LA electronic rock band, 9ELECTRIC

amps up Gallup

With Interstate 40 running through Gallup, the city definitely gets its fair share of eclectic bands dropping in for a show during tour stops.

Music of different genres, ranging from blues to rock and all in between, brings some high voltage performances to the rugged southwestern area.

One band, 9ELECTRIC did just that this past week.

Based out of Los Angeles, they stopped off at a local venue, the Juggernaut to promote their new album, “The Damaged Ones” Aug. 15. The band is an electronic rock band that consists of lead vocalist Ron “Thunderwood” Underwood, guitarist Mikey Lopez, drummer/programmer Micah Electric, and bassist Ginny Eck.

Prior to the band coming here, I caught wind of them through an email listing of bands to keep an eye out for. Their music can be compared to the likes of Static-X, POWERMAN 5000, and Rammstein.

I spoke with Underwood, and was stoked to find out that the band would be making a stop in Gallup on their tour. The new album under “Another Century Records,” is a hard electronic rhythmic sound, and it showcases the extreme amount of effort the put into each track. It gets your fist pumping high.

I caught up with Underwood outside the venue as they were preparing to go onstage.

Sun: Hey Ron “Thunderwood.” brother how’s it going? And right off the bat, the album is totally killer!

Underwood: It’s going good … going good, aww thank you man.

Sun: Welcome to Gallup.

Underwood: This is awesome! This will probably be the (best) weather on the tour. It’s amazing here. I love it.

Sun: Alright let’s get into it. The album is about a year now, right?

Underwood: Yes, that’s right about a little over a year we released it, and we’re just barely getting behind it touring. This is our first headline run, so we’re stoked!

Sun: Cool, where you guys headed after this?

Underwood: Houston, and right now we’re with “Quor” from San Diego and they are awesome guys! They play a helluva show! Awesome guys to hang out with. Awesome band!

Sun: So, on the phone you told me that you’re producing music videos. That’s got to be totally exciting, tell me about it. How’d you get into it?

Underwood: It started out about the time when we started this band; I realized how important it would be to produce videos for content online. As I was making it, you start to realize … “I could make that part better and this.” I was always looking for a way to make the quality better and better. So, I was going online and doing tutorials and pretty soon I was starting to get this solid work flow. I had other bands asking who did our videos, and I was telling them it was me, and they were asking if I could do their videos … which I thought was cool!

Sun: That’s awesome, and speaking of videos tell me about the song “Beautiful,” and the concept behind the video you’ve talked about.

Underwood: Right, well the concept is about that we are all beautiful in our own way no matter what has happen to you on the outside physically. I got the idea from a friend of mine, Miki Black, who is also in the video. She recently was diagnosed with breast cancer and actually had them removed and replaced with plastic surgery. Well, it’s like telling of her story and how she views beauty in a whole different way.

Sun: Wow that is cool and very deep dude.

Underwood: It really struck a chord with us, and hope it can speak loud to those who may be going through situations like that or another.

Sun: Your sound has flavors of POWERMAN 5000, and even a touch of STATIC-X, especially the songs “Lies” and “Time Bomb.” In fact, it was cool to find out that you actually did a song with the late Wayne Static.

Underwood: You hit it right on the head! Our feel for this album was to expand on what we have seen changing on the music scene, we didn’t want to veer off to far…we wanted a sound that doesn’t take much to produce some awesome songs. It’s just a heavy rhythmic chord over and over again with a punching attitude. Wayne was like that with his songs and I love it! We I mean my band…we all put our two cents in and see what works and just have fun at it. Nothing is wasted and with this album we truly feel that it paid off with the long decisions and times it took to get that right sound…song and feel you know.

Sun: It sure sounds like you did hit it man.

(At this time a passerby comments on what is going on)

Underwood: Hey buddy come check out the show!

Sun: Yeah dude it’s going to be 9ELECTRIC tearing it up soon!

