Monday, January 31, 2005

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, January 30, 2005
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
Piece of Crap by Neil Young
My Life is Starting Over Again by Teenage Fanclub with Jad Fair
Inside Looking Out by Eric Burdon & The Animals
Mongoloid by Devo
Do the Romp by Entrance & Cat Power
Tortures by Kazik Staszewski
Attacked by Monsters by The Meat Puppets

New Wave Jacket by Polysics
In Door Fu Chiken by Fuzzy Control
Alligator Night by Thee Michelle Gun Elephant
Tribe by The Mad Capsule Markets
Soul Food by Understatements
Mama Brain by The Boredoms
Born to Be Wild by Petty Booka

Mark Lanegan Set
All songs by Mark Lanegan except where noted
Wedding Dress
I Nearly Lost You by The Screaming Trees
Waiting on a Train
Shooting Gallery
Song For the Dead by Queens of the Stone Age
Where Did You Sleep Last Night?
Number Nine by The Twilight Singers

Robot Parade by They Might Be Giants
There is Beauty by Richard Thompson
Less Than You Think by Wilco
Waiting on a Friend by The Rolling Stones
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Saturday, January 29, 2005

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, January 28, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Ram Bunk Shush by Cornell Hurd
Condi, Condi by Steve Earle
Milk and Pancakes by Fortytwenty
If You Don't, Somebody Else Will by The Ranch Girls & The Ragtime Wranglers
Cool Drink of Water by Vassar Clements
Pearly Lee by Billy Riley
No More War by Ronny Elliott
Sweet Virginia by The Rolling Stones

Uncle Frank by Drive-By Truckers
You're Humbuggin' Me by Ronnie Dawson
Living in the U.S.A. by Acie Cargill
Oh Christy by The Moaners
Favorite by Neko Case
Black Iron Bridge by Rex Hobart & The Misery Boys
Five Minutes of the Latest Blues by Justin Trevino with Mona McCall
Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out by Pine Top Smith

Yonder Mountain by Raising Cane
Cry by Lynn Anderson
What Would You Give in Exchange by Bill Monroe
Back in the Goodle Days by John Hartford
White Trash Wedding by The Dixie Chicks
Nashville Cats by Del McCoury Band
Teddy Bear's Picnic by Jerry Garcia & David Grisman
Down in the Willow Garden by The Osborne Brothers
Brain Damage by The Austin Lounge Lizards

Just the Other Side of Nowhere by Kris Kristofferson
I'll Sign My Heart Awayby Merle Haggard
When the Last Curtain Falls by George Jones
Each Night at Nine by Floyd Tilman with Willie Nelson
Hate to Be Lonely by ThaMuseMeant
Her by Richard Buckner
I Do Believe by The Highwaymen
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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


Friday, January 28, 2005

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: MUSIC FOR 4 A.M.

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
January 28, 2004


These CDs have been out for several months now. But I just recently laid my hands on the first one, while the second one took awhile to grow on me.

To paraphrase Orson Welles, I will review no album before its time.



*Bubblegum by Mark Lanegan. This ain’t your father’s “bubblegum” music. Lanegan doesn’t chirp, “yummy yummy yummy, I’ve got love in my tummy.” Not even once.

“When I’m bombed I stretch like bubblegum/And look too long straight at the morning sun,” Lanegan sings on a deceptively quiet, acoustic tune called “Bombed.” This duet with Wendy Rae Fowler is barely over a minute along.

It sounds like a funeral dirge. It sounds as if someone could get killed at any minute.

Like Lanegan‘s best solo work, Bubblegum is a testament of pain, druggy desire, and 4 a.m. lonely ache. It’s a blues-drenched, ghostly, dark-night-of-the-soul meditation that’s not ashamed to be pretty but not afraid to wake the neighbors with furious clatter when the spirit says “roar.”

Lanegan was the singer with long-defunct Washington state grunge warriors the Screaming Trees. He’s also served stints with Queens of the Stone Age and with Greg Dulli’s Twilight Singers. He also deserves at least a footnote in the history of rock ‘n’ roll for being the guy who introduced Kurt Cobain to Lead belly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night.”

The record is billed as being by “Mark Lanegan Band,” and indeed he’s got an impressive, revolving gaggle of sidemen on Bubblegum. P.J. Harvey sings with Lanegan on two songs, here. Dulli and QOTSA members appear on some cuts, as do Izzy and Duff from Guns n' Roses. And Texas-born psychedelic blues wizard Ian Moore and keyboardist Bukka Allen (Terry and Jo Harvey Allen’s son) lend their talents to one tune.

But Lanegan himself is the driving presence here on every single cut. The dark vision is all his. The constant that runs throughout is his voice, a gravelly, whiskey ravaged -- and probably worse-things-ravaged -- baritone that sounds like the moans of a hobo prophet halfway between a trance and a righteous rage.

Drug addiction, that grim subtext of so much classic Seattle music, is a theme in several tunes here. It’s obvious in songs like “Methamphetamine Blues,” a crunching workout with clanking industrial percussion and screaming guitar (by Alain Johannes). And Lanegan rocks even harder and the chemical desperation is even more frantic in the crazed “Can’t Come Down.”

