INTERVIEWS
REVIEWS

Well, all the lyrics are supposed to be tied together, but I didn't want them to stick out like a swollen body part. ‘The Ride(pt 2)’ is the introduction to the main character as he whittles away the hours on his graveyard shift at a seedy old Hotel south of town. I guess I was inspired by the Hotel Congress and thinking about my friend, Al Perry, acting as undertaker to all who float through the very surrealistic lobby. The song, ‘The Black Light,’ finds the same character fucked up on drugs given to him by a guest at the hotel. He winds up at the travelling Mexican circus show and in the middle of a nasty entanglement with a local gang. A few shots are fired and our friend finds himself running south out of town with the help of a young chica who helps him cross over the border into Mexico.

Imagine you were ever to crawl across miles of vast wasteland, defenseless against the harsh sun. Try and conceive of the parchedness in your throat, the grit of the sand on your knees, the endless heat. Then visualize yourself coming to an oasis where a small, decrepit bar stands against all reasonable expectations. Agog, you stagger to the creaky door and collapse in front of a tiny, timeworn stage. The nondescript fellows on the stage have been playing for a while, and if they see you, they don't seem to notice. Their music is sparse, restrained -- but as relentless as the desert itself. Upright bass creeps, little horn flourishes illuminate, dry vocals condemn. It's all a mirage, you realize. There is no bar, there is no band, it is merely the music that the desert and desperation somehow make in your mind. 
Somehow, a real band has managed to capture that music of the desert. Joey Burns and John Convertino, who comprise the duo Calexico, use a variety of instruments -- and equally as important, the spaces in between -- to conjure up musical pictures of their Arizona home. But like the desert, when you look closer, there's more to Calexico than isolation and emptiness. All manner of styles -- gypsy music, mariachi, folk --come together on their fantastic second album, The Black Light, a storyboarded journey into the heart of the desert. 

Beginning their careers as a busy rhythm section-for-hire, Convertino and Burns have worked with Giant Sand, Richard Buckner, Barbara Manning, and OP8. Now on tour with indie demigods Pavement, Calexico's unique sound is finally gaining some wide recognition. Before heading out, I called Joey Burns at home in Tucson to gain some perspective on the band's quick rise. 

It's always exciting to head out on a new tour, Burns says, particularly when "you live out in the desert." Each Calexico road trip is a little different, according to the musician, as the lineup accompanying Burns and co-conspirator John Convertino changes show to show. "For economic reasons, John and I would just do it as a two piece... but when we'd play live, a few people would get disappointed." 

Hence, Calexico make an effort to recruit additional musicians for their tours, but not necessarily the same group every night. "It lets you cater to each performance," Burns explains. "Bringing a diverse backup situation keeps it fresh... keeps it surprising." 

As opposed to the structured cool of The Black Light, the group's live shows tend to be a little more anarchic. "Sometimes when we play there's some ranting and going off," Joey Burns says. "That's one difference between Calexico and Giant Sand. Calexico leans more on a form, tied into improvisation." 

Giant Sand, the duo's other major musical concern along with singer/songwriter Howe Gelb, has been on hiatus of late thanks to all-too-common label problems. "With majors," Burns says measuredly, "there's always strange incidents coming in and making your screen go blank." Thankfully, Calexico are safe in the hands of venerable indie Touch & Go, who will be releasing a 12" of Bundy K. Brown remixes of tunes from The Black Light in January. 

Loved by label, collaborators, and indie rock fans alike, Calexico is a band too good to be ignored. If their music evokes the desert so well it makes you thirsty, their live show ought to be a cool glass of water.

It's not easy being indie. Our records are harder to find, our bands are so poor and put upon they seldom make it to third albums, record store clerks look at us funny when we ask when our favorites' new stuff will be coming out. Worst of all, we have to deal with Mainstream Kids. Man, do I hate Mainstream Kids. 
You're probably surrounded by MKs right now. They walk amongst us -- regular, living, breathing (semi-) intelligent people with mothers, fathers, lovers, and friends. They have two legs and two arms, most often, and faces that look startlingly similar -- some would say identical -- to the faces of Indie Kids like you and me. But they are not like us. Oh, no, not by any sense of the word. Mainstream Kids will speak in hushed tones of how listening to Dave Matthews sing "hike up your skirt a little more / and show your world to me" changed their lives, or of how watching that guy from Live shake his head around like a monkey in the "I Alone" video put everything to perspective for them. What I'm getting at here is that basically, these people have no souls. 

