Monday, January 29, 2007

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, January 1, 2007
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
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
Blues From Down Here by TV on the Radio
Ancient Animals by Celebration
Tip My Canoe by Dengue Fever
Horoscopic. Amputation. Honey by Califone
Walkin' With Jesus (Sound of Confusion) by Spacemen 3

In This Home on Ice by Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah
The Burglars Are Coming by Solex
Hooded by The Casual Dots
Days and Nights in the Forest by Deerhoof
Like You Crazy by Mates of State
All ABout the Feeling by Moggs
Jitterbug by Angelo Badalamenti

Burn My Mind by The Monsters
Sun Dance Moon Dance by Bleach 03
Livin' Large by L7
23 Kings Crossing by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282
I'll Give You Space Cake by King Automatic
White People Thing by Lee Hazelwood
Groovy Times by The Clash
House by Babes in Toyland
Red Hot by Sam the Sham & The Pharoahs

Danelectro 3 by You La Tengo
Life is Like a Musical by Outkast
Drive My Car/The Word/What You're Doing by The Beatles
Cabinessence by Brian Wilson
A Black and White Rainbow by A Hawk and a Hacksaw
Killing Jar by French, Frith, Kaiser & Thompson
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Saturday, January 27, 2007

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, January 26, 2007
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell


OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Wolverton Mountain by Southern Culture on the Skids
Whatcva Gonna Do Now by Tommy Collins
Hobo's Prayer by Marty Stuart
I'm Gonna Take You Home (And Make You Like Me) by Robbie Fulks with Donna Fulks
Buck Hungry by Audrey Auld Mezera with Bill Chambers
Shoot Me to the Moon by Dan Reeder
You're the Reason by Nancy Apple
I Blunder On by Gurf Morlix
The Devil Ain't Lazy by Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys

June 1945 by Ed Pettersen
Planet Nixon by Ramsay Midwood
Low Rider/My Bucket's Got a Hole in It by Andy Fairweather Low
Get a Little Goner by Bill Kirchen
Shame on Me by John Egenes
On This Mountain Top by Johnny Paycheck
Why Don't You Ask Me by The Watzloves

JUG BANDS ETC.
She's in the Graveyard Now by Earl McDonald's Original Louisville Jug Band
Ella Speed by The Jim Kweskin Jug Band
Sweet Potato Blues by King David's Jug Band
I'll See You In My Dreams by Asylum Street Spankers
That's My Rabbit, My Dog Caught It by The Walter Family
Make My Cot Where the Cot Cot Cotton Grows by R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders
Selling The Jelly by The Noah Lewis Jug Band
Patent Medicine by Dr. West's Medicine Show & Junk Band
Minglewood Blues by Cannon's Jug Stompers
Hoodoo Bash by Unholy Modal Rounders

Johnny Reb by Johnny Horton
If The South Woulda Won by Hank Williams Jr.
Take it Down by John Hiatt
I'll Go to Church Again With Momma by Buck Owens
Perfect Stranger by Eleni Mandell
In My Hour of Darkness by Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris
Wings of a Dove by Tammy, Loretta & Dolly
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Friday, January 26, 2007

STEWART ON RICHARDSON

Here's the John Stewart segment I mentioned in yesterday's Roundhouse Roundup Watch it soon. It's supposed to expire on Feb. 6.

And here's a link to my story today about Richardson taking a stand on the Confederate flag -- one of those hot-button issues that is taken very seriously in South Carolina, home of an early primary.

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: ED's PUNK BLUES

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
January 26, 2007


Ed Pettersen is a singer-songwriter who is not well known in these parts — even among music geeks and cultists. But he ought to be. He’s a fine writer and a good singer, as he proves with grace and style on his just-released album The New Punk Blues of Ed Pettersen.

Pettersen is a native of Pennsylvania who has been living in Nashville in recent years. His original career goal was to be professional hockey player, a dream shattered by a terrible elbow injury. Luckily, the damage didn’t keep him from playing guitar. Although he is responsible for a slew of self-released CDs in the mid-to-late ’90s (under his own name and with bands like The High Line Riders and The Strangelys), in recent years he’s mainly been working behind the scenes as a producer. (Among the projects consuming much of his time is co-producing The Song of America, an upcoming, various-artists concept album that, according to Pettersen’s Web site, “will tell the history of our country, from 1620 through the present, through music.”)
ED PETTERSEN
Some of Pettersen’s well-respected studio pals show up to play on New Punk Blues. Motown bassist Bob Babbitt — you saw him on Standing in the Shadows of Motown — kicks off “Been There Before” with an ominous bass line suggesting “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.” Speaking of Motown, engineer Bob Olhsson twisted the knobs on this album. Steel guitar great Al Perkins plays on “Tabitha.” Muscle Shoals muscleman Reggie Young plays guitar on several songs. And did Will Ferrell really play cowbell on “Magic Glasses,” as the credits indicate?

