Arrested Development is coming to town, which in itself is big music news. If you want to be transported instantly to Albuquerque in 1992, there isn’t a better tape to throw in a low rider DeLorean (the car that propelled Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd through time in Back to the Future) than 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of… and cruise up and down Central by the Kimo Theater. But for music and television fans, the festival they’re headlining is its own kind of time capsule, an institution that’s helped facilitate the careers of local musicians and filmmakers since its humble beginnings at the rail yards in Tucumcari during the COVID pandemic.
“It’s a platform for bands to get their music out internationally,” says “Bands of Enchantment” Creator and Executive Producer Ken Peterson. “I actually got to hear what their experience has been since being part of the show, and that fills up my cup, because sometimes you’re in a cave and you’re not really sure. Bands have gone on to book tours, have gotten signed management, agents, European tours. Not only are they on this show that goes everywhere, we share content, so they’re able to use those assets on socials to send out to different booking agents and management.”
Filming for “BOE” Season 5 runs September 17 through 19 at the KiMo Theater, followed by the first ever BOE Music Festival on September 20. The big all-ages finale will shut down several blocks of Central for a full day of live music, a classic car show, food trucks, vendors and immersive art installations. Everyone’s invited to rock out and hopefully see themselves on screen sometime soon, and the block party is free. The main focus of the event is the music: Grammy-winning performer Adrian Quesada (the creative force behind Black Pumas), Latin Grammy winners La Vida Bohème, Buenos Aires-based punk and electropop band Pacifica, indie rocker Annie DiRusso, Mexico City’s funk, disco and synth-pop sound factory Midnight Generation. Since the locals are the real stars, “BOE” has invited Sgt. Splendor, Los 33, Crime Lab, Slums of Harvard, Felix y los Gatos, Violet Rising, JD Nash and the Rash of Cash and one of the biggest bands ever to come out of Burque: Red Light Cameras. And lest we forget, the inaugural BOE Music Festival has some hip-hop, soul and funk royalty hitting the streets of Downtown and closing out the party. If you don’t remember hearing Arrested Development’s iconic rap ballad about America’s favorite homeless man “Mr. Wendel” or tales of “Tennessee” blasted out of boomboxes and car windows throughout Burque in the early ’90s, were you even there?
Peterson presumably makes money doing “BOE.” It gets bigger every year, but get the guy talking about the show for about five seconds and you’ll see that the PBS program’s Creator and Executive Producer genuinely cares about nurturing local talent more than any kind of personal gain. Rather than promoting the show itself, Peterson seems more passionate about using the show as a platform to promote New Mexico music. He says “BOE” is more than a recorded concert. He calls the project an “international postcard” to share Albuquerque music and culture with the rest of the world. The show broadcasts on PBS nationwide and streams worldwide on Amazon Prime, Tubi and the Roku Channel. The exposure itself is priceless, but Peterson says the show has reached aspiring musicians in ways he didn’t expect.
“We had The Kipsies on Season 3, and they came back and did an interview with us, just to share their experience. One of the banjo players is a history teacher, and he shared about how some of his middle school students were so excited that the band was on there, they all started forming garage bands to get on ‘Bands of Enchantment’ one day. We also partner with Rock 101, so we have middle school and high school bands that play in the lobby as you arrive at the KiMo. And for me, that just lights up the whole space with energy – ushering in new Albuquerque bands.”
Peterson says 90 percent of the “BOE” crew is New Mexico and Albuquerque-based. Season one was filmed in Tucumcari in 2022 during the COVID pandemic, and Peterson says it probably had 99 reasons to not happen. But they pulled it off with a crew of 11, which is ridiculous. It took a lot of COVID nose swabs and all-night shoots with his stepbrother and his best friend as producers, but they nabbed their first Emmy in Season 2. Today the production has grown to a crew of over 100, and Peterson’s stepbrother Vince T. Chavez is still the series’ co-executive producer and director. Peterson says Samuel Tomatz was a freshman at UNM about a week into his film program when they hooked him up with a job on a “BOE” set. Peterson keeps in touch with the aspiring cameraman and says Tomatz is still in college, but these days he’s also working on movies in California.
“I graduated many birthday candles ago and had to pursue a film career elsewhere because at that time in New Mexico, at entry level, I was getting coffees and stuff for years and years and years,” he says. “We had a 19-year-old UNM student as a camera operator – you’re not usually getting that till you’re in your 30s and 40s – and now he’s booking films in LA. He has an Emmy Award-winning television show on his resume, and he started as a paid intern.”
