The Public Overlay of Popular Observation; An Independent Music Review of 2023
A broad capture of the year's most consistently supported live music genre.
Through consistent public support in 2023, I witnessed the early signs of a bumper crop for popular music in 2024.
The advantage of my writing and observation/data analysis is scope. The brutal force of my overlook power is intensity; meditating through the songwriter’s music, I can feel what they feel, or I can feel something from long ago, unlocked by the music, or music symbology from ancient knowing. The joy of my service is scope magnified by intensity; my creative writing and observation formula in plain view for anyone to ponder.
Having observed, with unhealthy hyper focus (intensity), 250+ music performances over the year (scope), my whacked out, maladapted coping mechanisms easily identified certain…patterns, if you will. Through consistent public support in 2023, I witnessed the early signs of a bumper crop for popular music in 2024.
I knowingly omitted glib critiques and senseless divisions from my early music writing and it sort of became my signature, but I unknowingly began to apply that philosophy to my daily life, and now looking back, I can observe correlations between growth in Albuquerque’s music scene and actualizations within my own trauma healing. In many ways, they are the same entity of energy. Not writing about the individual musicians within a musical group helped me be less divisive and overly critical with the human race, gaining empathy for all (most) life, easing the bias and prejudice of existence, and helped me greatly appreciate the human art, so that I could chronicle it, constructively.
If I can actualize my own super power, I can apply the overlay to music in New Mexico as a freelance writer and give back (service to passion) to those souls who succeeded in bringing a music writer into their world of human celebration, through their music and human influence.
Once the overlay is applied, the noise is blocked out and the image negative comes to view, but only using the magnifying intensity to capture what community has chosen to be desirable and favorable in that snapshot of time. The overlay helps block writer bias and allows the community to speak. Loudly. And without knowing of their canny participation.
For the two most populated areas in New Mexico, 2023 was a resurgence of popular music, and the scope is wildly connected to intensity in celebration of human life.
One’s own life.
Pop music showcased the most lively and visually appealing performances and the music has grit, innovation, and most importantly for this newsletter, community support in show attendance.
The masses are turning out for pop music in New Mexico and it’s noteworthy, mostly because it’s damn fun music to dance to and be a part of something larger going on in the scene: vitalization. Celebrating life with breakthroughs, victories, heartbreak, and the sheer amount of experimental “fuck it” to keep doing the damn thing, artists have pumped life into a sparse, post-pandemic community stricken with grief, unhealthy attachments, and a blatant sense of detachment from it all.
For the outgoing public who can afford the ten-dollar door fee, a wide array of listening and entertainment options emerged in 2023, with past consistency bleeding in, to suit nearly any occasion where human body movement - in connection with other humans - becomes the language of unconditional love.
Coming in on the hip hop and electronic side of popular observation, Marcus Scott and Clarq are moving mountains in the creative community; tidal waves of inspiration for the youthful, active mind, breaking glass ceilings and patriarchal stereotypes with calculated body blows of rhythmic and lyrical positive-reinforcement speed punches. They are both power multipliers.
Anything Kendall Jones produces or performs, with any artist, gets a shot of humble brilliance that illuminates and enhances sound spaces to shock muscles and synapses not normally used in daily routines. Zoom out and it’s called high intensity, interval training for the soul. I cannot keep track of Kendall’s radiance in the community, but I am indeed aware.
LJ the Kid is living his service to passion by giving back to his Chicano roots, creating Night Time Drive and a community of chicano soul music, entertainment, street apparel, logos, and designs for all humans to enjoy and celebrate. LJ the Kid teamed up with entertainment heavy hitters and released a vibrant insight to the world of nostalgia, automotive influence, and the vibe needed to bring community together. They produced a music video to “Shoulder” and it brilliantly captured both the eerily romantic vibe of today’s looming detachment fog and a striking preview into the future. “Shoulder” will be the summer anthem we all ride off into the nuclear plume of sensational doom together, and if we’re lucky, accompanied by a loved one to endure the flash.
On the rock side of pop, tons of neuro-spicy, cerebral groups, and heartfelt sounds to dig into like Prism Bitch, Almost Always Never, FirebirdFM, Dandelioness, Homebody, KARLINA, CeeMo, Sabine Colleen, Lumanatrix, Bellowing Bear, Willajay, School of Rock, Shuga Baby, Liz Howdy, DYMER, Talking Hours, Lindy Vision, Omi-O, Thurst Trap, and Coalesce Blue all gained large gatherings of community support with observable and consistent audiences over the calendar year.
School of Rock shows are ridiculously good and they pack a house with proud parents, otherworldly mentors and teachers, moldable siblings and friends, and tidal waves of staunch community support. Their shows have galactic energy of love and acceptance for the world to mimic.
Anything Sale Taylor does in the music community draws a massive crowd of human celebration, whose energies combined cannot outshine Sale’s passion for existence. They turn out in droves to party with Sale and for good reason: magnanimous spirit. Often teamed up with Catherine Powdrell and Josie Zepeda rattling all the snow-capped mountains in all the lands.