It’s Pettersen’s songwriting that’s the main attraction here. “Tabitha” is a troubling true-crime song with a melody suggesting an old Civil War fiddle tune. Pettersen sings from the perspective of a little girl kidnapped from Nashville. In the first verse she’s “playing in the sun,” but later there’s the disturbing image of Tabitha “lying in the sun.”

Pettersen plays tribute to one of his buddies, Scott Kempner (The Dictators, The Del-Lords), on “Top Ten,” a cool tune that subtly nods to Kempner’s early-’60s rock sensibilities. (That's Top Ten himself backing Pettersen in above photo.)

Speaking of an early-’60s influence, “Magic Glasses” is an understated but soulful little number that reminds me of New Frontier-era pop/blues productions like Brook Benton’s “Walk on the Wild Side.” (I’m glad there isn’t much cowbell on it.)

My favorite song here is “June 1945.” Performed on acoustic guitar, this song was inspired a few years ago, when Pettersen received an e-mail from a stranger who said he thought his father was Pettersen’s grandfather. It seems that grandpappy Pettersen had a secret life and secret family that young Ed never knew about, until that e-mail. He always thought his father was an only child. The song is written from the grandfather’s point of view.

As for the song “$500 Car,” I am tempted to say it’s about half as good as The Bottle Rockets’ “Thousand Dollar Car.” But seriously, it’s a fine tune based on a cool slide-guitar riff.

Also Recommended:
*Popular Delusions & The Madness of Cows
by Ramsay Midwood. This is nothing but modern-day swamp rock, pure and simple.

You hear bits of organ, accordion, banjo, and even tuba on this album. Ace stringman Greg Leisz shows up to add some mandolin and lap steel. But it’s Randy Week’s tremolo guitar playing those snarling licks — along with Midwood’s deep, backwoods-cool, mush-mouthed vocals — that seal the deal on most of the songs. You’ll detect echoes of Creedence and Tony Joe White and J.J. Cale in Midwood’s music. And yet this album — produced by Don Heffington, who co-produced one of my favorite albums last year, Tony Gilkyson’s Goodbye Guitar — doesn’t sound like some retro museum piece.

Midwood, originally from Arlington, Va., and now living in Austin, is responsible for one of the finest unsung roots records a few years ago, Shoot Out at the O.K. Chinese Restaurant.

He sings of damaged heroes — the Vietnam vet who only wants to lift weights and praise the Lord in “Jesus is #1”; the “so far gone” subject of “Prozac”; and the “Withered Rose” who “goes down the boulevard trying hard to captured her long-gone rapture.”

There’s even a song called “Planet Nixon” that I probably should have played on my recent radio tribute to Tricky Dick. I can’t really tell what this song — a sweet acoustic song that suggests The Band and The Gourds — has to do with the 37th president. It seems to be a hobo fantasy, with an enigmatic refrain that goes “Planet Nixon spins on, shine on Confucius Sun, shine on.”

Most of the songs are original, but on Delusions, he has a couple of tasty covers. There’s the country-flavored gospel classic “When God Dips His Pen” that ends the album. And there’s “Rattlesnake” (a song that The Everly Brothers recorded as “Muskrat”), where the singer speaks with several members of the animal kingdom.

*Sweet Soulful Music by Andy Fairweather Low. Why should I write a review of this? A pretty accurate review can already be found right in the title. The music is indeed sweet and soulful, led by a high voice that sometimes almost cries. This is basic, stripped-down rock by a veteran picker. Like NRBQ, Low does roots with good pop instincts.

Also like the ’Q, Low has been around forever. He had a band in the ’60s called Amen Corner (I hadn’t heard of them either) and has done studio work with some giants — George Harrison and Eric Clapton among them. He was a background singer on The Who’s song “Who Are You.” This is his first solo record in more than a quarter century.

Highlights here are the irresistible “Hymn 4 My Soul”; the poetically titled “Bible Black Starless Sky,” which almost sounds like a Gene Autry cowboy song; and “The Low Rider,” where he does his part for the secret ukulele revival, which is poised to sweep the nation.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: GASSING UP FOR THE SESSION

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
January 25, 2007


Driving down Cerrillos Road and watching gasoline prices fall in recent weeks — I’ve seen it as low as $2.05 a gallon — reminded me of one of my favorite state-government conspiracy theories.