Now, not everyone who listens to major label rock and roll is an MK. Most people out there simply don't care about music at all -- people who flip on the radio while their driving, own a couple of CDs, and have entire days pass where no song at all plays in their little deprived heads. What's even worse than that is to be an MK -- to realize that music can serve a very, very vital function in one's life, fill in holes that nothing else can, bring out emotions otherwise buried -- but to believe that the whole of music is contained in Billboard's Hot 100 or MTV's Total Request Live. Pity these people. 

But fear them as well. Mainstream Kids simply don't understand the notion of independent music. If you tell a normal, non-music enlightened person you're into Tortoise, they'll simply nod vacantly and maybe say something to the effect of "haven't heard of them." An MK, however, will be angry and confused. "If it's so good, why haven't I heard of it?" they think. "It obviously must not be good." A common question MKs ask IKs is "Where do you find out about this music?" The idea that there's a whole subculture of people that has found music that resonates beyond Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness eludes this subspecies entirely. 

The other major problem MKs have with IKs is that you can't peg a good Indie Kid. The MKs who live in my dormitories are constantly trying to pigeonhole me. One comes in and I'm listening to Tortoise, he tells me I like druggy music. One comes in and I'm listening to Tribe, it's hip-hop. One comes in and I'm listening to June of 44, I like hard rock. The problem is when one of these three comes back, and I'm listening to something else -- Method Man, Ornette Coleman, Freakwater, Nick Drake, Rodan, Elvis Costello, whatever. They stare blankly. It makes no sense to them. A person simply cannot like more than one kind of music -- can they? 

I'm sorry to take so long to get around to Calexico, but I had to get this rant in somewhere. The reason I stuck it in with this review is because The Black Light is an album I put on when I really want to fuck up the shit of a particularly irritating MK who's made himself a fixture in my dorm room and demands to hear a representative cross-section of my music. Calexico's music is a wondrous, time-travelling pastiche of old musics, from mariachi to folk and back, that any IK will appreciate immediately for the authentic instrumentation and charmingly urbane vocals. An MK, meanwhile, will drive themselves nuts trying to figure out what's going on. 

"What's this?" he says, staring forward slightly harder than would be the social norm. 

"It's Calexico," I say. 

"How'd you find out about them?" 

"Well, they're opening for Pavement next month. And they're on June of 44's label." 

You can almost see the smoke coming from the MK's ears. "Um...play me one of those bands. June of 53, I want to hear some of that." I play him "Lusitania," from Tropics And Meridians. The slightly smug expression disappears from his face. He's starting to sweat. "OK...the other one." 

I play him "Debris Slide" from Westing (By Musket And Sextant). He looks like he's almost about to cry. I put The Black Light back on, starting with the horns of "Minas De Cobre" then skipping ahead to the upright bass and evocative lyrics ("it rained the whole day / he spent at his lover's grave") of "Stray." MK has had it. He makes a quick excuse and hurries off to listen to "Lightning Crashes" on repeat until the world starts to make sense to him again. 

I put on one of Calexico's stately accordion waltzes and smile to myself. Oh, well. It's not like I had any chance of converting him or anything. Meanwhile, I have all of The Black Light to luxuriate in, and the knowledge that as an IK, a whole glorious world of sound is mine and mine alone.

One of the advantages to being well-connected in the indie community is it affords the chance to put out releases like Aerial M's Post Global Music, The Sea And Cake's Two Gentlemen, or Tortoise's Remixed, where very cool underground figures do interesting things to your original very cool music. Calexico's John Convertino and Joey Burns are extremely well-connected, having toured with Pavement and played with Giant Sand, OP8, and Friends Of Dean Martinez. Descamino makes use of the band's connections with some evocative reworkings of songs from the band's most recent LP, The Black Light. 
Superstar DJ Bundy K. Brown (Tortoise, Directions In Music, Pullman, you name it) provides all of the 12-inch's first side with the excellent "Dia De Los Muertos," which takes a echoey Convertino drumbeat and several snatches of Burns' round upright bass and adds cornet musings by Isotope 217's Rob Mazurek and some fluid six-stringed bass from Tortoise's Doug McCombs. It's pleasantly organic for remix work, capturing Calexico's unique desert-music feel and recalling the best moments of the record it is drawn from. 