Underwood: Speaking of tearing it up, thank you so much for the support and time for this interview.

Sun: No thank you for doing this and much success on the album. I see you guys going far and have a kick (bleep) night guy!

For more information on 9ELECTRIC visit Facebook/9ELECTRIC.

By Dee Velasco
For the Sun

Gallup firefighters battled a blaze Oct. 18 at FASSCO Auto Repair, 105 Mine Run St.

Fire Deputy Chief Nathan Emerson said the call came in around 3:11 pm and all stations within the city responded, as well as off-duty firefighters.

Emerson explained that there was an explosion at the repair shop, and it took until sometime between 6:30 pm and 7 pm to extinguish all of the hotspots in the area.

He described the roof of the body shop as compromised, and the building itself as "totaled." He also said there were two vehicles parked in the two bays inside the repair shop that may have escaped fire damage.

The nearby Burger King was advised to shut down due to smoke. It has since reopened for business.

Prevention workers went to the scene Oct. 19. At this time there is no estimate of the damage and no cause has been determined for the fire.

City, county cautiously optimistic for RMCH changes

Changes are afoot at Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital. While many are positive, it’s also revealed  that the hospital owes the city $1.1 million in back utility payments.

City officials have expressed their desire to work with the county to keep the hospital’s doors open as the county started taking steps to take the hospital over and three hospital board members resigned late last month.

Gallup-McKinley County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Bill Lee has taken over as chairman of the hospital board in their wake. Remaining board members are Genevieve Robran, regional director of Presbyterian Medical Services; semi-retired physician and an assistant professor of military and emergency medicine at the Uniform Services University of Health Sciences; and RMCH Chief of Staff Dr. Kimberley Collins.

The board will meet next week and will put a system in place to solicit resumes and start looking for replacements for the board members who resigned.

McKinley County already owns the hospital itself and the land it sits on. The county commission voted late last month to spend $6.78 million to buy three clinics surrounding the hospital, a key part of the RMCH health care complex. But at the time they didn’t know RMCH hadn’t paid the clinics’ city utility bills for about a year, Mayor Louie Bonaguidi said.

Although the city filed a lien against the hospital over the bill, Bonaguidi said it’s more about protecting the city from getting stuck than putting the squeeze on the hospital.

“We can make concessions that there won’t be any interest. We don’t want to do anything to ruin the sale of it,” he said. “I don’t think legally we could forgive the bill. It’s not right to say to ratepayers ‘we’re going to forgive this $1.1 million.’”

City and county leaders met April 11 to discuss the path forward.

“Everything with the county and the city, we are going to be a unified front. We came up with some good ideas,” Commissioner Robert Baca, Dist. 3, said afterward. “I see some sunshine on the other end of this.”

County Manager Anthony Dimas hopes to reassure the community that the county appreciates the city’s support and cooperation.

“We are working hand in hand with the city and RMCH to make sure the doors don’t close,” Dimas said.

Lee said a meeting between city and county staff is expected next week to work out a payment plan.

Another item in the works is formation of an independent hospital advisory council that will be run through the Chamber of Commerce, in response to a longstanding request from activist group Community Health Action Group. CHAG sounded the alarm about problems at the hospital in late 2021.

The group still wants a seat on the hospital board and a different relationship with Community Hospital Corp., a management company the former board hired in May 2021. Lee said that relationship is changing.

“We’re going to transition CHC out of a full management position into a consulting position. They can be beneficial with their buying power nationwide to help the hospital,” Lee said. “We’re going to keep that relationship intact but we also want to start transitioning more into a locally controlled hospital.”

That’s music to CHAG leader Connie Liu’s ears. The group asked to sever the CHC management contract a year ago and is ready to move forward.

“We have a very hard road ahead and it’s going to take everyone pulling together in the same direction to move us where we need to go,” Liu said. “It’s very clear that a lot of things need to be fixed at the hospital…We want to see hospital leadership that is able to communicate these changes and articulate a 1-, 5-, 10-year plan for the hospital.”

