Zócalo Magazine - February 2020

Zรณcalo TUCSON ARTS, CULTURE, AND DESERT LIVING / FEBRUARY 2020 / ISSUE NO. 115

The Music Issue

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inside February 2020

07. The Music Issue 37. Excerpts 41. Events 43. Art Galleries & Exhibits 47. Performances 48. Tunes

ON THE COVER: Linda Ronstadt peforms at the Tucson Convention Center in 1980. Photo © Cliff GREEN

Zócalo Magazine is an independent, locally owned and locally printed publication that reflects the heart and soul of Tucson.

PUBLISHER & CREATIVE DIRECTOR David Olsen EDITOR Gregory McNamee, editor@zocalotucson.com CONTRIBUTORS Daniel Buckley, Marianne Dissard, Jim Lipson, Jamie Manser, Jared McKinley, Gregory McNamee, Janelle Montenegro, Jennifer Powers, Oliver Ray, Amanda Reed, James Reel, David La Russa, Sylvie Simmons, Brian Smith, Dan Sorenson, Brianna Ward.

LISTINGS Amanda Reed, amanda@z´óocalomagazine.com

CONTACT US: frontdesk@zocalotucson.com P.O. Box 1171, Tucson, AZ 85702-1171

SUBSCRIBE to Zocalo at www.zocalomagazine.com/subscriptions.

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photo © Cliff GREEN

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photo © Cliff GREEN

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Ménage à Trois, before they became Phantom Limbs, ca. 1982.

The Pedestrians at Pearl’s Hurricane in the hot summer of 1979.

David Byrne of the Talking Heads at Student Union, 1978.

Music in Tucson An Introduction

by Gregory McNamee

I

t was March of 1973, with impossibly mild weather for a kid from an East Coast that had not long before been locked in an ice storm. (Watch Ang Lee’s film by that name for more on that matter.) I was on spring break from high school and had come out to visit my grandparents and escape the cold. They weren’t much fun by my 16-year-old lights, so one day I caught a bus down to campus to have a look around. Out in the park bordering Park Avenue, a rock band starting playing, and playing very well. A beautiful young woman passed a joint my way, birds flitted by, sunlight glittered, the scent of orange blossoms filled the air, and I thought, yes, this is where it’s at, and it’s where I want to be.

Fast-forward a couple of years later. I don’t remember the name of that band from 1973, if I ever knew it at all, but on Park Avenue a flatbed trailer was the stage for two bands welcoming students back to campus on a hot August night.

One, Summerdog, played amiable hippie bluegrass, the coin of the realm back in my home state of Virginia. The other, the Bob Meighan Band, played supple rock music that blended in country elements without quite becoming country rock. A couple of years later they’d put countryish music aside before deciding that they’d be Tucson’s answer to Steely Dan, and they did a creditable job of it, making the east-side Pawnbroker a destination for a sort-of-disco crowd that was a little too cowboy for the Lunt Avenue Marble Club over by El Con but was pretty Travolta-ish all the same.

A year or two later, and punk and new wave broke in Tucson. Bands began to seed and sprout, launching raiding parties on Phoenix. The Valley of the Sun obliged with emissaries like J.F.A. (Jodie Foster’s Army, that is), Billy Clone and The Same, and, mightiest of all, the Meat Puppets. We traded, sending Brian Smith, Winston Watson, and company north to lasso Alice Cooper to a saguaro

and add a new wrinkle to ’70s glam with the ’80s sensibility that marked Gentlemen Afterdark. The band—and damn it, we’ll claim it as Tucson’s own, born of mighty punky predecessors from the era of the late lamented Pearl’s Hurricane Lounge—has recently been rediscovered, having a Smith-penned tune turn up on the soundtrack to the Netflix series Stranger Things in season 3. Other bands from the time merit revisiting, too: Conflict, Yard Trauma, Jacket Weather, the Suspects, the Pedestrians, a hundred other DIY combos.

Then there were the visitors. Old-timers will remember having their minds duly blown when Talking Heads, then a pretty much unknown quantity, nervously stood in the middle of the ballroom at the Student Union and wove strange tales of psycho killers and girls who wanted to be with girls. Los Lobos practically became a Tucson band, so often did they appear at places like the Wildcat House. They were jaw-droppingly magnificent. Black Flag brought a new singer named Henry Rollins here, not far from where, decades later, Arcade Fire wowed a tiny crowd. The crowds were bigger, but still not quite to stadium level, for The Blasters, X, Tito and Tarantula, Rosie Flores, Joe Ely, and other acts from points east and west that viewed Tucson as an extension of their backyards. John Entwistle was here not long before he left the world, filling the Club Congress with so much equipment that there was no room for a crowd. Keanu Reeves showed up with his band about the same time, an evening that I remember mostly because, out in the parking lot, Jefferson Keenan demonstrated outside that he could throw up a guitar-hero kick to rival Nancy Wilson’s.

A favorite moment of mine was when Gang of Four, the British clang-pop band, played a very great show indeed in the late summer of 1982. The opening act was nervous, out of tune, out of time, looking as if they’d rather be anyplace

continues on page 9...

February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 7

photo © Cliff GREEN

Photo by C. Elliott Photography

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photo: courtesy Chip Curry

Calexico performs at the Rialto Theatre, May 2018.

Summerdog in the mid-1970s. but there on stage, and I turned to my companions and confidently predicted that that would be a band that went precisely nowhere in very short order, so entirely did they suck. It turned out to be R.E.M., and in fact they went places and have enjoyed a deservedly long career. Watching them evolve into stars, I resolved to get out of the prognosticating business.

Tucson has always been a musical place. He hadn’t been in town long way back a century and a half ago when Frederick Ronstadt got a band going in the old Elysian Grove, where, it’s said, on moonlit nights you can see the ghost of a dancing bear that swayed along in time to the music. An unrequited love for his descendant Linda helped push me westward after I heard her sing with Little Feat on a Washington, DC, radio station.

Friendships with other members of the far-flung Ronstadt clan have made my life all the better. I’ve told this story elsewhere in this magazine, but banjo slinger Big Jim Griffith was, beg pardon, also instrumental in my moving here. I used to see Paul McCartney buying books at the old Book Mark on Speedway, lost entirely too many brain cells listening to Los Lasers and the Giant Sandworms, laughed at Fish Karma’s essential Tucson nugget “Swap Meet Women,” dug Calexico and the Mollys and Rainer and Al Perry and John Coinman and Gila Bend and Dean Armstrong and Street Pajama and the Mobile Cubes and the Serfers and Greg Morton and Lance Kaufman & the Soul Rebels and The Onlys and Tin Roof and the Pedestrians and Greyhound Soul and Kevin Pakulis and the River Roses and Gabrielle Pietrangelo and the Phantom Limbs and—well, the list goes on and on, and we can only hint at the richness that musicians have brought to our town in the pages that follow.

Some have gone far: Think of Linda, and, not far behind, the Sidewinders/ Sand Rubies. The Dusty Chaps, who had a big-label contract, put Tucson on

John Doe of X at the Backstage, 1980.

the country-rock map. The ill-fated Dearly Beloved scored a couple of radio hits before being swallowed by the deadly highway between here and Los Angeles, which claimed singer D. Boon two decades later while he was bringing California jazz-punk to Tucson, spinning double nickels on the dime.

The musicians in our lives are passing all too quickly these days. I still think of Lalo Guerrero, whom Daniel Buckley profiles in this issue, whenever I’m in the vicinity of Five Points or catch the jaunty photograph of him in his resplendent white shoes in the Broadway Mural series. He’s been gone for 15 years, but he’ll live on forever in Tucson’s musical and cultural soul. More recently, I ran into an old, old friend, Chris Burroughs, at a tribute concert for the recently deceased guitar master Gene Ruley. We hadn’t seen each other for a long time and had a lot of catching up to do, so we made plans to get something on the calendar soon. Soon came, and Chris, too, was gone. Jennifer Powers celebrates his all too short life in this issue as well. More recently still, we lost Tim Gassen, whose love for psychedelia was matched only by his hockey fanaticism. Think of a non-dickish Jim Morrison with a curved stick in hand and the Syndicate of Sound on the jukebox in the background, and you’re approximately in the right territory.

Music helps make us human, and the music of Tucson is, to my ear, so much better than that of so many other places that maybe we’re just a shade better as human beings, too—which would certainly explain our voting patterns.

That’s just an idle thought, the human bit, chauvinistic and unscientific, but I’ll throw it out there anyway: it’s a reason to stick around and enjoy this odd place. The music tells its own story, but we hope that the stories that follow will add to your listening pleasure as well. And on that note, check out our Tucson playlist at www.zocalomagazine.com. Peace and love, friends, and groove on. n February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 9

Historic & Unusual Homes TIM HAGYARD (520) 241-3123 • tim@timhagyard.com • timhagyard.com

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Linda Ronstadt Tucson’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Royal

by Daniel Buckley

photo courtesy of Linda Ronstadt

“MY FAVORITE MEMORY of Tucson is just riding my horse in the desert,” Linda Ronstadt says, recalling growing up here in the 1950s. “There was no development then. It was just beautiful. I rode all over the Catalina foothills.

There was nothing to impede us. There was only the Grace Mansion and the Hacienda Del Sol. And the radio towers. There was no one living up there. We’d ride to the end of Campbell and look at the lights of Tucson.”

Ronstadt grew up on the family compound, long ago leveled for apartments, off Jackson Street and Tucson Boulevard. Back then it was out in the desert.

She grew up honing perfect harmonies by singing with her parents and siblings every night as they did the dishes, during family celebrations and fiestas, and to mark any semi-special occasion.

At two years old, she opened her eyes in that home to the sound of Tucson born Father of Chicano Music, Lalo Guerrero, who dropped by to serenade her with her favorite song about a happy little burro. It’s something she still vividly remembers. Lalo was a close friend of Linda’s father, Gilbert Ronstadt, who ran the local Ronstadt Hardware company, where you could buy anything from a hammer to windmills to industrial machinery for the mines and farms around Tucson.

Music was a way of life in the Ronstadt family. Linda’s grandfather, Federico (Fred) Ronstadt, started Tucson’s first classical music ensemble – the Club Filarmonico. Fred and brother Dick Ronstadt taught every member of the group how to play their instrument. Later Fred would become a founding board member of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.

Sundays were spent at her grandfather’s house listening to the weekly Texaco broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Linda’s aunt Luisa Espinel had herself been a pioneering opera singer in Arizona Linda Ronstadt and was renowned throughout the globe for her interpretation of Spanish art songs. Luisa appeared as a gypsy dancer with Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg’s 1935 film The Devil is a Woman, and as a gift to her own father one year she transcribed the old Mexican folksongs he sang to her and her sibs as kids, calling the collection “Canciones de Mi Padre.” Linda would use that same title for her 1987 collection of mariachi ranchera songs – still the largest selling Spanish language recording of all time.

With the exception of the country rock material that launched her career, virtually everything in her broad and extensive repertoire came from either the family record collection or her older brother’s early musical pursuits. Pete Ronstadt, who would become Tucson’s chief of police, was years earlier a boy soprano of exceptional talent with the Tucson Boy’s Chorus. He was being groomed to sing the title role in the annual Gian Carlo Menotti Christmas television opera Amal and the Night Visitors when his voice suddenly shifted

from soprano to bass baritone in a couple of weeks over the summer. That ended that. But everything from the operetta Pirates of Penzance to the mariachi music of Lola Beltrán, Lucha Reyes, José Alfredo Jiménez, and Mariachi Vargas to the American standards arranged by the masterful Nelson Riddle came from that collection of well-worn records.

Long before she would become one of the great song interpreters of our time, Linda sang backup for her brother Pete and sister Suzy in a folk band called the Union City Ramblers here in Tucson. They played little folk venues and the odd Cele Peterson fashion show. (Peterson was another close family friend.)

But Linda had dreams beyond. She quit the University of Arizona and headed to California with Bobby Kimmel, where they met up with Kenny Edwards and formed The Stone Poneys. The group had a huge hit with Michael Nesmith’s “Different Drum,” which launched Ronstadt on a solo career path. The rest is history. For both of you who don’t know her career highlights, check out her 2013 autobiography Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir or last year’s documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice. Both encapsulate as well as anything could a career of extraordinary breadth, spectacular artistic heights and few if any misses, as well as the remarkable grounded person she truly is.

One last Tucson connection of note. Her platinum-selling Canciones de Mi Padre and Más Canciones recordings had an almost instant ripple effect on young mariachi performers in her hometown, particularly women. Around the same time as their release, young women in ever greater numbers started to populate the local youth mariachi scene, breaking the glass ceiling of the former allmale mariachi club. The enormous popularity of her recordings inspired young Tucson girls to pursue their own musical and life dreams.