The Legislature comes to town every year at this time, pump prices drop and some Santa Feans inevitably connect the dots.

Some even call newspapers and suggest we launch investigations into the obvious connection.

I’m not sure why gas station owners in Santa Fe would lower their prices for a legislative session.

Could they be trying to fool legislators into thinking that prices are actually low in Santa Fe so the Legislature won’t try to impose price controls?

If so, they’d better worry about all those legislators who come to Santa Fe throughout the year for interim committee meetings and other business. Not to mention the lawmakers who live here.

Could the station owners be trying to do a big favor for lawmakers by keeping prices low for them, thus winning influence?

If so, there’s surely a more direct, efficient and far less costly method to win friends among legislators. It’s called “campaign contributions.”

As with most conspiracy theories, I’m skeptical.

And yet, once again, the session starts and gasoline prices fall.

I talked Wednesday with Ruben Baca, lobbyist and executive of the New Mexico Petroleum Marketers Association.

Now granted, if there was a conspiracy, Baca would be in on it and thus deny any connection between Santa Fe pump prices and the legislative session.

But what he said makes sense.

He explained that it’s not the arrival of the Legislature that causes prices to slide, it’s the arrival of winter.

“Usually this time of year the price is down everywhere,” Baca said. “Consumption is down, so prices get more competitive. And right now the price of oil is the cheapest it’s been in over a year.”

Said Baca: “If they had the Legislature in June, people would be complaining that prices were higher because of the Legislature. If it was up to me, we’d give it away. We’d have a lot less problems.”

Dueling conference committees: Once again there’s an effort in the Roundhouse to breach the last bastion of secrecy in the Legislature.

Actually there are several efforts. Rep. Joe Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, and Sen. Joe Carraro, R-Albuquerque, all have introduced bills to open conference committees to the public.

Conference committees are small groups of lawmakers from each chamber appointed to hammer out the final language in bills after the Senate and House pass differing versions of the same legislation. It’s the only kind of committee that the Legislature routinely allows to meet behind closed doors, exempt from the open-meetings requirements it decreed for other government decision-making bodies in New Mexico.

But House Republican Whip Dan Foley of Roswell said Wednesday there needs to be a new approach to the issue.

“Every year we do the same thing,” he said. “The House passes a bill to open conference committees, it goes there and it dies. So that lets us say, ‘Let’s blame the Senate.’ ”

And so on Wednesday he introduced House Resolution 2, which indeed has a new approach.
It reads “Members of the House shall not participate in a meeting of a conference committee that is closed to the public.”

This, he said, would force the Senate to go along. Without House members present, there couldn’t be a conference committee.

The entire House Republican Caucus backs the resolution, Foley said. However, he said, no Democrats have signed on. That doesn’t bode well for the measure, which needs a two-thirds majority to become reality.

One nonpartisan source who likes Foley’s resolution is Bob Johnson, executive director of New Mexico Foundation for Open Government. He has fought since 1994 to open conference committees. “It’s a good tactic,” said Johnson, who backs the other bills as well. “It’s creative and a good tool.”

Secret identity: Comedian Jon Stewart on Tuesday night’s Daily Show had some fun with Gov. Bill Richardson’s presidential announcement. The program showed rapid-fire clips of Richardson’s interview with George Stephanopoulos in which our governor touts his attributes: “I’m a westerner” ... “I’m a governor” ... “I’ve cut taxes” ... “I’ve rescued hostages.”

Cut to Stewart: “Oh my God! Bill Richardson is Batman!” Then the comic recites lyrics from the old Frank Sinatra song, “That’s Life”: “I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king.”

Sing it Roberto: It’s true that Lt. Gov. Diane Denish was part of a group of women who sang the old Dixie Cups hit “Chapel of Love” at a dinner in Boston during the 2004 Democratic National Convention. But we haven’t had a real singing lieutenant governor since Roberto Mondragón.

Mondragón, currently a liaison for the State Engineer’s Office, will be the first guest at a new “Cultural Dinner Series” next week at El Farol, the Canyon Road restaurant and bar. (Owner David Salazar says “the disappearing aspects of our local culture” is something frequently discussed informally in the bar area.)

Mondragón has been an author, a radio personality and a recording artist. (The first time I ever interviewed him, about 27 years ago, he gave me one of his albums.) That’s him singing “De Colores” at the end of The Milagro Beanfield War movie.

While Mondragón is advertised as speaker for the Feb. 1 dinner, a flier shows him strumming his guitar.

The cost is $60. For reservations call El Farol at 983-9912.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

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