Monday, November 28, 2005

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, November 27, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell


OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Thanksgiving in Reno by Too Much Joy
Family Functions by That Dog
Amazons and Coyotes by Simon Stokes
Don't Slander Me by Roky Erikson
Serious by The Fleshtones
Pink Stillettos by The Stillettos
Let's Make History by The (International) Noise Conspiracy
I'm Coming Over by X
Square Pegs by The Waitresses

Seven Silver Curses by The Fiery Furnaces
K-Stars by Stereolab
Out of the Window by Yo La Tengo
Treat Me by Boozoo Bajou
All Alone by They Might Be Giants
Crackhouse Mayhem Suicide by Stuurbaard Baakkebaard
Hell Rules by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282

Nobody's Cryin' by Bernadette Seacrest & Her Yes Men
Little Sparrow by Bettye LaVette
Tomorrow Night by Lavern Baker
I'll Weep No More by Betty Everett with Ike Turner
Fattening Frogs For Snakes by Sonny Boy Williamson & The Animals
Having a Party by Sam Cooke
Me and Mrs. Jones by Billy Paul

Hell Yeah by Neil Diamond
Wear Your Love Like Heaven by Donovan
A Solitary Life by Richard Thompson
Magic Time by Van Morrison
A Better Word For Love by NRBQ
How's it Gonna End by Tom Waits
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Sunday, November 27, 2005

BILLY, YOU'RE SO FAR AWAY FROM HOME

The New Mexican Web site today has a feature I did on Jay Miller s new book Billy the Kid Rides Again: Digging for the Truth. CLICK HERE.

It's a collection of Miller's columns about the strange effort by three New Mexico law enforcement officials -- aided and endorsed by Gov. Bill Richardson -- to "learn the truth" about the death of Billy the Kid -- a truth most serious historians thought they already knew.

I didn't work this story nearly as much as Miller, but I had a little fun with this investigation. Here's a column I did a couple of years ago:


A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
August 14, 2003


Billy the Kid's head in a jar at Highlands University? Is New Mexico's most famous cop killer buried beneath a Santa Fe hotel?

Ever since Gov. Bill Richardson earlier this summer announced his support for reopening the case of the death of Billy the Kid (and some of the desperate deeds that he did), theories and rumors about the fate of the boy bandit king have flown around like ghost riders in the sky.

It seems the story of Richardson pledging state resources to aid in the investigation -- including the possibility of exhuming the grave of the woman believed to be Billy's mother as well as a couple of Billy claimants -- still has legs after all these weeks.

As has the fear that investigators might try to dig up Billy himself from his grave in Fort Sumner.

The Discovery Channel's Unsolved History series is planning to go to Fort Sumner later this month to shoot an hour-long program about the death of the Kid. Gary Tarpinian, president of Morning Star Entertainment, said Wednesday the Kid program was in the works even before he knew of the official investigation. The program is expected to air next spring he said.

Paul Hutton, the University of New Mexico history professor assigned to the new investigation, said he has been contacted by The History Channel, which plans to produce a documentary about the Kid hosted by Bill Curtis.

And the story made it to the cover of this month's True West magazine. The cover story, titled "Digging Up Billy," by Jana Bommersbach, quotes filmmaker John Fusco saying despite the fact his movie Young Guns II helped revive the claim of "Brushy Bill" Roberts that he was Billy the Kid, he doesn't really believe the story.

She also quotes Fusco as saying, "Many years ago in New Mexico, old timers told me that the Kid's remains had been relocated with other graves years ago and most likely rests today somewhere beneath the Santa Fe Sheraton."

This is similar to an e-mail The New Mexican received a few weeks ago that quoted Marcelle Brothers, who runs a Billy Web site.

There was a huge flood of the Pecos River circa 1905 near the Fort Sumner cemetery where most people believe Billy was buried.

And shortly after that the graves of soldiers in the cemetery were exhumed to be relocated in the national cemetery in Santa Fe (not far from the former Sheraton, which was built about 70 years later, and is now the Radisson Hotel.)

Therefore, Brothers wrote, "I highly doubt Billy the Kid's remains are under that slab of cement (in Fort Sumner; his bones may be in the military cemetery in Santa Fe or in the Gulf of Mexico or sunken into the riverbed of the Pecos River miles away from the Fort -- who knows?"

Hutton said the flood and the relocation of the soldiers' remains do raise concerns about the actual whereabout of Billy's grave.

But this e-mail wasn't as interesting as another recent e-mail to the paper.

According to the writer -- Earl Chafin, a historical researcher from Riverside, Calif. -- Billy "is most likely buried in Las Vegas, N.M., according to the Las Vegas Optic newspaper of 1881. He is not buried in Fort Sumner. His body was claimed as a medical cadaver and his head placed in a jar of formaldehyde."

Contacted by telephone recently, Chafin said he came across this information on microfilm about 30 years ago while researching an unrelated matter.

Hutton said he'd never heard this theory. "It's a standard story," he said. "Pancho Villa's head is supposedly roaming around there somewhere."

But despite all the theories, Scott Smith, director of the Fort Sumner State Monument -- which is adjacent to the cemetery -- insists that Billy is where he's supposed to be. "The grave is accurately marked," he said in a telephone interview.

And people in Fort Sumner -- as well as tourists who visit -- are dead set against anyone literally digging up Billy, residents say. Sandy Paul, executive director of the Fort Sumner Chamber of Commerce, said she has told her family she'd chain herself to the cage around Billy's grave if anyone tries to exhume.

She sounded serious.

Richardson and the Lincoln County lawmen who initiated the latest investigation say the plan is to exhume Billy's mother in Silver City, Brushy Bill in Hico, Texas, and another man in Arizona to conduct DNA testing. "The intent is to debunk the impostors," Richardson spokesman Billy Sparks said Wednesday.

Sparks said exhuming the grave in Fort Sumner is "unlikely." But because it's a serious investigation, it can't be ruled out, he said. "It would be the last thing to happen," he said.

In general, Sparks said, the new investigation is "an opportunity to educate a new generation of New Mexicans and individuals from all over the world about Billy the Kid."

Educational it has been.

And by the way, Sparks said if anyone has that jar with the Kid's head, please send a photo -- but not the jar -- to the governor's office.

Saturday, November 26, 2005

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, November 25, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell


OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Kansas City Star by Roger Miller
Sink Hole by Drive-By Truckers
Chaos Streams by Son Volt
San Quentin by Johnny Cash
There Ought to Be a Law Against Sunny California by Terry Allen
Rehab Girl by Joe West
I Know You Are There by The Handsome Family
Pick a Bale of Cotton by Leadbelly

I Just Want to Meet the Man by Robbie Fulks
Tonight i Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown by Mudhoney
Gotta Travel On by Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Silver Wings by Merle Haggard
Lost Highway by Nancy Apple & Rob McNurlin
I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You by Hank Thompson
History of Lovers by Iron and Wine with Calexico
The Obscenity Prayer by Rodney Crowell

THANKSGIVING LEFTOVERS
I am a Pilgrim by The Byrds
Turkey Chase by Bob Dylan
Turkey in the Straw by Jon Rauhouse and Norm Pratt
Thanksgiving by Loudon Wainwright III
Wayfaring Pilgrim by Darrell Scott, Danny Thompson & Kenny Malone
Pilgrim by Steve Earle

Wild Country by Chris Whitley
It's All in the Game by Bobby Bare
Just One Love by Bobby Earl Smith
Where Was That God of Love by Oneil Howes
I Still Miss Someone by Dolly Parton
I'm Troubled About My Soul by Clothesline Revival with Lillie Knox
Alibis by Blaze Foley
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

Friday, November 25, 2005

PUT ME IN COACH, I'M READY TO PLAY

The Bill Richardson baseball revelations begin to reverberate.

First I get this email from a friend:
I did some heavy internet research on the gov's putative baseball career. I found that it wasn't the KC Athletics that drafted him in 1966, it was the Bad News Bears! (Matthau nixed the deal when O'Neal agreed to pitch.)
Then I get this startling confession from state Sen. Rod Adair, R-Roswell in the form of a press release:
State Senator Rod Adair today admitted he had no proof he had actually been drafted by the Chicago White Sox in 1973.

"I thought a friend of mine told me I might have been, so I put two and two together and assumed the best," said Adair, "I mean, what would you have done, what would anyone in my position have done?" Adair was 0-1 for the Gary Moseley Furniture Cubs of the Roswell Connie Mack League in 1972, having made two appearances, one in relief and one as a starter. He had an Earned Run Average of 8.31 in 4 1/3 innings of work.

Previous press releases have mentioned that Adair had been "drafted by the Chicago White Sox in 1973." Adair said, "Today is the first I've heard that it never happened. I'm as shocked as the next guy. I do think we should probably have legislation that states that Major League Baseball must announce draft choices, go on record about it, put it in the papers and stuff like that. I mean what happened to me should never happen to anyone, going around being misled all this time. We really should clean this up for all future ballplayers."

Adair's media relations spokesperson, Teresa Davis-McKee, made it clear Adair would seek no damages, and take no action against MLB, Inc. or the Chicago White Sox Baseball Club, Inc. "He's really a very forgiving kind of guy, and he understands how these things happen. He's ready to move on with his life and he has no hard feelings toward the Sox," McKee said.
I dunno. This one could go into extra innings. It's starting to pick up some steam nationally. Here's some pretty scathing commentary: CLICK HERE

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: GO, GRANNY, GO!

