Calexico and Kingsbury Manx
The Bottleneck
06.13.2001

Review by Cody Simms

Walking out the door of the Bottleneck on Wednesday night, I might as well have been pushing open a set of swinging saloon doors--a vaquero leaving the local drinking hole and heading into a lonely Sonoran desert scene. New Hampshire Street was eerily empty, a long black strip heading nowhere into the warm, dark Lawrence horizon (okay, minus the Border's, of course, the name of which even sort of appropriately fits the mood described herein). I half-expected to see tumbleweeds rolling toward me like ghosts, telling me to head back into the light for a final shot of tequila or taste of mescal. Indeed, Calexico had succeeded in setting the appropriate mood for the evening, having been blown in on a hot, dry wind from out West…out in a place called Tucson.

Founded by musical journeymen Joey Burns (guitar/vocals) and John Convertino (drums) in the mid-1990s, Calexico pays homage to dusty Mexican border towns and outposts, as though their musical minds are able to drink the imagery from within the reels of Sam Peckinpah's Wild Bunch or Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars trilogy and set it to score. In fact, just as Clint Eastwood's character in the Dollars series had no name, the band intentionally wrote all of the music for 1998's album, The Black Light, under the guise that they were writing the score to a nameless film. Burns only added a story line to selected songs, with brooding lyrics inspired by the transience of downtown Tucson and the writings of Cormac McCarthy. The same character prevails throughout the album's songs--a night clerk at a hotel on the edge of Tucson, where "the local hotel ghosts blow back around, descend on those drugstore cowboy nights, cling to the bar, then disappear from sight." Burns modeled his fictional hotel after the supposedly haunted old Hotel Congress in Tucson, a landmark with a cursed past and the sight of 1920s gangster John Dillinger's arrest, among other gruesome stories. Burns interspersed the character's story throughout instrumental sections composed of a blend of mariachi, Latin jazz, country and Mexican folk music. With the instrumental sections in tact, one listens to the album as though watching a film, the fiction of the lyrical sections being complemented by instrumental periods of waiting and transition.

The ebb and flow of The Black Light is indicative of Calexico's music as a whole. No one sound dominates a song, yet overall the sound maintains a very cohesive and cinematic feel. Instruments talk to one another. A section of one song may feature a Spanish rhythm section that could come straight from Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain. Following that might be a light-hearted, babbling trumpet, invoking light thoughts of a mariachi band at a wedding. Then the eerie, almost-whispering voice of Joey Burns may whisk you away for awhile, and on its heels you can hear a Mexican folk guitar that tells you that a villain has just entered the hotel lobby or that the mustachioed man in a melodrama has just tied the damsel to the train tracks. Finally, in comes a pedal steel that makes Gram Parsons and The Flying Burrito Brothers proud. The music is haunting, yet fun-almost like the atmosphere of the saloon and Mexican-biker-vampire hangout in Quentin Tarantino's From Dusk till Dawn.

Burns and Convertino's diverse background helps to explain how they are able to capture their influences and pull-off the unique sounds of Calexico. As a vagabond rhythm section throughout their time together, the two have played with the likes of Howe Gelb and Giant Sand, Bill Janovitz (of Buffalo Tom), Victoria Williams, Richard Buckner, OP8 & Lisa Germano, and Barbara Manning. They are regular members of Giant Sand, OP8, The Friends of Dean Martinez and, of course, Calexico.

Playing live, their music is as colorful as the panorama of greens, oranges, browns, reds and purples found in the Sonoran Desert. Also, the duo expands in numbers on the live stage-threefold! Indeed, on Wednesday night, Burns and Convertino shared the stage with four other musicians who together played instruments ranging from the vibes, stand-up bass, trumpet, melodica, pedal steel (played by Paul Niehaus of Lambchop) and more. The result was a layer of sounds and a level of improvisation that seemed more like a jazz sextet than any sort of alt-country or rock band. Equally impressive was each band member's versatility; their instrumental musical-chairs added to the band's mystique.

The most impressive numbers of the night may have been "The Ride, Part II" and "The Ballad of Cable Hogue". These songs may have hit me the hardest due to their respective strong rhythms and mysterious lyrics. However, more impressive than any particular song was the mood and atmosphere that the band created as a whole. They managed to bring it all with them: Tucson, the Hotel Congress, ghostly tumbleweeds, the worm in the mescal bottle, banderos on horseback, sheep-hunting Chubacabras, Clint Eastwood, the ghost of Miles Davis, even Tarantino's Mexican-biker-vampires…they brought old Mexico to the Bottleneck-a land without borders, very little law, and a wonderful musical tradition that continues to live on.

Chapel Hill-based Kingsbury Manx opened the show for Calexico, providing a straightforward indie-pop sound for those at the Bottleneck who came early. Manx' first album, self-titled on Chicago-based Overcoat records, was released last year to almost no fanfare but eventually gained underground fame as one of the better indie albums of the year. It is now being carried by Berlin-based City Slang records, which also carries albums by the likes of Calexico, Lambchop, Built to Spill, J Mascis, Sebadoh and Tortoise. Having not heard the album before seeing them live, I was immediately drawn by the many layers and textures of their sound. The band has drawn comparisons to early Pink Floyd, but I would add that their instrumental sound resembled a straightforward and crisp version of Yo La Tengo. Add to the mix a poppy lyrical style complete with harmonies akin to The Beach Boys Pet Sounds and you may get the picture. The set was solid--the psychedelically poppy layers of guitars, keyboards, and vocal harmonies were enjoyable and set up a nice contrast for the improvising, mystical Calexico.

Calexico can be found on the web at www.casadecalexico.com. I couldn't find a home on the web for Kingsbury Manx', but you can read more about them at www.cityslang.com.