Saturday, February 28, 2004

How I spent my $13.86

I have a story in today's Santa Fe New New Mexican about music lovers receiving settlement checks from that multi-state antitrust suit against the music industry. READ THAT STORY HERE.

I was "tipped off" to this story by a weird little non-descript piece of mail that I had in a pile of junk mail I was just about to throw away. Luckily I opened it. I'd forgotten about registering in the lawsuit online a few years ago.

So how to spend this $13.86 windfall? On music of course. But somehow it just didn't seem right to give back the dough to the people who'd ripped me off in the first place. (Yes, as a critic and DJ I do get tons of free CDs, but as a music nut, I also undoubtedly buy more CDs than your average 50-year-old citizen.)

In the Capitol pressroom yesterday I cynically suggested I'd spend the money on blank CDs just to piss off the RIAA. But I decided instead to spend it on some unknown, independent musician who I'd never heard of before.

Surfing around the CD Baby site -- that's a righteous web-based company that sells my CD -- I came across a dude called Ukulele Man who is described as a "cross between Cab Calloway, Ukulele Ike, Abbie Hoffman, and a mild-mannered Captain Beefheart; if the Pogues were a Cajun band that hung out with Robert Fripp>"

His album Crazy Old World has a song about PeeWee Herman (I heard a sample of this one -- sounds bitchen) and tunes called "I Wish I Were a Pirate" and "Thank God for Toilets."

How could I go wrong?

With postage it came to $15.22.

I'll let you know how the album is. Meanwhile, if you're one of the 3.5 million who are getting an extra $13.86, please consider spending it on an independent artist.

The Santa Fe Opry Play List

The Santa Fe Opry
Friday, Feb. 27, 2004
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Host: Steve Terrell


OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Sadie Green (The Vamp of New Orleans) by Roy Newman & The Boys
This Country is Young by Jon Langford
Baby Do You Love Me Still by The Flatlanders
I'm a Ramblin' Man by Waylon Jennings
Jesus Was a Capricorn by Kris Kristofferson
Are You Going to Miss Me Too by Ana Fermin's Trigger Gospel
60 Acres by James McMurtry
Cantina Carlotta by Terry Allen
White Trash by Fred Eaglesmith

Such a Good Night by Eric Hisaw
More Than You'll Ever Know by Joe West
Amazing Disgrace by Dollar Store
Perry Mason Theme by John Rauhouse's Steel Guitar Rodeo
From Hell to Paradise by The Mavericks
2150 by Colin Gilmore
Love Don't Mean Nothin' by Julien Aklei

Under the Double Eagle by Acie Cargill
Some of Shelly's Blues by The Earle Scruggs Revue
The Cuckoo by Furnace Mountain
Dark as a Dungeon by Jerry Garcia & David Grisman
Down in the Valley by Greg Brown
Banks of the River by Jorma Kaukonen
What Goes On by The Meat Purveyors

He'll Have to Go by The Holmes Brothers
Shape I'm In by Nathan Hamilton
Wasted Days and Wasted Nights by The Texas Tornados
God, What Am I Doing Here? by Bingo
Walk Through This World With Me by George Jones
The Hole by Townes Van Zandt
Were You There When They Crucified My Lord by Johnny Cash
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

Friday, February 27, 2004

Terrell's Tuneup: Homemade Musical Folk Art

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican, Feb. 27, 2004

Sometimes a music critic can feel jaded just by looking through the galaxy of CD covers that arrive in his mail box every week. The rampant mimicry that creates a tyranny of sameness; the pre-fab attitude the covers attempt to convey, the artists perhaps unaware they are being used as pawns in some cynical marketing scheme … and then you listen to the music and 90 percent of the time its even worse than the cover art tried to warn.

That’s why it’s refreshing to occasionally stumble across musicians who play by their own rules, musicians whose visions are peculiar enough to make them interesting and whose homemade, lo-fi art is so full of sincerity and passion it far outweighs any lack of professional polish.

Here's three such CDs:

*We Can Mate With Rabbits by Julien Aklei . Aklei, who recently moved to Santa Fe, certainly meets these standards. This collection of 20 songs featuring Aklei’s haunting Kentucky soprano soaring over her guitar chords is a unique statement. I’d have been captivated by its strange charms even if her manager, Spiritual John, hadn’t brought a pink plastic Christmas tree to my office at the state Capitol a few weeks ago.

OK, I know some of you are still chewing on the concept of mating with rabbits. Here’s how Julien’s web site explains it on her recently biography. (Uppercase words preserved as written.)

“It wasn't before long that Julien received an Angelic visitation with a message: that she must dedicate her life to the joyous spreading the Almighty's Word and help humanity develop into lifestyles more akin to Life in Heaven.