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 25, 2005


“Listen to this tune that sounds like a condolence card bought at the last minute for someone you can’t stand, someone you never liked … Listen to this tune I’m playing now, kids. Does it seem sad? Does it remind you of when?”

These are the words of Olga Sarantos, the 83-year grandmother of Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger, siblings known collectively as The Fiery Furnaces.

Granny Olga along with the Furnaces are responsible for one of the strangest albums in recent memory, Rehearsing My Choir .
It’s a wild journey led by Olga -- who really did direct a choir in a Greek Orthodox church -- through darkened corridors of the past, filled with memories, fantasies, triumphs and regrets, part sung and part spoken word by Olga and Eleanor (who portrays the younger Olga through most of the album. )

It’s all told in the secret language that family members share, part verbal scrapbook, part travelogue of 20th Century Chicago, part radio drama, Eleanor’s clear youthful vocals playing off the deep, knowing voice of Olga, colored by meandering melodies, synthy squiggles, bleeps and blurps, church music, carnival tunes, insane soundtracky backdrops, kiddy songs played on what sounds like dingy- dongy toy xylophones -- and even a few moments of raunchy rock ‘n‘ roll.

In the old days they’d call this “art rock.“ A listener might hear strains similar to Brian Wilson’s Smile, to Laurie Anderson, Pere Ubu, The Residents, They Might Be Giants, maybe even Phillip Glass or Terry Riley, definitely a heap of prog-rock excess, maybe even a little early Electric Light Orchestra.

And to answer her questions, posed at the end of the album’s first song “The Garfield El,” and again near the end of the last song, yes, it seems sad, though often the tunes are funny, sentimental, mysterious and just plain crazy, And yes, it does remind me of “when” -- my own “when,” the strange tales and traditions of my own family.

It makes me wish I’d recorded my own grandmother before she died.

One niggling detail: Although the stories here have the sound and feel of an oral history project, it’s actually Matthew Friedberger who wrote the words.

In an interview in Tunetribe.com, Matthew said, “A couple of (songs) are stories that I knew -- one is a story she always told about her father-in-law coming back from Greece after the war, and she got drunk at a kontiki bar. I asked her for details on other stories, like in 'Guns Under The Counter', with the bowling team and the mafia. She was a big help."

The stories in Choir go gracefully from the mundane to the surreal. For instance, in “Guns Under the Counter” you meet a doctor who treats bullet wounds with blackberry jelly after a gangland hit on a Cicero donut factory.

When you listen to Rehearsing My Choir for the first time it helps to know that the stories are not in chronological order.

Matthew posted a little guide on Amazon.com: “Tracks 3 and 4 take place in the 40's; tracks 5 and 6 in the 20's and 30's; track 7 in the later 50's; track 8 starts in the very early 40's; track 9 goes back and forth; track 10 takes place in the early 60's; the final track takes place in the early 90's. Track 2 takes place a few years ago; track 1 took place when it was recorded.”

And by the way, “The Wayward Granddaughter” (Track 2) isn’t literally about Olga and Eleanor, and “Slavin’ Away” (Track 9), is supposed to be Olga fantasizing about the plight of working women.

The last song, “Does it Remind You of When?” Olga finds herself playing for the funeral of a friend, maybe even an old boyfriend (“and his wife is there in some chapel she picked/and there’s not even an organ/I have to play on some broken upright piano …”)

The noise from the traffic and some nearby construction project is so loud, “you can’t even hear the ceremony,” Olga moans as the guitars, keyboards and drums grow burst into an oppressively loud fury.

At the cemetery, covered in slush Olga passes by the graves of her parents, her sister, her husband. “I can hear the cars/just 100 feet behind,” Eleanor sings, “and I can smell the rock salt in the air/And I know in my bones, it isn’t fair …”

“Listen to this tune I’m playing now, kids,” Olga says once again. “Does it seem sad? Does it remind you of when?”


Also recommended:

*They Got Lost
by They Might Be Giants. This is a compilation of “rarities” from Johns Linnel and Flansburgh. McSweeney’s. There’s even a commercial for a New Jersey graphics company and ditties used on t.v. and radio shows.

Among the highlights: “Reprehensible,” a loungy song about a man tormented by voices that tell him of his past incarnations (“the secret history of my immortality … the records of my unspeakable crimes in previous lives in previous time indelibly stains the pages of history …”)

* A live song called “Disappointing Show,” which sounds like they’re making up as they go along. The vocals are off key and the band, with a roller rink organ out front, sounds like they’re playing for cocktail hour at a rest home. In other words, it’s wickedly hilarious.

* “All Alone” a faux science tune about a germ on the moon, originally appearing on t.v. in an ABC documentary series, anchored by Ted Koppel called Brave New World.

* “The Army’s Tired Now,” which has nonsense lyrics (surprise, surprise) but is a minute and 11 seconds of Pet Sounds-inspired bliss.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: A GARGANTUAN EGO

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 24, 2005


According to national political commentator Chuck Todd, Governor Bill Richardson has a “gargantuan ego,” an “incredible ambition that borders on overdrive,” lacks a “soft side” that appeals to female voters, “carpetbagged” a Congressional seat and “bullied his way to the top of New Mexico politics.”


And, according to Todd, Richardson might be doomed in the 2008 presidential race because of a “whisper campaign” by those who say he’s not presidential material.

Still, Chuck Todd, who recently interviewed Richardson on CSPAN2, sounds like a Richardson fan.

Todd, a columnist for the Washington, D.C.-based National Journal and editor of that magazine’s political blog The Hotline, recently complained in his blog that Richardson wasn’t included in Time magazine’s recent Top Five Governors list. (Time also erred by omitting Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Todd wrote.)

And in a column last week, Todd wrote of the governor of New Mexico, “Apart from his gargantuan ego, we came away more impressed with his credentials as a major presidential candidate even while having doubts about whether 2008 will be his year.”

Todd went on to say, “If a Democratic consultant were trying to create the ideal presidential candidate, Richardson would be the model.”

He goes on to state the usual litany we’ve read a million times in national Richardson coverage: western governor blah blah blah, experience in foreign affairs blah blah blah “Latino in appearance with a gringo last name who speaks fluent Spanish” etc. etc.

Todd writes admiringly of Richardson’s ambitions: “just look at how he carpetbagged his way into New Mexico’s congressional delegation in a mere four years of taking up residency.”

But he added, “The only thing the lab would add that Richardson’s missing is a stable full of kids, military experience (he got out of Vietnam thanks to a deviated septum) and, shall we say, a svelter physique.”

Whispers and skeletons: But, Todd noted, for some reason, Richardson isn’t viewed “in the national Democratic salons that we believe still matter (particularly for fundraising),” as a top-tier Democratic candidate for 2008.

“We attribute Richardson’s struggles in the national Democratic circuit to a whisper campaign that contends he’s a bit reckless and ‘unpresidential’ (whatever that means),” Todd wrote. “This is a reputation that’s likely been earned by the fact that he’s got a coarse, or blunt, way of speaking to folks in private or semi-private situations. If you didn’t know him, you could even come away offended.”

Richardson, Todd says, "wants the presidency as badly as any candidate we've seen in a long time.”

“Candidate Richardson has some flaws, but barring some skeleton he’s failed to reveal, they are flaws he can overcome,” Todd concludes. “Dismiss his chances in 2008 at your own peril.”

This last paragraph inspired Albuquerque political blogger Joe Monahan to quip, “Thanks Chuck. Should we start the ‘Skeleton Watch?’ ”

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

TRUE CONFESSIONS

Julia Goldberg sent me this meme.

I think the idea is to list 12 true confessions.

1) I confess that I'm not going to get too personal and revealing on this damned thing.

2) I confess that I was going to watch Ted Koppel's last night on Nightline instead of doing this, but it looked too depressing, so here I am.

3) I confess that 42 years today I was disappointed that the regular Friday night wrestling at Stockyards Coliseum in Oklahoma City -- where I spent most Friday nights during the mid '60s -- was cancelled because of the Kennedy assassination.

4) I confess that I watched the resignation of President Nixon on a black-and-white tv in the projection booth of the Master Adult Theater, where I worked during part of the summer of '74. I also confess that I was hurt and confused when the audience at the Master Adult Theater booed me when I stopped the movie to tell them about this historic event.

5) I confess that one time in college I participated in a "Pig Night" contest at the Bird of Paradise Lounge. Fortunately I lost.

6) I confess that I don't know what "Diddy Wah Diddy" means.

7) I confess that I drank well over my share of the world's liquor supply up until my late '40s. I stopped because of diabetes.

8) I confess that while I generally distain paranoia about technology, deep in my heart, I do believe that those automatic scanner machines at supermarkets are the work of Satan. One day those damned things are going to completely take the jobs of working humans -- plus they always screw up on me causing much frustration.

9) I confess that robots are stealing my luggage. (OK, I borrowed that from Steve Martin.)

10) I confess that I don't really care that much for sports -- except politics and roller derby.

11) I confess that my anger at Greg Pleshaw faded years ago, despite his bizarre phone call to my brother ... though I still wouldn't want to take a long trip with the twisted little fucker.

12) I confess that I was the one who accidently tripped on an electrical cord backstage at a Santa Fe High School talent show in the spring of '71, causing an abrupt halt to the band (I forgot their name!) that was playing a pretty rocking version of "All Along the Watchtower."

