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I was doing some research on the best cities to live if you fall into any of these categories and Albuquerque came up as one of the top 10. Are there specific areas of the city where these type of folks tend to live or is it basically the whole city that has this overall energy? People say ABQ has issues but it also has a cultural undercurrent that is nurturing to the creative spirit. Please tell me how you feel about this.
I've known/met about 10 musicians over the years and they all seem to be scattered throughout the ABQ area, From Los Lunas, north to Rio Rancho... None of them were famous, one owned a restaurant and the other was a school teacher.
Last edited by Poncho_NM; 05-23-2017 at 05:01 PM..
There is an artsy and New-Agey community here which may be a little more pronounced than in other cities of similar size, but it's not a huge thing, like in Sedona or Santa Fe. But there are a lot of working musicians and artists who play and exhibit in Santa Fe that live in Albuquerque because they can't afford to live in Santa Fe.
I searched for 'Blues and Roots' as a primary musical style and came up with 96 performers in the database. Albuquerque had the most, Santa Fe second. I gave up trying to search the other musical styles listed.
Albuquerque, NM 50
Santa Fe, NM 23
Alcalde, NM 02
Canoncito Navajo Reservation, NM 02
Carlsbad, NM 01
Cedar Crest, NM 02
Corrales, NM 01
Gallup, NM 01
Hobbs, NM 01
Las Cruces, NM 03
Pecos, NM 01
Placitas, NM 01
Red River, NM 01
Rio Rancho, NM 01
Roswell, NM 01
Silver City, NM 01
Taos, NM 2
Tijeras, NM 2
In the 90s Albuquerque was a regular stop on the nomadic hippie/Grateful Dead scene and several houses in the University area and downtown had a sort of communal lifestyle with a lot of new age influences. It was not unusual to have several decorated school busses parked around, girls in hippie dresses, impromptu drum circles, etc.
That scene seems to have died, not just in Albuquerque, but around the country. There are some leftovers, there is still a new age type of counterculture, but it is not what it once was.
That said, Albuquerque is still a very creative place and attracts a lot of artists and musicians and is very tolerant of alternative and metaphysical thoughts and beliefs, but it is much harder to find a "street scene" than it was in the past.
A big factor is simply paid parking. In the 90s my neighborhood was surrounded by free parking lots. The scene received a lot of its life through traveling people who followed festivals, concerts, and simply the need to explore, and in doing so they 'pollinated' the cities they traveled through. For all of the warm months, you could find a hippie bus parked in any number of free parking lots around the University area and people would be cooking, sharing food, playing music, and so on. Now parking lots are business, expensive, patrolled, and the police have more or less chased these nomadic folks out.
In their place are homeless alcoholics with shopping carts filled with garbage.
Last edited by ABQConvict; 05-24-2017 at 11:22 AM..
There is a database of New Mexico Performing Artists here: NEW MEXICO MUSIC DIRECTORY
It is not easily searchable...
I searched for 'Blues and Roots' as a primary musical style and came up with 96 performers in the database. Albuquerque had the most, Santa Fe second. I gave up trying to search the other musical styles listed.
Albuquerque, NM 50
Santa Fe, NM 23
Alcalde, NM 02
Canoncito Navajo Reservation, NM 02
Carlsbad, NM 01
Cedar Crest, NM 02
Corrales, NM 01
Gallup, NM 01
Hobbs, NM 01
Las Cruces, NM 03
Pecos, NM 01
Placitas, NM 01
Red River, NM 01
Rio Rancho, NM 01
Roswell, NM 01
Silver City, NM 01
Taos, NM 2
Tijeras, NM 2
wow! very fascinating, thankyou for the feedback Poncho and everyone else who commented.
In the 90s Albuquerque was a regular stop on the nomadic hippie/Grateful Dead scene and several houses in the University area and downtown had a sort of communal lifestyle with a lot of new age influences. It was not unusual to have several decorated school busses parked around, girls in hippie dresses, impromptu drum circles, etc.
That scene seems to have died, not just in Albuquerque, but around the country. There are some leftovers, there is still a new age type of counterculture, but it is not what it once was.
That said, Albuquerque is still a very creative place and attracts a lot of artists and musicians and is very tolerant of alternative and metaphysical thoughts and beliefs, but it is much harder to find a "street scene" than it was in the past.
A big factor is simply paid parking. In the 90s my neighborhood was surrounded by free parking lots. The scene received a lot of its life through traveling people who followed festivals, concerts, and simply the need to explore, and in doing so they 'pollinated' the cities they traveled through. For all of the warm months, you could find a hippie bus parked in any number of free parking lots around the University area and people would be cooking, sharing food, playing music, and so on. Now parking lots are business, expensive, patrolled, and the police have more or less chased these nomadic folks out.
In their place are homeless alcoholics with shopping carts filled with garbage.
EXACTLY! its happened across the whole country!
I grew up in the 90's and this is exactly how my old neighborhood in NYC was and now there is a HUGE divide between the haves and have nots. Homeless people have replaced the artists and hippies and Instead of free parking or open spaces we have luxury condos.
I am about as straight laced a corporate nimrod as they come admittedly, however, when I lived and have spent time in Albuquerque, I encountered a LOT of people who would fit one or more of your descriptions. Just spend some time dining in the Frontier Restaurant and you'll encounter some of them, particularly during off hours. Lots of folks such as you are describing are in the Nob Hill/UNM/Downtown area, and some even in the North Valley area.
Albuquerque's (and New Mexico's) vivacious and ever-present sunshine and beautiful vistas invite a lot of artists, and there is a "spooky" or mystic kind of aura around and about in Albuquerque.
One of many things that I love about the Duke City is that you can have folks like you are describing living happily in co-existence with a dude like me, science and engineering nerds who work for the labs and contractors, and even the many ex-Air Force gentlemen who were stationed in ABQ at Kirtland Airforce Base once upon a time and decided to end up retiring in the city because they liked it so much.
There is a real sense of harmony and a genuine acceptance of others unlike oneself in Albuquerque that is really kind of neat.
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