CHAG blames CHC for creating conditions the group says were driving out staff and putting patients at risk, but some of today’s problems predate CHC.

“The reason part of this deal was so critical is that previous administration had leveraged a $4 million loan with a Texas bank and put the clinics up for collateral. That note was close to being foreclosed on, so we needed to take care of that,” Lee said, adding the county’s purchase of the hospital will “clean that up” and bring a cash infusion to help pay vendors.

There are other positive signs for the hospital’s future: The hospital has applied to the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to become a Critical Access Hospital, which will guarantee a better minimum reimbursement for patients covered by those programs – a significant portion of RMCH’s clientele.

Lee hopes to have six new doctors on staff within the next month, something of a coup.

“It’s hard enough to get doctors and nurses into the state, let alone into Gallup. With the publicity the hospital has had, that makes it that much more difficult. I think we are finally turning a corner,” Lee said.

The Sun reached out to the hospital for comment on this issue, but no one responded before press time.

By Holly J. Wagner
Sun Correspondent

Rating: «« out of 4

Running Time: 138 min.

Another month, another comic book adaptation. At least this one isn’t quite as familiar as some of the other offerings from Marvel. The original feature worked a lot of its magic courtesy of introducing new, interesting characters and a unique, cheeky tone. In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, things don’t feel quite as fresh or new and the results are a little more uneven. Still, there’s enough fun to be had from the proceedings to earn it a recommendation.

The latest adventure finds Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Baby Groot (Vin Diesel) on the run from an angry planet of aristocrats known as the Sovereign, as well as old enemies like Nebula (Karen Gillan). Adding to the confusion is the arrival of Ego (Kurt Russell) a powerful cosmic being who reveals that he is Quill’s father. While the protagonist tries to process this new information and decide whether or not he wants to forge a relationship, various bad guys converge on the heroes.

One can tell that the makers decided to double-down on elements that audiences responded to in the first feature. There’s a lot of dancing and action scored to classic 70s tunes. In general, the movie has a goofier, less serious tone. This follow-up is also filled with early 80s references, even in the sound design, which at one point appears to borrow effects from old arcade games like Pac-Man. The latter provides a very funny moment, although in general the humor is a little more forced and doesn’t land quite as often.

And while action-packed in the opening and closing acts, the story gets bogged down in the middle while the characters deal with personal issues. In fact, it feels like it’s covering a lot of the same ground here, from Gamora’s competitiveness with her sister to Quill’s struggles with parental issues. As a result, many of the events have a somewhat repetitive quality and emotionally, the film doesn’t make as powerful an imprint as it did the first time around.

Having said that, there is still plenty of fun to be had overall. The film includes plenty of amusing banter (or more accurately, insults) between the heroes and their foes. Quill gets in a couple of very funny comments after learning more about his history and special gifts. And Kurt Russell is always entertaining to watch and he makes an enjoyable addition to the storyline. It’s a hoot to see a younger version of the performer cavorting in the 80s courtesy of modern digital technology.

Surprisingly enough, it’s the muscle-headed Drax who ends up making the biggest impact. His character essentially steals the movie and delivers many of the film’s most effective gags. Most involve his brusque delivery and what-you-see-is-what-you-get reactions to events, but the comic timing is dead on, whether he’s laughing at his friends, less than subtly dropping a hint or being blunt about the physical attributes of a new acquaintance.

Frankly, this sequel doesn’t work as effectively as the first film and strains a bit to create drama. However, the movie certainly provides enough excitement and laughs to merit a watch. And of course, after the credits start, there are a whopping five bonus scenes that appear. The first one lands the most effective gag, but fans will definitely want to check them all out (even if the significance of some of it was lost on me personally). Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 doesn’t quite soar to the heights of its predecessor, but it’s still an enjoyable journey.

For more excellent movie and DVD reviews, visit: www.cinemastance.com

By Glenn Kay
For the Sun