Linda, too, cherished the mariachi experience. “I loved it, and from the point of songcraft it was better than most of the songs I was getting,” she says.

“The music was richer and the lyrics were more interesting. What I really liked about it was that Mexicans Americans came [to the shows]. I didn’t know if that would happen. It got a totally different audience.

“It had such an impact on me. I got to have all that learning from all those singers and players in those years. I tried my hardest to copy them. I don’t think I brought anything original to the table. But when you try to copy you wind up being yourself.”

And that, in a nutshell, is the crux of Linda’s artistry: finding her own voice in both the familiar and the new, and using it to move the world. n

February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 11

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14 ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com|February 2020

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Howe Gelb Existential Westerner

by Sylvie Simmons

THE TEXT, sent from Austria in the middle of the night, read, “I’m in Vienna.” swallowed by the Susquehanna River, and 15-year-old Howe was sent to live And I thought he was in New Mexico, making an existential Western movie. But with his father in Tucson. Within a couple of years he had a best friend, Rainer that was a few days ago. Howe Gelb doesn’t stay in one place for long.

Ptacek, a blues guitarist whose family had emigrated from East Germany, and a “Grandpa was from here,” Howe wrote. “I’m named after him. Harry Gelb. band, Giant Sandworms. In the beginning Howe, “an extremely reluctant front He died when he was 26 from pneumonia after having six babies, my dad the man,” was just the keyboard player. His favorite time, he says. youngest, them all ending up in the orphanage.” Howe, with his current touring The Sandworms later became Giant Sand. Now and then it’s been shrunk compadres, Katherine Dolan and Tommy Larkins, had just headlined a soldfor convenience or, more often, expanded to Giant Giant Sand, including both out festival. Now they were at the parking lot where they’d left their bus, ready new young musicians and old legends (John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin is an to make the long drive to Zurich and the next night’s show. But the yard was alumnus). Leader and singer/guitarist/keyboard player Howe seems to view deserted and the gate locked. it as mutually supportive musical collective, a place for all sorts to hang out “So. I walked up to the lock feeling my and play. You can also thank Giant Sand for grandpa blood in power mode. I stood in front the existence of a number of now well-known Howe Gelb (r) with Tommy Larkins and Katherine of the lock and I began to randomly spin two musicians and bands, including Tucson’s Dolan of Giant Sand. Photo by Maika Makovski. numbers with my left hand and two with my Calexico, which grew out of Howe’s 1990s right. There was something about that process rhythm section. that felt right. I would spin the tumbler and at “I just liked the idea of having this kind of a certain moment, yank the cable to see if that removed world, this brotherhood—the idea of a random number would open the lock. And it band being something more than a front person did. On the third try. or dealing with the throes of fame,” Howe says.

Everyone was startled. And very happy.

“Because survival is better than success. It None of it made a lick of sense. It was just hones the instinct.” instinct. And really,” Howe said, “it’s exactly The history of the band—and let’s not even how I’ve handled my music all these years.” start on Howe’s other musical incarnations— It’s true. The king of Tucson cool has taken would take up more space than we have here, an approach to the business of music, and the but it’s well worth checking out. So is its long sixty-odd albums he’s released in the process, and varied discography, which includes a rock that falls somewhere between spontaneity opera titled Tucson. The highlights of Giant and barely-controlled chaos. His addiction Sand are many. The lowest of the lowlights was to the unplanned, the unexpected, and the Rainer Ptacek’s death in 1997. In recent years, inexplicable is what makes Howe so special. It’s Howe retired Giant Sand. In even more recent also what’s stopped him becoming the big star years he has revived it in order to record and that his talent deserves. In America, anyway. tour—with different lineups—new versions He’s big in Spain and Italy and Germany of old Giant Sand albums. All that happens and Austria and Switzerland. Especially big when he’s not making and touring with his solo in France (where he’s duetted with a living albums, eclectic records, some more jazz than legend, Anna Karina); in Denmark (where he’s rock, with original songs he likes to call “Future had a whole other band and a whole other life); Standards.” and in the UK, where he’s revered by music Last time I was in Tucson—a couple of journalists as a pioneer of Americana and the architect of “Desert Rock.” months back, before Howe left to make that “existential Western” movie, then There’s something desert-like in Howe’s music for sure—the space; the hopped on a plane to Europe—I saw Howe playing standard standards on a dust-blown, south-of-the border-thing; and also the strangeness, the visionary piano at a local bar. He was doing it, he told me, just because he loved the sound staring at the sun. But there’s something urban in there too: the late-night, of that piano. Like he said, none of it made a lick of sense. It’s just instinct.

Edward Hopper bars with a jazz cat sitting at an untuned piano, singing like Full disclosure: I have written some of Howe’s liner notes, and he’s Lou Reed, if Lou Reed were a crooner. One of my favorite Howe Gelb stories is produced both of my albums (the second one, Blue on Blue, is coming out in the time, a few decades back, when he holed up in the Joshua Tree desert with spring 2020). When we first met, before we became friends, I was a British just three records for company, playing them day-in and day-out. These albums rock journalist, as opposed to a California-based rock journalist and singerwere Tom Waits’s Swordfishtrombones, Miles Davis’s Elevator To The Scaffold, songwriter. I first interviewed Howe for the UK Guardian newspaper. I’m still and a Tomatito album. To this day, he says, he can’t think about the desert trying to remember the outcome of the poignant tale he told me that involved a without hearing Miles’s trumpet, Waits’s voice, or Tomatito’s flamenco guitar. banjo, an older woman, a van festooned with Christmas lights, Memphis, Furry That explains a lot of things. So does the fact that Howe’s not a native Lewis, a chemically altered MacDonald’s chocolate milkshake, and A Star Is Southwesterner. Howe was born and raised in the Northeast in a small town Born. n near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. In the great flood of 1972 his family house was February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 15

Z themusicissue

Winston Watson Tucson’s Master Drummer

by Oliver Ray

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WHAT DO Alice Cooper, Joe Peña, Perry Farrell, Gilby Clarke, Chuck Prophet, The Jayhawks, Giant Sand, Billy Sedlmayr, Robyn Hitchcock, XIXA, and Bob Dylan have in common? If you guessed they all play music, good job. More specifically, however, they all had a wild-haired wunderkind laying down grooves simultaneously preternatural and rooted in the long history of rhythm.

The story of Winston Watson is the history of a young man seduced by the mistress called Rock and Roll. I remember being 22 years old and seeing Dylan play at New York’s Roseland Ballroom on Arthur Rimbaud’s birthday, October 20. I’d been seeing Dylan shows since 1987, and this was the first show where that energy that called through the speakers at home emanated live before me. I noticed the drummer, the source of the energy, urging Bob on with his spirited playing. It was only a few years later, when Patti Smith opened for Dylan for a series of shows, that I would find myself sheepishly wandering around backstage, a young musician, scared to talk to Winston, who ended up being nothing but kind to me.

Born on September 16, 1961, in Columbus, Ohio, with the sun in Virgo and the moon in Sagittarius— the virgin and the archer—Winston Watson’s life would take him from Ohio to the desert and on to the rest of the world many times over. In the near half-century since he first started playing, it is with virgin heart and the precision of the celestial archer that he has wielded his drumsticks. And as all music in the world is one music, cross-pollinated over millennia, crossing land bridges and seas in distant times we can only imagine, this melodic crucible of humanity and unity can be heard as Winston plays the impossible shuffle of Dylan’s “Dirt Road Blues” or the Mesoamerican, earthy roll of XIXA’s “World Goes Away.”

Winston’s father was born in Virginia. Winston says, “We’re a product of the Watson clan, Robert Watson being Scottish and his bride being African American and Powhatan Indian, and here I am.” His mother was from Indonesia, and after suffering internment under the Japanese, her family made their way to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where she would meet Winston’s father in 1958. They married there and moved to Ohio.

Tucson was a new world when the family moved here in the late 1960s.

“It was weird being the rare person of color,” Winston says. “Essentially north of 22nd Street, a dividing line ran through the center of town. That was pretty much it. If you were a person of color you didn’t really go too far north of 22nd Street, or if you did you were in Sugar Hill, where the Tucson Symphony is now, or south Park Avenue, which was a bustling kind of downtown kind of scene, Hopkins Fashions and Sounds, barbecue places. But we went north of the dividing line, mainly for schools. My father wanted to rent and eventually buy, the American dream.”

The family moved to Glenn Heights near Fort Lowell Park and “acres and acres of desert,” which became Winston’s playground. Aside from a couple of Mexican families, they were the only people of “really weird exotic racial mixup, you know, black and Indian on one side, Dutch and Indonesian on the other.

We wore funny clothes, you know like gabardine pants, brogue shoes, a vest, sometimes a tie. I used Brill cream. So I was already weird.”

Winston’s mom liked to listen to music, country and western, and she had her own band. The Watson household often hosted parties, listened to R&R 45’s, danced. She had a lovely voice, and Winston got his first experience playing live music in her band. His first kit was a blue sparkle Crown, which he

themusicissue Z Winston Watson, March 20, 2013.

Photo by C. Elliott Photography.

begged his father for, promising to pay back the $35, which he did. Saturdays his mom would take him to the record store and let him pick out records. By the time he heard Led Zeppelin, his dreams of being in a pilot disappeared, replaced by the desire to be the best drummer in Tucson. An older musician pointed out that Winston might want to consider being the best in the world.

Along about 1978-79, Winston started playing in a local band called Snow Blind. Choo Choo’s, now the Surly Wench, hosted an endless stream of national acts. Johnny Winter blew Winston’s mind, and he wanted to know everything about the gear, the lights, the songs, the life. It wasn’t until he met a bunch of kids from the Pills that Winston met musicians his age who were writing their own songs and drawing crowds. There was another drummer in town whom Winston admired as a “luminary,” a kid named Billy Sedlmayr, introduced to him by the Tucson legend Rainer. Billy says of Winston, “I first saw Winston about 37–38 years ago, he had this entanglement of hair, a rock n roll medusa thing. He was drumming for Gentlemen Afterdark with Brian Smith. Well, drummers are born, not made. You’ve gotta play if it’s in you, and he has it.”

Winston learned how to fix things from his father, an Air Force man, whom he shadowed as he worked on their old truck. His mom had a large vegetable garden in Ohio. It was from her that Winston learned the ways and languages of plants, and you can hear this, too, in the dynamics of his rhythms, in their tendrils and thorns, their roots and blossoms. This mix of technical intuition and being able to talk to plants are gifts that anyone who has spent time with Winston is familiar with. If you’re on the road and something breaks down, whether an amplifier or a van, Winston will fix it with whatever is on hand. If you have a dying houseplant, Winston will bring it back to life. As Howe Gelb says about an amp he brought on tour: “I bundled the thing up in a suitcase and flew it to our European tour destination . . . whereby it immediately suffered

internally and smoked up like it was about to explode. Winston spent the next coupla days like a surgeon mending that thing. When he was done it had a tone like no other.”

Howe continues: “Winston was in superior shape. It was the loudest and fastest band lineup Giant Sand had ever been. His spirit was a force of nature on the road. He appeared tireless. We planned on having heart attacks somewhere along the path, but nope.”

Howe and Billy started playing together in a band called Giant Sandworms, which morphed into Giant Sand. Howe was creating his own form of rock and roll, with a DIY spirit that has become a genre in itself. Through a twist of dark fate, Billy wasn’t able to play on a recording the band was about to make, and Winston stepped in. The record was called Valley of Rain, and it became the first Giant Sand record.

By the end of the 1980s Winston was living in Los Angeles. Through some friends he landed a gig at MCA Music Publishing, graveyard-shift session work.

In 1992 Winston played his first show with Bob Dylan. He ended up playing with Dylan for the next four years. The rest is history.

Gabe Sullivan, Winston’s bandmate in XIXA, puts it perfectly: “Winston Watson is a creature of the old world. A tradesman and an artist. The guy you call when anything from your guitar to your soul needs fixing. Every encounter with him is a wealth of stories of persistence, dedication, hard work, grandeur.

It is a tremendous thing to hear a drummer who has played the largest arenas in the world be humble and wise enough to play the most simple beats because that is what the song calls for. I’m deeply honored to call a man like Winston my friend—and the baddest and loudest motherfucker on drums that I’ve ever rocked with!” n February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 17

UPCOMING EVENTS AT THE DIAMOND CENTER

Tickets available at the Rewards Center or online at etix.com

FRIDAY

FEB. 21 SATURDAY

FEB. 22 SATURDAY

WITH PETER BECKETT-THE VOICE OF PLAYER

Sahuarita An Enterprise of the Tohono O’odham Nation.