Local favorites Red Light Cameras are playing their second “BOE” this year – their first appearance was on Season 2 back in 2023 – and bassist Barney Lopez teases a debut of some new music during their performance. He says it’s cool to be playing a concert anchored by a well-established group like Arrested Development, because hopefully the Grammy-winning band — who were huge back in the day — will bring “Everyday People” out to the party and introduce general audiences to the local music scene. Lopez says it was nice being treated like world-class musicians during their last “BOE” filming, which included an acoustic performance, an interview at the Albuquerque Balloon Museum and a larger shoot at the Albuquerque Rail Yards.
“It was really beautiful with all the stained glass in there. They set up a stage in the corner that had a big Albuquerque sign above it, and there were all these Southwestern rugs all over the floor and natural light coming in,” Lopez says. “ It was so pretty in there, and we were able to explore that space and play in that giant room with the tall ceilings. It sounded cool, and the setup for the show was crazy. They had so many cameras, and a monitor screen with cameras on everybody in the band. We had a great show, a bunch of our dedicated fans came out for it, and it felt like a warehouse party vibe.”
“Band of Enchantment” doesn’t just pop up on television sets in Albuquerque. In addition to being streamed on major platforms, past seasons of the show have aired during regular PBS programming on stations across the country. Lopez says being on real TV gives smaller bands a bit of notoriety, and the BOE performance credit has been a nice addition to Red Light Cameras’ bio and the emails they use to book other shows.
“The music industry is always really funny. These small connections build up over time, and then one leads to another. ‘Bands of Enchantment’ is broadcast on different PBS stations across the country,” he says. “I remember my aunt from Las Cruces called me one day and said ‘Oh my god, I just saw you on TV. You didn’t tell me you’re on TV.’ And so it’s really cool to kind of be able to reach beyond Albuquerque through a television medium.”
After participating in the second “BOE” show, Red Light Cameras started getting a lot more city sponsored gigs, and Lopez says playing “BOE” in 2023 may have been the catalyst in a chain reaction of booking opportunities, helping the band stack their resume with both city and corporate-sponsored performances.
“We ended up playing the Sandoval County Fair last year, and we got brought down to El Paso for their Summerfest series,” Lopez says. “They didn’t say directly that it was because of PBS, but I think it definitely gave us a leg up and some ins on different city events and small towns, too. We went out to Gallup and played the Levitt Amp concert series last year. They invited us out to California to play another Levitt Amp concert series up in Colusa. And so, one connection leads to another, leads to another. It’s all kind of like building.”
Peterson doesn’t just keep in touch with his crew to check in on their progress in college or the film industry, he keeps tabs on old guests as well. Lopez says Peterson has remained in contact with Red Light Cameras to this day and reaches out periodically to talk music and get the scoop on the state of the Albuquerque scene. He’s even asked the band for suggestions about which talented locals he might want to book for subsequent “BOE” taping and concerts.
“He’s really good at reaching out to find out what’s going on in the community,” Lopez says. “He seems really focused on building up Albuquerque, which has really stuck with me. Every year they put on a festival, and it gets bigger and bigger each year, so it’s cool that they’re doing it with input from musicians and from bands.”
If you know Lopez, you know that he’s just as passionate about the local music scene as Peterson is. He’s been booking shows at Launchpad for a long time, and if you’ve noticed the exponential growth of local showcases such as Night of the Living Cover Bands — the Halloween tribute celebration has six nights of music from over 100 local bands this year — it’s important to know Lopez had a hand in that. He says he’s excited to perform during the “BOE” finale show this year, because of the potential the street festival has for even bigger growth.
“It’s been a while since Downtown’s had a Summer Fest for whatever reason – maybe because of all the stereotypes that Downtown has for being dangerous and all of that – but I miss it, you know? We used to have the Alibi Fall Crawls and Spring Crawls where everyone was doing music, and you could just bar hop Downtown and see pretty much every band in town playing on one night. And I kind of hope that maybe this could grow into that. So I’m really excited that they’re taking this next step into making it bigger. I think the overall goal is to kind of make this our own version of ‘Austin City Limits.’”
You can stream previous seasons of “Bands of Enchantment” on PBS, NYC’s All Arts, Prime Video, TUBI and The Roku Channel. “BOE” Season 2 won an Emmy for Best Television Series, and Seasons 2 and 3 received multiple Telly Awards.
Tickets for Season 5 tapings inside the KiMo are only 10 bucks, and the big block party on Central is free for all ages. For tickets and more info, visit bandsofenchantment.com.