On the lively and more party/punk, sometimes soul/sometimes reggae side of popular music of the times that consistently drew a crowd and have connected with a physical audience: Red Light Cameras, The Mango Cakes, Myles Chavez, Savings, Vibestrong, Just Velvet, Reviva, Dat Yak, 64 Love Machine, Jesse Culberson, Blot Xenia, Dee Brown and any Situation he suits up for, Felix Y Los Gatos, NOSOTROS, Gilead Rises, Baracutanga, Isaac Aragon (and the Healing), Radio Free ABQ, Slums of Harvard, No Manners (NM loves emo), Blue J and the Pigeons (seriously the most underexposed show in town), Royal Monaco, Right On Kid, and The Riddims all drew consistently large fan bases here in the high desert in 2023. There are so many others, especially in the party/cover band scene but I simply have not had time to dive into that demographic.
See first installment of demographic study here: Live Music Audience Study
Pushing ever so gently on the psychedelic edge of pop, steering clear of hard rock and metal entries for this newsletter overlay, are Artha Meadors, Free Range Buddhas, and Moon Thieves - who can apply varying amounts of ancient shock therapy before chilling the crowd out, gently swaying hearts and minds before snatching souls into the ether. The public support for Moon Thieves defies any sense of understanding I assumed about the music world; with them, leave all expectations and attachments at the door before you buy the ticket that supports their community of teaching and nurturing our children. Their music has power to transport existence to serenity.
Experimental/electronic music the public recognized and supported: Songs Without Purpose, GRAL Brothers, Velvet Vision, Big Numbers, and Zivi. Try putting any of them into a genre and it does a disservice to their art. It does nothing to entice the public to support their music. Call it your own genre, if you must, but they are incredibly effective at what they do and they get people out to the venues.
The Monsoon songwriter competitions were wildly popular in 2023, teaming up with breweries to encourage public participation, including prize money for artists to foster authentic music appreciation, a worthy cause for those introverted types who struggle to step out into public domain. Stoked to report so many open-mic venues are popping up around the area.
The public spoke in 2023 and they enjoy lively, energizing bumps of celebration, rhythms to incite life and graceful beats that mimic and spur growth, while moving the spirit to embrace authenticity and empower others to do the same. New Mexico music, much like the state, is moving toward community of experimental acceptance, ghastly overdue, but cosmically welcome in these times, moving further away from the fatal memories of corruption and archaic (oppressive) discrimination. Moving forward to evolve the race, one inch by painful inch.
To wrap all this up, take the disheartening demographic study I did back in October (see link above), the Red Queen of population density, and apply that overlay to the overlay I described in this newsletter, and it’s two overlays depicting a microscopic view of how energy works in our very own community, using music as the activator, and then I zoom out to write for both the musician and public; writing what I observe and those who need to glean something from it, will. Some may/will argue or be offended to not be included, but not read a single piece of intentional filtered detail to highlight what is, and what is not happening in the popular, live music scene in ABQ and Santa Fe, with a degree of unintentional omission (human error) built into the attrition rate.
My mission is to raise public awareness; not hand out participation trophies. Far too many burnouts in 2023 pounded that lesson into my criss-crossed neural network.
Through the lens of acceptance, the sparse population anomaly cannot be compared to other large music cities and the public support of live, mostly original, and mostly independent music. Acceptance for human life, as we are seeing unfold in front of us, cannot be labeled. Cannot be categorized. Cannot be described as best or worst. It can only be accepted. Or sadly, rejected. Human life, same as music, cannot be put into a genre and labeled “best” or “worst.” Yet still we try so that our brains can relate and associate meaning, ignorant to the underlying tenet of human art: vulnerability of others.
Nora Madonna, of FirebirdFM, through the production of SHINE, highlighted the significance and readily available safe spaces in New Mexico for all humans to feel welcomed and safe to boogie, move, and be at peace with their own existence while grooving to original jams that brought in scores of diverse music lovers. Her SHINE party illuminated human life and acceptance, giving an overlay for others to use at any production venue. Any time of the year, not only in Pride Month. New Mexico music, especially during public displays of human existence through equality, has immaculate power to influence and they are rightfully and admirably using their influence of acceptance (FirebirdFM broadcast signal) to promote, and celebrate human life.
We as a race, unwittingly evolved to lack compassion and grace in western society, but New Mexico has been bizarrely bucking that trend, observing the advances in public support and education funding, pop music, as it should, has echoed much the same to the masses that all human life is accepted, and should be nourished while existing.
And they don’t care what anyone else in the world is doing. Truly, they do not.
Community, regardless of musical talent, style, and ability arguments, repeatedly showed up to buy the ticket, take the ride, and came back for more to celebrate life with music that reciprocated, often with mass empowerment, their own desire to move.
Bodily movement, through unconditional love, incites human scope through its own intensity.
Stringer