Calexico stunned by co-stars

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By Sean Moeller | Thursday, September 28, 2006 12:56 AM CDT | () comments

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Calexico performs Friday at the Englert Theatre, Iowa City.

It happens to Calexico guitarist Volker Zander at least once a night. He looks up and around and is overcome by what he’s doing.

“I wake up during a show and I ask myself, ‘What am I doing here?’” Zander said last week from a tour stop. “It’s just so beautiful.”

He said the same thing about the various acts — Iron & Wine, Cat Power, Willie Nelson — the Arizona band had the privilege of sharing a stage with a few weeks ago at the Austin City Limits festival in Texas. The German import has an obvious appreciation for the power of a song, the sweeter things in life.

“I studied the program religiously,” Zander said with a chuckle.

The band, which plays an uncategorical amalgamation of everything imaginable from blues, to salsa, to rock ’n’ roll, to folk, to funk, to etc., has the good fortune of being an easy member of the in-crowd no matter where they are, no matter who they’re with. They can play with bio-fueled Willie, inventive troubadour Beck, a jazz fusion-styled artist, freaky folkists CocoRosie, wild men Scratch Acid, Quasi or whomever.

There are no limits to who it can consort with and it leads Zander and other members of Calexico to the kind of wonderment that they experienced at the beginning of this month when they played the 25th Anniversary Show for Touch & Go Records in Chicago.

“We got in on Saturday and the first guy I ran into was Ted Leo. And it went on and on like that all weekend. It was like a community kind of feel backstage. Even the older bands that had just reformed for the weekend were all so thrilled to play, to give everything and show they could still do it,” he said. “There were 6,000 people there from all over the world — there were a couple friends of mine from Munich there — across the street from this little Polish dive bar, in a vacant lot. It didn’t rain when we played but it was totally in dark clouds and with dumpsters around us. We played with all of those people and it was amazing. That’s why you do it. That’s what makes me keep going with music.”

The band played a festival in Europe recently that also featured a set by Jack White’s new group, The Raconteurs, made up of Brendan Benson and two members of The Greenhornes.

One of the Greenhornes came up to Zander and asked, “Do you remember when we played with you guys in Iowa City a long time ago?”

And he’s found that the band’s appreciated by a diverse audience in these times of lightning-quick access to any song and any record desired. It’s not an obscure character trait to love bluegrass and Chamillionaire equally anymore.

“Music travels so much faster now,” said Zander, who was studying landscaping and architecture when he got the phone call to first play with Calexico, in Norway in 1998, opening for Vic Chesnutt and Lambchop. “I think the world’s changed too, but if I want to look up Paul Butterfield, a guy with a mustache playing the harmonica, I can do that instantly.”

Sean Moeller can be contacted at (563) 383-2288 or smoeller@qctimes.com.

if you go

What: Calexico with Oakley Hall

When: 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 29

Where: The Englert Theatre, 221 E. Washington St., Iowa City

How much: $15

Information: (319) 688-2653