Neon Desert Music Festival Preview

I have been saying for a few years now that El Paso, or what natives affectionately call it, El Chuco, has been going through quite the cultural renissanince. The music scene has flourished and us here at Oddgila have tried to do our part for the scene with spotlights on some of our personal faves coming up here in the city. Bands like The DA, Bulletproof Tiger, Frontera Bugalu, The Royalty and so many others have really been doing their part to make the scene here in El Paso what it should be. There are more art venues, DJ collectives, new bands, and innovative events going on in Chuco than ever before (La Parrada, LNSC Djs, etc). Even the culinary scene has seen it's fair share of cultural growths with new and fresh bistros and restaurants you would never imagine being successful en El Paso. I could go on and on about how this city is in my eyes a sleeping giant that needs to be awakened, but the truth is, the wake up call could be easily coming this Saturday when Chuco puts on its first bonafide music festival.
The Neon Desert Music Festival is the idea of El Paso ex-pats who moved to, you guessed it, Austin Texas (Editors note: That city has to really thank us, cause if it weren't for the thousands of sexy, smart, cool and rad fucking native Chucotowners that move to Austin all the time, it would be only fractionally as cool). Through their organization, Splendid Sun Production a small group of individuals have put together a one day festival packed with not only local talent but some big name international groups.
Fisrt on my list of headliners I wanna see are Brazilian indie rockers CSS(Cansei da ser Sexy, Portuguese for tired of being sexy), who's frontwoman knows how to keep shows very interesting to say the least. How can't you with a nickname like Lovefoxxx. SEXY!! Fo Sho!

Next on my list would be Grammy award winning Venezuelan rockers Los Amigos Invisibles, who mix equal parts funk and Latin flavor for the perfect blend of sounds.

Mastermind behind the Mars Volta, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez's band will headline with special guest, and vocalist for the Volta Mr. Cedric Bixler-Zavala joining the group. These guys have headlined major festivals and seeing that they are Chuco most famous indie sons, it's quite appropriate they close the night.

The other headliner will keep the electro crowd moving until hopefully midnight and beyond. From Toronto, MSTRKRFT is one of the biggest names in the emerging out of the indie-electro scene.


There are a ton other great bands, local and from around the country that will grace the inaugural fest. When its all said and done all I can hope for is an amazing turn out and that things go smoothly. That includes the springtime winds Chuco is famous for. May they be absent, if not, at least manageable that day. However, wind or shine, this Saturday El Paso will really see what we're made of when The Neon Desert Music Festival blows through town! I hope the giant is awakened here in Chuco and as ACL celebrates its 10th glorious year, we can celebrate the birth of a new era, a new festival, a new time for a city that's been waiting for the right opportunity to shine! -nick

Radiohead - Supercollider

Last Saturday was Record Store Day. It was also – coincidentally – day two of Coachella. I heard there was a street sale at All That Music, I heard there were some good deals and when I checked my e-mail I heard Radiohead released a special 12” for Record Store Day. Whoever got the vinyl, luuuucky. They sent digital copies of the two songs they released; “Supercollider” is such a perfect song. It probably sounds the most different from The King of Limbs and that’s probably because although started during those sessions, it was finished after the album.

I really like how at first it’s just this electronic beat that almost tricks you into believing its something different. It acts more as the set up to the mysterious strings that creep in and by the time Thom Yorke’s voice has appeared, the heavens have already been far removed. I’m guessing the song’s about the new possibilities out there, the darkness and ominous textures act as uneasiness and how there might be a super collider out there that separates everything. The ending lyrics are perhaps the most cryptic, ‘I put the shadows back into the boxes’ is sung against a sweepingly cold line and the angels that hang over the balcony could be nothing but everyone’s lost faiths, unproven. Mostly I think the song sounds like a typical Radiohead beauty: a perfect melody, a perfect flow and absolutely perfectly sung. I don’t think there’s anyone that has a better voice than Yorke and this sounds like heavens opening – it almost makes it hurt that it wasn’t included on The King of Limbs. – Bryan

The Black Keys – Thickfreakness

Long before The Black Keys were huge mega-stars, they were always an outstanding blues-rock duo that was always very awesome. Their second album, Thickfreakness, was where I first started to notice just how massively huge their sound was. And it was on this album that I found out just how great they were because of how they could weave the best emotional stories through gritty, stunningly special rock music. They’re definitely a band to listen to loud on vinyl because it sounds that much better.

On “Hurt Like Mine,” the guitar travels through a grinding bluesy riff that always bites while the words focus the hurt on a guy that’s gotten his heart broken by a girl that just wants to be friends. “How you hurt me, oh how you cause me pain” is what he first asks but she simply doesn’t understand because, well, she doesn’t feel the same. And in the end, since she wants to be friends, he can lay his crying head on her shoulder? Yeah right. I love how it’s almost like what The White Stripes were doing at the same time but with more of a lonely, down-on-his-luck kind of sad blues. I’m still not sure why it took 8 years later for them to ‘take off.’

