Every June, in the resort town of Penasco, Puerto Rico, Mexico, everyone’s eyes are on Roger Clyne.
He is the leader of Roger Clyne and the peacemaker, and the founder and principal curator of the circus Mexican Circus – a seaside festival that is addicted to independent rock and roll and countryside, in and around Puerto Peñasco (Point Rocky in English), he is a four-hour desert of phoenex and Tucson or Tucson and The California.
By night, Clyne is the circus Mexico headline and main attraction. During the day, he was around town, from bars to bars, shaking hands with fans and buying a round of tequila and margaritas for anyone who seemed interested. For Clyne, a lifelong Arizona family ranch is located 30 miles south of Tucson in the Sonoran Desert, with Tequila Shots and Margaritas becoming second weather. His only challenge in doing these rounds is at his own pace.
“I’m Santa here for Christmas,” Cline said of hosting the Mexican Circus. "I'm very busy. The trickiest part is serving all these amazing fans, customers and visitors and those bars and keeping it active and taking a nap before continuing the best show I can do."
The Mexican Circus has been around for 26 years. Counting pre-parties and afterparties before and after the main festival, next month's incarnation will take place from June 5 through 9. The four-piece Peacemakers, known for “Heaven on a Paper Plate,” “Green & Dumb,” “Switchblade,” and a host of songs from Clyne's prior band — The Refreshments — headline two nights. Cannon, Willy Braun and Shelby Stone of Ruckless Kelly.
Festival organizers, including Clyne, know the current American political climate, especially the policies surrounding border crossings. Clyne said he experienced fans in Puerto Peñasco, Lukeville, Arizona, at the main intersection, driving to Peñasco, Puerto Rico, so far this year is similar to previous years and does not expect significant delays or events from travel fans.
Clyne, 57, has been writing, recording and performing for nearly forty years. In the late eighties, he was caught in Tempe's vibrant college rock scene. Over a decade, the university bars in the suburbs of Phoenix have sparked alternative bands such as gin, pistols and refreshments. Even casual fans of 1990s rock music may have heard of "Banditos," a refreshment breakthrough in 1996, robbing a bank in a border town - Clyne is still playing today. Refreshments also document engaging instrumental theme music hill. But the band members were young and turbulent, and in 1998, the group split six years later.
After the breakup, Clyne and ph naffah (refreshment drummer and co-founder) regrouped and formed the Peacemaker in 1999. "Peacemaker" also has a dual meaning, as it is the name Clyne gave to the band's loyal fan base. Today, the bands are Clyne and Naffah with bassist Nick Scropos and lead guitarist Jim Dalton, who also leads the Denver country band The Railbenders. Their 11 studio albums were all released independently, still evoking Klein's Alt-Rock roots, but musically, they're more aligned with Americana.
All of this is on display at the Mexican Circus, which begins with a breakup of refreshments.
"Refreshments came out and it was me singing," Klein recalls. "Mexico was there a place. The Mexican character was there like people. Then, it happened in 1999. Like a well-documented situation, the refreshment was broken. The peaceful group just started doing things, and I said, let's fucking go to Mexico, ''By, we can't record there. I can't take a walk, but I can't make money, but, they can't make money. Do something there.
"It's not even a festival, it's a show. I took the band's van there looking for a stage, no one had one. But, at the little wine mouth at sunset, there was a young man named Chad, and he left, 'I don't have a stage, but I have a roof. I could put the tray there and run up the extension line.'' High Five!
Over time, the circus Mexican evolved, eventually radiating over 5,000 fans in the four-day festival, reaching the main stage of the beachfront and at the bars, Cantinas and bars, restaurants and restaurants extending from Puerto Peñasco to La Choya. Klein said this is a natural result of the fan base’s return year-on-year.
“We used to go one night, play for four hours and fainted,” Klein told Rolling stones. "Trying to be the last person standing. If the band is the last person standing and everyone else is lying down, it's 2 a.m., that's something! But things have changed, our population has grown old and there are different needs, so we are trying to adapt to those needs. Let's start at 9 instead of 11 o'clock. Let's bring our friends (our music industry) here. Let people eat and eat during the day and go to all our Cantinas to watch music. ”
He said "we". Clyne has an affinity for the entire Puerto Rico Peñasco and Mexico. Growing up on the ranch of his family - still run by the location of his father Doc Clyne and lower-middle-level Clyne Country Compout Festival - he has been exposed to Mexican culture by employing ranches south of the border. The first photo of his tequila, "I have to beat it with them" was his words - around 11 or 12, when he saw some people in Mexico drink out of an unmarked bottle.
"We got a lot of help from the locals," Klein said. "And 'locals', I also included the Mexican people. At that time, the border was not a big ballyhoo. You could cross the border without a doubt. We did it all the time.
"It's always really a collaboration. My relationship goes back to my relationship, and because I remember that, I'm deeply respected. Now, political engagement is getting more and more borders, people on both sides are suffering from aggression. It's all independent of my experience. I'm just trying to ignore it."
Next month, he will ignore it again in Peñasco, Puerto Rico, when he tried to look just as cool as the Cowboys looked his fans like tequila. He was very confident that he would find the shooter again.
"All I have to do is put the money in Cantinas' pocket," Crane said.
Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and writer whose fourth book, Never Say Forever: Cross Canadian Ragweed, a Boy from Oklahoma, and the Red Comeback Story over the Yearsreleased in April through Back Lounge Publishing.