"'We can mate with Rabbits' is the first idea that you are to disseminate throughout the world." Julien was instructed, and it was also explained that while the rabbit of Easter is commonly understood to be a pagan symbol, the rabbit is actually one of the Virgin Mary's special creatures, a symbol that will introduce a new reality to the human mind.”

So there you go.

Aklei’s personal mythologies pervade the lyrics to her songs. The weird thing is that some of the titles on the album are so raunchy we can’t print them in a “family” newspaper. Like artists such as Marvin Gaye and Prince, Aklei likes to confront her listeners with the underlying unity of the sacred and the salacious.

To get music-criticy here, too many of the songs here are in minor keys and start getting someone monotonous. That’s why a song like “Love Don’t Mean Nothin’” with its simple country melody is so refreshing.

Still, some of those minor-key tunes -- “Run Rabbit, Run,” “Make Love to Yur Horse,” and “I Wanted to Make Love” are pretty addictive.

We Can Mate With Rabbits is a musical manifesto of Aklei’s cosmic, but earthy visions. As her web site says, “Feeling that she is singing for rabbits too, Julien Aklei is determined about reintroducing Easter-Rabbit qualities back into human daily life.”

Who could argue with that?

* Bluegrass and Kentucky Blues by Acie Cargill. Acie is another Kentucky artist, though he’s based out of Illinois these days.

Cargill, who comes from a musical family, creates music rooted in the hills and hollers. But with his world-weary baritone he puts his own individual stamp on what he plays.

His albums don’t sound like your typical modern bluegrass record that emphasize technique and virtuosity. Too much of that stuff sounds like it came off a production line. Acie’s albums sound like the music you’d hear in real Appalachian homes in the days before mass pop culture took over.

Bluegrass and Kentucky Blues consists mainly of old ballads and backhill blues tunes. But my favorites -- as is always the case with Cargill albums -- are his originals. Unfortunately less than half the songs here are Cargill’s.

But there’s some good originals. “What Went Wrong” is a fine love song. “Rust Belt Blues” is a topical number about poverty and displacement.

Cargill might put off left-leaning fans with his patriotic, pro-Iraq-war recitation in “Under the Double Eagle.” But Cargill sings what he thinks. And you won’t find macho, jingoistic Toby Keith/Hank Jr. blather. Agree or disagree, Acie’s a thoughtful guy.

*Troubled by The New Creation. A decade or so before the rise of the Christian Right, there was the Jesus People. Remember Arthur Blessitt, the “hip minister of Sunset Strip” whose followers blanketed the country with those little round orange stickers with psychedelic lettering saying, “Turn on to Jesus” Remember the Children of God and their “flirty fishing” recruiters? (Alas, the only COGers I ever met were stinky hairy guys.)

The music of the Jesus People movement infiltrated the mainstream. There was “Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum. Even better was “Jesus is Just Alright” (The version by The Byrds, not The Doobie Brothers.)

But far away from fame and from the mainstream was an obscure little Jesus freak band from Vancouver, The New Creation. Their album Troubled somehow reemerged on the tiny Companion Records.

A Bible-soaked cross between The Shaggs and The Partridge Family (there was a mother-son team in the band) The New Creation played like a garage-band apocalypse.

While most of the songs deal with the basic theme of “the world will be saved when the world turns to Jesus,” the New Creation doesn’t blame the evils of the world on liberals, homosexuals and Pagans. True to the Jesus People, preach-to-the-hippies credo, the main villain is The Status Quo (read “The Establishment.”)

But the group saves its best for the first. The opening cut “Countdown to Revolution!” is a sound collage that proves it was possible to produce otherworldly sonic strangeness even in the days before samplers.

Thursday, February 26, 2004

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: ERNIE & LORENE

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican

Today is the first anniversary of the death of veteran New Mexico newsman Ernie Mills.

It's hard to forget that cold morning. The Legislature was still going on (last year's was a 60-day session), and I was in the press room chatting with some other reporters, preparing for the day ahead. The voice of Sen. Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, came over the overhead speakers announcing to the Senate and anyone else in the building listening that Mills, 76, the gravel-voiced old pro of the local news biz, was gone and calling for a moment of silence.

(That was Jennings' most emotional statement on the Senate floor last year. I know Mills would have gotten a kick out of Jennings' most emotional statement on the Senate floor this year -- when he accused Gov. Bill Richardson of "abusive behavior" and "bullying" a group of lobbyists, including Jennings' wife.)

