It’s so cold when I get home from work, twelve degrees according to my car’s thermometer, and windy. The snow crunches underfoot as I walk to the front door. The kitchen is chilly too, but I’m distracted, wondering if this would be a good time to call the bank and try to recover $250 that disappeared from my checking account. I put on a sweatshirt over my work shirt and realize I’m wearing my winter hat.
I check the thermostat. It’s 52. Indoors. Even for a self-proclaimed tree hugger and cheap skate who keeps his thermostat set to “Arctic,” that’s too cold. I go down to the basement. The furnace is making its normal rumble but something must be wrong. The bank will have to wait. I leave a message with Julio, the HVAC mechanic, and wonder what to do while I wait. “Help Me Make It through the Night” pops into my head. The Willie Nelson version. My dad would be happy. The old man loved Willie. I do too, but that’s not the song for what’s unfolding here.
Julio calls to say he’s on vacation in California and will send his son-in-law. I put on a second pair of socks and another sweatshirt. I call Joh, my partner, to say I might not be able to make it to her place tonight.
***
Indoor temperature: 50 degrees.
***
I’m increasingly nervous as the questions mount. I need music that will ground and transport. The obvious choice for tonight’s soundtrack stares back from the stacks: the latest album from Tucson’s Lenguas Largas, Is This Still Laughing Hyenas? Lenguas are rooted in punk and stretch songs in strange and fascinating ways, work on canvases as wide and deep as the horizon. Is This Still Laughing Hyenas? is Lenguas at their most adventurous. Originally it was on the drawing board as a double album, but the band scaled it back to meet a touring deadline. Still, the record is more circuitous than previous albums. My hunch is that I’m in for a long night and I’ll need to rest but also stay alert. Lenguas will let me drift and keep me on edge.
The album title refers to Laughing Hyenas, the Ann Arbor band that recorded for Touch & Go in the ‘80s and ‘90s (with John Brannon of Negative Approach on vocals). The cover art, however, superimposes a Minor Threat image onto a Guns N’ Roses backdrop. The Minor Threat EP with Use Your Illusion I. I worked at a cassette store in the early ‘90s (when else could have such employment transpired?). I had to clock in early the day Use Your Illusion I and II were released. I came in two hours early. We sold two copies in those two hours. I dislike Guns N’Roses before and even more after.
That aside, the cover art is a lot to consider. I’m curious why Lenguas would opt for a relatively obscure band nearly 30 years after they split, but that’s fine. I’m neutral on Laughing Hyenas. Juxtaposing Minor Threat and Guns N’ Roses is different. Ian and Axl. Heroes and villains. Opposing ends of the music icon spectrum. (Okay, it’s Ian’s brother Alec on the cover, but it’s Ian I think of when Minor Threat comes up.) Is this Lenguas covering their bases? You’ve been notified. Now it’s on you.
***
Isaac Reyes, Lenguas Largas: “There’s not only GnR and Minor Threat in there. If you look closely you can see the guy on the cover of The Modern Dance by Pere Ubu.”
***
The punk tracks leap out on the first lap. “Baby Beast (Don’t Retire Me)” slams. How does drummer Brian Bollt maintain that barrage of steady eighth notes? And “Cassandra,” what kind of character sparks a song of swooning, “moon in June” romance that’s also fueled by a supersaturated, overdriven buzz? And those guitar lines ping ponging off each other on “Ricky’s Got the Rona,” everyone shoving their way to the foreground. Plus, the distorted bass. Vintage Lenguas and so, so good.
***
Indoor temperature: 47 degrees
***
Julio’s son-in-law, Rey, texts to say he’ll be here in twenty minutes. As the sun sets I’d normally close the curtains to keep out the cold but what’s the point tonight? The cold’s already seeping in. The walls feel like the thinnest of membranes. My house has never felt more permeable. I may as well open the windows, it might warm up the joint. Instead I start a fire and cozy up on the couch beneath a mound of blankets. I wish I’d pressed “repeat” on the Lenguas disc so I don’t have to get up. What would it be like to hibernate? The blanket cocoon is working.
***
Just as the boundaries of my house are less defined tonight, more fluid, porous, so are Lenguas’s moves within and across subgenres. Like their affinity for revved up, blues-based classic rock riffs. Those invigorating, hyperdriven riffs first tractor beamed me to Isaac Reyes’s pre-Lenguas bands like Swing Ding Amigos and Shark Pants. So fast and so intricate and so melodic. Those guitar parts implied an inner logic that drew on music I loved and reclaimed music I loathed, scraping off the cynicism and misogyny—cool, visceral rock vs. Led Zeppelin “I feel gross now” sleaze. How much muscle lies within and are those muscles being used in a way that benefits both band and audience or merely flexed, showy and indulgent? Lenguas Largas tread on that thin ice. Hell, they drive straight for that thin ice, do some doughnuts, and gun it for the other side, but they never break through. This is a big part why I keep buying tickets for this thrillride, the way they go right for the risky ideas and pull them off, like daredevil stunt work, exhilarating and frightening. Like watching Jackie Chan dangle from a rope ladder attached to a helicopter half a mile above Hong Kong. I can’t believe anyone can do that, but the world is a better place because he did. Likewise Lenguas.