Side two features two shorter remixes by frequent collaborator Tasha Bundy and Kassel Krew. "Chach" and "Still Missing" focus on the use of horns on The Black Light, using trumpets both sampled and live to add a jazz/mariachi feel. The record closes with a new Calexico song, "Triple T Truckstop," which is an eerie drone instrumental with guest pedal steel player Paul Niehaus and Convertino providing "bowed vibes." 

Although it goes without saying that indie rock fans should eat up this release, DJs should check it out as well. The spare beats of the Brown remix and especially the quiet storm of "Truckstop" could be excellent additions to any chillout/ambient set

Don't you hate when an album is everything you expect it to be...and you still find it a disappointment? The Hot Rail, the rather fast followup to Calexico's breakthrough The Black Light LP, comes as a significantly higher profile release. The first album slipped into stores unnoticed and slowly built a fanbase, helped along no doubt by the band's appearances with Pavement last year. I didn't get it until late '99. Anonymous sidemen for years and years, Joey Burns (bass/guitar/vocals) and John Convertino (drums/accordion/miscellaneous) proved they were more than a rhythm section on Light, a dense, storyboarded record which managed to be that rarest of indie gems: a genre exercise which sounded diverse and interesting all the way through. 
On The Hot Rail, which follows the release (though not the recording) of Giant Sand's much superior Chore Of Enchantment rather closely, Calexico seem to be devolving back into sidemen. Burns only sings on five songs here, and although The Black Light was also heavily instrumental, the vocals there didn't seem like afterthoughts. Calexico can work dramatically well with singing. "Stray," from the last album, is one of the best blends of music, lyrics, and delivery in my recent memory. The Hot Rail unfortunately redelivers most of The Black Light's style with little of its soul. 

The horn-driven, mariachi pastiche instrumentals here don't sound much different from those on the previous album. Opener "El Picador" is a pretty sassy little mariachi instrumental, but sounds similar enough to the last record's "Minas De Cobre" that you'd have to be a really big Spanish guitar fan to want to own both. Convertino is allowed two overlong atmospheric accordion wheezes, which don't help the album's overall feeling of slightness. And other than the Brokeback-through-a-funnel "16 Track Scratch," all the tracks here tend to blur into each other, particularly towards the end, something The Black Light's presence of a storyline helped avoid. and Aside from the terrific jazz-with-indie-vocal mini-epic "Fade," there's nothing really essential on The Hot Rail -- they could have titled it The Nondescript Dark Gray Light. 

That's not really fair, though. Just because the album's no great advancement on its predecessor doesn't mean it's not worthy of your time. The more I listen to The Hot Rail, the more I enjoy it. Convertion and Burns (and all of their guests) are just plain fantastic musicians, and many of the songs are worthwhile listening just for their precise, splashy drumming and deft upright basslines. If you own other Calexico and could stand to own more, this record is good. If you don't own Calexico but think they sound interesting (and they are), get The Black Light first (the first album, entitled Spoke, is diverse but kind of song-light and the poor recording quality doesn't work for this sort of music), listen to that, and then go back to the last sentence. I've covered my bases by owning The Black Light and Spoke on vinyl and this one and the tour-only EP on CD; that way I can listen to Calexico both on the proper rustic format and while I'm "on the go." Your dynamic progressive indie rocker has to think that way, you know.

Call It Calexico

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Tucson's Pre-Eminent Cowboy-Lounge Act Veers South Of The Border.
By Lisa Weeks

AUGUST 4, 1997: BARELY A YEAR since the band's inception, Calexico--the then recent off-shoot of Giant Sand's Joey Burns and John Convertino--has a deal in pocket with Chicago label Touch and Go, and is in the process of recording their a release. Between sessions, Burns sat down at a downtown café to shed some light on recent projects, as well as what to expect from the new record. 

Much like the atmosphere at Café Poca Cosa, the conversation was intimate, colorful and unpretentious. The tape recorder churning away on the table fails to record Burns' sheepish grins and humbling gestures as he answers the first and most obvious question: "Well, we're working on what I guess you would call a Calexico record." 