But the drug life even more disturbing in the song called “Wedding Dress,” a somber, synth-driven tune where Lanegan croons, “Will you walk with me underground and forgive all my sicknesses and my sorrows?/Will you be shamed if shake like I’m dyin’/when I fall to my knees and I’m cryin’?” The tune ends with a line borrowed from “Jackson,” the comic Johnny Cash/June Carter (or Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazelwood) song of marital strife. But here the words “We got married in a fever” take on ominous connotations.

Lanegan explores the dark side of the blues with “Like Little Willie John” He invokes the name of the tragic R&B pioneer, who died in a Washington state prison in 1968. Here, the ghost of Little Willie hovers over the singer’s troubling memories of losing a lover.

“All she ever knew was trouble/And for much I was to blame/But when I heard the news that night/I went down like a satellite/ And when my world stood still that night/I dropped like a satellite … Where’s Willie John?”

Lou Reed once pointed out that had he personally done all the things he sang about, he’d have been dead years before. I suspect this probably is true of Lanegan as well. But his voice is authoritative as his stories are compelling. And his music, whether soft and smoky or loud and dissonant, is irresistible.

*Dents and Shells by Richard Buckner. This is a guy who makes strange, but undeniably beautiful music. What can you say about a guy who did a whole album based on Edgar Lee Masters’ small-town gothic Spoon River Anthology? (not separate songs, mind you, but one 34-minute track!)

Buckner’s melodies are mournful, his delivery low-key, his lyrics introspective and often obscure. His voice is a slightly raspy drawl that often colors and embellishes the notes. His songs sometimes seem like snippets from a notebook, not quite finished, but refusing to stay put.

In many ways this album reminds me of the first Buckner CD I heard, the magnificent Devotion + Doubt. That mid-90s effort -- still my favorite Buckner album and a fan favorite in the then-blooming alternative country scene -- was produced by Lubbock Mafia chieftain Lloyd Maines and featured members of Calexico.

Like Devotion, Dents and Shells features lots of fine steel guitar, especially on the songs “A Chance Counsel” and “Her” -- though the latter tune also is distinguished by a catchy one-finger piano.

Some song arrangements here border on the surreal. “Charmers” for instance is a tense minor-key funeral march in which most the instruments seem to melt into a low rumble behind Buckner’s vocals Butthole Surfer King Coffey’s over-caffeinated drums. This almost could be a Will Oldham/Palace song.

“As the Waves Will Always Roll” is a sad dirge that features what sounds like a roller rink organ and downright crazy drumming from Coffey.

Buckner’s music is pretty enough to appeal to singer/songwriter fans and odd enough to satisfy those looking for more experimental sounds.


Thursday, January 27, 2005

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: BOLOS A NO-NO?

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
January 27, 2004


A sergeant-at-arms stopped freshman Sen. Jack Ryan, R-Albuquerque, from entering the floor of the House on Monday to hear a speech by U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., made before a joint session of the House and Senate.

At first, Ryan assumed he was being stopped because the sergeant-at-arms didn't recognize him. After all, there are several new faces among the legislators this year.

But that wasn't the problem. Ryan was in violation of a rule he knew nothing about.

He was wearing a bolo tie.

No, the House hasn't hired former Santa Fe Police Chief Don Grady - who made national headlines in 1995 when he forbid plain-clothes officers from wearing bolos.

The House Dress Code requires all males on the floor of the House to wear jackets and regular ties. No bolos, chief Sergeant-At-Arms Gilbert Lopez told me this week.

"The Senate allows bolos, but the House doesn't," Lopez said. "It's been that way since I've been here." Lopez said he's worked for the House for 15 years.

The rule is ironic considering that in 1987 the state Legislature named the bolo the "official state tie or neckwear of New Mexico" in a memorial that declared that those who wear bolos "shall be welcomed at all events or occasions when the wearing of a tie is considered if not mandatory, then at least appropriate."

Of course, a memorial has no force of law. Curiously, the "official state tie" is not listed in the same section of state law that lists the official state bird, state animal, state reptile, state cookie, etc.

Bolos, of course, are common on state officials. Gov. Bill Richardson has been known to occasionally sport a bolo.

Ryan, who was wearing a conventional tie Wednesday, said when he initially was stopped, the sergeant-at-arms tried to help him find a tie that would be allowed. "I finally borrowed one from a (bill) analyst," he said.

Soon after the incident, Ryan said he was approached by leaders of both parties in the Senate, who told him it was wrong for him to have been denied entrance to the House.

"It was a misunderstanding," Lopez said. "Senators who come in for joint sessions will be allowed to wear bolo ties."

However, if it's not a joint session, visiting senators going into the House will have to wear a regular tie, he said. "We've got some ties we can lend them."

(For the record: The scorpion tie pictured above is not the one Ryan was wearing.)

In the lobby: Former state Sen. Roman Maes might have lost the Democratic primary to freshman Sen. John Grubesic, D-Santa Fe, last year, but that didn't keep him away from the Roundhouse for long.

