Tuesday, March 08, 2005

HUNTER HUNTED?

I didn't know Dr. Thompson ( one of my co-workers did) but I bet he absolutely would hate being the subject of a lame-brain conspiracy theory.

According to fervered whispers all over the internet, Thompson was rubbed out because he "was working on stories dealing with a homosexual callboy (or programmed sex slave?) ring in the Bush White House and the demolition of the World Trade Center."

The bastards!

Actually I think this Sept. 11 and sex ring talk is just a misinformation ploy to draw attention away from the real killer:

Courtney Love!

Monday, March 07, 2005

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, March 6, 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
Jack Pepsi by TAD
Territorial Pissings by Nirvana
Who You Driving Now by Mudhoney
Know Your Rights by The Clash
Slaves & Bulldozers by Soundgarden
Rape Me by Richard Cheese
Smells Like Teen Spirit by Sara DeBell

Making Fun of Bums by Too Much Joy
The Summer of '91 by ... and You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
Superheros of BMX by Mogwai
Cocaine Blues by Wayne Kramer & The Pink Fairies
Lullabye to My Nightmares by They Might Be Giants
She's a Lady by Tom Jones

Deaf Woman's Vagina by John Trubee & The Ugly Janitors of America
Pipeline by Anthrax
Blacktop by Pell Mell
Swamp Stomp by The Diplomats of Solid Sound
Gangster of Love by Eddie Turner
King of the New York Streets by Dion
Me and the Boys by NRBQ
Last Night on Earth by The Mekons

Operator, Help Me by Stan Ridgway
I Hear They Smoke the Barbecue by Pere Ubu
Dead and Lovely by Tom Waits
Friend by Ana da Silva
Jason's List by Howe Gelb
Where or When by Frank Sinatra with Count Basie & The Orchestra
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Saturday, March 05, 2005

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, March 4, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Cohost: Laurell Reynolds

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Then I'll Be Moving On by Mother Earth
California Cotton Fields by Gram Parsons
Play Together Again Again by Buck Owens with Emmylou Harris
Delilah by Jon Langford
I Drink Too Much by Cornell Hurd
Mr. Scarecrow by The Shiners
When I Paint My Masterpiece by Emmylou Harris
Sad Mountain by Boris McCutcheon

Girl Scout Cookies by The Blazettes
Girl Scout Cookies by NRBQ
Patent Medicine by Dr. West's Medicine Show & Junk Band
Buckskin Stallion by Jimmie Dale Gimore & Mudhoney
Honey Babe Blues by Vassar Clements with Maria Muldaur
Ball and Chain by Audrey Auld Mezera
Wings of a Dove by Dolly, Tammy and Loretta
White Lightnin' by George Jones
Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone by Charley Pride

If You've Got To Go by The Flying Burrito Brothers
Close Up the Honkey Tonks by the Flying Burrito Brothers
Panama Hat by Michael Hurley
The Waitress Song by Freakwater
My One Desire by Freakwater
Hesitation Blues by The Holy Modal Rounders
Out of My Head & Back In My Bed by Loretta Lynn
Pack Up Your Sorrows by Johnny & June Carter Cash
Mole In the Ground by The Holy Modal Rounders
That Lovin You Feelin' by Roy Orbison and Emmylou Harris

That's the Way Love Goes by Lefty Frizzell
Pretty Penny by Miranda Brown
Lottie by Ronny Elliott
Since I Met You Baby by Jerry Lee Lewis
Let's Leave Me by Rex Hobart & The Misery Boys
Old Paint by Loudon Wainwright III
It's Four in the Morning by Faron Young
Act of Faith by Stan Ridgway
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

Friday, March 04, 2005

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: KEEPING THE PROMISE OF MTV

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


Stan Ridgway’s new DVD Holiday in Dirt -- a compilation of video versions of all the songs from his 2002 album of the same name -- is a rewarding visual and audio experience. It also gives a viewer a glimpse at what might have been had MTV lived up to its original promise.


Some of us who probably were too old for rock ‘n’ roll by the early ‘80s but tried to keep up with it anyway saw the birth of MTV as the dawn of some truly exciting possibilities. (Other rockers my age saw MTV as a harrowing sign of the apocalypse -- and they probably were closer to correct. But indulge me here.)

What a wonderful idea, it seemed at the time: Imaginative filmmakers taking off on music and creating strange tales and crazy imagery.

“Music videos” had been around for years, though nobody called them that until MTV.

I still remember watching the “promotional films” for The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” on tv in early 1967. Between the alluring, alien sounds of “Strawberry Fields” and the images of The Beatles jumping around in the blurry, unusual lighting twisted my teenage head off.