I'm sending this on to Jeff, Walt, Marlee, Ed and Paige.

SPEAKING OF NM POLITICAL BLOGS

I didn't realize until I just now stumbled upon it that veteran Santa Fe columnist Jay Miller has his own blog where he posts his Inside the Capitol columns.

To plagiarize from Jay's bio:

Inside the Capitol has a long history in New Mexico. It was originally written by Will Harrison, when he edited the Santa Fe New Mexican in the 1950's. When Harrison left the New Mexican, he syndicated the column in other newspapers. And thus began a tradition that passed down through Charlie Cullin, Fred Buckles, Bob Huber, Carroll Cagle and Fred McCaffery to Jay.
Jay's latest post is a look at Ft. Sumner/DeBaca County/Billy the Kid politics. CLICK HERE.

He also has a blog called Common Sense Santa Fe, which is dedicated to "bringing some sanity to the City Different."

Good luck with that ...

WELCOME WHITNEY

There's a new voice on the right (as opposed to the left) side of New Mexico's political blogosphere.

Whitney Cheshire of Albuquerque just launched Wednesday Morning Quarterback.

Whitney has worked as a campaign manager for U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, a spokeswoman for 2002 Republican gubernatorial candidate John Sanchez and a communications director for the state House Republican caucus.

She also has her own campaign consulting company. One of her specialties, according to her Web site is "Public relations crisis management." There's bound to be some money in that field in this state.

At this writing Whitney's only done one post, but it's a funny one.

Speaking of funny ones, contrary to what Joe Monahan says, I have no personal knowledge of the Korean War.

Monday, November 21, 2005

TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE: BUT IT GOT GEORGE R.R.

My old friend, former landlord, quarter-century Santa Fe resident and, award-winning science-fiction, fantasy and horror writer, George R. R. Martin was featured in last week's Time Magazine for his latest book A Feast For Crows.

Time calls him the "American Tolkien."

George got me a gig to play at the Hugo Awards ceremony at the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver back in 1981. (My G-string broke -- yes, I was playing guitar, not dancing -- about the time I struck my second chord in "Cajun Clones.")

Back in the daze, he used the lyrics from my song "Those Were the Daze" for the frontspiece in his 1983 novel The Armageddon Rag.

Good to see George get some national recognition.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, November 20, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Rest in Peace Link Wray

Jack the Ripper by Link Wray
Shadowman by Link Wray
Rumble by Link Wray
Bad Man by The Juicy Bananas
Hit Me! by The Fleshtones
Guns For Everyone by The (International) Noise Conspiracy
You Better Run by Iggy & The Stooges

Down in The Hole by Kazik Staszewki
Family Values by Band of Ones
Rape Me by Nirvana
High on the Hog by TAD
Run Rabbit Run by Bantam Rooster
I Started a Joke by The Dirtbombs
Break it Up by Patti Smith

A Candymaker's Knife in My Handbag by The Fiery Furnaces
Reprehensible by They Might Be Giants
Scene of the Crime by Kevin Coyne & The Pine Valley Cosmonauts
Sherilyn Fenn by Screamin' Jay Hawkins
A Real Indication by The Thought Gang
Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance by Frank Zappa
Outside of That by Bessie Smith

What You Talkin' About by Paul Pena
Lessons Learned From Rocky I to Rocky III by Cornershop
Dirty Old Woman by Denise La Salle
Sleep to Dream by Bettye LaVette
I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love With You by Isaac Hayes
Too Tough to Die by The Twilight Singers
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Saturday, November 19, 2005

MORE CHARGES FOR ANGELO

A version of this appeared in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 19, 2005

A key witness in the federal extortion and money-laundering case against former state Treasurer Robert Vigil is facing 19 new counts in a state security fraud case.

The new charges for which Albuquerque businessman Angelo Garcia was indicted on Thursday are on top of the 27 charges he already was facing in the same case involving a Santa Fe low-income housing development that never got off the ground.

Attorney General Patricia Madrid said Friday that the victims in the case are all elderly New Mexico residents.

“Some people see white collar crimes as simply an issue about money,” Madrid said in a written statement. “But when an elderly person is defrauded of their life savings we are talking about much more than money. When an individual is living on a fixed income the loss of life savings greatly impacts the future quality of life. Targeting the elderly and defrauding them of their life savings is unconscionable.”

Also expressing disgust for those who cheat elderly victims was Sam Bregman, one of Vigil’s lawyers in his federal case.

“Angelo Garcia is the government’s star witness against my client,” Bregman said in an interview Friday. “He is nothing more than a con man. The government’s entire case against Robert Vigil is based on the testimony of con men and convicted criminals.”

Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the original state securities-fraud charges.
But he has pleaded guilty in federal court to aiding and abetting extortion in a kickback scheme involving Vigil and his predecessor Michael Montoya — who this month pleaded guilty to one count of extortion in the federal case.

Garcia already was cooperating with the federal government against Vigil and Montoya when he was originally indicted in September by a state grand jury in the securities-fraud case.

Garcia’s new charges represent more than $600,000 allegedly lost by seven victims, Madrid said.

One elderly couple allegedly lost more than $174,000, while another man allegedly lost more than $156,000. A mother and daughter each allegedly lost more than $100,000 to Garcia’s venture. A second couple allegedly lost about $65,000.

These losses are in addition to the near $1 million that state prosecutors say Garcia and his partners took from elderly investors covered in the previous indictments. Those charges are still pending.

Garcia’s new indictment includes five counts each of securities fraud, fraud over $20,000 and sale of unregistered securities, and one count each of forgery, racketeering and conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

The Santa Fe project was a $2.6 million, 44-unit apartment complex called the San Clemente Apartments proposed to be built on 3.5 acres between Airport Road and Jaguar Drive. Some of Garcia’s alleged victims put up money for projects in Rio Rancho and Belen. None of the three projects were ever built.

The same Bernalillo County grand jury on Thursday also indicted Orlando Montoya — brother of the former treasurer — on four additional felony counts in the securities-fraud case.

Orlando Montoya previously was indicted on 13 felony counts in the case.

Angelo Garcia’s brother Joseph Garcia also was indicted on 11 felony counts in September in the securities- fraud case. The grand jury didn’t add any new charges for him this week.

Both Joseph Garcia and Orlando Montoya have pleaded not guilty.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, November 18, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell


OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
All of the Monkeys Ain't in the Zoo by Tommy Collins
Operation Blues by Hank Thompson
A Good Night Tonight by Tom Armstrong
Hillbilly Train by Sonny George & The Tennessee Sons
You Said Goodbye by The San Juan River by Nancy Apple & Rob McNurlin
Veteran's Day by Tom Russell Band
Put it Back by Billy Kaundart
This Bottle in My Hand by George Jones & David Allen Coe
Curly Toes by (Unknown)

Endless War by Son Volt
Come On by Hundred Year Flood
The Demon of White Sadness by Marah
If My Heart Was a Car by The Old 97s
One Last Question by Jason & The Scorchers
Trampled Underfoot by Michael Hall
Arkansas Hard Luck Blues by Lonnie Glosson
Music Has No End by Clothesline Revival with Neil Morris

Don't Worry 'Bout Me by Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Buckskin Stallion Blues by Jimmie Dale Gilmore & Mudhoney
I'm Gonna Strangle You Shorty by The Flatlanders
Everybody's Talkin' by Bobby Bare
Daddy What If by Bobby Bare with Bobby Bare, Jr.
Painting Her Fingernails by Bobby Bare Jr.'s Young Criminal Starvation League
Freakin' at The Freaker's Ball by Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show
Peace in the Valley by Jimmie Dale Gilmore

I Wish I Were a Pirate by Ukulele Man
Cornbread Nation by Tim O'Brien
Better Than Me by Bobby Earl Smith
Look What Thoughts Will Do by Merle Haggard
Poor Poor Lenore by The Handsome Family
It's Just You by Blaze Foley
The Rue of Ruby Whores by Michael Hurley
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

Friday, November 18, 2005

AND I GUESS THERE WON'T BE A DIXIE CHICKS DAY IN THE SENATE

Here's an Associated Press item about Senate Republicans shooting down a resolution honoring Bruce Springsteen.

I can't see why they can't forgive The Boss for supporting John Kerry. Last year at a George Bush appearance in Albuquerque they played a taped marching-band version of "This Land is Your Land," which was written by Woody Guthrie, a self-proclaimed communist.

By DONNA DE LA CRUZ

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bruce Springsteen famously was “born in the USA,” but he’s getting scorned in the U.S. Senate.

An effort by New Jersey’s two Democratic senators to honor the veteran rocker was shot down Friday by Republicans who are apparently still miffed a year after the Boss lent his voice to the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

The chamber’s GOP leaders refused to bring up for consideration a resolution, introduced by Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Jon Corzine, that honored Springsteen’s long career and the 1975 release of his iconic album, “Born to Run.”

No reason was given, said Lautenberg spokesman Alex Formuzis.

“Resolutions like this pass all the time in the U.S. Senate, usually by unanimous consent,” he said.

Telephone calls to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s office seeking comment were not immediately returned.

Lautenberg said he couldn’t understand why anyone would object to the resolution.

“Even if the Republicans don’t like (Springsteen’s) tunes, I would hope they appreciated his contributions to American culture,” Lautenberg said.