This follow-up to their 1996 debut, Spoke (previously released only in Europe, with promises of a stateside re-release on August 12), has shifted away from the lo-fi, David Lynch-esque cowboy lounge we've come to associate with Calexico (either as the duo of Burns and Convertino, or the trio of Burns, Convertino and Tasha Bundy on drums). The influence in the studio now, according to Burns, is distinctively Latin. 

"Tasha has been doing some of these Havana 3 a.m. Club DJ sessions, and has turned us on to this Latin theme. We'd like to get her into the studio with her ideas to lay down some grooves, and work off of them." 

"We're trying to experiment a little, trying to deconstruct it," explains Burns. "We've sort of taken it in one style or direction and exploited it pretty well, back from being in the Friends (of Dean Martinez) and then on to Calexico." 

Call it "gringo-rock" if you have to, but make no mistake: It will be rife with the unexpected. Even as they did laying down the first Friends album--which was written and recorded in the studio in two short weeks--Burns and Convertino head into the studio with inspirations, fancies, the sum of all their recent experiences recording with other artists and bits of whatever interests them recorded on cassette tapes, as well as the variety of instruments they've acquired over the years. Themes, but no concrete plans. 

Calexico's deal with Touch and Go provides them the freedom to follow their muses, even if that means producing a record that bears little resemblance to their live performance. Such concerns don't enter into the picture while in the studio. 

"Major labels want everything done by the book," says Burns, "and want their talent to sound like the record live, and record with that in mind. It's a major consideration, and ultimately that's why we went with a smaller label. 

"To me the record is one thing: The live performance is another. I don't want to worry about (how we'll pull it off live) right now, I just want to produce a record that sounds...weird. Good weird, bad weird, I don't know. Who's to say what it'll end up being--you just have to go by what you like to hear and what feels good." 

The question of what to call each project is also significant in that it's their way of separating out roles in their various musical associations...a means of keeping the priorities straight. As a rhythm section, the Convertino/Burns pairing has, in the past year, toured and recorded with Lisa Germano, Barbara Manning, Richard Buckner and Victoria Williams, as well as with bands OP8, Giant Sand, and of course, Calexico. They've made several trips to Europe and other such far-flung destinations as New Zealand (with Barbara Manning this past May). OP8 with Lisa Germano, Richard Buckner's Devotion + Doubt, and most recently Barbara Manning's 1212, have all been released to widespread critical acclaim. 

Case in point, however, is that although the core line-up of Giant Sand and OP8 is the same--Burns, Convertino and Gelb--Burns is quick to point out that they're completely different projects: 

"With Giant Sand it has always been Howe. John and I following Howe. But that's what makes it so great--because we can. That's where we shine. Knowing him as we do, we can sometimes guess where he's going to go...though he's also full of surprises. That's what's made him so exciting to play with live, more than anyone else we've played with. OP8 is more of an equal split, with an added guest that will change form record to record." 

So how does Calexico fit into all of this? The recording of Spoke was the post-Friends pivot between Giant Sand and the collaboration between Convertino and Burns that birthed Calexico. 

"John and I started collecting instruments, all sorts of instruments--Spoke came out of that. It was the first time we actually sat down and did something of our own, and it was my first time as a songwriter," he explains. 

Influenced by the various collaborations of the past year, with the Friends finally laid firmly to rest, it is the songwriting to which Burns and Convertino return with their new Calexico recordings. 

Asked what's in store when they're finished in the studio, Burns is vague, yet full of ideas. "We probably won't be doing that many more (sideline) projects in the future. We'll likely scale back to concentrate more on just Giant Sand and Calexico," he says. Perhaps we'll see another collaboration with OP8. But really, what's in a name? 

"Ultimately," Burns concludes, "It's all about relationships, and communicating and supporting the other brothers and sisters that are involved with you." 

CALEXICO
by Sylvie Simmons 


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Welcome to alt. country 
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Something strange and wonderful has been happening to alternative country, that loose US genre of indie no-hotters with big front porches, small tape recorders and a Gram Parsons/Neil Young circa Harvest fixation. What started out in late ‘80s America as a gentle, downhome, lo-fi roots affair, an antidote to the decade’s brain-numbing, big -production stadium rock, has been gathering pace like a giant tumbleweed , snaring up any musical genre that gets in its path. Now, instead of just Uncle Tupelo and its dozens of low-key dustbowl disciples, there’s cowpunk, country, grunge, country and metal, neo depression, no depression - check out Vinyl Junkie’s brilliant compilation, Loose: New Sounds Of The Old West or some of Chicago label Bloodshot’s prodigious output - and just about every pick and mix combination you can think of. 