MAR. 7

February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 19

photo: Jamie Manser

Greyhound Soul in 2011.

IT WAS 2009. I’d just moved to Tucson from the East Coast and hadn’t been out much. My only friend at the time, Cyril Barrett, invited me to see a show, The Wooden Ball, at Congress: Tucson bands playing acoustic. We sat through a few uninspiring sets. It was hard not to make fun of them—their ironic “mom” tattoos, mustaches, vintage Nike’s. All seemed an exercise in image, fronting, while the music lacked anything to grab on to, anything to slap you in the face for making fun of them and say, “Damn, they’re good.

It looked as though the night was going to end like this when the last band hit the stage. Each one of them appeared as though they’d had it all and lost it all, a few times. The drummer looked

familiar and played a cute champagne sparkle DW kit. The bass player was a big guy with long hair. The front man played a beatup old acoustic guitar. The drums started in on a heavy floor tom groove; the front man picked out a riff salvaged from Howlin’ Wolf’s dustbin. Then he started singing, “Can you feel me in your soul?

Hear me when you cry? Oh, when it’s late at night and ya turning out the lights…”

These guys were obviously dumpster divers living in and on the ruins of Rock and Roll. The band was Tucson’s own Greyhound Soul. It was real. n —Oliver Ray is a local coffee roaster and songwriter

THE RIALTO THEATRE, a venue that holds decades of memories, had never meant much to me until that night. My 16-year-old self had scored early entrance to see My Chemical Romance. I walked past the long and heavily eye-lined queue with my head held high. Front and center, I settled in. Then the floodgates opened. Hundreds of people piled in, and next I knew I was suffocating against the barricade. I had never seen the Rialto sold out before.

The bouncer kept checking to make sure I was all right, but I was never giving up my spot no matter what bruises I was getting.

The opening bands at that show a dozen years ago are a blur to me; I have no recollection of what they looked like or the music they played. The crowd waited, the air heavier than before a monsoon, and then it happened. The band took the stage, and the mass of bodies crunched me forward, moving the barricade closer to the stage than it should have been. My dad, who had been with me the entire time, tapped out after about four songs and had the bouncer pull him out to go meet my mom up in the balcony section. It was pure chaos.

Bruised, soaking in sweat (who knows whose), I stayed at the side entrance until midnight after the concert, waiting to meet the guitarist and give him cookies. I felt 100 percent completely myself that night. n —Brianna Ward blogs about popular culture for Three If By Space

20 ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com|February 2020

photo: Brianna Ward

Legendary Shows

Z themusicissue

My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way.

NOVEMBER 8, 1980. I was more than psyched for a prime-time Saturday night concert with two of England’s best bands. Though The Police were the headliners, their friends and tour mates XTC were given ample time to ply their trade. XTC’s set featured songs from all four of their albums, staying close to their recorded versions. That was fine with me, since their tunes were quirky, precise pop gems to begin with. The Police, on the other hand, took opportunities to stretch out on a few tunes like “Message in a Bottle” and the recent hit “Don’t Stand So Close to Me,” and of course there was the obligatory “Roxanne” singalong.

I had already seen and met (and gotten the autographs of) The Police at a small club in Buffalo while they were touring in support of their first album.

A week before the Tucson concert I conducted a phone interview with Andy Partridge of XTC, which I’d played back on my radio show “Anything That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll.” XTC was touring in support of their new album Black Sea, while The Police had just released their third album, Zenyatta Mondatta—two very fine records by two bands on very different career trajectories. The Police would soon be playing to packed stadium crowds around the world, while XTC would grow tired of the rigors of touring in favor of the studio.

But for now, both were at the UA Main Auditorium, later renamed Centennial Hall. The capacity crowd of 2,600 was more than ready for an evening of fine music-making, and the bands seemed just as eager to oblige, as the two reviews found archived online attest. Backstage after the show, I once again had a chance to chat with Sting, Stewart, and Andy, and once again they autographed a record cover for me. n A very fine night indeed!

—David La Russa is host of KXCI’s “Random Axis”

IT WAS THE SPRING of 1986, and KXCI Community Radio was still little more than a blip on the free end of the radio dial. But the station had a loyal following, and at least a couple of hundred people could always be counted upon to show up for almost any kind of a musical fundraising event. Queen Ida and her band had never been to Tucson and KXCI, for days, was pounding the airwaves with her music, morning, noon and night. Still, it was a shock to almost everyone involved, including KXCI’s station manager, Frank Milan, who went way out on a limb promoting this show in the middle of the week, at a place most folks had never heard of much less been, to see a chain-smoking, middle-aged African American woman playing the accordion and singing this thing called zydeco.

Although they had yet to coin the term, the 800-plus people who packed El Casino and its huge wooden dance floor unexpectedly christened the station’s first unofficial Houserockin’ Concert. And the band was unbelievable.

Virtually no one had ever experienced this kind of infectious dance music live—the merging of accordion and fiddle with a traditional rhythm section and a rubboard playing this music that was that was a cross between Cajun, swamp blues, and rock and roll. It was like musical crack, and if you were in the ballroom that night you could not get enough of it. So successful was this show that Queen Ida would return to Tucson at least a dozen more times up until her final El Casino performance on Halloween 2004.

As much as she was the star, this was also a coming out party for El Casino, which had suddenly established itself as a place where scores of dance shows, featuring blues, rockabilly, Tex-Mex, reggae, and Americana would find a home. n —Jim Lipson is Zócalo’s live-music columnist

themusicissue Z ANYONE TAKE A PIC? For freak’s sake, say yes—fifteen years later I’m now all scars and tissue, but tonight I’m being stripped bare on the slippery floor of the women’s bathroom of the Rialto Theatre, my sparring partner’s fleshy thighs dripping as mine with sweet sweat. That post-monsoon weekend heat, verging on unflappably dry, has notched up inside the impromptu ring crammed with gapers. Me and Walt crawl and claw at each other, thrashing around like rainbow trouts on a tall pole. The music made us do it. We didn’t plan on fighting/not fighting. It just happened.

In the blues family of Tucson legacy acts, I give you Doo Rag, the mythical lo-fi and hi-art duo of the 1990s, reunited for the inaugural edition of the HoCo Festival in 2004. Me and Walt, we mosh about the ecstatic guitar man, a pre-stage-helmet Bob Log III, and his Tasmanian devil of a cardboard-box drummer, Thermos Mailing. We girls would be show-stoppers if it weren’t that no one could upstage them tonight.

We stand weeks away from that other stolen presidential election, suckling on the ambering olden days of the Downtown Tucson I devoured and grew out of—and my skimpy dress is being passed over bobbing heads toward godknows-whose back pocket. Wild with youth, lust and music, I’m sitting not very still at the crossroads of my ambitions for fame and love, elsewhere. Doo Rag’s do’s pulse primal as a heartbeat and purple as the flesh where I sank my teeth.

It just happened, I explain later. Those were the days. n —Marianne Dissard is a chanteuse, filmmaker, and author of the memoir Not Me

I’D STARTED listening to recordings of symphonies by Gustav Mahler in my late teens, back when would-be intellectuals of that age were expected to hear Mahler, and read Hermann Hesse, and puzzle out the Ingmar Bergman references in Woody Allen movies. Even on a modest home stereo system, Mahler’s symphonies were captivating, but the thralldom seldom lasted the full hour-plus duration of any single work.

In the mid–1980s, conductor William McGlaughlin programmed Mahler’s Second Symphony with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, and I greeted the announcement with both excitement and discomfort. I loved the idea of Mahler, but would I be able to endure the fact of Mahler, an uninterrupted expanse of 80 minutes of roiling music with nothing else to distract me?

Live performance, I learned, is compelling from moment to moment. This was true nowhere more than around the middle of the final movement, nearly an hour and a quarter into the symphony. At this moment Mahler quotes a hymn about resurrection, introduced by a large chorus crooning the opening lines as quietly as possible, with minimal orchestral accompaniment. It was a goosebump-inducing moment of mystery and beauty, which ultimately gave way to a final statement performed, according to Mahler’s instruction, “with highest power,” an entrance of stunning majesty that no recording of the time could convey.

I was initially too stunned to participate in the sustained ovation at concert’s end, but when the applause began to fade I sympathized with the guy in the audience who shouted, “Play it again!” n —James Reel is a classical radio personality and performing-arts critic

continues on page 23...

February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 21

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themusicissue Z OCTOBER 7, 2000, was to be the very last show for Tucson’s Weird Lovemakers, who were loud, dirty, and fast-paced. The club was packed.

At the start, someone got the band a round of shots. Greg Petix (vocals, guitar) horked them all down, looked at the band, and said, “That’s show business.”

Quickly into the set, Hector Jaime’s bass malfunctioned. The strings had broken. Visibly frustrated, he switched to a guitar. Meanwhile, Petix broke a beer bottle and started cutting his forehead. Hector followed suit, slicing his chest.

As the blood started to flow, they furiously launched into “Vegemite.” With barely enough room to breathe, the crowd convulsed as one agitated mass of loose ions. Suddenly, I saw stars as an elbow whacked my face and I fell back.

I was inebriated, so I instantly collected myself. The jolt only increased that lovely sense of abandon that made these shows so much fun.

At the end of the song, the band produced a wall of sound while Greg held his hand out for sips of random audience members’ beers. He then started working away on a familiar set of chords. The rest joined in and started singing, and I realized they were playing Foghat’s “Slow Ride.” Fuck yeah. Their take on the song broke down into a stop-start structure that reminded me of Sam Kinison’s version of “Wild Thing.”

The song ended in cacophony. Jason Willis held his guitar to us, and we pounded it. Suddenly infamous troublemaker Mark Beef emerged from nowhere and tackled Greg, while Gerard Schumacher (drums) shoved his entire set into the crowd.

For a beautiful moment I was surrounded by noise, blood, broken glass, and random bits of Gerard’s drums. The downtown rats of Tucson scurried about in the club of Hotel Congress, ensuring that no matter how much they tried to upscale the place, we’d always be there to keep things shitty. n —Jared McKinley is a botanist, promoter, event producer, and longtime downtown resident

Johnny Ramone in action as the Ramones play Tucson in 1979.

MY HEART KEPT me awake the night before my first-ever concert. Got out of the house on a lie, picked up by two speed-snortin’ dudes employed at Park Mall’s Zip’s Records, who I’d met buying records. Jacked on my first Bud, a blaring cassette of Wire’s Pink Flag, and a language of music with others beyond my brothers, the trip to Phoenix and witnessing Ramones was an external so freeing it weighed on every pure-gut choice I made in life—why I quit high school, why I split the U.S. National Cycling Team to front a Tucson punk band at 16, why I started writing, etc.

Salinger, Lester Bangs, and the early Ramones records had already unchained me from the awful, Christian-white eastside Tucson, the littleleague baseball moms hauling puffy faces in paneled station wagons, the bent expressions on kids keen to pound my ass in the schoolyard for wearing a Ramones T-shirt. In those days, Zep, Boston, and Journey were it, man.

“Punk rock,” a media-generated scare perpetrated by Sid Vicious and his dead girlfriend, had the kids ready to pounce me.

We arrived at the arena. My heroes, supporting, dear god, Black Sabbath, whose forever sludge was as trudging as my suburbia. I followed my new bigkid pals to the floor, six rows back. My heart leapt as Ramones entered, and the sonic crush of “Sheena is a Punk Rocker” lifted me to a spiritual plane, untouchable, floating. Johnny’s downstrokes of harmonic distortion an elixir, Joey’s tenor a life raft. The boos and fuck-you fingers rose, beer cups and debris pelted the band; 10,000 hate-filled metal fans demanded death to these leather-jacketed soul bros unified in power-chorded irony and bubblegum sloganeering. Ramones soldiered on in that squall of hatred, and miraculously completed their set. Absolutely heroic. n —Brian Smith is a Tucson-based writer and lead singer for Gentlemen Afterdark and the Beat Angels

I DON’T KNOW that hearing Los Lobos live for the first time in another city would have hit me as hard. Certainly Tucson, a friendly place to Los Lobos since those very early 1980s shows, heated up that experience. Los Lobos always seemed at home here, as if they were playing a South Side or West Side backyard party. Like my favorite show at El Casino Ballroom, Los Lobos shows were always joyous sweaty affairs.

But I was sold before I ever heard them live, thanks to How Will the Wolf Survive? That hit me like The Band’s Music From Big Pink, and for much the same reason—neither band sounded like anything else I’d heard from any single band, yet it all sounded familiar. Some of it sounded almost primally familiar. Los Lobos’ rockin’ norteño sound, Mexican-American folk, mariachi, hippie psychedelia, country, polkas, and corridos connected with stuff I already had in my head.