***
At lunchtime this afternoon, a coworker mentioned the pending cold snap. That’s why I stopped home after work. I was planning to go straight to Joh’s. I try not to think about what might have happened had I been away for the weekend. Meanwhile, my daughter calls from her mom’s to ask if the house is okay. If she thinks no one’s home, she worries something might happen to the house. She asks the usual questions: “Are you home? How’s the house?” I always say the same thing, “The house is fine. There’s nothing to worry about.” I hope the routine provides reassurance. If she only knew.
***
Then we have the songs I can’t generalize other than to say they’re Lenguas songs. “Laffin” is like finding yourself on the outskirts of the Midway after dark as the carnival barker beckons. Thrills! Chills! Uncertainty! Are they warning us to stay away or luring us into the mayhem? “Jazzmaster” builds on a hypnotic bass line that smudges ‘70s disco and ‘80s Brit pop while sci-fi atmospherics play in the periphery. There may be a trumpet layered in there, too. The composite is unsettling, a whirlwind dystopian synth cloud that keeps me looking over my shoulder. Guitar slabs that seethe and snarl. Fire alarm keyboard calls. Overdriven and super satisfying bass synth. Would these songs work if they weren’t so fast? Do they work? Does “Whiskey Zip” have any guitar?
***
Rey arrives. He changes the coupling and comes back upstairs with an update. “You should be all set. Call me if anything comes up.” This seems like a formality. Everything sounds fine. When Rey leaves I play “Jazzmaster” again and wait for the heat to resume flowing through the house.
I message my friend Dan to say I might not be able to meet up tomorrow.
Me: “My furnace is on the fritz and my house is down to 44 degrees. I love the number 44 for many reasons, but not on my thermostat!”
Dan: “Oh god, no! Then again, today is Hank (Aaron’s) birthday, so maybe that 44 is a good omen.” (Aaron wore 44 on his uniform.)
***
Every time I think I’ve wrapped my head around Lenguas’s range, I hear another perspective that expands and deepens my appreciation. Xavier Omar Otero, writing for TucsonSentinel.com, ran down the most extensive list I’ve encountered of fuels for the Lenguas sound: norteño, punk, psychedelic, indie, rock en Español, ranchera, soul and R&B. The bands alluded to on the cover—Laughing Hyenas, Minor Threat, Guns N’Roses, Pere Ubu—are but the tip of the iceberg. Otero also relates how Isaac Reyes and Ricky Shimo, friends since childhood, would go to the local music store after school and play guitars until they were kicked out for not buying anything and then head to the local record store. I think the sequence of those adolescent afternoons is significant. Budding musicians first, eager fans second. Aspiring creators, then consumers.
Reyes and Shimo developed serious chops, as did their bandmates. The records fed their worldview and they invested the time to develop the skills needed to speak all those musical languages. Plus, they grew up in the culturally rich Borderlands fed by American and Mexican cultures. Maps suggest sharp divides, harsh binaries. Bands like Lenguas suggest otherwise, swap a singular “or” for a series of “and”s.
***
The furnace runs, but the temperature drops. Something’s still wrong. I call Rey. He returns an hour later and descends into the basement. There’s a freeze in the pipes he can’t locate. It’s nearly midnight. While he seeks the elusive blockage, I bob in and out of sleep as Is Still Laughing Hyenas? plays on. Sometimes I slowly emerge from shallow slumber to soothing sounds. Other times I’m startled and disoriented. It’s like someone’s planted sonic landmines in my living room, the twist being I set those landmines myself.
Rey fights the good fight but eventually throws in the towel just after 2:00 am. It’s 43 degrees. “Call me in the morning if there’s still a problem.” He wants those parting words to be an afterthought. I do, too, but we both know there’s still a problem.
The furnace played against type tonight, deviating from its design—click on, guzzle fuel, generate warmth. No stress or strain. Certainly nothing noteworthy. Tomorrow, it will be fixed before major damage kicks in. For now, the furnace keeps misfiring while Lenguas keep zigging to that zag, a different kind of heat source, a resistance both righteous and joyful. I give the Lenguas CD a final spin and put three logs on the fire. I slip beneath the blankets and hope that will get me through the night.
(Endnotes: Thanks to Isaac Reyes and Todd Taylor for the assists. Lenguas Largas have since released Is This Still Laughing Hyenas? on LP under a different title, Warm Maneuvers, and with different artwork.)
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