Then came David Bowie’s “The Jean Genie,” and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Devo’s bizarre manifesto The Truth About Devolution and Michael Nesmith’s Elephant Parts … And then the floodgates opened with MTV.

And MTV did show some promise in those early days. Remember the twitchy, bespectacled David Byrne in the Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” ? The tacky, but undeniably hilarious special effects of “You Might Think” by The Cars? The Clash wielding huge boom boxes like bazookas, dancing around as images of war, oppression and poverty flash in the video of “Radio Clash” ?

But before the new wore off MTV, the whole concept seemed to turn sour. Videos soon became unimaginative and over-produced as most popular music of the ‘80s. The subversive, avant garde videos of the early days became rarer and rarer as videos became more obviously what the music bizzers intended them to be all along -- advertisements for their products.

Through the years there have been occasional music video masterpieces -- Nirvana’s dark “Heart Shaped Box,” directed by Anton Corjbin comes to mind. And Prince’s recent “Musicology” video with the little kid transformed by his dad’s soul records.

But basically the music video deteriorated into glossy footage of mugging pop stars. Who needs it?

Holiday in Dirt, however shows that there’s hope for the beleaguered artform of the music video. After all, he was there at the beginning. Barbecued iguana was a popular menu item on early MTV, thanks to Ridgway’s old band, Wall of Voodoo and their video of “Mexican Radio.”

Basically what he did was pay various directors $500 each to create videos based on the songs from the album. The project apparently was in the works for a few years, as Ridgway has released another album, Snakebite, since then.

Holiday in Dirt, the album, was itself an odds-and-sods compilation of songs -- outtakes, soundtrack material, B-sides, etc. -- spanning more than a decade. So the different visions of the directors seems natural.

You’ve got the surreal, computer-generated cartoons of Jim Ludtke on “Operator Help Me,” Ridgway’s ode to paranoia and aging. (Ludtke is most famous for his videos of San Francisco avant garde rockers, The Residents.)

Chuck Statler, the director of Devo’s influential first video, does the video for Ridgway’s goofball version of Charlie Rich’s “Behind Closed Doors.” It involves a creepy dummy, an even creepier ventriloquist and a set that looks like the infamous dancing dwarf sequence in Twin Peaks.

There’s a World War I recreation by director Rudi Tuzla on the song “After the Storm”; Steve Hanft’s appropriate film-noirish interpretation of “Bing Can’t Can’t Walk,” a song about a mob bone-breaker; a frightening fashion show by David Moe’s film of the stinging techno-jazz tune “Brand New, Special and Unique” and two different visions of Hollywood decay (by directors Rick Fuller and Phil Harder) in the two versions of  “My Beloved Movie Star.”

And you get to see Ridgway and director Carlos Grasso wrestle during an angry confrontation at the end of “End of the Line.”

My favorite one is Katherine Gordon’s sentimental video for the country waltz “Act of Faith.” A depressed looking guy stares at his clothes spinning in the crowded Laundromat dryer and watches them become grainy, badly-colored 8mm home movies of endless highways and a laughing dancing hippie couple. As we return to the man in the laundromat at the end of the song, the man’s yearning and regret is nearly tangible.

Music videos just don’t stir emotions like this anymore. I wish more quality musicians would instigate projects like this.


Not recommended:

*Here Come the ABCs
by They Might Be Giants. Granted I’m not really qualified to review this DVD. After all, I’m over five years old.

But these boring songs and not-that-interesting graphics -- including cartoons, puppets and a little live action -- just don’t compare with the standard-setting inspired kiddie craziness of the long lamented Pee-wee’s Playhouse.

Back in the ‘80s I’d happily get up at 8 a.m. on Saturdays to watch Pee-wee with my daughter. I can’t imagine any kid of mine trying to wake me up for Here Come the ABCs.

This ABC stuff is slick, safe stuff you can see on "educational" t.v. It's the kind of clean, safe kiddy programming that actual children only enjoy until they're old enough to learn how to change the channel. It’s hard to believe that TMBG would be associated with it. After all, they made some of the craziest, most fun videos of the late ’80s and early ’90s.

As for the music -- there’s a perfectly good song about the alphabet that ends with “Now I’ve learned my ABCs/Tell me what you think of me.” These new songs were as unnecessary as they are tedious. This doesn’t even compare with their last stab at children’s music No!.

BONUS!
MY ORIGINAL REVIEW OF THE CD HOLIDAY IN DIRT


As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Feb. 15, 2002


Stan Ridgway is an acquired musical taste that far more people ought to acquire.