Seeing them live just sealed the deal; they could do it all live. Their shows were always more than an attempt to repeat a studio recording. And while it’s often forgotten, Los Lobos used that wild palette on their wonderful lyrics, words that to this day run deep and emotional.

Bands that groove as hard as Los Lobos seldom get credit for their lyrics.

But there were stories that rang true, whether from East LA or Tucson—if those who packed the dance floor were listening.

They’re still my favorite band. How Will the Wolf Survive? and Kiko are at the top of my desert island shortlist. My favorite professional music experience was opening for them at the Rialto sometime in the hazy 1990s as a member of The Mollys. n —Dan Sorenson is a writer and musician who’s been on the Tucson scene over the course of many bands

continues on page 25...

February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 23

themusicissue Z THEY WERE the only band that mattered, historical, epochal, bigger than anyone then daring to take the stage in the face of their magnificent dangerousness. That was the hype surrounding The Clash, and I believed it. Ever since I first heard them in 1977, I was sold, and though they could be baffling, especially with the aural experiments of the three-disc Sandinista!, they were also life-changing.

When they came to Tucson on May 26, 1983, it was long overdue. They roared onto the stage before a full house—about 2,500 people, as I recall—and immediately launched into one of their biggest hits, “London Calling,” a single from the 1979 album of the same name. From there they went into an early tune, “This Is Radio Clash,” and bounced back and forth among their older albums. Here and there, throughout their 23-song set, they got to their recently released album Combat Rock, playing the hits “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Rock the Casbah,” as well as the deep cut “Car Jamming.”

There were some problems along the way. The sound wasn’t very good. The drummer wasn’t Topper Headon, newly fired for heroin addiction, or Terry Chimes, a stalwart, but instead a player who, while he thumped along dutifully, clearly hadn’t internalized the songs. Joe Strummer, wearing a Mohawk as severe as Travis Bickle’s and an equally fierce scowl, went on long monologues between songs that mostly touched on Miracle Valley, a southern Arizona religious colony then in the news as the site of a deadly raid on the part of Jimmy Judd’s army of Cochise County sheriffs. Mick Jones looked as if he’d had just a wee bit too much of the old Andean pep rally, while Paul Simonon just looked bored.

I recall the show as being a disaster, if an electrifying one. Years later, a bootleg came onto the scene (you can find it on YouTube), and listening to it more than 35 years later, I’m surprised to find that the show was pretty good, all in all. Not that it did any good: A week later, over in California, that version of The Clash broke up, replaced by the section that gave us the eminently forgettable album Cut the Crap.

Tucsonans got to see the penultimate performance of the only band that mattered, then, and it remains a signal moment in our musical history. n

—Gregory McNamee is the editor of Zócalo

Th

tick at TCC e Clash

et stub

.

IF YOU WANTED to see a concert in the seventies, you had to get tickets in person at the Tucson Convention Center. The day Rolling Stones tickets went on sale for their show on June 14, 1972, I was queued up at midnight with my friend Diane Marquez behind a lot of other people. We were 16, and it was a school night. Getting tickets required two people in case one had to go to the bathroom. We scored third row, second section seats to the left of the stage.

Stevie Wonder and Wonderlove opened the show, and we stayed on our feet through most of the set.

The band was tight and punchy on songs like “Superstition” and “Uptight (Everything’s Alright),” then flowed like sweet cream on velvet on “My Cherie Amour” and “I Was Made to Love Her.” I don’t remember every song he performed, but I do remember working up a sweat dancing. After at least one encore, Stevie said goodnight and we sat down and tried to cool off.

The Rolling Stones hit the stage with “Brown Sugar,” and the entire arena exploded in raucous approval. Jagger’s moves were hypnotizing, and we danced along with him. Most of the songs performed that night were from Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. My reaction when they played “Gimme Shelter” was purely visceral. I shivered. The Vietnam War continued to dominate the national conversation, and this song represented all of the darkness. I remember feeling lightheaded and suspended during the entire song. I never had a reaction like that before or since. The whole show was breathtaking, and I’m forever grateful for the experience. n

—Jennifer Powers is a writer and publicist based in Tucson February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 25

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themusicissue Z

Chris Burroughs Homegrown Guitar Hero

by Jennifer Powers

photo: courtesy of Kelly Goodwin Burroughs

I MET CHRIS BURROUGHS in 1980 when he and Mark “Tripp” Smythe helped He toured the United States and Europe, making a lot of friends along the me move. Tripp was a well-established guitar player in the Tucson music scene way. However, his most brilliant collaboration was with his wife, Kelly, who had who, at that time, was a member of the Pills. I’d known him for a while. I didn’t moved to Tucson in 1994. know Chris, and yet he was helping me pack boxes and schlep them over to my Chris and Kelly met at a group outing to Club Congress arranged by friends new place on Sixth Street. He soon became a close friend and confidant and Kim Hecht and Bruce Halper. “I was sitting by myself in their kitchen when remained so for thirty-eight years.

Chris came in, and we made small talk,” says Kelly. “Sometime that night, I was After studying journalism at Rutgers University for a year, Chris moved to standing at the bar in the Tap Room waiting to order a drink when Chris came Tucson to start his music career. Tripp met Chris at a party after a Pills gig up to me and said ‘Alone at last.’ It was so intentionally corny that it became our one night, and Chris became a regular at Tripp’s band house on Broadway tag line whenever we needed to break the tension.” and Columbus. Soon after, Tripp left the Pills and formed Jonny Sevin with Lee A little over four years later, Chris and Kelly married in Rome. “Chris was Joseph, Joe Dodge, and Pen Pendleton. leaving on tour and we arranged that I would meet him in Brussels a week or “When we got signed to Art Attack Records with Bill Cashman, we wanted so before Christmas,” says Kelly. “He arranged the ceremony, the flowers, the one more song for the record, and I liked Chris’s song ‘Too Many Criminals,’ so translator, hotels, embassy paperwork, train tickets—everything. We traveled we recorded it,” Tripp recalls. around for ten days, taking the train After Jonny Sevin included from Brussels to Germany then his song on their 1982 self-titled to Italy. We woke up Christmas album, Chris began to develop morning in Venice to the sound more confidence in performing. of church bells throughout the That same year he formed Chris city. Chris even bought a small Burroughs and the Nationals Christmas tree and carried it with along with Jacob Martinez, Lance him for weeks so I would have a Kaufman, and Tommy Larkins. For tree on Christmas.” the next couple of years they lit up They arrived in Rome and met the Tucson club scene with songs up with Kelly’s maid-of-honor, who such as “Last Call,” “Under the had flown in from Oklahoma. Best Ladder,” and “Lean to the Right.” man Pen flew in from Los Angeles.

Although Chris and Pen were “The night before the wedding the not particularly close during four us drank several bottles of Jonny Sevin, they became very wine and ate at a tiny restaurant,” good friends after the band broke says Kelly. “The next morning, I up. Together, they were hilarious. put on my dress and my friend and “He was best man at my wedding,” I proceeded to the lobby where says Pen. “We were standing in a Chris and Pen were waiting in their back room, just the two of us, and tuxedos.”

Chris Burroughs and the Nationals at the Kegler Lanes, ca. 1984 there was, of all things, a 1973 De In 2004, Chris and Kelly had Tomaso Pantera, a very rare car I had a son, Henry. Chris decided to stop owned in Los Angeles, in the church parking lot. The odds were insane. Chris touring until Henry was much older. Kelly remembers Chris teaching Henry teased, ‘You know, there’s still time,’ pointing his head in the direction of the how to play “Rebel Rebel” on the guitar when he was nine. Today, Henry is a getaway car.” After Pen chose to stay rather than peel out of his own wedding, musician in his own right and attends high school in Virginia Beach, where the Chris attempted to calm the nervous groom by saying, “It could be worse. At family was planning to move when Chris died suddenly on November 19, 2018. least no one is reading poetry.”

“We made it through the first year with lots of help from family and “Then we walk out in front of the altar,” Pen says, “and the minister friends,” says Kelly, who frequently speaks with Chris’s close friend and studio announces, ‘The bride-to-be has a special poem she wrote that will be read collaborator, David Herbert. by her brother Marcus.’ Now understand that Chris and I are both shaking in The last time I saw Chris was at the Club Congress tribute show for Gene our rented tuxedo shoes. It was visible. If either one of our heads had moved Ruley. We sat on a bench near the Tap Room patio where we discussed our even slightly toward each other, we both would have totally lost our shit. It was mutual disgust at and mistrust of Donald Trump, the upcoming family move absolutely one of the funniest moments I’ve ever had in my life and neither one to Virginia Beach, and how much he had enjoyed working with Gene, who had of us could laugh at all.” died much too young.

Chris continued to form several bands, including the ephemeral Losers So did Chris.

Club, Chris Burroughs and the Mercenaries, and most recently, Hardpan. His Chris Burroughs music can be found online at Blue Rose Records archives briefly convened outfit Misfit Toys opened for Lucinda Williams here in 1992. at bluerose-records.com and bandcamp.com. n In all, he released six albums under his own name and played on many others.

February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 29

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themusicissue Z

El Maestro Chicano Lalo Guerrero

by Daniel Buckley

LALO GUERRERO sat in a van, looking out at the calles he had grown up in south of the Tucson Convention Center.

“Stop here,” he said, climbed out of the vehicle with his ghostwriter, Sherilyn Mentes, and settled on the stoop of a beautiful white house on the southeast corner of Convent and Simpson.

“This is the house where I was born,” the then-86-year-old Father of Chicano Music declared, launching into a story of how on a very cold Christmas Eve in 1916 he came into the world. His mother, who would give birth to 21 children, nine of whom survived, was in deep trouble that night. The midwife threw Lalo at the foot of the bed, trying to save her life. By the time his mom was stabilized, Lalo was turning blue.

“That was when I learned the importance of being the center of attention,” he quipped.

The year was 2002, and his autobiography, Lalo: My Life and Music, had just been released.

A charming narrative that reads like you’re there in the room with him as he recounts stories of an extraordinary life in music, Mentes did well in capturing his voice and all the details in fine relief. By the time of the book’s publication, Lalo’s mind was starting to lose details.

Three years later he would be gone.

But on that beautiful, crisp Tucson afternoon, a flood of recollections came to him as he rolled slowly through the streets.

He pointed to the Chinese market down the street from his birthplace run by Chino Gordo.

“That’s what we called him. The fat Chinaman.” The surroundings sparked stories about the smell of the bakery down the street in the morning, the little Mexican restaurants in the neighborhood where he got his first gigs, and summers spent swimming in the irrigation ditches.

As the vehicle rounded the corner and headed south from Kennedy onto Meyer Street, his expression turned childlike as his boyhood home came into view. A small white house with a picket fence, it brought tears to his eyes to see it again. He climbed out of the van and more stories flowed. Walking down the street he pointed to a balcony and said, “That’s where I serenaded my first sweetheart,” impulsively strumming an air guitar and bursting into song as he had so many years ago.

As a teenager there on Meyer Street he wrote what would become the unofficial national anthem of Mexico: “Cancion Mexicana.” “I wanted Mexicans to be proud of who we are,” he said. The jubilant song, with quotes from “Cielito Lindo,” is still sung proudly by folks on both sides of the border.

Lalo was so much to so many. To Spanish-speaking kids who grew up in the 1950s and ’60s, his Las Ardillitas (The Little Squirrels) were what Alvin and the Chipmunks were to American kids. He would later team up with a group that grew up on those records, Los Lobos, for the Grammy-nominated Papa’s Dream children’s CD. To Mexican farmworkers, he was the man who chronicled their struggles and made them laugh when times were tough. He was a friend and ally of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta and played at many a farmworkers’ rally, including one with Robert F. Kennedy just hours before the presidential hopeful was assassinated in Los Angeles.

His music was the heartbeat of the Pachuco movement of the 1940s, and it became the backbone of the Zoot Suits oundtrack in the play and film about that era.

Lalo’s music remains timelessly hip. He was a stylistic chameleon who wrote in nearly every genre of music. He is beloved for his many parody songs mixing original English and Spanish lyrics to familiar tunes.

“Pancho Lopez,” set to the tune of “Davy Crockett,” was a hit for him, while “There’s No Tortillas,” set to “O Sole Mio,” depicts the horrors of eating with bread to the delight all within earshot. He scored a bullseye when Trio Los Panchos recorded his plaintive “Nunca Jamás.” And as his life was winding down, Lalo wrote the nostalgic “Barrio Viejo,” reflecting on vivid memories of his old Tucson neighborhood, torn down in the 1960s in the name of urban renewal. The song caught the ear of Ry Cooder as he searched for a piece that would resonate with the story of the destruction of the Chavez Ravine barrio to build Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Lalo recorded his last tracks for Cooder’s Chavez Ravine CD, and they are among its best.

