Saturday, February 05, 2005

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, February 4, 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
Stranger in Our House by Justin Trevino
First Day of the Trial by Cornell Hurd
Hot Dog That Made Him Mad by Carolyn Marks & The Room-Mates
One Night With You by Wanda Jackson
How Can I Unlove You by Lynn Anderson
Country Poor & Country Proud by Robbie Arsenault
Get Up Jake by Raising Cane
Sober and Stupid by Fortytwenty
Automobile Ride Through Alabama by Red Henderson

Western Union Wire by Kinky Friedman
Highway Cafe by Tom Waits
Mr. Edison's Electric Chair by Ronny Elliott
Summer Evening by Gillian Welch
Rated X by Neko Case
Backstreet Affair by Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn
Old Missouri Waltz by Acie Cargill
Honey Babe by Guy Davis

Drive-by Truckers Set
All songs by DBT
Steve McQueen
Harold and Margo
Sink Hole
The Sands of Iwo Jima
Don't Be in Love Around Me
Guitar Man Upstairs
The Night G.G. Allin Came to Town

The Night Hank Williams Came to Town by Johnny Cash
Peggy Sue Got Married by Buddy Holly
Learning the Game by Waylon Jennings with Mark Knopfler
Kentucky by The Louvin Brothers
The Tear I Left Behind by Rex Hobart & His Misery Boys
The Man in the Bed by Dave Alvin
It Only Rains on Me by Don Williams
Jimmy's Road by Willie Nelson
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

Friday, February 04, 2005

BLUEGRASS BY LYNN

Pasatiempo started its long-awaited CD review section today. David Prince, Michael Koster and Craig Smith all have reviews in it. Here's my contribution:


The Bluegrass Sessions
Lynn Anderson
DM Nashville


This record earned country songbird Lynn Anderson her first Grammy nomination in nearly 35 years -- back when she was on top of the country charts with her signature tune, Joe South’s “Rose Garden.”

Notice I said “earned.” This album -- which features lively fiddle-and-banjo renditions of Taos resident Anderson’s best known songs plus some other surprises -- is a hoot from start to finish.

Anderson is hardly a stranger to bluegrass. Back in 1969 she was one of the first to record Felice & Boudleaux Bryant’s “Rocky Top,” which since has become a bluegrass standard.

Those who are put off my all that heavy early ‘70s “countrypolitan” pop production that marked Anderson’s best-known material should appreciate the understated, rootsy sound of The Bluegrass Sessions. Anderson hits like “How Can I Unlove You,” the soulful “Cry,“ and, yes, even “Rose Garden,” sound fresh and vital. And if anything, Anderson’s voice has improved with age.

The best cuts here are Anderson’s high-energy version of John Prine’s strip-mining lament “Paradise,” and a sweet country weeper called “Big Girls Don’t Cry.”

That’s an Anderson original, not the old Four Seasons classic. She did however include a quasi-bluegrass/quasi-calypso cover of “Under the Boardwalk.” I didn’t really like this track until the very last refrain when Anderson sings “On a blanket with my baby,” then snorts a dirty little laugh as if she’s letting us in on some secret. That boosted the sex appeal in this song by about a thousand percent.

I don't care what Anderson's legal problems are -- and there have been quite a few well-publicized ones lately -- this is one dynamite album.


TERRELL'S TUNEUP: TRUCKERS' PARADISE

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
February 4, 2005


The first time the Drive-By Truckers received any serious attention was in 2002 when Lost Highway Records re-released their wonderful landmark double-disc Southern Rock Opera (originally appearing on the tiny Soul Dump Records, a year before.) That effort was lavishly praised -- and rightly so -- by critics as well as fans of hard crunching roots-conscious guitar rock. And their subsequent efforts, Decoration Day and The Dirty South have lived up to Southern Rock Opera’s huge promise.

(As just one small voice in criticdom, all three made my annual Top 10 lists, The Dirty South topping last year’s.)

But some casual Trucker fans might not release that the Georgia-based band has been making albums years before Southern Rock Opera. The group’s current label, New West.

