Andrew Gilstrap of Pop Matters is traveling to the Southwest with what he hopes is a bunch of appropriate music (Calexico, Giant Sand, Frank Sinatra).
In an age when America seems to be becoming increasingly homogenized, he’s looking for “genuineness.” In Arizona and New Mexico, he’s optimistic he’ll find it:
I’ve selected my music based on preconceptions about the area, and from a hope that some of the region’s character still remains, a hope that we’ll still find something among casinos and old Route 66 ghost towns that counts as the “authentic” American Southwest.
As it turns out, New Mexico and Arizona have plenty of everything. If you want to follow parts of old Route 66, you can swing from booming little towns capitalizing on the tourism dollars of people getting their kicks, to boarded-up motels and gas stations in what can only be described as wastelands. In population centers like Albuquerque and Santa Fe, the old historic town centers serve double-duty as shopping areas crowded with enough turquoise to fill the Grand Canyon. The housing boom is obvious, but at least until we start heading further north, the developers seem to be holding to the traditional forms and styles; in Santa Fe, even the parking garages look like mighty adobe structures of old.
Go read it. It’s quite thought-provoking.