Springsteen endorsed Kerry last year, and made campaign appearances that drew huge crowds who came to hear music described in the resolution as “a cultural milestone that has touched the lives of millions of people.”

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: HOW I LOVE THEM OLD SONGS

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Novemebr 18, 2004

In recent days a couple of albums full of cover songs by a couple of great country singers have graced my CD player. The artists are very different and the albums they’ve released probably are even more different.

But both Come on Back by Jimmie Dale Gilmore and The Moon Was Blue by Bobby Bare are simple but extremely enjoyable works that reveal the foundations of these artists’ respective work. They’re both short -- each less than 40 minutes -- but very satisfying.

Gilmore’s album is a memorial to his late father Brian Gilmore, who was a part-time country musician -- a guitarist whose most prized possession was his old Fender “Nocaster” electric guitar. Gilmore in the liner notes tells of a newspaper clipping from The Tulia Herald from the early ‘50s. It’s an ad for a dance at the VFW Hall starring “The Swingaroos featuring Brian Gilmore and his Electric Guitar!”

You can see that very guitar on the CD cover and hear it on this album, played by Robbie Gjersoe, who also plays lap steel and other stringed instruments.

Come on Back consists of Brian Gilmore’s favorite country classics. There are loving renditions of tunes from the songbooks of Hank Williams (“I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive”); Lefty Frizzell (“Saginaw, Michigan”); Jimmie Rodgers (“Standin’ On the Corner”); Ernest Tubb (“I’m Walkin’ the Floor Over You”); Hank Snow (“I’m Movin’ On”); Johnny Cash (“Train of Love”); and The Carter Family (“Jimmy Brown the Newsboy”).

There are some songs here that just seem to be part of the honky tonk astral plane: “Pick Me Up On Your Way Down” for instance, and “Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes.” They were hits by Charlie Walker and Slim Willett respectively. These singers have largely been forgotten, but the songs live on in renditions by untold numbers of country bands in untold numbers of Saturday night barrooms.

All the tracks are played by Gilmore and a basic guitars/bass/drums combo (some feature fiddler Eamon McLoughlin). The whole shebang was produced and arranged by Jimmie Dale’s fellow Flatlander Joe Ely.

Only one song here is a little jarring. That’s “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me,” a Marty Robbins song. Gilmore notes that Robbins’ original was the first commercial recording to employ a distorted guitar. Here the guitar solo almost sounds like Mudhoney, the Seattle grunge warriors with whom Gilmore recorded in the mid ’90s. I’m not complaining. The arrangement just seems a little out of context here.

Come On Back ends with a classic gospel tune that has been a longtime favorite of singers both Black and white -- Thomas Dorsey’s “Peace in the Valley.” A few days before he died, Brian Gilmore told his granddaughter that this was his favorite song of all time.

I bet the old man would have loved this album.

And I bet he would have liked Bobby Bare’s new one too.


The Moon Was Blue is a collection of standards from the worlds of jazz, pop and (gulp!) easy listening done in a “countrypolitan“ style. The most obvious comparison would be to Willie Nelson’s Stardust.

Bare does versions of “Love Letters in the Sand,” “Yesterday When I Was Young” and even “Shine on Harvest Moon.”

It’s produced by Bare’s son, Bobby Jr., a musician in his own right who is perfectly capable of getting just as grungy as Mudhoney. That makes the mainly straightforward MOR arrangement here -- some songs even feature The Nashville String Machine -- even more surprising.

To be sure, there are a few moments of subversive sonic weirdness here -- most notably a growing guitar balancing the sweet female choral of “Am I That easy To Forget” and some strange electronic atmospherics on “Everybody’s Talkin’” and “Fellow Travelers.”

This is the first album in umpteen years for Bare, who first starting cranking out hits in the late 1950s. In the early 1960s he had a string of records that would become Nashville classics, most notably “Detroit City,” “Miller’s Cave” and “500 Miles Away from Home.” Then in the ‘70s, he teamed up with songwriter Shel Silverstein to create some of the greatest country novelty songs of The Outlaw Era -- “Marie Lavaux,” “The Winner,” “Warm and Free” and “Tequila Sheila.”

Surprisingly, the only disappointing song here is Bare’s version of a Silverstein song, “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan.” It’s not bad, but it just can’t compare with Marianne Faithful, who applied her crone croak to the tune on her album Broken English and rendered any future versions irrelevant.

The late Roger Miller, who was a Nashville regular during the same era when Bare first made it big, once told me that when country musicians got together for after-hours jam sessions, it’s the old standards they mainly liked to do.

Hearing Bare’s husky croon on songs like “Are You Sincere” and “It’s All in The Game” I can envision Bare in the backroom of Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, strumming and singing with Roger and Willie and Ray Price and Faron Young.

And speaking of Ms. LaVaux You can find Bare’s “Marie Lavaux” on the recent Columbia Legacy compilation The Best of Shel Silverstein. There’s also the ultra sappy “Daddy What If,” featuring a very young Bare Jr. (I would have preferred “Warm and Free” but nobody asked me.)

This collection features songs performed not only by Silverstein, but by the original performers who made his tunes famous.

There’s “A Boy Named Sue” by Johnny Cash; “The Taker” by Kris Kristofferson”; “The Unicorn” by The Irish Rovers; “A Couple More Years” by Willie & Waylon and some hits by Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show, notably “Silvia’s Mother,” “Cover of The Rolling Stone” and “Freaking at the Freakers’ Ball.”

My main complaint here is that there’s too much Dr. Hook here. Emmylou Harris’ “Queen of the Silver Dollar” is a hundred times stronger than Hook’s version.

Missing from the collection is “Lucy Jordan,” one of Silverstein‘s greatest tunes. I wish it had Faithful’s rendition. At least they didn’t use Dr. Hook’s.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: SQUIRMING TOWARD 2008

A version of this published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 17, 2005


Gov. Bill Richardson’s name frequently appears in the “2008 Democrats” section of The Note on ABC News’ daily political Web site, along with other potential presidential contenders.

But usually when the governor is there, it’s not for “tortured squirming.”

Richardson was recognized for giving the “most awkward non-answer of the weekend” during his appearance on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.

According to The Note, Wallace asked the gov about Washington Post columnist Al Kamen’s account of Richardson telling guests at an elite Georgetown dinner party that he’s “going” for president in 2008.

Noted The Note, “viewers were subjected to some tortured squirming.”

What makes Bill squirm? Here’s a transcript of how that interview ended:
Wallace: ... there’s a report this week about you going to a fancy Georgetown dinner party, and let’s put up on the screen what the report said. “Richardson was quoted by one guest as saying, ‘I’m running and you can tell people that.’ Two others recalled him saying, “I’m going in 2008.’” Governor, simple yes or no question. Is that story true?

Richardson: Well, you know, this is the season for rumors. What I’ve said and I’ve always said, Chris, I got to get re-elected in one year. I’ve got a broad agenda in New Mexico. I love being New Mexico governor. New Mexico has been very good to me. We’ll see after ‘08.

W: Well, not after ‘08. That will be a little late. But did you say at that party -- simple yes or no -- I’m going?

R: Those are rumors. You know, this was one of those dinner parties where there were a lot of people supporting a bunch of candidates.

W: Well, you could end the rumor, Governor.

R: Well, no, that is incorrect. I said that beyond ‘06, we’re going to take a look at a lot of options.

W: Okay. Governor, that’s a yes or no answer.
Richardson went through a similar version of this dance on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition Wednesday, ultimately saying that Kamen’s column was false. But since it was radio it was hard to tell how tortured the squirming was.

To Tell the Truth: So Kamen had it wrong, and veteran Associated Press political reporter Ron Fournier had it wrong earlier this year when he reported “New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has told party leaders he will run.”

How could otherwise respected journalists keep getting this wrong? Why do they keep reporting falsehoods about the governor of New Mexico?

Chatter about Kamen’s column and Richardson’s refusal to pledge to serve a full term if elected governor next year, prompted former state Republican John Dendahl this week to wonder, tongue-in-cheek, what Democrat is really running for governor in 2006.

“It's time for one of those ‘Will the REAL candidate please stand up?’ challenges, with (Lt. Gov. Diane) Denish as the proper responder,” Dendahl said.

I love Paris in the springtime: The strangest e-mail I’ve gotten
all month has to be one from the state Senate Republicans, in which Mark Boitano of Albuquerque — one of the most socially conservative senators in office — expresses his admiration for a pop-culture (some would say “trash culture”) icon.

“I've become a Paris Hilton fan,” Boitano wrote in an “op-ed” piece.

O.K., that got my attention.

“No, it's not after viewing a provocative photo or a steamy video,” the senator continued. “It's after hearing Paris make an expectedly wise statement about breaking her engagement because she's not ready to get married and wants to avoid a divorce. ‘I have seen the breakups between people who love each other and rush into getting married too quickly. I do not want to make that mistake,’ Ms. Hilton said recently. The two million plus Americans who will marry in the next year can learn something from Paris' decision.”

Boitano goes on to note Hilton’s New Mexico roots.

“Her great-grandfather — hotelier and philanthropist Conrad Hilton — was born in New Mexico, served in the state legislature and was known to have deep affection for his family and country. He would be proud of her, as should state lawmakers, social scientists and anyone worried about the future of marriage, family and society in America.”

Boitano frequently sponsors legislation he says is designed to strengthen the institution of marriage.