Tucson was inextricably bound to Lalo’s heart. It was home and family and peace to him. He frequently drove himself from his Palm Springs home to play a benefit gig for some cause needing his help in his hometown. His last public performance was at the 40th anniversary celebration of Tucson’s first youth mariachi, Los Changuitos Feos, in 2004, singing “Barrio Viejo” and “Canción Mexicana,” among others.

Lalo Guerrero died on St. Patrick’s Day of 2005, capping a life bookended by celebration and stuffed with musical stories that live on. n

February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 31

Z themusicissue

Powerhouse Women Reflect on Tucson’s Evolving Music Scene It’s great, and there’s still more work to do

by Jamie Manser

“W

e can miss the ladies. Why do we miss the ladies?

Because it has taken a really long time for women to get to the forefront of the music scene.”

Cathy Rivers, general manager of KXCI and a singer/songwriter/guitarist, reflects on a comment I just made about sending out interview questions to over 40 professionally established and talented women for this article, and I was still coming up with names of musicians I missed while we were chatting.

Rivers and I are sitting in her backyard, reviewing the Tucson music scene through the lens of local women artists over the last 30 years. The number of women performing has increased significantly from the 1990s to now. As Maggie Golston, a singer/songwriter/guitarist and writing and humanities faculty at Pima Community College, shares: “Women songwriters and performers have positively dominated the scene of late, whereas in the ’80s and ’90s, having women and LGBTQ members made a band an exception, or worse, a novelty.”

Keyboardist/guitarist Uma deSilva, who plays with bands Max Parallaz, Smallvox, and The Sapiens, notes that “there has been a strong wave of women coming into their own as musical powerhouses in the last decade. When I first joined the music scene in 2006, there weren’t many females making the kind of music I was trying to make. Any opportunity where female-led bands were playing, my band would get a call to join, but not necessarily because we fit the genre of the night’s show. I’ve performed in a few shows as a ‘token lady,’ but that doesn’t undermine the musicianship.”

“In the ’90s and 2000s, there were very few local female-fronted bands,” singer/songwriter LeeAnne Savage explains, “and in turn many of us felt we were constantly fighting an uphill battle to be recognized and taken seriously.

Women today are still fighting to be heard, however there is power in numbers and there are a lot of talented, energetic, fearless female artists that are making their mark in Tucson’s musical landscape! I am thrilled to see so many more women fronting and/or leading bands nowadays.”

Traction has been made insofar as balancing the gender scales on stage, though there’s still a lot of ground to cover to make things more equitable 32 ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com|February 2020

in terms of gender and for women of color. Overwhelmingly, the musicians I contacted to contribute to this article—and there are many, many more who for reasons of space don’t appear here—shared how supportive and talent-rich Tucson is, with a lot of opportunities for cross-pollination and craft development.

However, there are still many issues that specifically vex women artists; there are glaring blind spots in a culture struggling with unconscious biases.

One bias in particular: “It is still a noteworthy aspect to be a female artist, and I do not think that should be the case,” says vocalist Katherine Byrnes, a native Tucsonan who has been performing for the last 20 years. “We never say ‘the all male band’ or the ‘male artist,’ and it should be the same no matter what gender identity the artist has.”

Diane Van Deurzen and Lisa Otey, of The Desert Divas, agree. “Women artists don’t see themselves as ‘women artists’ until they look at a festival lineup or music calendar at local clubs and see only one woman on the bill.

Fortunately, in Tucson, women artists don’t seem to feel held back by the oversight of these venues. As women, we have to make it happen for ourselves.

You still see the token female act on many festival stages, not just in Tucson. We have to create our own opportunities. Our Desert Divas and Sabra Faulk’s Angel Band are examples of groups organized by local women who want to showcase other female musicians.”

“If you’re a musician and you’re building a bill, take a second look at the artists at the top,” advises Jillian Bessett of Jillian and the Giants. “Do you have women/femme people on the bill? Do you have people of color on the bill? If you don’t, think about whether it’s an anomaly or not. When was the last time you shared a bill with a woman or a person of color? If it’s been a while, ask yourself the difficult questions about your unconscious biases.”

Another bias that several musicians talk about surrounds sound. “Stop with the assumptions about us,” asks vocalist Olivia Reardon. “Because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I don’t know how to turn on, set up and tear down the PA, or how to adjust the sound . . . because I can. As well as sing the hell out of a Zeppelin song.”

continues on page 35...

themusicissue Z photo: Julius Schlosburg

t Vocalist, pianist, guitarist Katie Haverly of Katie Haverly & The Aviary reflects on the state of live music venues. “I wish there were more listening spaces devoted to music that a variety of artists had access to in the community.

Exo is wonderful because you can have intimate shows where music is the focus, and Congress can be great with the right show and situation. But otherwise many other places to perform are loud bars where music is not the focus. I felt like the back room at (the demolished) Flycatcher offered that space for artists, especially developing ones, and I don’t feel like we have a good replacement for that yet. I loved the venue at (the now defunct) CANS, it had potential and it is unfortunate it didn’t work out. Hopefully that space can get some good support and develop into the type of venue I feel like we are missing.”

photo: Julius Schlosburg

photo: Kathleen Dreier Photography

t

photo: SpryTime

Karen Falkenstrom, who preforms taiko with Odaiko Sonora and The Eldritch Dragons, shares that Tucson has “some of the finest musicians in the country. People are often in multiple bands and have such virtuosity, generosity and strong friendships they pitch in to help each other rather than compete. Get out and support them. Carry cash so you can tip them generously. Buy CDs directly from them at gigs. Music is so everywhere, people take it for granted. Imagine a world without it.

Dreadful.”

t

Amy Munoz is a guitarist, bassist, and vocalist who performs with bands including Sugar Stains, The Surfbroads, among others. “Over the last 15 years I’ve seen a significant evolution. When I moved to Tucson there were a handful of femme artists playing. Now there are collectives, private groups, and workshops with a large number womyn artists. We’re not entirely where we need to be, but we’re getting there.”

Singer/songwriter/guitarist Gabi Montoya performs with Juju Fontaine, Taco Sauce and Gat Moony.

February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 33

photo: Bill Moeller

photo: Pedrographer/Peter Romano

t Guitarist/bassist/singer/songwriter/recordist Mitzi Cowell of Mitzi Cowell and The Valiants, The Sapiens, Tammy West and the Culprits, loves “the fans who come out over and over and give so generously at the tip jar, with their dancing, or just with their appreciative listening. I’d like to see more nonalcohol-based venues (that still can pay a band something) where kids can hear live music and with room to dance. I’d like to see more support for jazz, and more venues in the center of town.”

Najima Rainey of Just Najima is a vocalist and songwriter who performs Southwest Gothic Soul. Her album “QUEENIE” was released on Jan 31 with a show at Club Congress.

photo: SpryTime

photo courtesy of Najima Rainey

t

photo: Ruth Christopherson

Keyboardist/guitarist Uma deSilva shares that “there are some amazing younger ladies, in their teens, joining the stage and I can’t wait to see and hear more from them in the years to come. With all the seasoned professional female musicians here in Tucson, I can only imagine that more and more young ladies will gain the confidence to share their musical talent. I can’t wait to see what happens!”

t

t Samantha Bounkeua is a queer, genre-crossing violinist whose projects include Rogue Violin, TwoDoor Hatchback, Sapphocracy, and ChamberLab.

t

Vocalist Vasanta Weiss of The Bennu, Southbound Pilot, and Savitur shares that “There is an evolving movement in Tucson of women creating a community of support and respect for the work and efforts of women in the arts. I think this movement will contribute significantly to increasing the opportunities for the inclusion and participation of women artists.”

34 ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com|February 2020

photo: Michael Longstaff

Leila Lopez is a singer/songwriter/guitarist who also plays cello and drums and records her own music. “Tucson has gone through many changes in the last decade. Some growth is big money, but some growth means that we are refining and becoming who we are as a town and arts community within these big shifts. I think this could be means for more creating and building together in the wonderful community I’ve always known and loved!”

“The mansplaining. Oy,” groans Abby Corcoran of Moontrax and PIPELiGHTS. “This is rarely an issue for us in Tucson, however we encounter this often when we travel. We use a lot of electronic gear and it is wildly frustrating to have someone ‘teach’ us about a process with which they are unfamiliar. I know this sort of thing happens to female artists quite often. I wish our fellow male musicians would realize we are capable of plugging things in and pushing buttons as well.”

Violinist Samantha Bounkeua adds, “In live performance, it is far too often we are put in a position of being afraid to voice our concerns for fear that we would not be taken seriously or that the engineer we’re working with might passive aggressively sabotage the mix. This is why so many of have come to rely on and request very specific individuals who we know and trust, but those numbers are so few.”

“It’s always difficult to advocate for yourself, and especially when you’ve got that artistic vulnerable side, it’s even harder,” reflects Cathy Rivers. “I think that we need practice using our voices, and there are spaces for women to start having these conversations and together we should create more spaces to make this happen.”

It is also imperative that venues consider safety. Drummer Maggie Rickard of The Surfbroads and Sugar Stains explains that “women artists are frequently left vulnerable to fans that do not respect their personal or physical boundaries, especially after a performance. I appreciate any venue that offers some form of support to buffer these situations and step in to protect the artists when it is necessary.” Jillian Bessett offers that “a real practical solution would be security at clubs. If a club had a policy of having a staff member walking artists to their car if they’re alone, that would be such a comforting, proactive gesture.”

The beauty of the scene continues to be the cooperation and guidance musicians provide one another, through networks and groups such as the Music Biz and Shoptalk Facebook group started by Jillian Bassett.

“I think this is a good time to be an independent female artist in Tucson,” says vocalist and songwriter Najima Rainey of Just Najima. “There is a

themusicissue Z

community of supportive and experienced women who often support and boost other women in the scene. I literally would not have been able to record my CD if it hadn’t been for the kindness and encouragement of folx like Jillian Bessett, Miranda Schubert, Olivia Reardon, and other musicians who gave me advice and guidance the whole way through!”

Singer/songwriter/guitarist Gabi Montoya, who performs with Juju Fontaine, Taco Sauce, and Gat Moony, says, “There’s a real sense of community, everyone makes an effort to reach out to up-and-comers and give others opportunities to get great gigs. There are growing communities of woman/nonbinary, queer, and black musicians creating spaces and opportunities for each other, so the local scene is gradually becoming less of a boys’ club. Black Renaissance is an amazing new organization featuring black musicians and creators around Tucson. Everyone should definitely follow them, because it feels like black artists haven’t been given the same platforms in the Tucson scene, but this collective has made it impossible for us to ignore these incredibly talented artists anymore.”

It is vital to mention that so many men in the music scene do considerately and robustly embrace and uplift women musicians, and it is crucial that men remember that they need to continuously be allies.

KXCI’s Hannah Levin, host of The Home Stretch and director of content, says, “We need more male allies actively involved, visibly supporting femaleidentified artists. Share their work on social media, create space for them on bills and within live programming in general, and perhaps most importantly, recognize the privilege you have and the space you take up, literally and figuratively. This isn’t ‘women’s work,’ this is Tucson’s collective obligation if we want to be a truly inclusive creative community.”

To get involved with the Music Biz and Shoptalk Facebook group, email Jillian Bessett at jillianbessettmusic@gmail.com. LeeAnne Savage plans to start a consistent women-led showcase this year. Contact her at SavageMusicGirl@ gmail.com or (520) 471-5450. n February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 35

Moonlite Creations Gallery & Studio 101 W. 6th Street

at the Steinfeld Warehouse

Open Wed ~ Sun 12 to 6pm

Cactus Wren Artisans

Tucson

and during Art Walks, 6-9pm

The gallery features local artisans and craftsman whose unique work is in various mediums; Art, Jewelry, Ceramics, Photography, Woodwork, Textile, Glass and so much more!