His new CD, Holiday in Dirt, a collection of outtakes, mostly from the 90s, is a must-have for certified Ridgway fans. And for potential cult members, it would be a great place to start.

Lets put it bluntly. Ridgway is one of the finest songwriters working today, a highly literate, often funny, sometimes kinda creepy storyteller who spins tales of sad drifters, barflies, con men, small-time hustlers and lowlifes with high hopes. His damaged but determined characters will haunt you long after the CD player is turned off.

So many critics compare Ridgway's lyrics to Raymond Chandler (I think it was Greil Marcus who started it) that it's just about become a cliche. It's time for something new. So lets throw this one out and see if it sticks: Stan Ridgway is the Harry Dean Stanton of rock n roll. It's not hard to imagine Ridgway songs bouncing around the mind of the henpecked private detective Johnnie Farragut in Wild at Heart. The hapless Bud in Repo Man could have driven straight out of a Ridgway ballad.

Ridgway's music is not easy to categorized. Starting out as the quirky singer for the quirky L.A. New Wave band Wall of Voodoo, you can still hear a little "Mexican radio -- the spaghetti-Western guitars, the coffee percolator drum machines -- in his work 20 years later.

But Ridgway's solo work draws from a wide array of sources - jazz, country, soundtrack music, show tunes and synth pop among them. His musical trademarks are his lonesome harmonica, which appears in many songs and, more importantly, his voice - a nasally tenor that would fit perfectly on many of his shadowy characters.

Holiday in Dirt begins with one of Ridgway's most impressive songs, "Beloved Movie Star." The subject matter - a washed-up actress helpless to stop youth and beauty from slipping away from her - has appeared in rock songs before (the Velvet Underground's "New Age," Concrete Blonde's "Jenny I Read").

But Ridgway's tune - with its stately harp flourishes and Stan singing in a near worshipful voice as if he's the last one on Earth who believes in the fading star - makes this an instant classic.

"Beloved Movie Star Redux," which ends the album (if you dont count the "hidden" track, a hilarious golden-throat deconstruction of Charlie Rich's "Behind Closed Doors" -- say, is that a karaoke track here?) is a rougher and more acoustic mix. (And as Ridgway points out in the liner notes, you can hear the family dog, Bart, barking in the background.)

At first I didn't like it as much as the first version. Ridgway starts out singing in a lower octave and later switches when its obvious it doesn't work. But the more I listen to it, I think "Redux" has more heart.

"Bing Can't Walk," the tale of a Mafia bonebreaker, is a prime Ridgway crime song. It's got production and a nasty organ by Mitchell Froom and all sorts of classic Ridgway electronic gimcrackery - plus perhaps his best harmonica work on the album.

Another standout is "Brand New Special and Unique," which started out as a song for Ridgway's underrated mid-90s band Drywall. It features a wicked sax by Don Bell, a near hip-hoppy rhythm, cool-cat bass and ghostly background voices provided by the singer's wife, Pietra Wexstun.

This is followed by an ominous, fuzzed-up little rocker called "After the Storm," which sounds even closer to a garage band than Ridgway's amusing though not vital ode to his teenage rock memories, "Garage Band 69."

But Ridgway does far more than create creep shows and peep shows. He's perfectly capable of creating gorgeous melodies. "Amnesia" is a heartfelt love song, while "Act of Faith" is a sweet waltz featuring Stan strumming an acoustic guitar. The melody sounds like a cowboy tune or a traditional Irish song.

Stan Ridgway is one of those "just world" artists. You know, "in a just world, Stan Ridgway (or Richard Thompson/The Mekons/GillianWelch/Johnny Dowd)would be as big as Kenny G (or Garth Brooks/Britney Spears/Limp Biskit).

But somehow just having music like Ridgway's available makes the world seem a little more just.

Thursday, March 03, 2005

SELF-SERVING PLUG

The Santa Fe Reporter this week graciously including this very blog in their list of local blogs.

I just found out that Reporter editor Julia Goldberg has her own blog.

Thanks for the plug, guys.

And I do forgive you for never choosing me as one of the Hunks of Santa Fe.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: EMOTIONAL ISSUES

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
March 3, 2004


Any debate over a bill dealing with abortion gets emotional. But one state senator during this week's floor debate over Senate Bill 126 - which would require doctors to notify parents when a minor girl seeks an abortion - took the debate to a new emotional level.