Last year he co-sponsored a package of bills that included measures to reduce marriage license fees for couples who take marriage-education programs and require that divorcing couples with children go to pre-divorce counseling classes. The proposals didn’t make it out of the Senate.

“Some think Paris Hilton is overexposed (in more ways than one),” Boitano wrote, “but regardless of what you think about her, when people like Paris think twice about better marriage preparation that can result in improved marital unions and less use of the nuclear option of breakup and divorce (there) may be a ray of hope for this storied institution after all, and as Paris is fond of saying, ‘that's hot!’ ”

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

XCP UPDATE

Looks like SONY/BMG is recalling all its infected CDs.

CLICK HERE or HERE

Does this mean I have to give up my Ricky Martin CD?

Monday, November 14, 2005

CATS & MICE

The recent controversy over Sony Music's evil "anti-piracy" spyware (CLICK HERE, CLICK HERE or CLICK HERE) reminds me of a piece I did for a special edition of Pasatiempo published on the day that the Y2K bug was going to end civilization as we knew it.

I wrote about my predictions for the music industry in the new century. The controversy over Sony's XCP software goes along with what I called an ongoing cat-and-mouse game between music lovers and the music industry.

Now that we're nearly six years onto the 21st Century, let's look back on some of my predictions.

Keep in mind that this article was published before the rise of iPods and iTunes and satellite radio.

And don't give me too much grief because few if any artists followed the Todd Rundgren subscription model I thought at the time might have legs.

And I'm not sure why I referred to Michael Moore as "Mike Moore."

Here's that story:

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
January 1, 2000

Here's what I predict for the future of music in the next century.

Everyone and his dog will be producing their own records whether CDs, MP3s or who-knows-what new alphabet-soup format. Everyone and his dog will be broadcasting their own private "radio" stations over the Internet, featuring dazzling mixes of all kinds of music.

But the only musicians making any real money in the foreseeable future of recorded music will be those mass-marketed by major music corporations, and hyped on commercial radio and corporate-sponsored Web sites.

In other words, the potential democratic effects of electronic technology will make for a healthy musical "underground" with untold treasures of easily available sound. But the music-industry weasel is far from the endangered-species list.

And as long as we're talking in animal metaphors, I predict the cat-and-mouse game between the established music industry and musical "techno-rebels" will continue.

The industry will fight to maintain control over the "product" of music while the "rebels" will keep trying to eliminate the corporate middleman between artist and audience.

The mouse will keep inventing new technology to duplicate and distribute music, and to get around the high prices set by the record companies, and the cat will keep suing to try to stop the mouse.

The cat will yell "piracy!" every time some new threatening software pops up. And the mouse will chuckle, "Yo-ho-ho!"

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

But I predict that the religious right, which in recent years has attacked major record companies over sex and violence in music, will become an ally of those companies in the effort to control and try to censor the Internet.

The following is my look at likely changes in the music business in the century to come.

Radio, radio

Commercial radio is not likely to veer from the troubling trends of recent decades: more stations in the hands of fewer owners, tighter playlists (which means fewer songs on the air but a handful of songs played over and over again), and strict formats created by big-city consultants for specific targeted demographic groups.

Why will those trends continue? Because they work!

Public and community stations will remain looser but as they grow less dependent on government funding and more dependent on yuppie donations, they inevitably will grow more conservative and less experimental.

Also, the Internet will continue to shape the future of radio especially when the technology required to bring "Webcasting" from cyberspace to the car stereo becomes cheap enough and high-quality enough to be practical.

The Internet will allow drivers to choose from radio stations all over the world, as well as Web-based options all-blues channels, 24- hour punk rock, Korean newscasts, Nazi talk shows, whatever.

In a 1998 article, the CNN Financial Network Web page lists the advantages of online music programming.

"Listeners can access hundreds of channels organized by genre or set up custom listening programs to hear only specific types of music," the article reads. "Additionally Internet radio programmers can reach a worldwide audience because they're not limited by frequencies, which is why so many local stations have taken to making their programming available on the Internet."

So if you leave New Mexico and get lonesome for KBAC-FM 98.1 or KTAO-FM 101.5, you can call up those stations and listen to them over your computer. The RealAudio Web site, realaudio.com, lists those plus five other New Mexico stations; as well as Sikhnet Radio, a Web- based station featuring East Indian music Webcast from Northern New Mexico's Sikh community.

At least one other local station is planning to go online, perhaps as soon as next year. More surely will follow.

Technical glitches in Web radio abound.

The CNN article observes that "the audio quality of Webcast music is worse than your average Grateful Dead bootleg tape."

Irritating interruptions are frequent.

But technology is improving almost every day.

With so many potential choices, the future might sound gloomy for regular-old commercial radio stations. But my bet is those stations won't lose much of their audience, at least after the initial novelty of Web radio wears off.

The fact is the silent majority actually likes Top 40, hot new country, oldies and classic rock. So most the time most folks probably won't want to bother with listening to a New York or California station, which plays the same songs as local stations anyway but lacks local news and weather.

The electronic record store

Of all aspects of the music industry, the way music is bought and sold is likely to go through the most radical transformation.

In the past couple years record-company executives have been pulling out their hair over the invention of MP3, which allows artists to sell or give away CD-quality songs or entire albums as Internet downloads.

You can play MP3s on new portable stereo MP3 players, which sell for about $150 to $350 each, or on personal computers. If history holds true for those gizmos as with other electronic devices, MP3 players should become better and cheaper with time.

The July 1997 issue of Rock & Rap Confidential, a newsletter edited by veteran rock critic Dave Marsh, has the following to say about MP3s and other new music technology.

"Throughout most of human history, music has been free. Over the past century, the advance of technology allowed music to be turned into various configurations that could be sold. Now the further advance of technology is returning music to its original, free state.

"There are only two choices. We can run for protection into the arms of an obsolete, corrupt music industry that through high prices, payola, censorship and incredibly narrow artist rosters keeps us from hearing most of the music made on our planet; or we can with open arms embrace the new technology and its potential to make all the music available to all the people all the time."

The article notes that Hilary Rosen, president and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America which is made up of major record labels recently had announced a program "to enlist universities and Internet service providers as snitches who will ferret out free music sites."

"(Rosen) went on to express her fear that people will get used to downloading music for free and thus the industry `must not let a pirate market on the Internet get established before the legitimate one is ready.'

RIAA still aggressively fights what it considers piracy and copyright infringement on the part of those aiding unauthorized downloads of material that legally belongs to the record companies.

Widely reported in November, the organization was preparing a lawsuit against the creators of Napster software that allows music fans to easily search and download one another's MP3 collections. The RIAA has not filed suit as of this writing.

Even so, instead of its initial knee-jerk reaction against MP3s, the RIAA seems to be embracing new music technology.

Testifying before the House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection in October, Rosen said, "The music industry has not just accepted new technology, we are putting our creative talents to use, working with technology partners and trying out new ways of delivering this important consumer experience.

"Every one of the major recording companies has announced plans to begin offering consumers the music they want in new ways."

Rosen even went so far as to laud the efforts of several well- known acts trying to "fight the power" of the industry and sell directly to their fans.

Rosen and the interest she represents can't really be happy about such efforts. But major companies are beginning to imitate independent efforts, occasionally offering free or discounted MP3 songs.

In her testimony Rosen mentioned the rap group Public Enemy, which this year offered the new album There's a Poison Goin' On in MP3 before selling the recording as a CD. The entire album as a download costs $8 (about half the price of a regular CD) and individual songs in download form sell for $.99 each.

The Rundgren remedy

In her testimony Rosen also mentioned quirky pop rocker Todd Rundgren, who has come up with a radical new idea for selling music.

His Web site offers "subscriptions" to "patrons." For $25, the Rundgren fan gets to preview and download new music online as it's created, has access to rare Rundgren material, gets custom tapes and CDs made at cost, can participate in online chats with the musician, can watch live Internet performances by Rundgren, and gets other goodies.

Rundgren publicist Kelli Richards said in a recent e-mail to Pasatiempo that Rundgren has been selling such subscriptions for a little longer than a year and in 1999 produced "five to eight" new songs for subscribers. She declined to say whether the venture has been profitable.

Even if Rundgren's hasn't been a moneymaker, I predict such musical ventures on the Web will multiply.

The music-biz game

Of course Public Enemy and Rundgren already had their respective global fan bases before going online.

While more and more musicians will be producing and marketing their own music over the Web, and a vast number of Webcast stations will pop up to play the music, the choices for listeners will be overwhelming. How will new artists establish their audiences?

Musicians who shun the major-corporation route but want to spread their music beyond their own computers and their local coffeehouses will have to employ private publicists and promoters like Rundgren's Richards.

In fact record companies, freed from the task of physically manufacturing CDs and tapes, could evolve into glorified public- relations companies for music.

Of course most of the artists those companies will represent will be of the same quality as the safe, nonthreatening acts that dominate today's charts. So those seeking the Ricky Martin-Mariah Carey level of fame still will have to play the big-music-biz game.

The living-room revolution

Followers of nonmainstream music usually demand more intimacy from their musical heroes. One recent trend reported in November in The New York Times could have implications for the future.

"From Seattle to Waco to Queens, more than 300 homeowners have become part-time concert promoters, turning their living rooms into mild-mannered clubs for a night, and scores of performers are discovering that they can make good livings simply by touring these private residences," reporter Neil Strauss writes.

