The Beat Goes On… Albuquerque, New Mexico - October 11, 2009
Let me let you in on a secret: Dave Wakeling, the English Beat, General Public, Bang!, The Free Radicals… these bands define the soundtrack of my youth (and a bit into adulthood, too). One of my first gigs? The English Beat at the US Festival in So Cal in the early 80’s. First date with my teenage heartthrob Natalie? General Public at Cal State Fullerton, which also happened to be the last General Public gig of the 80’s. Young adulthood, early parenthood? My son’s first gig at the age of one year was a reformed General Public at the outdoor Edgefest in Albuquerque, New Mexico… rub it better, little skanker!
Albuquerque is where I call home now, and I’ve been treated to Dave and company scooting through Nuevo Mexico for the past decade. So imagine the thrill of thrills of getting to sit down for almost two hours and interview Dave for my Madness fan page, Madness Central, in April of 2008. Want to read the interview? Dave’s in top form. Point yourself this way:
The Ska’dfather - Dave Wakeling of The English Beat
You’d think sitting down with a childhood hero would be totally nerve-racking, but two minutes with Dave and you’re totally at ease. I interview quite a few musicians and artists for the extra dosh, and these go okay for the most part, but they feel like interviews, very static and rote. With Dave it’s like having a conversation with an old friend.
Flash forward to last summer at the House of Blues in Anaheim. I happened to be visiting my home town of Fountain Valley, California, and Dave, ever the gentleman, invited my son, girlfriend and I to be his guests for the Rockin’ The Colonies gig. Could I turn this down? No way! Here’s a picture from that night (taken by the lovely Diana Sainz).
Tracy Rolfe, Dave Wakeling, Scott Bringe & Steve Bringe in the Green Room, HOB Anaheim
If you think like I think that I owed something back for Dave being so freaking cool, you’d be thinking the right thoughts. So when I got an email from the Dave Wakeling Appreciation Society asking for volunteers to spread the good word, I jumped on the chance to show my appreciation by plastering the town with flyers and posters.
Here’s a short chronicle of some of the highlights of today’s three hour excursion around Q-Town.
Okay, nothing English Beat about this picture, but I never miss a chance to plug my grad school alma mater. Welcome to the University of New Mexico, which happened to be our first stop on the Beat Street Team Tour.
This was the first stop bopping around campus. Have you ever heard of a bulletin board made of vanadium-hardened plywood? This board was impervious to thumbtacks. Even with a five pound crack hammer I don’t think we could have pounded a tack into the board. Fortunately, we came armed with tape. Nothing shall thwart the Good Word! By the way, that’s my kid Scott who loves Dave Tunes as much as me… and he’s pretty bent about the October 11 gig being 21+.
Luck was on our side. Most of the bulletin boards around UNM are made of actual cork, so the permanence of the thumbtack could be employed. This board, outside the Student Union Building, is a three-sided triangular affair, so each side got a few flyers. No matter which way you came into the quad, you’d be treated to a gig flyer.
This is a bulletin board back by Northrup Hall (the geoscience building where we took a short break from being Street Team Members so I could say hi to some old lab mates). After being relegated to the upper and lower parts of the boards, I got a little unethical and moved the eye-level posters out of the way so I could put the Beat flyers right in the line of sight of the passerby. Don’t worry, I didn’t leave the other flyers blowing in the wind. I tacked them back up lower on the board.
Some of the smaller boards at the entrances to the academic halls are hosting the smaller handbills for folks to grab on their way to class. I think this board is outside the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, but don’t hold me to that. We hit so many boards around campus today they all kind of meld together in the memory banks.
Across the street from the UNM campus is LA Underground, one of the hippest and funkiest record shops in town. They sell actual vinyl there. Vinyl is way cool.
Outside on the Central Avenue side of the store (which is part of old Route 66), with hundreds of cars and pedestrians going by each day, is a large promotional board for upcoming gigs. Stepping inside to ask if we could post a flyer there, I was told that the promoters paid for that space, so we could post a flyer inside the store if we wanted, but outside was cash on demand only.
Give me ten minutes and I can convince anyone of anything. Proof? In ten minutes I bet I can convince you Elle MacPherson is still hot even though she’s pushing 50. But I don’t have ten minutes right now, so you’ll have to take my word for it. Please note in the picture above (that’s me by the way) that there are not one but two English Beat posters tagged to the wall. Way cool, eh?
Here’s a close up of the flyer in all its pride and glory. And I didn’t even have to cough up any dosh to rent the space!
No Street Team push is complete without leaving a stack of handbills behind… be sure to shop at LA Underground next time you’re in Albuquerque!
Jetting down Central to the historic Nob Hill District we hit the dozens of bulletin boards outside cafes and coffee shops and bistros and any other euphemism you can think of to describe hip trendy restaurants. Nestled down amongst all these eateries is the famous Natural Sound, the place to go in Albuquerque for used vinyl and cds, dvds, and best of all, “import” music.
The paid show promoters had already been by Natural Sound (naturally, snicker snicker), but while there was a fine professional poster for the gig in the main window, there were no handbills on the shelves inside the store. We remedied that right quick.
If you’re looking for a killer dessert in Albuquerque, you’ve got to hit the Flying Star. This one’s on Central, but we went to the other four locations in town today as well. Note the blank spot on the window in the right of the picture. It’s going to get a new inhabitant in the next picture.
The bulletin boards (which spill out onto the store windows) are the hotspot for what’s happening around town. Want yoga lessons in your home? Go to Flying Star. Want information on the Xmas production “Nutcracker on the Rocks?” Get the flyer at Flying Star. Want to know about the next English Beat gig? Well, now you can get the skinny at Flying Star.
Next stop on the Street Team Tour was Downtown Albuquerque. That’s the tallest building in the state, the Bank of Albuquerque building on 4th and Copper. Yep, we don’t do things on a grand scale around here. Why did I bother posting this picture? Read the back of the Greyhound bus and you’ll have your answer. Is it chilly in here?
I was starting to get worried that the professional promoters for the El Rey (where the gig is going down a week from Sunday) hadn’t been doing their job. We’d put on about 30 miles driving around town by this time, and we’d only seen the one promo poster at Natural Sound. Finally, the fears were allayed. One of the main boards downtown had an English Beat poster already pinned to the cork. Still, we left our smaller black and white 2 Tone flyer behind as well, just to emphasize Dave was coming.
And here’s where it’s going to happen. This is the El Rey Theater on Central Avenue downtown. Pretty cool how The English Beat is already being billed on the marquee, don’t you think?
Last year the venue right next door burned down, the Golden West Saloon. The El Rey is on one side sharing a common wall and the Launchpad, another gig venue, is on the other side also sharing a common wall. Fortunately, the damage was pretty much limited to the Golden West (which was a total loss), but the El Rey and the Launchpad were both closed for about six months for renovations.
So there’s our Street Team Tour of Albuquerque. We’re not done yet. We’ve got some outlying record shops and restaurants to hit up tomorrow morning, namely Charlie’s on Menaul and Owl Green’s downtown (they were closed again during business hours, the slackers). We had an absolute blast spreading the word. It really feels stellar helping Dave and the band out on this after all they’ve done for us over the years.