Mills probably was best known for his role in negotiating with insurgent inmates during the 1980 riot at the Penitentiary of New Mexico. Mills walking into that burning prison (and, as his family has since pointed out, making the potentially dangerous fashion faux pas of wearing a Crimestoppers cap) puts to shame any of the "war stories" the rest of us press dogs could tell (except maybe my old boss Larry Calloway, who was taken hostage during the 1967 Tierra Amarilla courthouse raid).

It's true that nobody could replace Ernie Mills. However, his work is being carried on by his widow, Lorene Carpenter Mills.

For the past year, Lorene Mills has taken her husband's old job as host of Report From Santa Fe, a political interview show broadcast on public television statewide for nearly three decades. The show is taped each week in a studio right inside the building Ernie Mills dubbed "The Merry Roundhouse."

Lorene Mills also continues writing her late spouse's weekly newsletter, Mills Capitol Observer, available by subscription only.

Meanwhile, she hired longtime KUNM reporter Tom Trowbridge to continue the syndicated radio show Ernie Mills started in the 1960s, Dateline New Mexico.

Lorene Mills said Wednesday that while her husband was in the hospital before his unexpected death, the plan was to have her take over the television show while he was home recuperating. After all, she had been behind the camera on the show for nearly 20 years.

But Ernie Mills never made it home.

Although she has no formal training in journalism -- she has a Ph.D. in comparative literature -- Lorene Mills never had a second thought about continuing the TV show herself.

Her first guest was Richardson -- who had seen Ernie Mills in the hospital less than an hour before he died. Since then, she's had legislators from both parties, Cabinet secretaries and other government officials, and, back during caucus season, several presidential candidates. Last summer, Dennis Kucinich holed up in her studio to meditate before giving a speech at the Capitol.

"I'm not a journalist; I'm just an honest woman," she said. "I continued doing it because I love it. I'm a news junkie. I was perfectly happy sitting until 4 a.m. watching the House of Representatives in session last week.

"I love the politics, I love the news," she said. "I just give thanks for having had such a wise teacher, guru, soul mate and jive-ass husband."

Report From Santa Fe can be seen locally 6:30 a.m. Sunday on KNME, Channel 5, and 1 p.m. Sunday on KCHF, Channel 11. Dateline New Mexico can be heard 8:04 a.m. weekdays on KANW, 89.1 FM.

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

SXSW

I'm getting mentally fired up for the South by Southwest Music Festival, which is less than a month away. Since I started covering the state Legislature in 2001, I've only been able to attend during even-numbered years -- the years with 30-day instead of 60-day sessions.

As far as the music goes I'm most looking forward to seeing Little Richard, The Mekons and The Flatlanders. I've seen the latter two bands, but I've never seen The Georgia Peach before. He's also the keynote speaker, which I'm sure will be worth getting up early to see.

Santa Fe's Mary & Mars also is on this year's line-up. Big tme!


And I always get a kick out of the names of the hundreds of obscure bands I've never heard of. Here's a few:

The Baby Robots
Kill Me Tomorrow
The Crack Pipes
Buttless Chaps
Killers For Hire
Faceless Werewolves
Learning From Las Vegas
Suicide Girls Burlesque Act
Yuppie Pricks
I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (OK, I've heard of them. Still a cool name though)

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Beyond Borders Play List

Susan Ohori asked me to substitute for her world music show last night. So I did.

For the record, Susan's show is the longest running night time show -- come to think of it, probably the longest running show period -- at KSFR. She had already been there a few years when I started my asociation with the station in 1993. Beyond Borders was one of the first non-classical shows on KSFR back in our "Fine Arts Radio" formative years, back when our night-time line-up was known as Radio Free Santa Fe -- before some former station honcho decided it would be a good idea to give away (!) that name to Clear Channel's local "Adult Album Alternative" station.

I'll stop before I launch into a serious rant. Here's last night's play list.

Beyond Borders
Monday, February 23, 2004
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Substitute Host: Steve Terrell


Video Killed the Radio Star by Lolita No. 18
Bulgar by Klezkamp Dance Band
Odessa by The Red Elvises
The Good, The Bad and The Chutney by Kalyandi & Anandji
Pop Client by Mylab
Taxi Driver by 3 Mustaphas 3
Luna Azul de Kentucky by Mingo Saldivar

Sweet and Dandy by Toots & The Maytals
Rasputin by Boiled in Lead
Im Nin Alu by Ofra Hazra
Hula Blues by Sol Hoopii
Quasimodo Risin' by Mecca Bodega
Furahi by Zap Mama
Dance of the Muntabanu Family by Caserna Plutino