Sen. Diane Snyder, R-Albuquerque, made a passionate speech against the bill - the only Senate Republican to speak in opposition. Her statement laid open many of the intense conflicts people have about the abortion issue in general and the parental notification issue in particular.

She talked about a friend who died from a "back alley" abortion in the days before Roe vs. Wade made abortion legal and safe for women.

She mocked the contention by bill supporters that the bill would bring families together. Instead, she said, it would result in confused and frightened teenage girls going to unlicensed and dangerous abortionists. Or send girls from dysfunctional families to violent confrontations by irate parents.

But then Snyder surprised - and undoubtedly disappointed - many listeners by saying she would vote for the bill. For political reasons, she admitted.

Snyder said if she voted against it, a more conservative Republican would likely defeat her in the next primary election.

But her Northeast Heights district "is a swing district; it's not hard right," she said, so a Democrat would likely triumph in the general election.

Snyder told the Senate that keeping the seat Republican was more important than her vote on the bill - which, she predicted, would die in the House as has happened in past sessions. (It's been referred to the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee, which earlier in the session tabled a similar House bill.)

In a literal way, her vote didn't make a difference. The bill passed the Senate 29-10. But some might argue that voting her conscience might have emboldened other senators - Republicans and Democrats - who believe the same as Snyder but voted for the bill out for political survival.

Talking to a reporter Wednesday, Snyder said there are other Republicans in the Senate who share the same conflicts about parental notification.

Snyder said the fact that she grew up in a small town - Shamrock, Texas - helped shape her view on the issue.

"Back then (if a young woman got pregnant out of wedlock), she'd either just 'go away for a visit' or go to a back-alley abortionist," Snyder said.

While SB 126 has provisions for a pregnant teenager to get a court order to bypass parental notification, Snyder said that would never work with small-town girls. "In a small town, girls would never go to the courthouse to talk to a judge about this," she said. "It would be on the front page of the paper. Everyone in the world would know."

"Families that have good relations don't need this bill," Snyder said. "Families who don't would be hurt by it."

Snyder said so far there have been no repercussions from the GOP regarding her speech.

More moral issues: On another emotional issue debated in the Legislature this week, five House Republicans broke ranks with the majority of GOP lawmakers and voted to pass House Bill 576, which would repeal the death penalty and replace it with life in prison without parole.

The five are W.C. "Dub" Williams of Glencoe, Brian Moore of Clayton, and Teresa Zanetti, Larry Larranaga and Justine Fox-Young, all of Albuquerque.

All but Fox-Young signed on as co-sponsors of the bill, introduced by Rep. Gail Beam, D-Albquerque. Williams and Zanetti have been co-sponsors of anti-death penalty bills in previous sessions.

Moore was the only Republican to speak on the bill during the House floor debate. He said his main concern was the possibility of executing an innocent person. "Death is so final," he said. "I just don't see having a death penalty."

Larranaga told a reporter Wednesday that he has always opposed capital punishment and that he sees his position as consistent with his anti-abortion philosophy. "I'm pro-life from conception to natural death," he said.

Fox-Young said she supported the bill because it provides life in prison without parole for those convicted of some murders. She declined to discuss her opinion on capital punishment itself.

Moore, Larranaga and Fox-Young all said they hadn't received any significant backlash from their party or constituents over their votes.

So far no Republican senator has publicly expressed support of the bill, which will be heard in the Senate Rules Committee.

"We're working on it," one lobbyist for the bill said.

"I've talked to some (GOP) senators about it who are thinking about it," Larranaga said.

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

GOODNESS GUSSIE!

So you thought you would be safe at Sirius, Howard Stern...

If you assumed that freedom of speech had a safe haven in pay-television and radio services -- which currently aren't under FCC "decency" standards -- THINK AGAIN!

This from The Washington Post:

Currently, the Federal Communications Commission has the authority to fine only over-the-air radio and television broadcasters for violating its indecency regulations, which forbid airing sexual or excretory material between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., when children are most likely watching.

But Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) told a group of broadcasters yesterday that he wants to extend that authority to cover the hundreds of cable and satellite television and radio channels that operate outside of the government's control. In addition to basic cable channels such as ESPN, Discovery and MTV, that would include premium channels such as HBO and Showtime and the two satellite radio services, XM and Sirius.

"We put restrictions on the over-the-air signals," Stevens said after his address to the National Association of Broadcasters, according to news reports confirmed by his staff. "I think we can put restrictions on cable itself. At least I intend to do my best to push that."


The Reuters account of the story quotes Stevens saying, "No one wants censorship."

Whew! I guess there's nothing to worry about. You had us going there for a minute, Ted.

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...