Cactus Wren Artisans

Open 7 days a week, 9 to 4

Cat Mt Station

2740 S. Kinney Rd. (520) 437-9103

70 Local & Arizona Artists www.cactuswrenartisans.net facebook.com/CactusWrenArtisans/ Enjoy breakfast or lunch @ Coyote Pause Cafe

Cactus Wren Art Gallery OPEN TUES - SAT 10AM-5PM

Tubac

DOWNTOWN 711 South 6th Avenue 520-884-7404 philabaumglass.com

Cactus Wren Art Gallery

Open 7 days a week, 10 to 4 19 Tubac Rd. Suite 600 (520) 437-3988 Representing 45 Southwest Artists www.cactuswrenart.gallery facebook.com/CactusWrenArtGallery

36 ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com|February 2020

excerpts Z

Veterans of Foreign Wars An Excerpt from Dan Stuart’s The Deliverance of Marlowe Billings: A False Memoir

A hallowed moment of Tucson history took shape in the late 1970s, when punk rock arrived, a year or two late, to the desert. As elsewhere, the town’s musical scene exploded, and nowhere more than at the late, much lamented Pearl’s Hurricane, a dive bar whose ghost still haunts downtown. Dan Stuart assembled a rowdy band called The Serfers, Pearl’s underaged standbys, who soon gained enough local fame to propel them westward to Los Angeles. There, with a few personnel changes, they became alt-country pioneers Green on Red. In his book The Deliverance of Marlowe Billings: A False Memoir, Stuart looks back sometimes fondly, mostly acerbically on the time and place. After living abroad and touring the world, he’s back in town for a time. Be sure to catch him when he plays out—and snag a copy or two of his book, which is getting scarce in physical form but is available in a Kindle edition from Amazon. But let musical partner in crime Chuck Prophet tell it: “If you’re into above average intelligent dudes doing really stupid s***, this book is for you.” —Gregory McNamee There were maybe thirty places to play… in the entire country.

Word got out fast that Tucson had a gig and soon they all showed up. We would usually open due to favoritism with the local promoters who also owned the neighborhood record shop. Unsung heroes.

Weeks before, I dreamed about the weird poet chick with the righteous boyfriend and the rockabilly guitarist who was always smiling. They were most impressed when we showed up at the club hauling our shit in shopping carts. At the after hours party my dream was realized in startling detail like a play read but not seen. The grin disappeared as rockabilly sighed: “Don’t you have any cute chicks in Tucson? They all look like drowned rats.”

For a lot of punks, crossing the Mojave was a shock. The Ford Econoline is the work horse of musicians everywhere but keeping the AC functioning is seldom a priority. There was a fantastic band from Vancouver that came chugging into

town with their Eskimo drummer close to death. Someone took pity on him and brought him to their parents’ house where he could sit in a pool all day like a polar bear at the zoo. Heat stroke struck again at the gig. A cute bartender soaked a towel in ice water and wrapped it around his head like a turban. Like so many great bands back then, the members reassembled into other groups or just went off to college with a shrug. No one knew you could do both, that came later.

Much.

Of course there was a fight every night. The main trouble was the burnt out vets and crazed hippies who didn’t like their bar being used in such an unpatriotic manner. As a long haired kid, I was used to adult males calling me a girl, and now just a few years later they didn’t like the short hair either.

“You know what a punk is boy? That’s who gets fucked in prison.”

“Why you wearing those jungle pants punk?

I slogged through Nam in those, take ’em off motherfucker!”

“Fuck you! My Dad died wearing these… he came back in a body bag!” “No shit, sorry kid…

I didn’t know…”

“Whatever… you dudes gonna pay the cover or what?”

We had our protectors though. Quiet fuckers who had seen some real shit and liked this punk weirdness. Having a large university nearby helped as well; many made the connection between ’69 and ’79 and liked the subversion.

They’d come down and slum and we’d sneer at the wives, thrilling them to the bone. The nights would end at Serfer Hollow and if you lost your purse you could come by the next day to pick it up but don’t linger or we’d get nasty.

Like Darby said, what we do is secret. n

February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 37

events Z

february

Courtesy of Found Footage Festival.

SAT 29 FOUND FOOTAGE FESTIVAL: VOL. 9 The acclaimed touring showcase of odd and hilarious found videos, is coming back to Tucson to debut its new show, Volume 9. Hosts Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett, whose credits include The Onion and The Colbert Report, will celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Found Footage Festival at The Loft (3233 E Speedway Blvd) on Saturday, Feb. 29th at 7:30 pm. Tickets to the Found Footage Festival are $15 and are available at foundfootagefest.com or at the box office. The Found Footage Festival is a one-of-a-kind celebration of the videos that time forgot, dredged up in dusty thrift stores and estate sales throughout North America. Childhood friends Pickett and Prueher take audiences on a guided tour of their latest and greatest VHS finds, providing live commentary and where-are-they-now updates on the people in these videotaped obscurities.

THROUGH SUN 16 TUCSON DESERT SONG FESTIVAL

A multi-weekend blend of glorious singing celebrating the American voice, with a gathering of worldrenowned classical singers exploring the colors, rhythms, and melodies of America’s rich and complex musical character. 1-888-546-3305. www.

TucsonDesertSongFestival.org

SAT 8 2ND SATURDAYS DOWNTOWN

A free, family friendly urban block party! Winter hours: 2pm to 9pm. Performances, vendors, food trucks, and more. Free family friendly movie at the Southern Arizona Transportation Museum. Downtown Tucson. www.2ndSaturdaysDowntown.com

FLAME OFF

Earth’s gems and minerals on display at various venues across the city. For maps and more information visit: TucsonGemShowapp.com

A night of fiery competition as glass artists attempt to create the best torchworked piece based on a theme. 4pm to 9:30pm. Tickets: $20 general, $50 VIP. All proceeds support the nonprofit Sonoran Glass School and its educational programs. www.

SonoranGlass.org

WEDS 5 - SUN 9

SAT 8 & SUN 9

TUCSON GEM, MINERAL & FOSSIL SHOWCASE Experience the awe and wonder of

TUBAC FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS

FRI 14 KIDS VALENTINES DANCE PARTY Celebrate the loveliness of love with a dance party set in the festival grounds at MSA Annex with dancing, campfires, s’mores, and fun! 6pm to 9pm. $5 per child. 267 S. Avenida Del Convento. 461-1107. www.MercadoDistrict.com

FRI 14 - SUN 16 24 HOURS IN THE OLD PUEBLO One of the largest 24 hour events in the world, practically in your own backyard. See mountain biker teams compete along with a massive bike expo, dedication dinner, late night entertainment, and 24 hours of tunes provided by KXCI Community Radio. See website for more information.

520-623-1584. EpicRides.com

Wander around on foot while experiencing the creativity of 200 visiting artists from around the country mixed in with more than 100 shops, art galleries, and working artist studios. 10am to 5pm daily. 520-398-2704. Village of Tubac, Arizona. TubacFestivals.com

RILLITO RACETRACK OPENING WEEKEND The 2020 Rillito Park horse racing season gets underway this weekend with 14 live race days through March 22. Gates open at 10am on race days.

Rillito Race Track, 4502 N. 1st Ave. 520-745-5486. www.

RillitoRaceTrack.com

Instead of buying flowers, plant them! Featuring native wildflower plants from Nighthawk Natives Nursery.

10am to 5pm each day. Native Seeds/SEARCH Retail Store, 3061 N. Campbell Ave. 520-622-5561. www.

NativeSeeds.org

THURS 6 – SUN 9

THURS 13 TO MARCH 29

SAT 15

CACTUS CLASSIC BASEBALL

The NCAA D3 baseball featuring California Lutheran University, Chapman University, University of Redlands, Linfield College, Sul Ross Sate University, The University of Texas-Dallas, and Whitman College. See website for more information. Kino Sports Complex, 2500 E. Ajo Way. 520777-7680. www.TIGSports.com

ASIAN

LANTERN FESTIVAL Interactive colorful customized lanterns set the grounds of Reid Park Zoo aglow. In partnership with the Tucson Chinese Cultural Center. Thursdays through Sundays from 6pm to 9pm in February. Nightly from 6pm to 9pm in March.

Tickets: $18 for adults, $16 kids ages 2 through 14.

Kids 1 year or younger are free. Members receive $2 off admission. Reid Park Zoo, 3400 E. Zoo Ct. 520-7914022. www.ReidParkZoo.org

ANNUAL VALENTINE’S PLANT SALE

TUCSON CRAFT BEER CRAWL

Explore venues downtown on a self guided tour while you sample beer from local and regional breweries at 12 venues featuring 30+ brewers. Tickets and information at www.

TucsonCraftBeerCrawl.com

February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 41

Valentine’s Candies For Your Hearing

I IATE APPREC YOU

I WILL U GET YOED “WH LIG YOU K AT” CHEC MY HT UP ?

YOU LIF ARE SO I E E IM PORTANT I LOV CARE YOU WILL YOU E U FOR YO E M E YOU AK IL Y M M SM I ARE INE H WILL SUNS PROTECT YOU

Of all the five senses, our hearing is perhaps the most precious. If we lose it, we lose contact with the people we love and the world around us.

Even moderate hearing loss can have a serious impact on your quality of life.

Show Your Hearing Some Love..

Get It Checked Today.

Cristi A. Moore Au.D., F/AAA Doctor of Audiology

Stacey Trepanier Au.D., F/AAA Doctor of Audiology

THE FACES OF AUDIOLOGY IN TUCSON

5625 E. Grant Rd.

Tucson, AZ

42 ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com|February 2020

Better HEARING Starts H E R E w w w w w w w w w

Hearing Evaluations Hearing Screening Hearing Aid Consultations Hearing Aid Repairs Hearing Rehabilitation Fitting Assistive Listening Devices Tinnitus Evaluations Tinnitus Management Therapies Cochlear Implant Services

(520) 881-8740

Fax (520)881-0349 www.sonorahearingcaretucson.com

february

events Z

SAT 15 - SUN 23

SAT 29

THURSDAYS

TUCSON RODEO Western heritage meets extreme

PEACE FAIR & MUSIC FESTIVAL Arizona’s

SANTA CRUZ RIVER FARMERS MARKET

sport when the cowboys and cowgirls come to town. It’s non-stop action with bull riding, bareback and saddle bronc riding, barrel racing, steer wrestling, team and tiedown. Don’t miss the rodeo parade with over 200 nonmotorized floats on display at 9am on Thursday, February 20th. Tickets and more information available online. www.TucsonRodeo.com

largest gathering of peace, justice, and environmental groups with live music and entertainment, food vendors, raffle prizes, and activities for kids. Free to attend. 11am to 4pm. Armory Park Center, 220 S. 5th Ave. For more information call 520-468-5805 or visit: TucsonPeaceCalendar.org

Locally grown foods and goods with live music. 4-7pm.

Mercado San Agustin, 100 S. Avenida Del Convento.

MercadoSanAgustin.com

THURS 20 ASTRONOMY NIGHT FOR LITTLE RANGERS Curious minds ages 8 to 12 are invited to gaze through telescopes and enjoy games and crafts about our solar system, alien worlds, science careers, black holes, and legends of stars. 6pm to 8:30pm. $5 per child, advanced registration is required. Adults and siblings are able to attend the “star party” by registering.

520-733-5153. Saguaro National Park East, 3693 S. Old Spanish Trail. NPS.gov/SAGU

SILENT DISCO

In collaboration with Creative Collabs and Black Renaissance, MOCA has created “ shrines” dedicated to Black Women who have changed the course of history throughout the decades, along with a Silent Disco with DJ She Kinda and Dj Major League.

Free. 7pm to 9pm. Museum of Contemporary Art, 265 S. Church Ave. 520-624-5019. www.MOCA.org

ONGOING MONDAYS MEET ME AT MAYNARDS

Southern Arizona Roadrunners’ Monday evening, non-competitive, social 3-mile run/walk, that begins and ends downtown at Hotel Congress, rain/shine/holidays included! Free. Check in suggested from 5:15pm to 6:00pm. Closing ceremony at 7:00pm. Maynards Market, 400 N. Toole. 520-991-0733.

MeetMeAtMaynards.com

TUESDAYS ROOFTOP YOGAHOUR

Stretch and sweat under the stars every Tuesday night on the rooftop of Playground. All levels welcome. Drink and food specials offered to attendees. $6. Bring your own mat. 7pm.

Playground Bar & Lounge Rooftop, 278 E. Congress St. YogaOasis.com/Rooftop-Yoga

FREE FIRST THURSDAYS On the first Thursday of every month the museum is open late with free admission from 5-8pm, featuring special performances, live music, lectures, cash bar, and food trucks. For more information see website. Tucson Museum of Art, 140 N. Main Avenue. 520-624-2333. TucsonMuseumofArt.org

SATURDAYS ORO VALLEY KIDS CONCERT SERIES Every first Saturday kids can explore instruments and dance with their family. Oro Valley Council Chambers, 11000 N. La Canada Drive, Oro Valley. www.OroValleyAZ.gov

SUNDAYS 5 POINTS FARMERS MARKET Every Sunday at Cesar Chavez Park. 10am to 2pm. 756 S. Stone Ave.