One of the best alt. country albums doing the rounds is, of all things, a concept album. Calexico’s The Black Light (City Slang) is part road trip, part redemption tale - like a Jim Jarmusch rewrite of West Side Story (dead-end job in a nowhere hotel; long nights in the desert; gang fights; love; death; running away to a Mexican circus) - but you don’t need to know the story to appreciate the brilliance of the music. I’d call it country & urban - there’s elements in the half vocal, half instrumental mix of Palace and Smog, The Third Man and The Wild Bunch, Kurt Weill and Ennio Morricone.

Calexico - John Convertino and Joey Burns - are two-and-a-bit albums into their career (Superstition Highway was a tape they sold at gigs and Spoke came out on a small German label) but they are better known as Giant Sand’s rhythm section and sidemen for Vic Chesnutt, Victoria Williams and Lisa Germano’s OP8. John - from New York via Oklahoma - and Joey - from Montreal via LA - moved to Tucson, Arizona, and put together a band called The Friends Of Dean Martinez, who got a deal with Sub-Pop. “That gave the two of us the chance to really dig in and start writing,” says Joey. “And from writing those original songs we decided, ‘hey, let’s do some more’. It was very lo-fi.” Very. Their first songs were recorded on an answering machine. 

Their latest is the second alt. country concept album I’ve stumbled upon (the other being Jim White’s fine Wrong Eyed Jesus). Not quite enough to proclaim a movement, perhaps, but is there something going on?

“I don’t know,” says Joey. “I don’t think The Black Light bonks people over the head saying ‘This is a concept album’. We just noticed when we were recording that some of the songs seemed to form this natural progression. And it was a tip of the hat to the writer Cormack McCarthy; the way he takes characters with this innocence and naivety out of their element and transforms them through these horrific but uplifting experiences. The story had its beginning in Tucson at this old haunted hotel, the Congress. A friend of ours John Parrish (PJ Harvey producer) got married there. They were in this room and his wife noticed something under the chair - a bag with a knife - and we picked up on the idea. It wasn’t planned, it was more a beautiful mistake.”

What do Calexico feel about the alt. country scene? “We identify more with people like Victoria Williams, Vic Chesnutt, Will Oldham from Palace, Smog - the meatier songwriters as opposed to a lot of those bands that sound like Son Volt and Uncle Tupelo. Those bands are great too, but there’s a lot of watered down versions flooding the record stores.” Neo country is alive and well in the desert, Joey says. After all, “It’s the West. And there’s something about these bands that take these traditional styles and twist them and make them completely their own.” 

Interview by Jeremy Reed - Austin City Search


If you have made the drive from Austin to Dallas, you know that there is that boring stretch of road from about Austin to Dallas. I made that trip recently, along with the '98 release "The Black Light" by Calexico. Listening to this brilliant album, I remembered and realized the beauty of calm, the beauty of the open Texas sky, and the intoxicating flavor of the border states that filters in from Mexico. Calexico is the project of Joey Burns and John Convertino. The two are best known as the rhythm section for the long-heralded experimental country act, Giant Sand. They have also performed in various other incarnations such as OP8 (with Lisa Germano) and the short-lived Friends of Dean Martinez.

"The Black Light" is a soundtrack for the desert terrain of Arizona and Mexico. Burns and Convertino are an integral part of the Tucson music scene that has garnered the respect of performers like Richard Buckner, Vic Chesnutt, and musical couple Mark Olson and Victoria Williams. In the press release, the album is well described as "conceived with a storyboard, following the kid from this dead-end hotel job through the sand and fire to a traveling Mexican circus.…"

For the past few years, Giant Sand has set up their own night at SXSW where they ask friends like Victoria Williams and Mark Eitzel to drop by. This year, Giant Sand has had to cancel their show because, as Burns explained, "Giant Sand is not coming down because Howe [Gelb] and his wife, Sophie, are having a baby."

