Clap the Houses Dark is a band busy making a new kind of music—complex compositions and improvisations that are in close relationship with poetic language. “I wouldn’t be able to describe the sound,” poet Greg Glazner says, “but I’m sure the music we’ve loved has made our sound possible: Radiohead, Minutemen, Television, Wilco, Oxbow, Talking Heads, King Crimson, jazz, blues, minimalist compositions, poetry, on and on…”

Glazner, author of four collections of poetry and former professor at College of Santa Fe, and Jon Davis, former Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, write and (mostly) speak the words. "I tell people I'm the lead and backup talker," jokes Davis. Glazner composes the main contours of the music, speaks, sings on occasion, and plays electric guitar. Behind one drum kit is the current Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, Tommy Archuleta, powering the rhythm section alongside accomplished bassist Jon Lucero and engineer and drummer Jon Trujillo. And everyone in Clap the Houses Dark is ultimately a co-creator and co-arranger of the songs in their final form.

In May of 2022, in Glazner’s home studio in Sacramento, California, Glazner and Davis put together “Coming Over the Transom,” a piece that showed the potential of a new approach. They had decided against setting existing poems to music, which had been Glazner’s method for many years. Instead, they had started from scratch letting words and music take form together, and the result had the force and unity of a complex rock song. Now they needed a band of accomplished, adventurous collaborators. Tommy Archuleta, renowned drummer and Glazner’s former poetry student at the College of Santa Fe, recruited his long-time friends Jon Lucero and Jon Trujillo, and the band was launched. “These guys are incredibly talented and inventive,” Trujillo says. “Thanks to everyone’s collaboration, this band has a sound.”

They have been making multi-track demos and rehearsing for months via the internet. The last week in May, they plan to record five pieces at Frogville Studios. On May 30, they open the Frogville doors at 8 p.m. for their first live show, which will be recorded as well.