CALEXICO
Saturday, June 11 at 9:00. Santa Fe Brewing Company.

Naming themselves after a town near the California/Mexico border in honor of the musical-cultural mélange they've spent 18 years exploring, Calexico is a melting pot for country, indie rock, various Spanish-rooted sub-genres, jazz, and many other musical styles. A diverse collective based around the duo of guitarist-vocalist Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino, the Tucson-based band has constantly imbued its music with an urgent sense of drama, calling upon the myths and iconography of the American West and Mexico—equal parts Sergio Leone, Larry McMurtry, and Cormac McCarthy. Over the course of six full-length albums, six original-material tour albums, and five EPs (one a collaboration with Iron & Wine), the band wields unique instruments and maps out musical territory that has otherwise been neglected or at the very least considered the preserve of historians. HAMELL ON TRIAL
Saturday, June 11 at 10:30. Santa Fe Brewing Company.

Hamell on Trial is a one-man acoustic punk band, and by punk we mean (mostly) loud, fast music informed by politics, passion, energy and intelligence, played by a guy with a sharp tongue and a wicked sense of humor. Born in Syracuse, NY, Ed Hamell started many a band before grasping the amazing appeal of autonomy: the solo musician's ability to write a song and perform it the same evening, free from the spiritual and financial burdens of a full band, able to play and sing anything he wants without limitations. After a stint on Ani DiFranco's Righteous Babe label, Hamell's ninth release, an independent double-disc set titled Rant & Roll, captures an award-winning, hour-long, Kerouac-esque story of social commentary colored by years on the road. Don't miss Hamell's late night Thirsty Ear set. SHAWN COLVIN
Saturday, June 11 at 7:30. Lensic Theater.

"One for the ages."-The Washington Post
Shawn Colvin's songs are slow-release works of craft and catharsis that become treasured, lifetime companions for her listeners. As a storyteller, she leavens even the toughest tales with tenderness, empathy, and a searing sense of humor. In the 19 years since the release of her debut album, Colvin has won three Grammys, released eight albums, appeared on countless television and radio programs, had her songs featured in major motion pictures, been tapped by a major publisher for a memoir, and shared a stage with legendary artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, and Lyle Lovett. Born in South Dakota and raised in Carbondale, Illinois, she started playing guitar at age 10. She made her first public appearance at the University of Illinois at age 15. By the late 1970s she was singing in a western swing band in Austin, the city she now calls home. At decade's end she was honing her chops in the Buddy Miller Band until signing with Columbia records and winning a Grammy for her classic first album, Steady On. Colvin's latest, Shawn Colvin Live, was recorded during three nights at San Francisco's famous jazz club, Yoshi's, and showcases the beauty and intimacy of Colvin's solo performances. We are proud to welcome Shawn Colvin for her first Thirsty Ear Festival performance. DWAYNE DOPSIE & THE ZYDECO HELLRAISERS
Friday, June 10 at 7:30. Corazon, Santa Fe.

One of America's hottest accordion players, Dwayne (Dopsie) Rubin plays a high-energy, pulsating style of zydeco that draws on blues, soul and funk, with a driving rub-board rhythm. He hails from one of the most influential zydeco families in the world. The youngest son of zydeco pioneer Alton “Rockin' Dopsie” Rubin, Dwayne was raised in Lafayette, Louisiana, deep in zydeco country, where he played both washboard and accordion at a young age, traveled the zydeco circuit with his family, and started his own band at 19. Dopsie and the Hellraisers have released a handful of energetic, funky discs, the latest of which is Up In Flames. Bring your dancing shoes for this one. THE HANDSOME FAMILY
Saturday, June 11 at 7:30. Santa Fe Brewing Company.

“Words that in their everyday surrealism have no parallel in contemporary writing.” -GREIL MARCUS
Perhaps Mojo magazine put it best when it called The Handsome Family “dark, elemental, mischievous and mournful.” The Albuquerque-based duo’s strange Americana careens from medieval ballad to Appalachian holler to Tin Pan Alley to punk rock. A recent live review by Mike Ritchie noted, "There’s a lot of smiling at this gig, on and off stage. That might surprise many people who have only read about the duo’s penchant for songs riddled with darkness, death and the macabre. But Rennie Sparks and her husband, Brett, are funny live, a knockabout celebration of the deadpan, a magical potion of grim fairytales in a rock and blues pot.” The band’s seventh CD, Last Days of Wonder, was one of Mojo's Top Ten American Albums for 2006. Their fourth album, In the Air, was listed as one of the most important records of the first decade of the 21st century by Uncut. A reader's poll in Mojo named Through the Trees one of the ten essential Americana records. The Handsome Family record all their songs in a converted garage studio at the back of their house in Albuquerque, NM. CEDRIC BURNSIDE PROJECT
Saturday, June 11 at 6:00. Santa Fe Brewing Company.

Cedric Burnside is an old friend of Thirsty Ear, having played nearly every year for the first five years of the festival. He is the ultimate “ambassador” of North Mississippi Hill Country blues, a form NY Times critic Robert Palmer called a churning, one-chord exercise in mass hypnosis. Cedric first came to fame as a teeneger in his grandfather’s (the late great blues legend R.L. Burnside) band. As one-third of the Burnside sound, he developed a reputation for banging the drums very very hard—combining brute power with an innate sense of Hill Country rhythm. After his grandfather’s death some years back, Cedric added singing and guitar playing to his arsenal, most notably as half of Two Man Wrecking Crew, for which he won “drummer of the year” at the 2009 Blues Music Awards. Now he’s heading his own trio, based as always in the deep-blues tradition, and we’re happy to welcome back an old friend. ANTHONY LEON & THE CHAIN
Saturday, June 11 at 4:30. Santa Fe Brewing Company.