During this year's South by Southwest, Calexico will perform Friday, March 19, at the Jazz Bon Temps Room. And not only is Burns looking forward to performing in Austin, he's also looking forward to eating at his favorite restaurant--"My favorite restaurant is Las Manitas. I have been going there for eight or nine years. It is my high point of South by Southwest every year."

I spoke to Joey Burns from his home in Tucson, AZ--next door to bandmate Joey Convertino--as he was contemplating making the seven-hour drive to the home of Victoria Williams and Mark Olson in Joshua Tree. 

Citysearch.com: Tell me about this being a concept album. I heard that you treated the album like a story and went so far as to storyboard it?

Joey Burns: That worked out by way of having these large chunks of instrumental pieces and a lot of songs that were starting to formulate. In approaching the lyrics, I felt like I wanted to tie them all in together since the music fit so well together. I felt like to complement the music I wanted to bridge the words with the music with some kind of continuity.

How long did it take to actually put together this album?

Some of the songs had been written for about a year. There was main intensive time for about month or so during the summer of '97.

What about the relationship between you and John? You guys seem to show up everywhere together.

Yeah…we're next door neighbors (laughing). We're a rhythm section.

When did you guys first start playing together?

We met under the name of Giant Sand. John had been playing with Howe for a year or two in Los Angeles and I was living there. They wanted to take an acoustic bass player over to Europe. I had an acoustic bass and had just gotten out of working at SST Records. 

What about your working relationship with people like Richard Buckner, Vic Chesnutt, and some other people?

Howe is kind of the one responsible, like I said, for bringing the three of us together with Giant Sand. Through that connection we went on to meet different people like Victoria Williams, who in turn introduced us to Vic Chesnutt. Richard Buckner was one of those people who had heard about us through the recordings of Giant Sand, and then a couple years ago at a South by Southwest he said, "Hey, I want to come to Tucson and record with all of you guys." That was about three years before he recorded "Devotion+Doubt." That was a great experience, too. So with each of these experiences, recording sessions, tours, and shows, you meet new people and it branches out like a tree. It kind of makes sense. It is somewhat singer/songwriter and experimental oriented. 

Far too many times I get press kits with bands claiming that "This is like nothing you have ever heard. It is so different from anything that plays on the radio, etc." I think "The Black Light" is one of the few albums that is true to that. 

Thank God. We don't need radio because radio is about all the things that you hate. So, why in God's name would you want to be associated with that?

What about the idea that radio is changing with more and more small stations moving to an Americana format?

And one of these days the devil is going to turn out to be a real nice guy, too. I am not concerned about that at all. I don't even factor that in. I don't want to have to count on radio. I don't want to count on anything that is too unstable and too current…too slippery. 

How long have you been coming to South by Southwest? 

I think like eight years in a row. We have done this kind of Giant Sand night a couple of times, but it is just too much. The first time Medeski, Martin and Wood was there and Vic Chesnutt and the Continental Drifters were there…and Granddaddy came and played…Victoria Williams was there. That was the year that we spoke to Richard Buckner about coming to Tucson. This time we are going to have a guy named Jon Birdsong that plays cornet. On the road, he plays with Beck and also plays with Williams and he has got his own band out there in San Francisco. We'll have Naim Amor on bass and Thomas Belhom on percussion both from Paris, France. Also, Paul Niehaus on pedal steel and Paul Burch on vibes. They're from Nashville, Tennessee, and Shannon Wright, if she wants to join us, on acoustic guitar and keyboards.

27 April 1998/ Somewhere in Germany

The first 5 answers are in German. Joey wanted to show his deep knowledge of
the language. So don't be surprised.

JB: Ich moechte ein mehr Spaetzle essen. Ich liebe Spaetzle. Mit ein
bisschen Zwiebeln und vielleicht ein bisschen mehr Knoblauch. Ja, das ist
sehr gemuetlich für mich.

Q: Wo hast du dein Deutsch gelernt?

JB: Die starken Staus auf dem Superhighway.

Q: Also koennen wir das Interview auf Deutsch machen?

JB: Jo, das ist moeglich.

Q: You have been to the Schwabenland, Stuttgart, as well?

