When the American band Calexico came to this country 20 years ago, they weren’t on many people’s antennae, despite a run of albums through the late 1990s and early 2000s.
They came here piggybacking off an invitation from Nick Cave to open for him in Australia. By happy coincidence, Feast of Wire – their breakthough album that weaved together alt-rock, mariachi music, cinema soundtracks and jazz – arrived at the same time.
“Oh yeah, we love Gil Evans, Miles Davis and Eric Dolphy,” singer/multi-instrumentalist Joey Burns told me at the time, citing great jazz musicians. “I’m a big fan of [Dolphy], and more and more Charles Mingus, who was born in Nogales, the border town of Arizona and Mexico.”
Location was a major influence for Calexico, founded by Burns and drummer-singer John Convertino in 1996. They took their name from a Californian border town which conflates “California” and “Mexico” – much as the band, then based in Tucson, Arizona, pulled together musical styles from Mexican norteña and country music to evoke desert landscapes and cantina music. “We wanted to put everything in the pot,” he now says of that 2003 album, “and it can be a little over-eclectic. But we found ways to connect all these genres to make it into a beautiful, smooth ride. We took the elements and made them our own.”
Feast of Wire – on which Burns is credited with playing 13 instruments – might not be the band’s bestselling album (that’s 2008′s Carried to Dust) but it’s widely considered their most important, a turning-point collection which they have been celebrating by touring and playing it in its entirety.
Burns – who now lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife and 12-year-old twin daughters – says performing the album doesn’t mean just going through motions. “When we play the whole album in sequence it’s amazing. Often, I will make up something on stage.
“On the final show on the tour last year, in Dublin, my spirit was moved and I was feeling the emotion of where things were in the world with regards to conflict and challenges.
“I hadn’t been there in 10 years, but I have family in Galway and was thinking about all that and started making up some words. One of the musicians afterwards asked if that was a new song, and I guess it was, although I don’t remember what it was.”
Although some might hear Feast of Wire as serious and intense, Burns says it’s a fun album to celebrate. There are lyrics he’s proud of and the instrumentals are beautiful.
“Pepita always captures people’s attention and Crumble pays homage to Mingus and Gil Evans. It allows me to push myself as a jazz guitarist because I didn’t record the guitar on the album, I was playing bass.”
Burns and Convertino moved to Tucson to join Howe Gelb as the rhythm section in his desert-rock band Giant Sand before going their own way as Calexico. Spanish music from the region was a profound influence and the band includes accordion player Sergio Mendoza and trumpeters Jacob Valenzuela and Martin Wenk.
However you try to describe Calexico’s music – and most critics reach for superlatives as much as a label – it works equally well in clubs, concert halls and at festivals like Womad in Taranaki, where they played in 2010 and 2016.
Given the album’s reference points to Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti western soundtracks, Hispanic music, jazz, windblown pedal steel alt-country sounds and more, it is hardly surprising it has appealed to fellow musicians.
“When you hear people you admire talking about the album or singing the songs, that is the biggest compliment.
“[Irish musician] Glen Hansard played in Tucson and sang Sunken Waltz, which brought tears to my eyes because we’d toured together in 2003. Robert Plant covered Quattro and wrote some beautiful things about the song and the band.
“That makes me feel really good because there are times when I don’t know how far Calexico can go and whether it’s affordable to go out any more.
“Although, even if I had to pay to go out there I probably would.”
The remastered 20th-anniversary edition of Feast of Wire with a bonus disc of a live concert from 2003 is available now digitally. Calexico, Feast of Wire 20th Anniversary NZ Tour: Opera House, Wellington, February 9; Loons, Christchurch, February 10; Powerstation, Auckland, February 11.
