Calexico Crosses Frontiers.

• Author: DiNovella, Elizabeth
• Position: Calexico band from Tucson - Essay

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

I've always wanted to see the Tucson-based band Calexico perform. I first fell in love with its sound in 2001 when it released Even My Sure Things Fall Through . The album begins with an eerie, atmospheric instrumental called "Sonic Wind." The strumming guitars and mariachi accents transported me to a desolate landscape. If the desert had a soundtrack, this was it.

Calexico followed up with 2003's Feast of Wire , which featured tinny trumpets and brass horns reminiscent of Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain . Electronic dub beats and waltzing rhythms rounded out the album.

So when I found out Calexico had a gig at the cabaret Metro in Chicago last November, I made the trek. I had high expectations, and was not disappointed.

C ritics often pigeonhole Calexico as a western band. But its eclectic music defies categories. Calexico blends Mexican folk, surf rock, jazz, country, and Eastern European gypsy music into something original.

"I went to Prague years ago and I brought my cassette recorder to do field recordings of subway music, sounds, and trains, and the language coming in on the loud speaker system when the doors close," says singer and multi-instrumentalist Joey Burns. Dressed in a black button-down shirt and a Carhartt jacket, his jeans rolled at the ankles, Burns looks like the typical indie rocker. "For me, it's always been this hodgepodge of different influences."

Burns and drummer John Convertino formed the band more than fifteen years ago. They remain its mainstays, though the band continues to evolve. The current roster includes Jacob Valenzuela, Martin Wenk, pedal steel player Paul Niehaus, and bassist Volker Zander.

Calexico released its sixth album, Carried to Dust , last year. "Victor Jara's Hands," the opening track, tells the story of the Chilean singer and political activist who was arrested, tortured, and ultimately murdered following the 1973 U.S.-endorsed Chilean coup.

The group heard Jara's story when it toured Argentina and Chile. "We walked away with this sense of, wow, here is this Bob Dylan character or a Neil Young figure, someone who was extremely involved, on the front lines," says Burns. "So it was a really dramatic feeling, being in Chile, hearing the music, hearing the history, just wanting to do something, wanting to connect to that experience.... His story resonates with a lot of what is going on today--Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib."

Wire fences still coiled with flowers of the night...