"At a time when live-performance outlets in many places are drying up because of hostility from the police and community groups, house concerts are becoming the most exciting and vital alternative- performance circuit around for acoustic musicians."

The article mentions musicians including Texas songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard and bluegrass jazzman Bela Fleck playing house concerts. In Santa Fe a couple of summers ago, a group of blues lovers brought Mississippi singer T Model Ford to town for some backyard barbecue concerts and a record-store appearance.

For several years "Bumblebee" Bob Weil has turned the garage of his La Tierra home into "The Hive," where he has held jazz concerts headlined by Bucky Pizzarelli, Milt Hinton, Wynton Marsalis and Cedar Walton. But Weil sold his house in 1999, so The Hive buzzes no more.

Though house concerts might seem to be a low-tech reaction to the modern world, Strauss observes, "The Internet has made it possible for those who run house concerts to promote the shows at no cost, keep in contact with one another and hunt down possible performers."

Vigilant vigilantes

Most of the above predictions are contingent on the conceit that the Web will continue to operate free of charge to users and unfettered by governmental interference. Taking that for granted probably is not wise.

In a recent e-mail to his fans, filmmaker (Roger and Me) and television producer (The Awful Truth) Mike Moore writes, "Those in charge must rue the day the Internet was invented. And of course they are now busy trying to think of any way possible to get control of the thing or to block it, censor it, restrict it, make you pay more for it, and make themselves much bigger profits."

I see common ground among radio talk-show personality "Dr. Laura" Schlessinger, other right-wingers calling for war over porn on the Internet, and the RIAA suing software manufacturers and pressuring colleges to shut down Web sites.

No, it's not a "conspiracy." But each of those parties would benefit from a tamer, controlled, neutered Internet.

When the government moves in to "stop porn" on the Web, it's not that big of a leap to squelch other activities big-moneyed interests don't like. Remember folks, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Good listening to all in the 21st century.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, November 13, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell


OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
America is Waiting by David Byrne & Brian Eno
Free Money by Patti Smith
Kiss Kiss Kiss by The Dirtbombs
Sappy by Nirvana
Shanky Puddin' by The Soledad Brothers
The Army's Tired Now by They Might Be Giants
Cara-Lin by The Fleshtones

The Torture Never Stops by Frank Zappa
Diskomo 2000 by The Residents
Armed Love by The (International) Noise Conspiracy
Boom Boom by The Animals
Wer Bistro by Stuurbaard Baakebaard

Walk on By by Isaac Hayes
(Not Just) Knee Deep by The P-Funk All Stars
Get Yourself Another Fool by Sam Cooke

Little Floater by NRBQ
There Is a Mountain by Donovan
Borracho by Mark Lannegan
Geechee Joe by James Blood Ulmer
Just Say So by Bettye LaVette
Innocent When You Dream by Kazik Staszewski
Good Old World by Tom Waits
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Saturday, November 12, 2005

NOT ONE, BUT TWO RICHARDSON BOOK-SIGNINGS


In my story in The New Mexican today that mentions Gov. Bill Richardson's book-signing event at the Collected Works Monday, I did not mention the fact that he also will be signing copies of Between Worlds at Garcia Street Books, 376 Garcia St. at noon Monday.

Somehow the Garcia press release didn't make it to me ...

So to get it straight, Garcia Street Books at noon, Collected Works, 208B West San Francisco St. at 5:30 p.m.

There was lots of Richardson-related news in today's paper. I tracked down the tailor who makes some of those suits that Richardson's ads say don't fit.

Also, there's Deborah Baker's report on Richardson appearing on the state's Rose Bowl parade float.

Funny, just a few months ago the governor's office was saying that Richardson definitely would not appear on the float.

Oh, well, as Lonesome Bob says, "Things change..."

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, November 10, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell


OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
The Swimming Song by Loudon Wainwright III
Don't Let the Stars Get In Your Eyes by Jimmie Dale Gilmore
I Bought the Shoes That Just Walked Out on Me by Cornell Hurd
Whiskey, Weed and Women by Hank Williams III
Marie by Don Walser
Apartment # 9 by Tammy Wynette
Oklahoma Bound by Joe West
Honky Tonk Merry Go Round by Karen Hudson
I Knew Jesus Before He Was a Super Star by Tammy Faye Starlight

Lonesome, On'ry and Mean by Steve Young
Blue Wing by Tom Russell Band
Be Mine by Waylon Jennings
Don't Be Angry by Bobby Earl Smith
Cathead Biscuits and Gravy by Nancy Apple & Rob McNurlin
Robbers and Bandits and Bastards and Thieves by Drywall
Back in Your World by Billy Kandaurt
The Palace Roses by Todd Moore

VETERANS' DAY SET
Johnny Come Lately by Steve Earle with The Pogues
Good Christian Soldier by Kris Kristofferson
Distant Drums by Jim Reeves
Still in Saigon by Charlie Daniels
The Big Battle by Johnny Cash
The Burden by Terry Allen
Wild Irish Rose by George Jones

Country Bumpkin by Cal Smith
Walk That Lonesome Valley by Porter Wagoner
Twelfth of Never by Dolly Parton with Keith Urban
Black Granite by Blaze Foley
Dead Man's Will by Iron & Wine with Calexico
One of the Unsatisfied by Lacy J. Dalton
Scarlet Tide by Elvis Costello with Emmylou Harris
Love and Mercy by Jeff Tweedy
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

Friday, November 11, 2005

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: DIRTBOMB EXPLOSION

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 11, 2005

This is not your typical punk/noise/snot-rock/garage band.

I own two albums by The Dirtbombs — the new If You Don’t Already Have a Look and 2001’s Ultraglide in Black — and both of them have Stevie Wonder covers.

The group is from Detroit, just like The White Stripes, The Detroit Cobras and The Von Bondies -- though apparently this band cringes when people mention a “Detroit scene” or the “garage band movement.” (Check out their FAQ section on their Web site.)

I don’t care who you might try to lump them in with. The Dirtbombs play good old fashioned stripped-down fuzz-tone rock with a blast of raw punk power and strong nod to soul music.

That’s right, soul music. As in Stevie, Smokey, The Ohio Players and even Lou Rawls.

Led by singer/guitarist Mick Collins, who has played in a long line of Detroit bands for 25 years, The Dirtbombs have been rocking for a whole decade in relative obscurity with a lineup featuring two drummers and two bassists.

If You Don’t Already Have a Look is a two-disc set -- one of original songs, one of cover tunes.

The album consists of Dirtbomb singles going back to 1996, when Collins played off Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” to introduce a maniacal crank-damaged rockabilly car song called “High Octane Salvation.” With Collins shouting the refrain, “Fill it up with the power of God!” it was obvious that this band meant business.

Like The Monkees and The Archies, The Dirtbombs have their own theme song. “Theme From the Dirtbombs” is a minute and 15 seconds of crazed pounding energy. You might not be able to understand the lyrics (at least until you get to the point where Collins shouts, “Come on girl, get up! I think I love you!”

“Little Miss Chocolate Syrup” sounds like if Prince joined Mudhoney, while “All My Friends” takes the riff from “Proud Mary” to apply it to a melody that sounds like a long-lost Iggy Pop tune.

Collins gets lecherous on “Cedar Point ‘76,” goofy on “She Playde Me Like a Booger,“ depraved on “Pray for Pills,” spooky on “Infa-Red” and cocky on “Trainwreck.”

They pay tribute to The Angry Samoans’ “They Saved Hitler’s Cock” with “They Saved Einstein’s Brain” and to Gilligan Island’s Ginger with “Tina Louise” (allegedly one of four DB songs that mention Tori Spelling).

The covers disc is nothing but fun. Besides the Stevie song (an atomic-powered “Maybe Your Baby”), the band plays songs by the Ohio Players (“You Don’t Mean It”), Elliot Smith ( “Brand New Game,” which sounds like a cross between the Pixies and The Rolling Stones), Yoko Ono (“Kiss, Kiss, Kiss”), Flipper (“Ha Ha Ha”), The Bee Gees (“I Started a Joke” ) and Smokey Robinson (“I’ll Be in Trouble”)

The strangest cover has to be The Stones’ “No Expectations,” which incorporates the rhythms of “Sympathy for the Devil” and the fade-out chorus of “Hey Jude.” Apparently this was meant for some Stones tribute album. But as Collins says in the liner notes, “One day people will learn not to ask The Dirtbombs to do tributes.”

One of my favorite ones here is Lou Rawls’ “Natural Man.” Collins includes Rawls’ spoken introduction:

“You know, there was a time when, if someone told you to do somethin', you did it. Bam! Right on! No questions asked. It was "Yes, sir" or "Yes, ma’am". You never said no. But, you know, things are changing. It's a new day, baby. Folks want to take their own lives into their hands and make their own choices …”

Corny? Maybe. But I think The Dirtbombs have taken these words to heart.

Also Recommended

*Sliver: The Best of the Box by Nirvana. If you plunked down $40, $50 or $60 for With the Lights Out, last year’s box set of Nirvana rarities, this single-disc compilation will anger you and make you rue the day that Kurt Cobain and the boys ever sold out to the major-label corporate vampire. Nineteen of the 22 cuts all appear on Lights Out. However, there are three previously unreleased tracks on Sliver, just enough to tempt a Nirvana completist to break down and shell out full price for the new CD.