RILLITO PARK FARMERS MARKET

Find veggies, citrus, fresh eggs, pasta, coffee, locally made soaps and a variety of goods at this open-air market.

Open every Sunday from 9am to 1pm (Oct. – Mar.) and 8am to Noon (Apr. – Sep.) at the Rillito Park Race Track, 4502 N. 1st Ave. HeirloomFM.org

art galleries & exhibits Z ABSOLUTELY ART GALLERY & GIFTS

CENTER FOR CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY

Hours: Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 11am-3pm. 16701 N. Oracle Rd Suite 145, Catalina, AZ. 520-818-1242.

AbsolutelyArtGallery.com

Magnifying LIGHT, an evening at the CCP is February 4 at 5:30pm. Ansel Adams – VIP Preview Experience is February 28 from 5:30pm to 8:30pm. Ansel Adams Birthday Celebration is February 29 from Noon to 4pm.

The Qualities of LIGHT: The Story of a Pioneering New York City Photography Gallery is on view through May 9. David Hume Kennerly: Witness to History is on view through March 11 in the UA Old Main Building. Hours: Tue-Fri 9am-4pm; Sat 1-4pm. 1030 N. Olive Rd. 520621-7968. CreativePhotography.org

New exhibitions DeGrazia’s Circus and DeGrazia’s Saguaro Harvest open with a reception on January 31 from 5pm to 7pm and will remain on display through September 2.

Abstract Paintings of Ted DeGrazia is on display through May 27. In the Little Gallery, Tana von Isser, Mixed Media is on view through February 7. Geri Niedermiller, Mixed Media is on display February 9 through February 21 and Julie Rose, Mixed Media is on display February 23 through March 6. Hours: Daily 10am-4pm. 6300 N. Swan Rd. 520-299-9191. DeGrazia.org

CONTRERAS GALLERY

DESERT ARTISANS GALLERY Flights of Fancy

ARIZONA

HISTORY MUSEUM Current exhibits include: Stories of Resilience: Overcoming Adversity in Arizona History. Permanent Exhibits include: History Lab, Mining Hall, and Treasures of the Arizona History Museum. Hours: Mon & Fri 9am-6pm; Tues-Thurs 9am-4pm; Sat & Sun 11am-4pm. 949 E. 2nd Street. 520628-5774. ArizonaHistoricalSociety.org ARIZONA STATE MUSEUM

Sorting Out Race: Examining Racial Identity and Sterotypes in Thrift Store Donations is on view through February 29. Pahko’ora / Pahko’ola: Mayo and Yaqui Masks from the James S. Griffith Collection is on view through January 23, 2021.

Long term exhibitions include Woven Through Time; The Pottery Project; Paths of Life. Hours: Mon-Sat 10am-5pm. 520-621-6302. 1013 E. University Blvd.

StateMuseum.Arizona.Edu

CACTUS WREN GALLERY Vintage Palooza and Art Show is February 16 from 9am to 2pm. Gallery hours: Everyday from 9am to 4pm. 2740 S. Kinney Rd. 520-4379103. CactusWrenArtisans.net

Tucson International Women Artists is on view February 1 through February 29 with a reception on February 1 from 6pm to 9pm. Hours: Tues-Sat 10am-3:30pm. 110 E. 6th St. 520-398-6557.

ContrerasHouseFineArt.com

DAVIS DOMINGUEZ GALLERY Phenomenon is on view through February 29. Of the Flesh is on view March 3 through April 25. Hours: Tues-Fri 11am5pm; Sat 11am-4pm. 154 E. 6th St. 520-629-9759.

DavisDominguez.com

DEGRAZIA GALLERY IN THE SUN

opens February 4 with a reception February 7 from 5pm to 7pm. Hours: Mon-Sat 10am-5pm; Sun 10am-1:30pm. 6536 E. Tanque Verde Rd. 520-722-4412. DesertArtisansGallery.com

ETHERTON GALLERY

Land Re-Form: Michael Berman, Mark Klett, Frank Gohlke and Mike Mulno is on view through March 14. Hours: Tues-Sat 11am-5pm or by appointment. 135 S. 6th Ave. 520-624-7370.

EthertonGallery.com

IRONWOOD GALLERY

International Exhibit of Nature in Art is on view through March 29. Hours: MonSun 10am-4pm. 2021 N. Kinney Rd. 520-883-3024.

DesertMuseum.org

February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 43

art galleries & exhibits Z

Philabaum Glass Gallery welcomes Montana Artist Richard Parrish on Saturday, February 8th for the opening of an exhibition featuring his exquisite works “Tapestries in Glass”. Parrish is an artist and educator who works in kilnformed glass. His tapestry collection is widely recognized for “their intricate patterns and colors. Inspired by fields of grain and handwoven fabrics, pieces in the series are composed of linear patterns of glass strands creating intricate fiber-like textures”.

JEWISH HISTORY MUSEUM

Asylum / Asilo is currently on view in the Allen and Marianne Langer Contemporary Human Rights Gallery. Hours: Fri 12-3pm; Sat & Sun 1-5pm. 564 S. Stone Ave. 520-670-9073.

JewishHistoryMuseum.org

PHILABAUM GLASS GALLERY & STUDIO

JOSEPH GROSS GALLERY

PORTER HALL GALLERY

The Snake Eats Its Tail is on view through January 23 with a reception January 23 from 5pm to 6:30pm. African for the First Time: Papay Soloman is on view through March 11 with an artist talk and reception February 13 from 4pm to 6:30pm. Hours: Mon-Fri 8am-4pm. 1031 N. Olive Rd. 520-626-4215. CFA.arizona.edu/galleries

LIONEL ROMBACH GALLERY

School of Art Scholarship Exhibition is on view February 4 to 13. Hours: Mon-Fri 8am-4pm. 1031 N. Olive Rd. 520-624-4215.

CFA.arizona.edu/galleries

LOUIS CARLOS BERNAL GALLERY

Arte Contemporaneo de Oaxaca opens February 3 and is on view through March 13. A reception and artist lecture will be held from 5pm to 7pm, with the lecture held in the Recital Hall. Hours: Mon-Thurs 10am-5pm and Fri 10am3pm. Pima Community College West Campus, 2202 West Anklam Rd. 520-206-6942. Pima.Edu

MARK SUBLETTE MEDICINE MAN GALLERY Dennis Ziemienski – Cowboys & Cowgirls opens February 9 with a reception from 1pm to 4pm and is on view through February 20. Ed Mell – New Works opens February 21 with a reception from 5pm to 7pm and is on view through March 13. 6872 E. Sunrise Dr. Suite 130. 520-722-7798. MedicineManGallery.com

MINI TIME MACHINE Paintings on Clayboard and Coins: Lee Beach and Bryanna Marie is on view through April 26. Behold the Big Top: Jean LeRoy’s Circus Parade is on view February 4 through May 10. Miniature Silver: The Helen Goodman Luria Collection continues through May 21. Tues-Sat 9am-4pm and Sun 12-4pm. 4455 E. Camp Lowell Dr. 520-881-0606. TheMiniTimeMachine.org

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART On view through May 3: Amir H. Fallah: Scatter My Ashes on Foreign Lands; Diane Shpungin: Bright Light / Darkest Shadow; and Gary Setzer: The Unique Title of This Museum Exhibition Differentiates it From Other Exhibitions Produced by the Artist While it Simultaneously Hints at the Substance of the Artwork it Contains. Hours: Weds-Sun 12-5pm. 265 S. Church Ave. 520-624-5019.

MOCA-Tucson.org

Richard Parrish: Tapestries in Glass opens February 8 from 4pm to 6pm with an artist talk at 5pm. Hours: Tues-Sat 11am-4pm. 711 S. 6th Ave. 520-884-7404.

PhilabaumGlass.com Kyle Johnston: Expression of Color and Shape is on view through June 6.

The Tropics: Paintings from the Flat File of Manabu Saito is on display through May 31. Hours: Daily 8:30am-4:30pm.

2150 N. Alvernon Way. 520-326-9686. TucsonBotanical.org

RAICES TALLER 222 GALLERY

Carnaval is on view February 1 through February 29. Hours: Fri & Sat 1-5pm and by appointment. 218 E. 6thStreet. 520-8815335. RaicesTaller222.com

SO ARIZONA TRANSPORTATION MUSEUM Dinner in the Diner is currently on display featuring original china and silver service from the named first class Pullman trains. 414 N. Toole Ave. 520-623-2223.

TucsonHistoricDepot.org

SO ARIZONA WATERCOLOR GUILD Annual Show is on view February 4 to March 1 with a reception February 13 from 5pm to 7pm. Fiesta Sonora is on view March 3 to April 5 with a reception March 12 from 5pm to 7pm. Hours: Tues-Sun 11am-4pm. Williams Centre 5420 East Broadway Blvd #240. 520-299-7294.

SouthernAZWatercolorGuild.com

TOHONO CHUL PARK

On the Desert / The Discovery and Invention of Color opens February 12 and continues through April 15 in the Main Gallery and Desert Duet: Erinn Kennedy and Todd Ros is on view February 7 through March 15 in the Entry Gallery, both with artist receptions on February 13 from 5:30pm to 8pm. Jim Waid: The Rancho Linda Vista Drawings is on view through February 5 in the Welcome Gallery. Opening February 13 with a reception from 5:30pm to 8pm, Paul Anders-Stout and Nicholas Bernard will be on display through April 15 in the Welcome Gallery. Hours: Daily 9am-5pm. 7366 N. Paseo del Norte. 520-742-6455. TohonoChulPark.org

TUCSON DESERT ART MUSEUM

Delilah Montoya, Sed, the Trail of Thirst is on view through February 2. Snap! Ongoing exhibitions include: Desert Hollywood, Sacred Walls: Native American Muralism.

Hours: Weds-Sun 10am-4pm. 7000 E Tanque Verde Rd. 520-202-3888. TucsonDArt.org

TUCSON MUSEUM OF ART

The Western Sublime: Majestic Landscapes of the American West and Harry Brorby: The Strength of a Cold Line are on view through February 9. Dwayne Manuel: Landslice is on view through June 30. Oazacan Folk Art from the Shepard Barbash and Vicki Ragan Collection is on view through August 9. I’m Every Woman: Representations of Women on Paper is on view through September 6.

Ongoing exhibits include Ralph Gibson: Photographs; Art of the American West; Latin American Folk Art; J. Knox Corbett House, and the La Casa Cordova. Hours: Tues-Sun 10am-5pm. 140 N. Main Ave. 520-624-2333.

TucsonMuseumofArt.org

TUCSON PASTEL SOCIETY Winter Charity Show is on view February 2 through March 5 with a reception February 9 from Noon to 2:30pm. St. Philips Episcopal Church, 4440 N. Campbell Ave. TucsonPastelSociety.org

UA MUSEUM OF ART Other TARGET/S and Hobby Craft: Artwork from the Arizona State Prison Complex are on view through March 29. American Art Gallery: 1925 to 1945 is on view through May 2020. Contemporary Art Gallery and Modern Art Gallery are on view through June.

Ongoing exhibitions include The Altarpiece From Ciudad Rodrigo. Hours: Tues-Fri 9am-4pm; Sat 9am-5pm; Sun 12-5pm. 1031 N. Olive Rd. 520-621-7567. ArtMuseum.

Arizona.Edu

UA POETRY CENTER

A World on Paper: Broadsides is on view through February 15. Birds of Longing: Exile and Memory is on display February 25 through April 18. Hours: Mon & Thurs 9am-8pm; Tues, Weds, Fri 9am-5pm. 1508 E. Helen St. 520-626-3765.

Poetry.Arizona.Edu

WILDE MEYER GALLERY

Feeling the Love is on view February 14 from 5pm to 7pm. Hours: Mon-Fri 10am-5:30pm; Thurs 10am-7pm; Sat 10am-6pm; Sun 12-5pm. 2890 E. Skyline Dr. Suite 170. 520-615-5222.

WildeMeyer.com

WOMANKRAFT ART GALLERY

Getting Into Shapes is February 2 to March 30 with receptions February 2 and March 2 from 7pm to 9pm. Drawing Down the Muse is on view April 6 through May 4 with receptions April 6 and Mary 25 from 7pm to 9pm. Hours: Weds-Sat 1-5pm. 388 S. Stone Ave. 520-629-9976. WomanKraft.or

February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 45

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performances Z

Arizona Theatre Company presents “Master Harold”... and the Boys, through February 8.

Photo by Tim Fuller

ARIZONA FRIENDS OF CHAMBER MUSIC Shanghai Quartet, February 12 & 13, 7:30pm.

