern accent, a burst blood vessel in his left eye, and a very well-worn-in motelkeeper friendliness. I stayed in room 1, which is quite small, has a working rotary phone, old furniture, and even a crocheted blanket hanging over a small easy chair. The next day, when I was checking out, Robert noticed my Megadeth t-shirt (I found this at a yard sale in New Orleans on the way to the studio) and he said, “Nice shirt.” I chuckled and he told me that he was in fact a metalhead who had seen a lot of concerts in Chicago, where he’s from, including the early Metallica lineup that included Dave Mustaine. When he found out I was on tour, he said next time I come through he would trade me a room if I played some music for the other guests. I’m making plans!<\/p>\n

The show in Albuquerque was arranged by my old friend from Gainesville Ryan Quinney. When I asked him if he could help me find a show in Albuquerque, he found a venue and screenprinted a poster within about 60 minutes. I am so thankful for that! What a dream. He has a nice screenprinting setup in his house and makes shirts and other printed matter. Here’s his website<\/a>, go buy some stuff from him!<\/p>\n

The weather in Albuquerque was perfect – sunny and cool with blue skies. I got to the venue, an art gallery, before it was open, and I took out my guitar and started practicing. The venue is close to downtown but also in a residntial neighborhood – it’s at 606 Broadway, if you’re looking for it.<\/p>\n

Juan, who owns the venue, and Ryan showed up soon and we set things up outside, since it was such a beautiful day. The stage and area around was fragrant with blooming wisteria.The person doing the sound, whose name I can’t remember but may have been Bernadette, was celebrating her birthday, and Ryan’s partner Emily baked her a cake. Emily is a professional baker and she made a peanut butter & chocolate, gluten-free, vegan cake, that was extremely good.<\/p>\n

There were two other acts besides Big Kitty on this bill: first was Ermine, a solo performer on ukelele with a variety of effects pedals. I talked to her a bit beforehand and found out she’s a playwright and hosts writing workshops. Her set was gorgeous, including some near-ambient uke playing and a cover of “Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor.” She mentioned that this was the first time she had played out since the Covid lockdown.<\/p>\n

I played next, and I had as my goal for this performance to give it more energy and weirdness, to try to lose myself in it, and to play some new songs I haven’t performed live before. I opened the show wearing a blond wig and a long blue dress as the Rolly Lighthouse character, who is a version of a character I give to Naoko’s doll Baby Coco. I don’t know how well it worked but it was pretty fun. I had her explain the radios and sing “What is the Truth?” which is a song from the first collection of Accompanyments (see my Bandcamp profile). She then introduced Big Kitty – I got offstage, tore off the dress and returned, and launched into “What Flowers Do” which is a new song that was just recorded in New Orleans. It was the first time I played that song live. I did a rather large number of spoken-sung Accompanyments style songs and tried to lose myself, and I did get into some interesting emotional spaces. I’ll have to review the recording I made, to understand what happened a little better.<\/p>\n

My friend Sean Lucy was there as well and he requested “The Ballad of Almond Robin,” which I sang last and heard him singing along to. That was pretty special, and I made sure to add a few changes to the lyrics to get him laughing.<\/p>\n

After me came a great band, Midnight Stew, who I recommend heartily. A 3-piece, they play “NDN country” which was also pretty shoegazey because Greg, who plays guitar and sings, played through a bunch of pedals that made his sound pretty psychedelic. I dug this music so much and you should listen on Bandcamp<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This show was over earlier than usual, which was great because I’m still trying to get caught up on sleep from jet lag and many late nights. I went back to Ryan and Emily’s house, where Ryan and I had a nice time catching up and I met their dog Porkchop, who was definitely not very sure about me, barking a lot. He was the first Jack-Chi I’ve ever met: a Jack Russell-Chihuahua cross. I found myself studying his face, fascinated, noticing elements of both breeds, which would encourage him to bark at me more. When Porkchop gets a treat, he gets up on his back legs and spins around in circles. He did that for me twice.<\/p>\n

I was so thankful to have a futon and a room to sleep in in their beautiful adobe house. There was a wonderful clown and clown art collection in this room, as well as other cool paintings and things.<\/p>\n

In the morning I woke up, meditated, and we talked some more. The neighbor’s dog, Gumphy, who is a different kind of chihuahua cross, barked at me also. It was another beautiful day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In between Mississippi and Albuquerque I stayed in a motel I’d been wanting to stay in for some time, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":393,"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions\/393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alegendinthefieldofentertainment.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}