There ought to be a law …

However, for those who don’t have the box set, Sliver will be a sweet revelation.

It starts off with a lo-fi but loveable 1985 (!) version of “Spank Through” -- by an early Cobain band called Fecal Matter, Sliver is treasure chest of demos, outtakes and a few stray live numbers. There’s a party recording of a very young (1987!) Nirvana ripping through Led Zeppelin’s “Heartbreaker” and an early rehearsal of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” which suffers from tape distortion and actually isn’t really very good.

My favorite tracks here include the band demo of “Rape Me” -- one of two versions of that song included here. Cobain here seems to have captured the spirit of raw horror that underlies so much of their last studio album In Utero.
Then there‘s “Ain’t It a Shame,” an upbeat Leadbelly which shows that Cobans love of Mr. Ledbetter didn’t stop with “Where Did You Sleep Last Night.”

But perhaps the most interesting number here is the title song. “Sliver” -- the story of a young boy who gets taken against his will to his grandparents’ hose -- always has been one of my favorite Nirvana tunes.

Part of the power of the song, at least in the more familiar versions, is that a listener is never sure exactly why the kid screams “Grandma take me home!” But on this home demo, recorded by Cobain with an acoustic guitar, there’s a verse in which Grandpa Joe accidentally burns the boy’s arm with a cigarette. By the time this song was released on vinyl in 1990, this verse had been dropped.

That scared little boy of “Sliver” would remain a major part of Cobain’s persona . It had to be something much deeper than a cigarette burn behind it.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: BLOGGERS FOR BILL

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Nov. 10, 2005


The New Mexico political blogosphere isn’t always kind to Gov. Bill Richardson.

There are web logs by partisan Republicans who routinely rip into Richardson’s policies and proclamations. There are progressive Democratic blogs that aren’t afraid to stand up to the gov when they feel it’s necessary. Unaligned political junkie Joe Monahan is hardly vicious when it come to Richardson, but he normally sees beyond the spin of the governor’s p.r. effort.

Then there’s Santa Fe gadfly John Coventry’s “Fat Bill and Me” blog, an ongoing virtual character assassination.

But beyond the state’s borders there are at least two blogs by people supporting Richardson for president in 2008 that offer nothing but encouraging words for the governor of New Mexico.

And amazingly, both appear to be spontaneous grassroots eruptions, not products of Richardson’s political machine.

There’s The Bill Richardson Blog, run by two law students in two different states — Ian Samuel in New York and Andrea Saenz, in Cambridge, Mass. — and a Richardson blog with an intriguing name — Will the Wolf Survive? by Emmett O’Connell from Olympia, Wash.

In these little corners of blogdom, you’re more likely to read about the governor’s trip to North Korea and his recent book tour and national television appearances than Richardson’s problems appointing a judge in Rio Arriba County or his head-butting with state senators.

Wednesday morning on the BRB, there was a post giving Richardson partial credit for Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine’s victory Tuesday in the Virginia governor’s race.


“Though not about Gov. Richardson directly, I can tell you that he is a happy dude tonight. As the head of the (Democratic Governors Association), tonight’s wins are credits to him, too.”

(Most pundits believe that an even happier dude about that race is Virginia’s outgoing Democratic Gov. Mark Warner, who, like Richardson is considering a presidential run in 2008. Though Richardson did go to Virginia to campaign with Kaine, the conventional wisdom is that Kaine’s win will boost Warner. If so, that actually could be at the expense of Richardson.)

According to Saenz, she and Samuels are friends who met through college debate.

Saenz said in a recent e-mail, “I’m not from New Mexico, although my grandfather and his family are, originally, and I’ve visited a couple times.”

“I’m Mexican-American, and my family has been involved to some extent in California politics (my aunt was a state official under Gray Davis), so I’ve been aware of Bill Richardson as a Latino politician to watch for a couple years, though just in a vague sense,” Saenz said.

“I’m married to a moderate Republican,” Saenz said, “so I’m very interested in finding moderate candidates who have great ideas and can move beyond the crazy polarization of the religious right and the radical left that doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere.”

Samuels is a native of Pueblo, Colo.

“I had first heard of Bill Richardson during the 2004 election season, when he was floated as a possible VP pick for Kerry (until he withdrew his name from consideration),” he said in an e-mail. “He seemed to have a background that you don’t find much in politics: a Democratic governor of a state that went for Bush, an executive with legislative, administrative, and even foreign policy experience, and a Latino politician who had strong appeal across demographics.”

Samuels says his Rocky Mountain roots guide his politics. “Western politics and politicians are just plain different than elsewhere, and I like the way we do it,” he said.

As for O’Connell’s blog, I’ve heard Richardson called many names, but “The Wolf” isn’t one of them.

O’Connell explained in a recent e-mail that he took the name from the Los Lobos song.

“ ... ever since (John) Kerry chose ‘Beautiful Day’ for his theme music during the primaries last year, I've been thinking about what songs would make better campaign themes. I love U2, and ‘Beautiful Day’ is a great song, but not a decent campaign theme. ‘Will the Wolf Survive,’ on the other hand, would be a particularly good song (especially the line ‘It's the truth that they all look for, Something they must keep alive.’)”

O’Connell, who is an information officer at the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, is an active in party politics, being an officer for his local Young Democrats club and an organizer for a Dem discussion group.

Before he created his Richardson blog, “I started a blog at winthewest.blogspot.com about Western Democrats which eventually was folded into westerndemocrat.com, a group blog.”

O’Connell’s latest Web project also is devoted to Richardson — “America For Richardson,” an “online community” he recently founded with Jeff Gulko of Virginia.

So far this site hasn’t attracted many participants. But the election is still three years off.

Meanwhile, back to the 2006 race: It’s not a blog, but J.R. Damron, a Santa Fe doctor who hopes to be the Republican nominee against Richardson next year has launched a Web site.

LUCKY BREAK?

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Nov. 10, 2005

Is the embattled State Treasurer’s Office about to get Lucky?

Longtime Santa Fe lawmaker Luciano “Lucky” Varela is considering a run next year for the office — recently abandoned by Robert Vigil, who is indicted on federal charges of extortion, money laundering and other counts.

Varela, who has been in the state House of Representatives since 1987, worked for 25 years in the state Department of Finance and Administration, where he became state comptroller.

He currently is chairman of the Legislative Finance Committee.

Doug Brown, appointed last week to complete Vigil’s term, has pledged to not run for the office next year.

At a meeting of the Santa Fe County Democratic Party on Tuesday night, County Chairwoman Minnie Gallegos announced Varela as a candidate for treasurer as she was introducing various other Democratic candidates for office.

Gallegos said in an interview Wednesday that she hadn’t actually talked to Varela about the treasurer’s race, but like many local political observers, she’d heard rumors about him running.

“He just sat there and smiled when I called him a candidate,” she said.

Varela couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday.

A source close to Varela confirmed Tuesday that the legislator was considering the race and probably would announce next week.

Gallegos said she is excited about the possibility of Varela running for treasurer. But, she said, “We’ll sure miss him in the Legislature.”

Varela’s departure from the House would create a political vacuum in District 48, which includes much of the central part of Santa Fe.

Gallegos said she has not heard of any possible candidates for the legislative seat if Varela runs for treasurer.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

A buddy of mine got a closer look on the war on terror than most of us ever would want to have.

Jeff Young, who is a lawyer in North Carolina, is a frequent member of our little entourage at the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin. I've known for years that he's nuts, but I didn't think he was nutty enough to travel to Jordan.

But he did. He was there on business in Amman today when the bombs went off. Our mutual friend Curt sent an e-mail that said, "Jeff was at another hotel in Amman today when the bombings occurred. His hotel was evacuated, and he apparently landed at the embassy of those peace-loving Swedes. Jeff represents a company that does a ton of work in reconstructing Iraq's infrastructure." Jeff had called his mom. He wasn't harmed.

Curt later said that he heard a t.v. news report that explosives had been found in the parking garage of the hotel where Jeff was staying.

As Curt said, "Close freakin' call."

XXXXXX

On a lighter note, my brother Jack just got back from his latest trip to Uzbekistan (he also visited The Ukraine this time). He was gone for nearly two months.

He told me that when he arrived at JFK in New York Tuesday, he looked up at one of the t.v. sets in the terminal. It was tuned to CNN.

Whose face on the screen greeted Jack back to American soil? None other than Bill Richardson!

XXXXX

Speaking of the Gov, here's the strangest Bill Richardson story I've heard lately. When I heard about a false rumor Richardson had been killed, I thought it might have something to do with that story in The Onion a few weeks back.

LOTSA POLITICAL NEWS

The big news of course is that Former Treasurer Michael Montoya pled guilty to extortion and has agreed to cooperate with the feds' investigation of corruption in the Treasurer's Office.

Here's another couple of stories I did for today's Santa Fe New Mexican:

xxxx

Gov. Bill Richardson’s headaches over a magistrate court position in Rio Arriba County aren’t over yet.

On Tuesday, David Gregorio Valdez, Richardson’s latest selection to fill the vacant judgeship, informed the governor’s office that he was withdrawing his name because he had not been truthful during the selection process.

Richardson announced Friday that he was appointing Valdez, a longtime probation officer with the state, to take the place of Judge Tommy Rodella, who resigned in July during a dispute with the governor over a drunken driving case.