Happy Wanderer by Brave Combo
Ten in One by Crow Hang
You Can't Teach the Japanese to Polka by The Happy Schnapps Combo
Blue Polka by Rotondi
Existential Polka by The Polkaholics
Anne's Waltz by Nancy Hlad
Jimi Hendrix Polka/In Heaven There Is No Beer by Brave Combo

Mercedes by Stuurbaard Bakkebaard
Orane by Les Negresses Verti
Meri by Varttina
The Thief and The Riversong by Ai Phoenix
Yesterday is Here by Kazik Staszewski

Country World Beat Set
Made in Japan by Buck Owens
Rockin' in the Congo by Hank Thompson
Adios Mexico by The Texas Tornados
Never Been to Spain by Waylon Jennings
The Sheik of Araby by The Last Mile Ramblers
Cagey Bea by Junior Brown
Nobody's Goin' Home by Terry Allen
Dublin Blues by Townes Van Zandt

Ibo Lele by Ram
Don't Let Me Mother Know by Lord Executioner
Ki Pal Ka Jeena by Lucky Ali
Black Man's Cry by Fela Ransome Kuti
The Tide is High by Petty Booka
Somewhere Over the Rainbow/Wonderful World by Israel Kamakawiwo 'ole

Monday, February 23, 2004

Terrell's Sound World Play List

Terrell's Sound World
Sunday, February 22, 2004
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Host: Steve Terrell


OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
16 Candles by The Crests
Only 16 by Sam Cooke
There is No Time by Lou Reed
Fabrique by Stuubaard Bakkebaard
We Think You Are Very Brave by Ai Phoenix
Whisper in a Nag's Ear by Johnny Dowd
Heaven on Their Minds by Murray Head
Clyde the Glide by The Diplomats of Solid Sound

Time (Losing My Mind) by The Soul of John Black
Black Flowers by Fishbone
We Be's Gettin' Down by Graham Central Station
Be For Real by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes
Girl From the North Country by Howard Tate

Standing on the Verge of Getting It On by Funkadelic
Spread by Outkast
Kill the Messenger by The Bell Rays
People Get Up and Drive Your Funky Soul by James Brown
There's a Moon Out Tonight by The Capris
Love and Happiness by Living Colour
Sweetback's Theme by Earth, Wind & Fire

Drove Up from Pedro by Mike Watt & Carla Bouzulich
Meaning of Loneliness by Van Morrison
Land of Hope and Dreams by Bruce Springsteen
Until I Die by The Beach Boys
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Saturday, February 21, 2004

Mr. Mainstream Pazz & Jop

I'm not sure who this guy is, but he has way too much time on his hands. (And apparently, so does my friend Chuck, who always seems to find this damned website each year.)

Anyway, every year for at least the past three or four years this funky dude does a mathematical analysis of the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll and ranks the participating critics as to how common their choices are.

What's shocking is that this year I rank 44 (out of more than 700!) in terms of picking popular choices. According to this guy's calculations, an average of 85.6 other critics voted for each of my selections.

The year before I ranked a respectable 435th.

Sorry for being so generic.


The Santa Fe Opry Play List

The Santa Fe Opry
Friday, Feb. 20, 2004
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Last Fair Deal Gone Down/Constanz by Jon Langford
Around the Bend by Dollar Store
(There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Clifts of Dover by Jon Rauhouse's Steel Guitar Rodeo with Sally Timms
Baby Won't You Please Come Home by Anna Fermin's Trigger Gospel
Lyin' by Elizabeth McQueen
I'm Not From Here by James McMurtry
Pretty Good Guy by Fred Eaglesmith

Color of the Blues by George Jones
Loneliness is Eating Me Alive by Merle Haggard
Roll on Mississippi by Charlie Pride
Remember the Eagle by Luke Reed with Waylon Jennings and Bill Miller
Lone Star Blues by Bill Hearne
Oh Lonesome Me by Bobby Flores
Chinatown, My Chinatown by The Last Mile Ramblers
The Hucklebuck by The Riptones

Reprimand Our Love by Joe West
There Ought to Be a Law Against Dunny California by Terry Allen
Eggs For Your Chickens by The Flatlanders
Dam by Kasey Chambers
Call My Name by Paul Burch
Bow Down to Me by Julien Aklei

Hogs on the Highway by The Bad Livers
Midnight Sun by Rolf Cahn
Milk and Honey by Nels Andrews
Main Road by Lucinda Williams
Rustbelt Blues by Acie Cargill
Permanently Lonely by Willie Nelson
In Tall Buildings by John Hartford
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

Friday, February 20, 2004

Terrell's Tuneup: Music From The Pile

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican, Feb. 13, 2004

January and February are skimpy times for new CD releases. (Actually things slow down drastically in early November after the major companies’ Christmas season release schedule.) So this is a good time to look at some obscure discs that have been in my CD pile for awhile.