JB: Ja, die Schwarzwald ist sehr schoen. Ich habe ein paar sehr starke
hallucinogenic magic cookies gegessen. Mit meinen Freunden Howe und John.
Wir waren im Auto mit unserem Freund Ulli, ein guter Mann, und durch die
Schwarzwald, alles become mehr und mehr total bizarre. Eine andere Welt.
Dieselbe Zeit, eine andere Welt.

Q: Ist das die Art und Weise, wie ihr eure Musik macht?

JB: Ja, vielleicht. Aber, I stop talking German because I'm running out of
my vocabulary. And I don't want to sound like a fool. It's not cool to sound
like a fool.

Q: Is this the way you recorded "The Black Light"?

JB: No, in Tucson, Arizona you don't need drugs, because it's in the food,
in the air, in the water. It's a natural high, just like John Denver wrote
about Colorado. Let's get down to business.

Q: Could you sum up the story of Calexico?

JB: Are you talking about the group or the town?

Q: The group first.

JB: We met a long time ago in 1990 with Howe and we did some Giant Sand
stuff, we are still doing Giant Sand stuff. There's a new record coming out.
John Convertino and I were playing as a rhythm section for quite some time,
and we have done some work with other artists, projects and bands, it's
always rewarding. But I think that over the years we naturally gravitated
towards playing our own music together with the different instruments that
we've collected. Some of them we've rescued from a store in Tucson called
"The Chicago Store". It's a kind of instrument graveyard. You go through
these secret passages, little tunnels, and you'll find these instruments and
pieces powdered with dust from many years, and we bring them back to life,
and we give them their chance to sing on record.

Q: Do you regard yourselves as cultivating a musical heritage?

JB: Yes, we are a kind of Frankensteins of instruments. I think we should
continue on with the reinvention of different instruments or try some more
combinations. I enjoy bands like Doo Rag who are also from Tucson. They are
a great group. They take a vacuum cleaner and make it into a microphone.
Simple things like that.

Q: Do you use any "modern" instruments like, for example, PCs as well?

JB: Sure. We use some of that in our recording process. And we also like to
use the old PC, the message machine. Sometimes they have a perfect, fine,
aged warble, just like wine. When you drink wine and you start warbling, you
know that it's a fine pour. (?)

Q: Is Arizona a good area for wine?

JB: Wine for the mind. No, not so much. Or for a different kind of wine.
Since you don't have grapes, the people there started turning towards
cactus. They make tequila mescal, and it's a little bit hallucinogenic
sometimes.

Q: There is a bit Mexican influence in Arizona...

JB: Oh yeah, the Southern half of Arizona used to be Mexico one time. Around
the middle of the 18th century the Americans said to the Mexicans, "Let's
make a deal". They bought this portion of land for the railroad. So the
border was changed. But the people who live there have maintained there
identity and there culture.

Q: So you listened a lot to Mexican music when you were young?

JB: Well, not so much when I was young. When we lived in Los Angeles, my
mother did take my younger sister and me to the outskirts of town. She would
do some social work and we were playing with the kids. Then we listened to
music and tried to speak the language, but when you are a kid, there's a
universal language, just like there's music as a universal language. Kids
just play together, it doesn't matter where you're from. There was this
influence from my mum and my dad, we travelled down to Mexico, she plays
piano and sings, she would play these songs for us. And then we would go
down there with them, go down, hang out and have fun. Go to the old temples,
the pyramids and see the ruins and have some great Mexican food.

Q: Let's turn to your album. Is there a sort of underlying concept in The
Black Light?

JB: Yes, there is, kind of. You know, we live in Arizona, and we are talking
about how at one point it used to be Mexico, and before that, what was it?
It was just the land, and the Native Indians lived there, the Hohokam, the
Peema, the Yaki. This idea of there being borders or this idea of being no
borders or the juxtaposition of the two contradictions that lie as a result.
I think by using some influences of some other sources, be it our neighbours
and the Mariachi bands or the Latin jazz music from New York or South
America, or even some of the music that we've made over the years, or music
that we've listened to, the newer modern contemporary music, they all come
together in this idea of combining them. Together with the idea of there
being no borders, this is maybe the theme that runs through the album.

Q: Is there a reason that there are only a very few songs with lyrics on the
album?