While neither of these reach the heights of the group’s last three albums, they’re both respectful efforts that, in retrospect, drop huge hints of what was in store. These CDs provide a glimpse at a great band back when they were merely really good.

The Truckers were more “country” sounding than the new ones. You hear a lot more steel guitar and mandolin on these albums as compared with the DBT’s now trademark Skynyrd-esque three-guitar attack. (But you can hear a precursor of that sound in the very first album with the roaring guitars on “Buttholeville” and the lyrics of “Demonic Possession,” in which singer Patterson Hood declares, “I can kick ass and talk backward/I hang out with a bunch of slackers/and I know I can get help from him/I listen to a lot of Led Zeppelin.”)

One thing that has remained constant in the DBT’s career is their obsession with their Southern heritage. Virtually every song deals with Southern culture.

On these first two albums, some of the songs tend to be jokier than their recent work.

You have fun-filled Patterson Hood tunes like “Steve McQueen” (described here as “the coolest doggone motherscratcher on the silver screen“) and “18 Wheels of Love” (the singer’s mom marries a truck driver at Dollywood, with a Porter Wagoner look-alike conducting the ceremony) from Gangstabilly

The on Pizza Deliverance, which came second but contains earlier songs) some tunes -- “Too Much Sex (Too Little Jesus)” and “The President’s Penis is Missing” (a then-timely Bill Clinton spoof) -- are more scatological.

Add these titles to Jim Stacy’s funny redneck cartoons that served as the cover art on these albums and some might be able to dismiss it all as Southern Culture on the Skids-style hick shtick.

Unless you listen to the actual music.

Both Hood and original Trucker Mike Cooley -- the only members still with the band -- already were writing some fine songs.

Gangstabilly starts off with a slow tune called “Wife Beater,” featuring a sweet whining steel and a refrain with three-part harmonies.

The singer is pleading to a domestic-violence victim to leave her abusive husband. But it’s obvious it’s a lost cause. “Now you say he‘s changed and you‘re going back to him … ”

The title of the song “The Living Bubba” might sound like something Larry the Cable Guy would approve of. However it’s actually about a friend of the band’s who died of AIDS. “Don’t give me no pity, don’t give me no grief/Wait til I die for sympathy/Just help me with this amp and a guitar or two/I can’t die now cuz I got another show to do.”

Pizza Deliverance kicks off Hood’s “Bulldozers and Dirt,” a song in which the protagonist basically is a lecherous scumbag. Singing to the teenage daughter of his live-in girlfriend, he brags how he met her mother while burglarizing her home.

By the end of the tune he’s coming on to the girl. “I’ve lived with your mama for 11 years/Through good times and bad times, fist fights and tears/But something comes over me when you come near/So won’t you come over and sip on this beer …” Not only can you imagine the horror of the girl, you get a feel of the twisted pain of the singer. You can’t feel much sympathy for him, but you know that pain is real.

And speaking of pain, Cooley’s best song here is “Uncle Frank,” which, over a jangly, Byrdsy guitar, tells a tragic tale of an uneducated man ripped off by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

But Hood’s songs dominate. There are unforgettable images, like the box of spiders kept by his great grandmother, the creepy middle-aged couple Margo and Harold (“fifty and crazy, big hair and cocaine …”), and of G.G. Allin.
“The Night G.G. Allin Came to Town” (the title is a parody of similarly-named country songs about Porter Wagoner and Hank Williams) tells of a Memphis show by the celebrated rock ’n’ roll degenerate, famous for his disgusting, sometimes illegal, stage antics.

The song tells of an indignant old man reading a newspaper account of the concert to his wife, But for Hood, it was a liberating moment, a night that blasted out the boredom of their lives. “Me and Cooley we just laughed so hard we both fell down,” he sings.

One small complaint I have about these reissues is that there are no outtakes or extra cuts. In the liner notes Hood tells about recording on barebones budgets in those days (at one point he was doing construction work at the studio in exchange for recording time.) So maybe there were no outtakes or “lost” tracks.