* The Soul of John Black. John Black isn’t a person, it’s a group consisting of John Bigham (guitar, vocals) and bassist Christopher Thomas (not to be confused with Chris Thomas King), two musical veterans who, as individuals, have worked with an impressive array of jazz, rock, and rap acts, from Miles Davis to Eminem to Marianne Faithful to Joshua Redman to Everlast to Betty Carter to Fishbone (of which Bigham was a member for eight years).

But the key word in the title is “soul.” This album is a refreshing contemporary take on good old soul music. Sure, it’s got some hip-hop and funk overtones, but like the best of Stevie Wonder or Al Green, the emphasis here is on catchy melodies and honest emotion rather than merely beat and rhythm.

And it does so without sounding retro.

The best songs here are about danger or women. Sometimes the two intersect.

The album starts off with a sparse, slow and menacing tune called “Scandalous (No. 9)” that introduces a narrator who is almost sick with obsessive jealousy (“It ain’t funny what can happen/ when you ain’t around … You got some folks who goin’ to peep/ tryin’ to creep up on yo’ good thing …”

This sets the mood for the next track, “Lost and Paranoid” which is more upbeat and has a fuller band sound with a female backup singer (Jonell Kennedy), a turntable and, yes, even a kazoo, tooted soulfully by Bigham. The lyrics live up to the title, with Bingham fleeing some unknown enemy: “I locked the door/pulled down the shades/ next thing I know the phone’s ringin’/ can’t seem to get away …” The song ends with Bingham repeatingly crying, “please,please, leave me alone!”

The danger becomes more specific in “The Odyssey,” which is the story of a fatal DWI wreck. “The top was down, the air was cool/ The only night was from the moon/ Her body was in flames/ I heard her call my name …”

“Supa Killer” is a Shaft-like latter-day Blaxploitation song that makes a lyrical -- as well a bass-riff -- reference to The Temptations’ “Runaway Child Running Wild.” The true star of this song though is the saxophone of Tracy Wannamae. He should have been used more on this album.

TSOJB isn’t afraid to get pretty. The brooding ballad “Joy” features a Bigham on acoustic guitar.

As vocal talents go, Bigham is no Al Green or Otis Redding. He’s probably closer to Prince -- and that’s not bad. He gets the job done. And most important, he and Thomas have written and performed some fine songs and made an album that never sags.

* Mercedes by Stuurbaard Bakkebaard. O.K. I’ll admit that lately I’ve been a sucker for weird European art rock from non-English-speaking countries. This lo-fi Dutch band certainly fits that bill.

There must be something about smoky, sometimes sinister music with a singer getting excited about things I can’t understand that appeals to me. Some of the lyrics are in English, though I still haven’t figured out what they are about.


Stuurbaard has good tastes in influences. You can hear echoes of Tom Waits, P.J. Harvey’s stranger stuff and maybe even a little Sparklehorse here.

SB can rock sloppy, as they do on the opening song “Clutch” and the mutant blues called “Earl’s Room.”

Some of the most interesting tunes here are the otherworldly acoustic songs that use a stand-up bass (which is bowed on the song “Brown”) and acoustic guitar. “Downfall,“ which features an accordion, sounds like a nightmare in a French café. The title song sounds like a Dutch bosa nova. And “Steel Talk” has a somewhat out-of-tune banjo playing over a clomping drum and a singer who sounds like he’s lived on a strict diet of Residents records.

*Let’s Cool One by The Diplomats of Solid Sound. This is a retro-sounding instrumental group, but no, it’s not surf music. The Diplomats, from landlocked Iowa, are far closer to Booker T. & The MGs than they are to Dick Dale.

Keyboardist Nate “Count” Basinger and guitarist Doug Roberson take turn on leads.

Like the title implies, the sound is basically cool. Close your eyes and you probably can imagine this music to be in the soundtrack of some ’60s action flick (or, depending on your mood, perhaps a porno film)

But somehow I keep waiting for the cool sounds to heat up. There’s a few songs featuring a sax here, and that helps. So I guess my criticism here is the same as with The Soul of John Black: When in doubt, use more sax.

Hear selections from the above CDs on the radio Sunday night on Terrell’s Sound World, 10-p.m to midnight Sunday on KSFR, 90.7 FM, Santa Fe Public Radio. Friday night is Steve Terrell’s Santa Fe Opry, same time, same station. Sorry, KSFR isn't on the web yet. But just you wait ...

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

  Sunday, March 24, 2024 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM, 101.1 FM  Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell E...