Catching up on a massive summer and the new Strange Magic music video
After putting a pause on Check This Out!, it's time to catch up with an early look at Strange Magic's "Blood Mad Summer Ache" Music Video. Plus 50% off all of our merch for Bandcamp Friday!
Hey there!
If you’re scratching your head wondering, “What the hell is Mama Mañana Records?” it’s Kiley from Check This Out!
I’ve imported my subscribers because you might be interested in this new newsletter. If not, feel free to unsubscribe, but I’ll miss you.
Check This Out! is/was an excellent place for me to get back into the creative groove for three years, and it led to so many great things happening that I had to abandon it for the summer and focus on my endeavors that (sometimes) pay the bills.
After dipping my Birk-tanlined toes into the Mailchimp world, I’ve realized there is no better way to reach you than Substack. Seriously, this platform is so cool, and I missed it and the Musicstack community that comes with it.
So let’s introduce the new kid, “From the Desk of Mama Mañana.”
This will be a place for me to update you on all of our new releases and upcoming shows and recap any “you had to be there” nights. There are so many great artists in our little scene, and I want to give you the space to focus on them.
This newsletter won’t necessarily have a set schedule (the goal is weekly, as I’m afraid the three times-a-week days are behind me), but I’ll drop in when there’s something you should know about.
…And don’t worry - I’ll still have album recommendations for what I love when not listening to local music. It might just be quick picks instead of the in-depth reviews found on Check This Out!
Thanks for jumping with me, and let’s get into it!
What I’ve been listening to this summer, and you should do the same.
I’m going to be honest with you. I’ve mostly been doing what I do every summer: listening to post-Pet Sounds records by The Beach Boys. I’ll never be able to give up the sloppy mess that Uncle Brian and the Boys released in the late 60s and ‘70s.
So Long Surfer - Landlocked: these Philly dudes are obviously indebted to The Beach Boys, down to naming their record after an abandoned Boys album. So, if that’s your thing, take in a 21st-century update!
Flamingosis - Better Will Come: One of this summer’s highlights was seeing Flamingosis again, complete with his Bodega Band, and these songs slapped as the kids would say a few years ago.
Female Gaze - Tender Futures: I was lucky enough to host this fantastic Tuscon trio, and they are the sweetest people. I’m also thankful for the huge turnout we had for their set.
Strand of Oaks - Miracle Focus: Tim Showalter is always amazing, but I really love the synth-heavy curveball he throws on his new album.
Peggy Gou - I Hear You: one where I say the critics don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about! This has been my house album of the summer.
The debut of Strange Magic’s “Blood Mad Summer Ache” music video!
Back in May, Mama Mañana Records released Slightest of Hands, a compilation of the “best of” Strange Magic’s epic run of fifty-two (!) songs back in 2023. If you missed out on it, here’s the quickest catchup from the press release:
On April 26th, 1976, Lorne Michaels, the producer of a fledgling live show then called Saturday Night, offered The Beatles $3000 (we did the math of $16,702.25 in 2024 dollars). The on-air offer was mere peanuts for the already legendary band that had broken up six years earlier, yet the story goes that Paul was hanging with John in New York City that night. The reunion never happened.
This legendary pop culture moment inspired Albuquerque power pop legend Strange Magic to begin a new era with the new song being “Irish Goodbye In Reverse.”
In 2022, Strange Magic (Javier Romero) set a lofty goal: to write, record, and mix one song weekly for the upcoming year. Not every week was fruitful, and days would pass with sketches of “mumble jams” on the voice memo app. More frequently, though, Romero performed curious wizardry, pulling laidback emo anthems and new introspective lofi slacker ditties out of thin air—sometimes completely taking two or three songs from creation to completion in a week.
With a pat on the back and fifty-two new songs in the cache, Romero gave Guided By Voices a run for their money with a prolific streak of four albums last year. Toro At the Gong Show, AM/FM/AC & Heat, Zugzwang Alakazam, and Mirrors & Smoke each have their own flavor, and one thing is for sure: these are some of the most extraordinary indie power-pop songs that you’ve been missing out on until this point.
We love Strange Magic and these albums so much that we knew the cream of the crop needed to reach the masses. Romero and Mama Mañana Records have lovingly curated twenty-two songs, making up the Slightest of Hands tracklist. Available now on limited edition gold cassette, digital, and streaming everywhere, think of Slightest of Hands as a “best-of” compilation tape that used to inhabit the dusty truckstops of the eighties and nineties.
Big rig optional, but highly recommended.
Over the summer, “Star Power” and “Irish Goodbye In Reverse” have done amazing as singles, and I’m ecstatic that Strange Magic is the label’s best-selling album so far (well deserved!). With these twenty-two tracks, we wanted to release another single, and this time, give it a fun music video to go with it.
After some high-level analytics to figure out which song should be next, i.e., watching which song the kids dance to the most at a Strange Magic show, we went with “Blood Mad Summer Ache.” Working with our homie Monty Montgomery, founder of Space Helmet Pictures, we wanted to capture a timeless dog days feel that falls somewhere between Dazed and Confused and the Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979” classic video.
In the future with this newsletter, I want to give subscribers some insider treats, so please enjoy the video before it drops on Tuesday (9/10). If you dig it, please be sure to subscribe to MMR’s YouTube page for all of the latest vids and leave a comment:
Mama Mañana shows this weekend
If you’re a local, don’t miss out on these rad shows we’re throwing this weekend:
Friday, 9/6 - Eryn Bent’s Blush album release party with special guest, Ruby Oland. 7pm at Nuckolls Lamy. Tickets are available here.
Eryn Bent is a Santa Fe-based country and Americana powerhouse and New Mexico Music Award winner who is releasing her new album, Blush. We want to help her have an excellent release show, so come on down to Nuckolls Lamy for a full band show and celebrate alongside our friend Ruby Oland.
Saturday, 9/7 - Free Range Buddhas with special guest, Toni Dear. 7pm at Nuckolls Lamy. Tickets available here.
If you’re unfamiliar with Free Range Buddhas, you will be soon. The psych rock/alternative band has had a huge summer, playing to their biggest crowds yet around New Mexico. They also released their latest single on the label, but we’ll discuss that in a future newsletter. For now, come get down to two mind-bending sets with up-and-coming songwriter Toni Dear and his trio supporting.
It’s Bandcamp Friday!
Finally, it is the first Bandcamp Friday in many months, and we’re celebrating! If you’re unfamiliar, this is a day when Bandcamp waives all fees (thank you, corporate overlords, for letting us eat a full meal!), and the money goes directly to the artists and labels.
We just celebrated our two-year anniversary, so with the code mmr2, you can receive 50% off anything on our Bandcamp page. A lot of tapes have sold out this summer, but we still have some awesome tape/vinyl/digital releases available!
It’s awesome to see you back, man!