Thievery Corporation to perform at Santa Fe Brewing

If your idea of an electronic music concert is watching a guy onstage staring into a laptop, let Thievery Corporation disabuse you of that notion.

When they perform at Santa Fe Brewing Company on Wednesday, Sept. 3, it will be as part of an eight-piece band with multiple live singers, percussionists and even a sitar player.

Neal Copperman, the founding director of AMP Concerts, said he was “totally blown away” when he first saw Thievery Corporation live.

“When we produced the first Taos Vortex Festival for Meow Wolf in 2018, Thievery was one of the headliners,” Copperman said. “Their show was off the hook. It was just magic, and perfect for the environment of the Taos Vortex.”

Copperman said he couldn’t wait to bring them back to New Mexico, which he did in 2022, and again this year.

“What’s really exciting about Thievery is, even though they’re constantly described as an electronic duo, they are so not an electronic duo,” he said. “Their show fuses electronic music with live bands and textures and international flavor to make something really unique and special.”

Founded in 1995 by Rob Garza and Eric Hilton in Washington, D.C., Thievery Corporation assembles a rotating cast of eclectic musicians for their tours. The current lineup includes bassist Dan Africano, drummer Jeff Franca, guitar and sitar player Robbie Myers and multi-percussionist Frank Orrall, who also fronts the band Poi Dog Pondering. Chris Smith aka Puma and Jeffrey Haynes aka LIF provide vocals, in addition to Laura Vall Arnau from the Brazilian revival band Baila Nova.

Andre Lacerda, a DJ at KUNM, knew Thievery from their earliest days in Washington, D.C.

“I lived in D.C. throughout most of the ’90s. Rob (Garza) and Eric (Hilton) are both from D.C., and I was doing radio there,” Lacerda said. “I hosted some Brazilian music shows and deejayed at a couple of clubs. So, those guys were in the same circles.”

“I used to go a lot to the Eighteenth Street Lounge, and Eric was a co-owner of the lounge, which was essentially a club where DJs would come and spin, not only house music, but things with international flavor,” Lacerda continued. “Because D.C. is a such a multilayered city, as far as the international cultural presence — Arabic, Moroccan, Ethiopian, Brazilian — so, inevitably, the live venues were all very mixed, and it was a very rich environment.”

Those global influences seeped into Thievery’s music, and over the course of their career, they have released songs in numerous languages, including English, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Portuguese, Romanian and Hindi.

“Their original fan base was super multicultural,” Lacerda said. “And their sound reflects that.”

Thievery rose to prominence during “the Clinton years,” an era in D.C. Lacerda remembers.

“There had been a huge decline in crime levels through the ’90s,” he said. “It wasn’t a utopia, but it was semi-utopic, and there was a sense of freedom. The U Street Corridor, in the late ’80s, you couldn’t walk down the street because you’d get robbed. Then in the ’90s it became a place where people went to late-night bookstores after the clubs.”

Eighteenth Street Lounge at that time was developing a reputation “for good music and good DJs,” according to Lacerda.

“They didn’t play any shallow stuff. Nothing that would get played on commercial radio. So, it was a little bit underground, for sure,” he said. “And I think Thievery’s fan base is still heavily underground in that way.”

Garza and Hilton told Lacerda that the first tracks they created included parts of songs stolen from a friend, who had left “either a sampler or a computer” behind at one of their houses.

“Hence the name Thievery Corporation,” Lacerda said. “They talked jokingly about just raiding this guy’s computer. And how accurate — how much they stole or borrowed — who knows. But they’re the ones who told that story.”

Sampling was already an established part of the creative process for countless electronic musicians and hip-hop producers when Thievery started, but the duo embraced the “thievery” image.

“And they stole some juicy stuff,” Lacerda said.

In contrast to their public image as sound-stealers, though, Lacerda said they were “really nice dudes” and “very respectful” of their fellow musicians.

“When I talked with them about Brazilian music, for example, Rob (Garza), more than anybody, was really curious and respectful,” Lacerda said. “They didn’t just sample music. Their friends were multicultural, and they listened to them.”

“I suspect this is the only way you can get longevity in your career — if you’re actually personable and cool and curious and have a bit of humility,” Lacerda said.