But on Tuesday morning, Valdez called the governor’s office and admitted that in 1983 he had been found in contempt of court for failing to pay child support, Richardson spokesman Pahl Shipley said. Valdez hadn’t disclosed that information prior to his appointment, Shipley said.

“Valdez misled the Governor’s Office by not disclosing the information on his appointment application and lied about it when questioned by Vince Ward, deputy chief counsel for the governor,” Shipley said in a written news release.

“Furthermore, a background check of electronic law enforcement and court databases revealed no indication that such an incident had been reported to the state,” Shipley said.

Shipley said he doesn’t know what prompted Valdez to come clean on Tuesday.

Shipley said that during the selection process, Valdez had faxed his divorce papers to the governor’s staff. However, the papers didn’t include anything about the contempt of court citation or the delinquent child support, Shipley said.

In announcing the appointment last week, Richardson said, “David Valdez is known throughout the county for his integrity, fairness and his dedication to Rio Arriba and its people. His 12 years of experience as a probation/parole officer make him very familiar with New Mexico's court system. He also shares my goals of getting tougher on (driving while intoxicated), domestic violence and crimes against children.”

Valdez had not yet taken the oath of office or received a letter of appointment from Richardson, Shipley said.

Valdez was one of 24 candidates to apply for the job, which has been open since Rodella — appointed only a few months before — resigned.

A selection committee had gone through the two dozen applications and come up with a short list of Valdez and four other applicants, who were interviewed by Richardson.
Shipley said he doesn’t know whether Richardson will chose a new judge from the other four finalists or start the process over again.

Richardson’s appointment of Rodella — husband of state Rep. Debbie Rodella, D-San Juan Pueblo — was controversial from the beginning. The governor said he was caught by surprise when an Española paper obtained an internal affairs report showing Rodella was investigated in the early 1990s for allegedly pressuring other officers to fix traffic tickets to help his wife's legislative campaign.

Richardson stood by the appointment until Rodella made headlines again for driving to the Tierra Amarilla jail on July 4 to obtain the release an acquaintance arrested on a drunken-driving charge.

After Rodella’s resignation, Richardson’s staff came up with an application form that asked more pointed questions. He also created a screening-committee progress to look at the applicants

xxxx

The executive director of the state Democratic Party — who recently has come under criticism from some members of her party — is leaving her job to work on a Ph.D.

Vanessa Alarid, who has held the party position since May 2004, will pursue a doctorate in political science at Columbia University in New York, where she earned a master's degree from the university’s School of International and Public Affairs.

“Vanessa’s a great leader with valuable ties across New Mexico,” party spokesman Matt Farrauto said Tuesday. “She has done wonders to bridge the gap between elected officials and party activists. She’ll be remembered for her strength, intelligence and integrity.”

Alarid’s departure, Farrauto said, had nothing to do with the recent controversy over the state party’s contract with Richard Buckman, a Mississippi political operator who happened to be Alarid’s boyfriend.

Under the contract, the party paid Richard Buckman $40,000 between December and September for unspecified services.

Some party activists have questioned the value of Buckman’s services and the propriety of the contract.

State Democratic Chairman John Wertheim said last week that Buckman’s relationship with Alarid had nothing to do with his getting the contract. Wertheim said Buckman was instrumental in getting retired Gen. Wesley Clark to speak at a fundraising dinner in Hobbs.

Buckman’s contract was terminated by mutual consent in September, Wertheim said. Buckman currently is in the entertainment business in Los Angeles.

Farrauto said he wasn’t sure exactly when Alarid will leave, but said she’ll stay on at least until after the Nov. 19 state Central Committee meeting. Her classes begin in January.

Alarid is the granddaughter of former state Sen. Michael Alarid. She has worked in the offices of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Gov. Bill Richardson during his tenure as a Congressman. Alarid also worked in the state Office of Homeland Security in the Richardson administration.

Before taking the job with the state party, Alarid was a majority analyst for the state House of Representatives.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

LEO'S CONFESSION

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Nov. 8, 2005

On the day that Secret Service agents raided the State Treasurer’s Office in 2003 to seize computers used in a counterfeiting operation, Leo Sandoval, then an administrator in the office, scrawled a hand-written confession, admitting not only to making fake money, but acting as the bag man for kickbacks to former Treasurer Michael Montoya.

“I gave $1,000 (in counterfeit) to Mr. Paul Silva, my girlfriend’s brother who told me he was going to Tucson, Ariz.,” Sandoval wrote in the confession dated Dec. 17, 2003. “I strongly advised him against using this money for anything. He told me he was going to use this as a prank against a drug dealer in Tucson.”

Silva had been arrested a few days earlier in Tucson on counterfeiting charges and had told the Secret Service that Sandoval had given him the fake money in repayment of a debt, according to a May 2004 report by the Secret Service to U.S. Attorney David Iglesias.

Federal law enforcement officials have said that the counterfeiting case was the spark that resulting in the September indictments of former treasurers Montoya and Robert Vigil on federal charges of extortion. Vigil, who was treasurer at the time of the indictments, resigned last month in the face of possible impeachment in the Legislature.

Iglesias has agreed not to prosecute Sandoval on counterfeiting charges or for his role in the alleged kickback scheme in exchange for Sandoval’s cooperation in the Vigil and Montoya cases.

Sandoval’s confession, the Secret Service report to Iglesias and other previously unreleased documents involving his role in the treasurer scandal emerged last week in a court filing by Vigil’s lawyer Sam Bregman.

Bregman is asking federal District Judge James Parker to throw out evidence seized in an FBI search at Vigil’s home. The lawyer claims that FBI Special Agent Drew McCandless committed perjury in his affidavit to secure the search warrant.

Part of Bregman’s motion deals with McCandless’ description of Sandoval’s counterfeiting case.

The affidavit says that Sandoval — identified only as a “cooperating witness” in the document — was under investigation for counterfeiting, but “the charges were dropped as the Xeroxed money contained sports hero pictures and was intended for Christmas gifts.”

In a Nov. 2 letter to Bregman from Iglesias and prosecutor Jonathan Gerson, argued that McCandless isn’t guilty of perjury because “The FBI determined that (Sandoval’s) purposes in duplicating the currency was to create holiday gifts using pictures of sports figures and others.”

However, as The New Mexican pointed out in a Sept. 20 article, a December 2003 Secret Service affidavit details how Sandoval passed counterfeit bills not only to Silva, but also to Phillip Arellanes, who was arrested in late November 2003 for allegedly passing counterfeited $100 bills.

Neither the Secret Service affidavit nor Sandoval’s confession mention anything about sports heroes or Christmas gifts.

Sandoval in his confession also admitted to counterfeiting government documents.
“I made a driver’s license for Mr. Silva also,” he wrote. He wrote that he made Arellanes a driver’s license, a social security card, a birth certificate and a voter registration card.”

In his written confession, Sandoval gave a brief description of his role as middle man in Montoya’s alleged kickback plan.

“When I started working for the Treasurer’s Office I was asked to pick up some contributions/donations from a broker in Los Angeles,” Sandoval wrote “I came to find out that these contributions/donations were reoccurring (and) they were kickback for purchases of flex repurchase agreements.”

Sandoval wrote that he made “several subsequent trips to Los Angeles” to meet with two other investment advisors, including a man he calls “Peter Simmons.”

McCandless’ affidavit for search warrant identifies a man named Peter Simons, who was an investment advisor to the state from October 1997 to November 1999, during Montoya’s tenure as treasurer. Simons, the affidavit says “is a cooperating witness who has been immunized from prosecution in this investigation. Simons delivered money to Sandoval approximately six times, “in ever increasing amounts” the affidavit says.

“Later on Kent Nelson was introduced to Mr. Montoya by Angelo Garcia,” Sandoval wrote. “Over the next two years all transactions went through them.”

Nelson is a San Diego investment advisor who became a “cooperating witness” against both Montoya and Vigil. Garcia, who was a fundraiser for Vigil, also became a witness for the state.

“After that, Kent Nelson sent money to Angelo, Angelo gave me Michael’s share (and) I gave it to Mr. Montoya,” Sandoval wrote.

“I kept a list of all those transactions that took place (and) there is a book with them also.”

Monday, November 07, 2005

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, November 6, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell



OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Little Miss Chocolate Syrup by The Dirtbombs
Guns For Everyone by The (International) Noise Conspiracy
Shadowline by The Fleshtones
Red Death at 6:14 by The White Stripes
Mean Man by The Detroit Cobras
Wounded World by Mission of Burma
Sunday Drive by The Come Ons
Funny Thing by The Reigning Sound
Sponge Bob Square Pants by The Black Lodge Singers

Ain't It a Shame by Nirvana
True Love by X
Change in the Weather by John Fogerty
Blind Rage by Lou Reed
Connection by The Rolling Stones
The Walking Dead by The Dropkick Murpheys
Livin' in America by Black 47
Certain People I Could Name by They Might Be Giants

Joy by Bettye LaVette
Stepchild by Solomon Burke
Mama Was Right by Howard Tate
Medley: It's All Right/For Sentimental Reasons by Sam Cooke
The Dark End of The Street by Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham
A Dying Man's Plea by Mavis Staples
Soul Survivor by Wilson Pickett

Mysterons by Portishead
The World Spins by Julee Cruise
Stomach Worm by Stereolab
Take My Music Back to the Church by James Blood Ulmer
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

  Sunday, March 17, 2024 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM, 101.1 FM  Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Te...