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Calexico
Tucson-based Americana indie band Calexico makes cultural appropriation sound good, with well-conceived guitar-based melodies about border crossers and journeymen, tinged with mariachi horns and a general sadness. The two main members, Joey Burns and John Convertino, have proven album after album that although there’s nothing quite new under the desert sun, the old sounds can […]
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Calexico+The Dodos
Guitarist-singer Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino add a mostly atmospheric New Orleans tinge to their moody and downbeat Southwestern sound on Calexico’s new Algiers. (Mas mariachi aqui, por favor.) They’re joined by another idiosyncratic and acousti-centric duo, San Francisco’s Meric Long and Logan Kroeber, who offer a credible, somewhat freaky Mumfords alternative to anyone […]
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WINE AND SPIRITS
An especially fine installment in City Winery’s new “Pairings” series—you can guess what the concept is here—this double bill brings together Joey Burns and John Convertino of Calexico, the long-running Tucson-based indie-roots outfit, with Keren Ann, the French-Israeli chanteuse who named her 2004 album Nolita after her adopted New York neighborhood. Last year’s Carried to […]
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Calexico’s Western Reunion
When we last heard from the Sergio Leone–worshipping Tex-Mex balladeers Calexico on 2006’s middling Garden Ruin, it seemed the Man With No Name had finally died. The heralding trumpets, wheezing accordions, and textural click-clacks that defined the Tucson, Arizona, group had moseyed off into the sunset, replaced by cookie-cutter indie-rock guitars that only occasionally hinted […]
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DUST TO DUST
Tucson’s Calexico remains one of the few solid outfits to emerge from the Americana tent during the 1990s. The core duo of Joey Burns and John Convertino—alongside a revolving cast of players and drop-in friends—retains a patented “high lonesome electronica drifter” sound. And yet, they’re always fluid enough to switch up between many poles, including […]
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Rolling Asunder
A no-depressionist’s wet dream come true, the Iron and Wine–meets-Calexico pairing came through New York for an ambitious three nights, billing themselves as a modern-day “Band meets Dylan.” Calexico assumed the role of Robbie Robertson and company, and Sam Beam was Bob, but let’s face it: The Last Waltz and the Rolling Thunder Revue tour […]