But it’s good to have these albums available again. Now I just hope New West re-releases The Truckers’ great live album Alabama Ass Whoopin’ .

Hear a whole mess of Drive-By Truckers music tonight on The Santa Fe Opry, 10 p.m. -midnight, KSFR, 90.7 FM

Thursday, February 03, 2005

KINKY FOR GOVERNOR

The job needs Friedman and Friedman needs the job. CLICK HERE

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: THE KOMADINA FACTOR

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Feb. 3, 2004


From hot air balloons to horse meat. From cockfighting to enchiladas. From drug-testing state officials to legalizing medical marijuana.

There is never any shortage of controversial bills and sometimes even some quirky bills during a legislative session. But this year some of the most controversial and quirky — and headline grabbing — have come from a colorful two-term Republican senator, Steve Komadina of Corrales.

In general Republicans don’t introduce many bills. For one thing, adding large numbers of new laws to the books goes against their small-government philosophy. Secondly, being in the minority party in both chambers of the Legislature — and these days having a Democratic governor — some Republican lawmakers get rather fatalistic about the chances of their bills passing. Thus, they tend to play defensive during a session, concentrating on a couple of pet issues.

But that’s not the case with Komadina, who has introduced 30 bills so far this session. That’s not as many as some Democrats, more than any other Republican in either chamber — even more than prolific bill author Sen. Joe Carraro, R-Albuquerque, who as of Tuesday night had only dropped 23 bills.

"I always introduce a lot of bills," Komadina said Wednesday. "During my first session I introduced 20. That’s a lot for a freshman."

Komadina said he doesn’t introduce bills for the sake of introducing bills. “These are my issues or those of my constituents. I’m their voice when I’m up here.”

Thus there is the "Right to Eat Enchiladas Act" (SB 291), "tort reform" bill that would prohibit overweight people from filing lawsuits against restaurants for causing obesity and the Elected Official Drug Testing Act — which would set up a state Web site publishing the results of state officials who agree to submit to random drug tests. (Those leaders who refused would be allowed to explain why on the proposed Web site.)

Drug-reform advocates are bound to fight that one. But Komadina is their hero in another issue. He plans to introduce a medical marijuana bill, to legalize the drug for treatment of specific serious ailments. Komadina said his bill would have criminal penalties for unauthorized people using or selling medical marijuana.

Many Komadina bills deal with animals.

Senate Bill 72 would make federal or state wildlife officials personally liable for criminal penalties if any of the wolves they release into the wild attack humans or livestock.

SB 67 would prohibit the slaughter of horses for human consumption.

SB 66 would prohibit cockfighting in New Mexico — one of the last two states in the union that allows the sport.

A couple of his bills add to the ever growing list of state symbols. SB 13 would make the hot air balloon as official state aircraft. Komadina is a past president of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

It’s not certain whether making the balloon the official state aircraft would conflict with another Komadina bill, SB 159, which would limit hot air balloon tort liability. (Brace yourself for the "Right to Eat Enchiladas on Hot Air Balloons Act.")

And this week he introduced SB 585, which would make the New Mexican horse the official state horse.

"This is one I’m really excited about," he said. The New Mexican horse is a breed that is descended from horses belonging to the Spanish conquistadors.

Komadina pointed out a group called the New Mexican Horse Project, founded by historian Carlos LoPopolo, which is dedicated to preserving the original bloodlines of the Spanish Mustang horses and is building wild horse preserves.

When someone introduces this much talked-about legislation it’s natural to wonder whether a lawmaker is considering a stab at a higher office.

Not so, says Komadina. "I’m not running for anything. I have no ulterior motives. I love being in the Senate."

A river runs through it: My old friend Erik Ness, longtime spokesman for the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau, brought my attention to a “Quote of the week” in a recent edition of his organization’s newsletter, attributed to Ramblin' Lee Reaves, a now-retired country disc jockey at KGRT AM in Las Cruces.

"The legislature is a lot like the Rio Grande. Clear and murky, cold and hot, shallow and deep, fast and slow and with just enough quicksand to keep you honest."

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

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