Monday, November 29, 2004

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, November 28, 2004
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Now 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
Friends Like Mine by The Donnas
Mt. Everest by Royal Crescent Mob
The Town That Lost Its Groove Supply by The Minus 5
Repo Man by Iggy Pop
Down to the Well by The Pixies
Special Rate Sherry by Vinnie Santino
Sex With My Hat by The Firesign Theatre

Sentimental Marching Song by Sally Timms
Big Zombie by The Mekons
Wedding Dress by Johnny Dowd
Xracothep by The Fall
No, I'm Ironman by The Butthole Surfers
King Kong by Tom Waits
Devil Town by Daniel Johnston
If I Couldn't Say a Word by Lamar Nelson


Agua Boogy by Parliment
Quickie by George Clinton
Blasters by Bootsy's New Rubber Band
Let's Take It To the Stage by Funkadelic

Hyperballad by The Twilight Singers
I Need Love by NRBQ
Surf's Up by Brian Wilson
Boobytrappin' by David Holmes
God Walks Among Us Now by The Flaming Lips
The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You by Mother Earth
My Little Corner of the World by Yo La Tengo
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Sunday, November 28, 2004

THIS MAN NEEDS NO INTRODUCTION


And yet I've been asked to introduce Billy Joe Shaver next Saturday at the screening of the documentary The Portrait of Billy Joe at The Santa Fe Film Festival. The screening is scheduled for 2 p.m. Dec. 4 at the CCA.

I'll also be introducing the documentary Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus for the film festival. This screening is 8:45 p.m. Thursday Dec. 2 at The Screen. (For my review. scroll down a couple of posts below.)

Saturday, November 27, 2004

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, November 26, 2004
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays MDT
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
You Asked Me To by Shaver
Blacklisted by Neko Case
Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young by Faron Young
4,000 Rooms in Amarillo by Sid Hausman & Washtub Jerry
You Win Again by Mother Earth
You're the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly by Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn
Queen of Country by Nancy Apple
Delta Land by Susie Salley
Love Birds by Roy D. Mercer

Dying Breed by Lonesome Bob with Allison Moorer
Fire and Water by Buddy Miller
I Just Lost My Mind by Rex Hobart & His Misery Boys
Cold War by Gerraint Watkins
Out on the Highway by Eric Hisaw
Nashville Radio by Jon Langford
Red or Green by Lenny Roybal
Carve That Possum by Uncle Dave Macon

Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus Set
Still Waters by Jim White
First There Was by Johnny Dowd
Phyllis Ruth by 16 Horsepower
When That Helicopter Comes by The Handsome Family
Graveyard by Trailer Bride
10 Miles to Go on a 9 Mile Road by Jim White

1952 Vincent Black Lightning by The Del McCoury Band
21st Century Garbage Man by Joe West
A Six Pack to Go by Hank Thompson
Dear Mother by Acie Cargill
I Don't Want to Get Adjusted by Iris DeMent
Thanksgiving by Loudon Wainwright III
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

Friday, November 26, 2004

SEARCHING FOR THE WRONG-EYED JESUS

A review of a film to be shown at The Santa Fe Film Festival
As Published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 26, 2004


Singer Jim White, the star of the documentary Searching For the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, observes that in the South the simplest most mundane conversation has the potential of becoming a major theological discourse on right and wrong, sin and redemption, God and the Devil.

And the blood.

Blood, as Rennie Sparks of The Handsome Family points out in the film, is a major motif, whether it's the Blood of the Lamb in religious sermons or the blood shed in the old murder ballads and tragic songs of life still being sung in the backwoods.

Indeed, all through this strange and captivating little film by Andrew Douglas, the glory of God and the temptations of Satan dance around each other. You feel this dance in the whiskey-soaked honky tonks, the backwoods Pentecostal churches, at the truckstops, the swamps, the coal mines and the barber shops. You hear it in the music, in the hellfire sermons, in the conversations, and, as novelist Harry Crews points out, in the stories Southerners tell, those essential stories that give people their identities and explain their place in the world.

Douglas, an Englishman, got the idea for the documentary when someone gave him a copy of White’s enigmatic 1997 debut CD The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted Wrong-Eyed Jesus. He had to know where these songs came from. Douglas contacted White, who lives in rural Florida. The singer agreed to be the tour guide for a trip to the South, where, he explains in the movie, if you go five or 10 miles away from the interstate you can find life as it was 50 or 100 years ago.

Also enlisted for the journey were writer Crews, who talks about spitting birds and the proper way to cook a possum, as well as a bevy of musicians -- who, like White, represent the “gothic” side of the alternative country universe. These include The Handsome Family (who now live in Albuquerque), Johnny Dowd, David Eugene Edwards of 16 Horsepower, Trailer Bride’s Melissa Swingle. David Johansen (former New York Dolls, Buster Poindexter) sings a bluesy “Last Fair Deal” in a motel room. But the most impressive music here are the unknown pickers and singers Douglas and White meet along the way -- a gospel rockabilly group playing in a church, The Singing Hall Sisters, who harmonize on “Knoxville Girl” in a booth at a truckstop, elderly banjo man Lee Sexton, who sings “Little Maggie” and “Rye Whiskey” as if he wrote them himself.

Searching For Wrong-eyed Jesus is an unforgettable glimpse into poor, white Southern culture. A key word here is “white.” You’ll see few African-American faces in the movie. And there’s no discussion of race. It seems like a huge omission, but the issue of race is such a huge can of worms it probably would take an entire other movie just to scratch the surface.

