Ugh, Monday.

It’s Monday again. It’s fucking cold and grimy and cranky outside. My weekend was real decent so I will make an attempt at thinking happy thoughts despite the shitty weather and it being Monday. I saw a great band on Friday night. Well, it was actually a soloist playing with a couple different groups. It was the CD release show for Javier Trejo.

See, way back this past May sometime, my man and I were like, “Whatever happened to Zack de la Roca?” (lead singer for Rage Against the Machine). So we Googled him and came up with a little bit of information about his whereabouts and his current projects, listened to some bites, and followed some links to other musicians. One of the musicians that we liked enough to jot down was Javier Trejo. We went looking for a CD a couple times, but came up with nothing. Obviously it wasn’t released yet.

It was Friday after work that I picked up a City Pages to see what was going on in town and noticed the ad for Javier Trejo, so I called the hubby right away and said, “Dude! We are totally going!” But upon closer inspection, I noticed that this Javier Trejo was being followed up by the Beads. Then it dawned on me that I know the guy! Not like best buds or anything, but he has been fronting the Beads for forever, and I used to see them every Monday (or was it Tuesday?) at the Terminal Bar during my wild years.

Anyway, the show was even better than I had anticipated. Each set was different, and it was all amazing. First up was Javier doing some quiet, lounge-y, Latin-flavored Grateful Dead-influenced blues, just he and his guitar. Very nice, I got the CD. Then he followed it playing with the New Primitives—hands-down my favorite part of the night because I am a percussion junkie. They are an Afro-Cuban group with a really full, tight sound.

After that, Javier was up there with 2 guys doing a sort of a country-western set, and for one of the songs he was doing a kind of Arlo Guthrie bit that was hilarious. There were some songs with Spanish lyrics, a guest vocalist, and the Beads played. There was so much going on that night that I can’t describe it all, but these were my favorite parts.

I hope to go see the New Primitives some Thursday night soon before their stint is up. They are playing every Thursday at the Cabooze through October, maybe longer, I didn’t look. I know it seems like a lot of opportunities to see them, but I’m not much for going out on weeknights, and neither is my husband. But I can see myself making a special exception or two in this case.