The album’s got two covers on it and still, it’s “I Cry Alone”’s old vibes that sound the most traditionally blues out of all of them. It’s about crying alone after letting go of a girl that had such a hold on you “so tight, so tight that I [you] could not see.” The guitar’s basic riff is accompanied only by a soft tap and it’s solely Dan Auerbach’s voice as he laments his sad story to the listener. He never says why he had to let her go but that “At night, I cry alone, I weap all night, til the early morn'.” It’s a beautiful way to end the album really, in the most basic sense of blues possible. – Bryan

Kanye West – Late Registration

I still remember when people would talk about Kanye West’s rapping as something that was decent, never amazing but promising and always improving. I’m not sure how much I agree with that kind of thinking but when The College Dropout came out, a lot of the purists bashed its rhymes and MCing while many, loved its production. So I love how even that album’s big triumphs, Kanye is still optimistically down and slumbering at the beginning of Late Registration. Like always, feeling behind, always running late, the album’s dark tones run a gamut through times where everything still seemed ominous. It’s not quite like Graduation’s tight and concise way but perhaps, his hungriest and grittiest (well, that was until My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy) album and maybe, his best.

The simplicity of “Roses” was always the most endearing to me. It’s like Kanye’s basically speaking to the crowd while a vibe gently lulls behind him. The soul samples and the choir of voices that come through take over at the end with an over-pouring of sounds; while at the beginning it was the lonely keys and Kanye’s genuine, “he’s stttrrrroooong” words. I’ve always appreciated the honesty and the earnest sincerity behind his music and how everything almost feels relatable in many ways and this song is a slamming basher that kills with grace.


I really like the middle section of this album so I was trying to pick a song between either “Crack Music” or “Bring Me Down” and I wanted to mention the latter mostly because it’s still minor and I think Kanye’s choice of Brandy to sing the hook and chorus is surprising but definitely awesome. There’s so many great things about a Kanye West album and while the samples is a personal fave, just his list of guests is never without class either. On “Bring Me Down”’s sour and uplifting mood, Brandy sounds raw and somehow, there was an injection of great singing done all throughout the song. It sounds so nice right before “Addiction” and its rhythm-heavy, stunningly beautiful sounds. Man, maybe that’s the best song in the end. – Bryan

Arcade Fire – Neon Bible

There was a brief period of time where one probably thought Arcade Fire couldn’t possibly match Funeral ever again. I mean, even I remember listening to this album and wondering if it was too angry, too angst-filled, too bitter? And obviously, back then, that was many people just over-thinking such amazing music way too early. A few years later, after making one of the best albums of 2010, Neon Bible is definitely, a magnificent album on its own.

I still remember listening to these crashing, pounding waves through my speakers in my small studio. I always think of the huge atmospherics on “Black Mirror” as the sound of the ocean beating against a heavy wind as everything comes pouring down. The song’s atmospherics are definitely significant but the keyboard’s repetitive pound, Win Butler’s soaring singing and the ending strings’ explosion is for sure, HUGE, too. There was always a certain beauty to it and I love the way it introduces the album in a dark and booming way. I probably played it over 100 times in 2007, and many times over and over and even still now, it’s worth it every time.


When it comes to closers, like Arctic Monkeys and few others, Arcade Fire are masters of them. Speaking about Funeral, that album’s closer is majestically gorgeous and even the proper ending on The Suburbs is an interpolation of that opener’s melody with poignant, lasting words; in short, both are awesome. Well for Neon Bible, they bellow with a traditional organ that shifts through heavy pedal tones and the pounding of a soft drum before everything explodes around the 2:10 mark. The production of a big open space allows the organ to reign throughout and while the thump is always the focus, the pure largeness of the ending overtakes you, like a massive wave. It’s hard to say really, but maybe this is their best closer? – Bryan

Kings of Leon - Because of the Times

After their first two albums, Kings of Leon were still mostly known as a Southern version of The Strokes. They were always a good band but I guess they needed to change things up a bit. With their third album, Because of the Times, they proved that their music could be ever-changing and entirely different and still, very very good. And this was during a time where Kings of Leon were starting to identify themselves as a tremendously good rock band before “Sex on Fire” would hit. Now that they’ve got a good five albums under their belt, this one is probably my favorite and one that I’ve been listening to a lot lately.

There’s the hopeless romantic in all of us and I think that “Knocked Up” is that kind of crazed love, where nothing else comes in the way. And besides the subject matter, it’s easily one of their best songs with how it shifts and twists throughout its entire seven minutes with amazing ease. It’s so cliché but like Romeo and Juliet, the two lovers are bound to prove everyone wrong and have their baby together. Especially when he sings, “Always mad and usually drunk, but I love her like no other…” it’s probably the most romantic line of the whole song and still, wickedly ironic. The light chug of the drum and the guitar’s melodic grind is all the song really needs and even at the very bitter end, you never quite want it to end as it spectacularly sets up everything else on the album with such a poignant touch.

And so then there’s the album’s opposite side, the closing “Arizona” and it’s sordid love story of getting way too head over heels over some girl. The song’s got a soaring smoothness to it that even when the guitar shines through, it never sounds too polished. He’s basically fallen for a girl that’s checking him out even though she has someone else on her shoulder and in the end, he decides to stand up to the guy before getting knocked out and eventually, lays on the pavement. The song drives through nothing more than a beautiful verse and in the end, he still admits that he likes her. It’s more of loveless kind of lust than the love-filled passion in the first song but something else that only happens, because of the times. – Bryan