Urban viewers, especially those not acquainted with true Southern culture might tend to look down their snoots on the people encountered here, with all their talk of sin and blood and Jesus.

But despite the obvious poverty, ignorance, tragedy and superstition, the culture presented here is rich and complex. As White, who sometimes attends Pentecostal services, says, you’ve got to leave your mind at the door and go in with an open heart.

Tune into The Santa Fe Opry, 10 p.m. - midnight MST tonight on KSFR 90.7 FM, for a segment featuring musicians from this film. That segment starts right after the 11th Hour. And it's streaming live on the internet.

Searching For The Wrong-eyed Jesus will be shown 8:45 p.m. Thursday Dec. 2 and 8 p.m. Sunday Dec. 5 at The Screen at the College of Santa Fe. For Santa Fe Film Festival tickets call 505-989-1495.

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: IN THE WORLD OF TIMMS

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 26, 2004


Back in the mid ‘80s Sally Timms made a strange and wonderful contribution to punk rock.

Before Timms hooked up with The Mekons, most female punk vocals was virtually limited to the Wendy O. Williams growl, the Exene whine or the Joan Jett snarl.

Timms added a whole new dimension: Subversive beauty.

Her warm, honey-toned voice was -- and still is -- nothing short of heart-breaking. Not to mention jarring when the lyrics she sang were harsh and acidic.

In recent years, Timms' solo work, that that of fellow Mekon Jon Langford, mainly has been in the country-folk genre -- her 1999 album Cowboy Sally’s Twilight Laments For Lost Buckaroos being the best example.

But with her new work In the World of Him, a nine-song EP, Timms branches out produced by genius weirdo Johnny Dowd and his musical sidekick Justin Asher.

Dowd‘s musical backdrops range from crazed proto-techno soundscapes (the opening tune Langford‘s “Sentimental Marching Song”) to somber folk (Ryan Adams‘ “Fools We Are As Men,” on which Timms is backed by just an acoustic guitar and accordion.)

Except for the final song, “Little Tommy Tucker,” which she wrote herself, the songs of In the World of Him are written by men - Adams, Dowd, Langford, Mark and Kevin Coyne. Shey also revamps a couple of classic Mekons songs, “Corporal Chalkie” and one of her signature songs, “Bomb,” in the sputtering quacky Dowd style.

It’s almost an answer to those patronizing politically-correct “women in rock” thumb sucker essays that pop up every few years in music journalism. Timms is after the male perspective here. And, doggone it, there are some fine male songwriters out there.

The best songs on Him are Coyne’s “I’m Just a Man,” a slow, pretty melody -- perfect for Sally’s voice -- rising above a clunky percussion track and Eitzel’s “God’s Eternal Love,” one of the darkest tunes ever penned by this unrepentant purveyor of darkness. Timms captures the disturbing spirit of the song. Timms croons “and your death is only the key to the future/ and your children are just pigs/ they will roast …” over an acoustic guitar with what sounds like an electrical storm in the background.

But not all is darkness here. The funniest song on Him is Dowd’s “139 Hernalser Gurtel” which sounds like a war song written by Kurt Weil obsessed with pornography and tripping on acid.

“In the world of him/girly men waltz sweetly/across the borders of skin/latex icons line the shelves / like toy soldiers in a sex army,” Timms recites.

Finally, someone captures the male perspective.

Speaking of Johnny Dowd: I reviewed his latest album Cemetery Shoes late last April after it had been out on the Dutch label Munich Records, thinking it would come out on an American label fairly soon. Actually, it didn’t get released in this country until about a month ago on the tiny Bongo Beat label

And you can read my review on my blog, in the April archives.(CLICK HERE then scroll down just a little.)

Also recommended:

*Heaven & Hell
by The Mekons. Amazingly, even though The Mekons have been around in one form or another for more than a quarter century, nobody until now has compiled a “greatest hits” collection.

If you’ve read all the way through a review of a Sally Timms CD -- and indeed if you’ve read my music rants for any time -- chances are you don’t need an explanation of who The Mekons are.

But if you’re an average American and just a casual rock ’n’ roll fan, you’re probably part of the 99 percent of the unfortunate deprived and uninformed masses who have never known Mekon pleasure. So for you, here’s a quick history:

The Mekons started out in the late ‘70s in Leeds, England, originally becoming notorious for their 1978 song “Never Been To a Riot,” a send-up of The Clash’s “White Riot.”

By the mid ‘80s original members Jon Langford and Tom Greenhalgh led a reconfigured Mekons with a new sound that stole any sound not nailed to the floor -- country music, reggae, eventually acid house and other styles. They added a fiddler, Susie Honeyman, an accordion player, Rico Bell, and a singer named Sally. They sang socialist screeds, songs of drunkenness and depravity and ballads of doomed love. Critics loved them. Record companies screwed them. The public ignored them.

Heaven & Hell is a double-disc collection that just might be the perfect introduction for the uninitiated. It goes all the way back to their punk origins with songs like “Never Been To a Riot,” and “This Sporting Life,” their ill-fated but still glorious stab at commercial success “Memphis Egypt” and more recent gems like the fierce rocking “The Olde Trip to Jerusalem” and Timms’ gorgeous “Millionaire.”

And there’s four songs from out of print So Good It Hurts as well as selections from Eps, singles, etc.

Of course I’m still going to grumble about a couple of omissions. How dare they omit “Cast No Shadow” from Journey to the End of the Night or “The Flame That Killed John Wayne” or “The Ballad of Sally” ?

Of course these oversights will be initiative for the millions of new Mekons fans to seek out the original albums.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

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