JB: Well, I think part of it is to give the illusion that there is a
soundtrack without a movie. I've given space as well to the listener and time
to leave space and time open to them for their own place in it. And also to
allow for digestion with some of the lyrics and some of the stories that are
going on during this album. We would love to do some soundtrack work, and
maybe this will help us.

Q: So there was no film up to this point?

JB: Not yet, we still have to make it. Maybe we will do a cartoon instead.

Q: Do you have a script already?

JB: Yes, I wrote a story, the story behind the album. We first recorded some
of the music in the beginning and then, as we put these things together in
context, we noticed that there was this kind of natural progression of a
story. In writing the lyrics I decided to tie them together, but in a very
subtle way, I didn't want it to be too overstated or too obvious, that's why
I didn't write the story in the liner notes. I felt like if there's a song
there that people might like, let them be able to get to that song without
having to weed through some kind of sick idea or concept.

Q: You've already established a name in the States with your different side
projects. How is the reaction to the new album?

JB: It's really good. By working with a great label like Touch and Go
Quarterstick we've been very fortunate to get our music through to people in
good hands. I think people really respect the label, so they take a serious
look at the bands on that label. I also think that because the label is in
Chicago a lot of friends of ours helped us to get in contact with people
that we respect, some musicians there. It seems like this ongoing process
keeps on expanding and unfolding. So this idea of working with other
artists, new artists in the future, I see it possibly happening.

Q: In which kind of venues do you usually play in the States?

JB: Well, I feel like I could play anywhere. I like the idea of playing
acoustically at the side of the street. Sometimes we play in the lobby of
this old haunted hotel in Tucson, called the Hotel Congress. It's a great
place and it's been around for a hundred years. This is the place where John
Dillinger and his band of gangsters were caught, which led to Dillinger's
arrest. So it has this deep history, and we're playing there in the lobby
sometimes. But normally we play in clubs, sometimes a theatre or two.

Q: You've just said that there's going to be another Giant Sans record on
which you played as well. How do you find the time to arrange all these
different side projects?

JB: Well, we make time. It's funny, because on your end you maybe see all
these recordings coming out over a big period of time, but for us it doesn't
take as much time. We get together for a couple of days, some weeks here,
some weeks there, there's always time. The fact that we are able to work in
Tucson and not have to go to LA or New York makes it that much easier. It's
a labour of love, we all enjoy playing together, so for us it's very
rewarding.

Q: Are you going to tour in Germany this year?

JB: Yes, we'd definitely love to. And maybe we can bring some of the
Mariachis over. Maybe someone out there can help us bring them over. I'd
would love to give them a platform on which to do their own music. I like
bringing together different styles, letting them have their chance to
express their own interpretation of music. I think the people in Europe
would really enjoy it, because these guys, they know how to party! It's
funny, because we did this work in the studio, and they wind up drinking all
this American beer, and we drank up all their Mexican beer. Just think about
all this Mexican beer you could get turned on to. And likewise they would
drink all the Weissbier.

Q: That's a sort of cultural exchange:

JB: Yeah, a hundred per cent.

Q How many people are on stage when you are playing?

JB: Well, that depends. For economical reasons we have done minimal
performances with two people, but we've done some work with a drummer, a
bass player or other musicians. So it varies, it depends on how things are
going, if people are available. As we continue to grow we will perhaps be
able to bring a bigger ensemble. There is also the idea of working with Vic
Chestnut and Lambchop, combining some of these musicians and bands together
with ours and vice versa. And even working out some of these orchestrations
and arrangements. We'd like to take it further. I think people enjoy seeing
music of this size. It always great if you're part of some kind of
inspirational performance, where something is happening. Like driving to the
Black Forest, you're driving through, but the same time you really feel the
sense of the spirit of the area, you stop and you talk to the people, you
connect. I think that's kind of what we want to do.

Q: Did you really enjoy the Black Forest?

JB: Oh, of course! For us, being in Europe, this idea of being in another
country is very similar to us living in Tucson. Being able to walk down an
old street, a different language being spoken, a different flavour in the
air, you get the sense of a different time and a different place. That's
very important. To lose yourself and be able to see another way of living or
perceiving. It helps to build your own experience and your own sense of
self.

Top 3 records:

Amelia Rodriguez: ???

Isotope 217: ~

Rainer Ptacek: Woried Spirits and Nocturnes

updated :- 20 May 2002