According to the Secretary of State's web site, Maes, former chairman of the Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee, is now a registered lobbyist for Microsoft, Valor Communications, St. Vincent Hospital and Santa Fe County.

Maes joins a long list of lawmakers who have joined the ranks of lobbyists. Other recently departed legislators seen around the Roundhouse lately are former Senate President pro-tem Richard Romero and former Rep. Joe Thompson.

The University of New Mexico announced that Democrat Romero and Republican Thompson would be lobbying for the school. But the Secretary of State's web site lists Romero's clients as Arena Management and Construction and Isleta Pueblo, while Thompson's only client listed is Jemez Pueblo.

Balls of Fire: Forty-five years ago this Sunday, a band of high school kids from Raton appeared on American Bandstand. This was The Fireballs, who would become even more famous in a few years when their song Sugar Shack hit No. 1 on the charts. It was the top-selling single of 1962.

The Fireballs are still around and includes two original members - guitarist George Tomsco and bassist Stan Lark. Rep. Hector Balderas, D-Wagon Mound, has introduced House Joint Memorial 19, which would declare Sunday "The Fireballs Day" in New Mexico.

"It's a pleasure to introduce this because they're from my district," Balderas said. Asked if he was a Fireballs fan, the 30ish lawmaker said, "They were in their prime before I was born."

Unfortunately there are no current plans to have The Fireballs play at the Legislature - though Tomsco last week was in the Rotunda, playing behind playwright/actor Charles Pike performing his play Elephant Murmurs, which concerns the "lost years" of Bill Richardson.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

SYNDICATION, GEORGIE ANGEL, ETC.


I've been working so much on my Legislature blog, (not to mention my more-than- fulltime job covering the Legislature for The New Mexican, you might think I've been letting this one go to Hell.

Well, that's not completely true. I the past couple of days, I've put this blog on the road to content syndication. So for those of you who use news aggregators or blog readers like Bloglines or Newsgator, have at it.

Plug: If you get a chance check out The Georgie Angel Blues Band at Fox's on St. Michael's Drive 9 p.m. Friday. I mainly wanted to plug the gig because I like George's graphic he e-mailed to me.

Monday, January 24, 2005

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, January 23, 2005
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
Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Eve of Destruction by The Dickies
Steppin' Out by Paul Revere & The Raiders
Hard to Be Human by The Mekons
Don't Break Me Down by The Donnas
Burn in Hell by The Ponys
Can't Stand to See Your Face by Holly Golightly
Johnny Carson by The Beach Boys

Dead Lover's Twisted Heart by Daniel Johnston
Walking the Cow by T.V. on the Radio
Wrong Place, Right Time by The Fall
Home and Garden by Pere Ubu
Squeeze Me Macaroni by Mr. Bungle
Twenty Small Cigars by Frank Zappa
Willie Nelson (Take 2) by Miles Davis
Gentleman's Lament by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282

Night of the Thumpasorus Peoples by Parliament
Female Troubles by Bootsy's New Rubber Band
Pop That Thang by The Isley Brothers
Wifesitter by Swamp Dogg
Your Love is So Doggone Good by Isaac Hayes
The Real Story by David Holmes

Bottle of Wine by The Fireballs
The Mercy Seat by Kazik Staszewski
Who Are You by Tom Waits
Nuts in My Family Tree by Napoleon XIV
Dust 2 by Elvis Costello
Wedding Dress by Mark Lanegan Band
True Love by Tiny Tim & Miss Sue
My Little Corner of the World by Yo La Tengo
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Saturday, January 22, 2005

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, January 21, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell


OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Cowboy in Falmes by The Waco Brothers
Demonic Possession by Drive-By Truckers
Creek Cats by The Legendary Shack Shakers
Flannery Said by The Moaners
Walk to the End of the World by Ronny Elliott
The Rubber Room by Porter Wagoner
Moonshiner's Child by Tammy Faye Starlite

Deep as Your Pocket by Tres Chicas
Fist City by Loretta Lynn
Loretta by Neko Case
Rocky Top by Lynn Anderson
Someone to Give My Love To by Big Al Anderson
The Good Ain't Gone by Rex Hobart & His Misery Boys
Slide Off of Your Satin Sheets by Johnny Paycheck
11 Months and 29 Days by Dave Alvin
It Won't Be Long (and I'll Be Hating You) by Rex Hobart & His Misery Boys

Rock-a-Billy Fever by Wanda Jackson
Right or Wrong by Kelly Hogan
Hot Dog That Made Him Mad by Wanda Jackson
Rock Your Baby by Candye Kane
Fujiyama Mama by Trailer Bride
Lovesick Blues by Wanda Jackson
Hot Dog by Rosie Flores
This Train by Sleepy LaBeef

Tonight She Hits the Honky Tonks Again by Justin Trevino
Worried Man Blues by George Jones
Something Stupid by The Mavericks with Trisha Yearwood
Drinkin' Thing by Gary Stewart
The Snakes Crawl at Night by Charlie Pride
Between Lust and Watching TV by Cal Smith
Stoned to the Eyes by Miranda Brown
Like a Monkey in the Zoo by Vic Chesnutt
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

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...