One of the rising stars of the Santa Fe scene, Anthony Leon’s aggressive Americana finds its roots in the mountains of Virginia, where he grew up singing, playing guitar, and composing. At 13, he made the trip to Sun Studios in Memphis, where he recorded his first original piece, “Granddaddy’s Guitar,” which he still plays today. He’s been performing live since age 15, moving audiences with his lyrical imagery, powerful acoustic guitar work, gutsy vocals, and heartfelt delivery on songs about sin and redemption, love lost and found, life's rewards and regrets, and the search for truth, purpose, and meaning in what may sometimes appear to be a meaningless world. The band’s debut disc will be released this summer. LE CHAT LUNATIQUE
Sunday, June 12 at 7:00. Santa Fe Brewing Company.

Le Chat Lunatique plays what they call "filthy, mangy jazz." Le jazz hot of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli is their north star, a beacon they use to navigate a wide range of genres, blending western swing, classical, reggae, doowop, and "anything else we damn well please." The band's repertoire features original arrangements of tunes that stretch from kindergarten favorites ("Frère Jacques") to pop hits ("Straight Up") to swing anthems ("Minnie the Moocher") to Reinhardt classics ("Blue Drag") to swinging originals—all of which are completely "Le-Chat-ified." The group began prowling the nightspots of Albuquerque in 2005, released a debut of all-originals (the acclaimed Demonic Lovely), and a follow-up collection of cover (Under the Covers, Vol.1). The band has also appeared at South by Southwest in Austin, done a tour of England, and played at the national theater in Serbia, where they performed their commissioned score for Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental's theatrical production Flamingo/Winnebago. Irreverent humor, intensity, and expert musicianship have earned them status as one of New Mexico’s best-loved bands. FELIX Y LOS GATOS
Sunday, June 12 at 5:30. Santa Fe Brewing Company.

Made up of some of the best session musicians from the New Mexico blues and jazz scene, Felix y Los Gatos was born of the high-octane sounds keyboardist Dave Barclay started making when he brought a button accordion to a blues jam. Fusing zydeco, New Mexican rancheras and outlaw country with the improvisation of jazz and swing, Felix y Gatos has refined its sound with hundreds of gigs in its three years of life, including an opening stint for BeauSoleil in Santa Fe with a typically high-energy set. JOE WEST
Sunday, June 12 at Santa Fe Brewing Company. 4:00 Main Stage & 6:30 Kids’ Corral.

He's been called a "trailer park crooner" and a "time-traveling Mark Twain gone punk." Santa Fe's own Joe West is the regional king of humorous, sometimes biting, beer-drenched tales of love, booze and UFOs. Widely considered one of New Mexico's best songwriters, West spent time in Austin in the late nineties, rising to the top of the highly competitive Austin Music scene, earning a regular spot at Austin's renowned Continental Club, and nearly sweeping the Austin Chronicle's Readers Poll in 2000. In 2001, West moved back to his hometown of Santa Fe and caught the attention of Frogville Records, for which he’s recorded a string of well-regarded forays into twangy, witty weirdness. In 2009 he released If The World Was Upside Down, a disc of original songs for kids, which he will be playing during his Kid’s Corral set at 6:30. TIMES NEW VIKING
Pre-fest kickoff party Thursday, June 9 at 8:00. Corazon, Santa Fe.

Times New Viking began inconspicuously in 2003 with demos of noise-crusted, lo-fi indie rock reflecting the influence of their Ohio heroes Guided by Voices and Pere Ubu. These gloriously messy demos would form the basis of the band's 2005 debut, Dig Yourself. Avoiding the impersonality of digital technology, the Ohio trio grew increasingly confident in its songwriting, the guitar-playing became an electrifying spectacle in the live setting, and lyrics about love and war and romantic nihilism packed more of a punch. The band’s latest disc, Dancer Equired, abandons much of the lo-fi sludge of the past and sounds, at times, like a mellow night out. The record retains the loud, brash, mammoth guitars that have endeared its fans over the years, but also magnifies the trio’s bright, beautiful traits. AKEEM AYANNIYI (African drumming workshop for kids)
Sunday, June 12 at 5:00 in Kid’s Corral. Santa Fe Brewing Company.

In 2011, Southwest Roots Music continues its K-12 music programming by bringing acclaimed Nigerian drummer Akeem Ayanniyi into NM grade schools and to the Thirsty Ear Festival for an interactive program with kids. Akeem heads the Santa Fe-based troupe Agalu, an ensemble from Nigeria that keeps alive traditional Yoruba stories, rituals and mythology through drumming, storytelling and dance. A ninth-generation practitioner of the Yoruba talking drum, Akeem engages students in conversation about the continent of Africa, framed within his own personal story about growing up as a drummer in Nigeria. In addition to stories and song, he demonstrates the traditional talking drum, ashiko, djembe and bata drums, which children have the opportunity to play and experience. A drummer from the age of five, Akeem descends from a family lineage that can be traced back 700 years to the Yoruba deity of drumming, Ayan Agalu. He has toured much of the world and performed at the Smithsonian Institute; the Brooklyn Academy of Music; the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe; Afrikadey! in Calgary, Canada; and the New Mexico Jazz & International Music Festival.

---