Lineage Percussion, February 23, 3:00pm. Festival 2020, March 1 to 8. See website for locations. 520-577-3769. www.ArizonaChamberMusic.org

– An Irish Goodbye, February 22; Three Dog Night, February 27; Fox 2020 New Year Raffle, February 27; The Lonely: Celebrating the Music of Roy Orbison, February 28. Fox Theatre, 17 W. Congress St. 520-547-3040. www.FoxTucson.com

ARIZONA OPERA La Boheme, February 1 & 2 and

THE GASLIGHT THEATRE

Riders of the Purple Sage, March 7 & 8. Tucson Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave. 520-293-4336. www.AZOpera.org

Showdown in Tucson, through March 29. 7010 E. Broadway Blvd. 520886-9428. www.TheGaslightTheatre.com

ARIZONA REPERTORY THEATRE

HAWKINSDANCE Pleiades, Dance Concert in the

The Wolves, by Sarah DeLappe, February 8 to 23. Tornabene Theatre. The Two Gentlemen of Verona, March 18 to 29, Marroney Theatre. University of Arizona. 520-621-1162. https://theatre.arizona.edu

ARIZONA THEATRE COMPANY

“Master Harold”… and the Boys, through February 8. The Legend of Georgia McBride, March 7 through 28. Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave. 520-884-8210. www.ArizonaTheatre.org

Park, March 14. Free and open to the public. DeMeester Outdoor Performance Center, Reid Park. 520-254-6890. www.Hawkinsdance.org

INVISIBLE

THEATRE Becoming Dr. Ruth, February 11 to 23. The Arizona Premiere of From Brooklyn to Broadway, March 14 to 15. See website for locations. 520-882-9721. www.InvisibleTheatre.com LAFFS COMEDY CAFFE

TUCSON Winter Concert, through February 2. Spring Concert, March 13 to 15. Tucson Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave. 520-901-3194. www.BalletTucson.org

Spencer James, February 1; Butch Lord, Alex Falcone, February 7 & 8; Vanessa Hollingshead, February 14 & 15. Gabriel Rutledge, February 21 & 22. Patrick DeGuire, February 28 & 29. 2900 E. Broadway. 520-32-Funny. www.

LaffsTucson.com

BORDERLANDS THEATER

LIVE THEATRE WORKSHOP Main Stage: The

BALLET

Barrio Stories Nogales, April. Downtown Nogales. 520-276-9598. www.BorderlandsTheater.org

BROADWAY IN TUCSON

The Bachelor Live, February 26. The Book of Mormon, February 11 to 16. A Bronx Tale, March 24 to 29. Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd.

520-903-2929. www.BroadwayinTucson.com

CIVIC ORCHESTRA OF TUCSON

Benefit Gala, February 8, 2pm. A Few of Our Favorite B’s, March 14 & 15. See website for locations. 520-730-3371. www.COTMusic.org

FOX TUCSON Femmes of Rock, February 1; Miss Nelson Has a Field Day, February 7; Classic Albums Live: Eagles Hotel California, February 8; Wynonna & The Big Noise, February 9; Ani DeFranco w/Special Guest, February 13; Alan Parsons Live Project, February 14; The Capitol Steps, February 15; Pure Prairie League with Michael Martin Murphey, February 16; Lyle Lovett and his Acoustic Group, February 18; The Chieftains

Norwegians, through February 15. Family Theatre: Mona Lisa on the Loose, through March 8. 5317 E. Speedway Blvd. 520-327-4242. www.LiveTheatreWorkshop.org

PIMA COMMUNITY COLLEGE THEATRE Singin’ in the Rain, February 20 to March 1, Proscenium Theatre. As You Like It, April 16 to 26, Black Box Theatre. West Campus, 2202 W. Anklam Rd. 520-206-6986. www.Pima.Edu

ODYSSEY STORYTELLING SERIES

Dirty, February 6. Sweet Sixteen, March 5. Doors at 6:30pm, show at 7pm. The Sea of Glass Center for the Arts, 330 E. 7th St. 520-730-4112. www.OdysseyStorytelling.com

ROGUE THEATRE The Beauty Queen of Leenane, February 27 to March 15. Twelfth Night, April 23 to May 10. 300 E. University Blvd. 520-551-2053. www.RogueTheatre.org

photo: Ryan Phillips Fagan

Live Theatre Workshop’s Family Series presents: “Mona Lisa on the Loose,” a musical written and directed

by Gretchen Wirges with music by David Ragland, through March 8.

SCOUNDREL AND SCAMP THEATRE The Light Princess, February 6 to 23. Ada and The Engine, March 26 to April 12. 738 N. 5th Ave. 520-448-3300. www.ScoundrelandScamp.org

SOMETHING SOMETHING THEATRE

Cry It Out, February 13 to March 1. The Aliens, March 26 to April 12. City High School Center for Collaborative Learning, 37 E. Pennington.

520-468-6111. www.SomethingSomethingTheatre.com

SOUTHERN ARIZONA PERFORMING ARTS COMPANY Hot Mikado, January 17 to 26 at Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre. 1776, April 24 & 25 at George DeMeester Performance Center. 520-261-0915. www.SAPACTucson.org

SOUTHERN ORCHESTRA

ARIZONA

SYMPHONY

Die Beethoven & Strauss, February 15, 7:30pm at SaddleBrooke DesertView Performing Arts Center and February 16, 3pm at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church. 520-308-6226. www.SASOMusic.org

TUCSON CONVENTION CENTER

ShenYun 2020 – 5,000 Years of Civilization Reborn, February 22 & 23. An R-Rated Magic Show with Grant Freeman, February 25. Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Live, February 26. 260 S. Church Ave. TucsonConventionCenter.com

TUCSON

SYMPHONY

ORCHESTRA

Tubalicious, February 1, 2pm; Rene Fleming, February 6, 7:30pm; Mickey Dolenz, The Voice of the Monkees, February 8, 7:30pm; All About That B, February 14, 7:30pm; Primo Recital and Benefit Dinner, February 21, 6pm; Eroica, February 28, 7:30pm. See website for locations. 520-882-8585. www.TucsonSymphony.org

UA PRESENTS Grupo Corpo, February 8; The Book of Mormon (Presented by Broadway in Tucson), February 11 to 16; The Finest Hour, February 19. See website for locations. 520-621-3364. www.UAPresents.org

UNSCREWED

THEATER Family friendly shows every Friday and Saturday night at 7:30pm. 3244 E. Speedway Blvd. 520-289-8076. www.UnscrewedTheater.org

February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 47

Z tunes

What’s Live Yvonne and Hal

by Jim Lipson

Open Daily Bar + Bottleshop at the MSA Annex 267 S. AVENIDA DEL CONVENTO 48 ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com|February 2020

AS WE GO to press, Tucson’s annual Jazz Festival is in full swing. And while it will have come and gone by the time this edition hits the streets, I’d be remiss (as I was last year) if I did not devote at least a few column inches to the late Yvonne Ervin, the person who made the festival what it has now become, who unexpectedly passed away just over a year ago on the eve of last year’s festival.

It was her hard work and deep ties to the jazz world that made the festival happen—breaking even in its first year, which is unheard of. Her legacy will forever be cemented in this top-grade festival, which I hope might someday bear her name.

This month Tucson also mourns the loss of Hal Jackson, a fine musician who played in and/or fronted various reggae bands throughout the years. His most recent group, Rockers Upton, had recently completed a spate of gigs, and his loss, at the age of 67, was both sudden and jarring to the local reggae community. His reputation as one of the sweetest guys anywhere was well deserved. His dear friend Amochip Dabney is staging a musical celebration of his life, For the Hal Of It, on Sunday afternoon, February 16, at the Hideout East (1110 S. Sherwood Village Drive), with the Amosphere, Neon Prophet, and other acts. This is not a benefit,” says Amo. “It’s a party!” There’s no cover.

Here’s lots more stuff, including 12 consecutive days of killer shows.

February 7—Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, Rialto Theatre: Bridging the gap between rock & roll, roadhouse Americana, and sounds of the Southwest, this band is a phenomenon all its own. Having started its own festival in Mexico and launched its own line of premium tequila while working the Internet for sales like few other independent bands have, they are a modern day blue-collar success story. $25.

February 8—George Winston, Berger Center: Remember when the Windham Hill label was a big deal, taking New Age–type music and promoting it in a way that had never been done before? Well, George Winston has never stopped working and is still making it work as a world-class piano player. $34.

February 12—Don Armstrong, Earl Edmondson, Peter McLaughlin, Chris Brashear, Monterey Court: While Don and Earl have been working on a duo act for over a year (they once described themselves as the Elderly Brothers) the addition of McLaughlin and Brashear, who have been playing together for many

tunes Z

Ani DiFranco performs at the Fox Theatre on February 13.

years, makes this a bit of a supergroup. Expect two sets of the duos with a fair amount of commingling. No cover.

February 13—Ani DiFranco, Fox Theatre: Widely considered a feminist icon, Grammy winner Ani DiFranco might also be considered the mother of the DIY movement, being one of the first artists to create her own record label in 1990. Indeed, she’s come a long way since her early 1990s performance at the long defunct Downtown Performance Center. Her most recent album Binary was released in June 2017 on her Righteous Babe label, and her memoir No Walls and the Recurring Dream was released last May by Viking Books. She’s been busy. From $27.50.

February 14—Karla Bonoff, Berger Center: This previous headliner of the Tucson Folk Festival will be joined by guitarist Nina Gerber, who everyone raves about. Karla’s latest album is a 16-song set of brand new recordings of her classics as well as new songs by Bonoff and longtime guitarist/collaborator (and former Stone Poney) Kenny Edwards. $28.

February 15—Capitol Steps, Fox Theatre: These folks began as a group of Senate staffers who set out to satirize the very people and places that employed them. Not the best career move, perhaps, but 37 years running, odds are strong it might still work out. $50-65.

February 16—Pure Prairie League, Fox Theatre: Their first three albums remain three of my faves when it comes to great 1970s country rock. Picking up the mantle first laid down by bands like Poco and the early Eagles and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, these guys could really cook. A young Vince Gill was a part of the lineup, while their tune “I’ll Fix Your Flat Tire, Merle” remains a classic.

Michael Martin Murphy, no slouch himself, opens. From $29.

February 17—Lucie Blue Tremblay, Hotel Congress: Former Olivia Records women’s music artist Tremblay has continued playing live and recording on her own label, Maggie & Shanti Music. And here is my favorite PR blurb of the month, from the Hotel Congress website… Celebrating President’s Day in Tucson singing and saying things that need to be shared. Come for your great Community Hug. Especially needed if we’re talking about putting the words celebrating and president in the same sentence. $20.

February 18—Lyle Lovett and His Acoustic Group, Fox Theatre: Whether touring as a duo or performing with His Large Band or His Acoustic Group, Lovett delivers live performances that are always nothing less than stellar.

Expect a lot of interesting stories about life in Texas. From $44.50.

February 19—Dweezil Zappa, Rialto Theatre: Dweezil continues to feed off his old man’s considerable legacy and canon. He couldn’t do it unless he could really deliver the goods, which he does. This time out, the tour is billed as Hot Rats Live. The most learned Zappa enthusiasts will tell you that the Hot Rats album is perhaps the best of the best. It’s got “Peaches en Regalia,” “Willie the Pimp,” and Captain Beefheart—or, as George Costanza might say, “It’s got it all!” From $35.

February 20—Black Market Trust, Hotel Congress Plaza: This is the LAbased side project of violin virtuoso Nick Coventry, who can also be found playing with any number of folks in town on any given week. It’s European gypsy–style jazz that really knows how to swing. The show will be outside on the Congress patio. $15-20.

February 21—Steel Pulse, Rialto Theatre: Extremely pissed off with the current state of the world, these reggae icons last year released an album called Mass Manipulation. When it comes to getting your skank on, these guys are the real deal. All ages. From $32.

February 22—Riders in the Sky, Hotel Congress Plaza: In this Rodeo Days special, country music, cowboys, and comedy all collide as Riders in the Sky celebrate 40 years together. This an outdoor show, so for their sake, let’s hope it doesn’t snow all day like it did last year on this date. All ages. $25 advance, $30 day of show, $10 ages 12 and under.

February 29—38th Annual Peace Fair and Music Festival, Armory Park: Music, activism, spontaneous building of community, and scores of nonprofits devoted to some aspect of peace and justice gathering for this annual event from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm, with lots of music. Free.

March 1—Jimmie Vaughn, Rialto Theatre: People in Austin will tell you before there was Stevie Ray there was Jimmie—and he’s still pretty damn good. From $30. n February 2020|ZOCALOMAGAZINE.com 49

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