Monday, June 11, 2007

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, June 10, 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
Poor Poor Pitiful Me by Warren Zevon
Marie Doucer by Marie LaForet
Fall of the Kingfish by Gas Hufffer
The Interview by Deadbolt
Mercy Mercy by The Remains
Sea of Blasphemy by The Black Lips
Murder in My Heart for the Judge by Moby Grape
Evil Eye by Pussy Galore
Paper by The Kilimanjaro Yak Attack
The End of Christianity by The Stooges

We Repell Each Other by The Reigning Sound
Devil Dance by the A-Bones
Running Through My Nightmares by The Chesterfield Kings
Searching by The Monsters
Depth Charge Ethel by Grinderman
Viva del Santo by Southern Culture on the Skids
Don't Tease Me by ? & The Mysterians
The Rock Around by Esquerita

All the Nation's Airports by The Archers of Loaf
Love Jet by The Harry Perry Band
Funny Funny a Go-go by The Brothers Hawk
I'm 16 by Dengue Fever
Whiskey 'n' Women by The Clone Defects
Niki Hoeky by Bobby Rush
Are You Angry by Thee Midnighters
Coach and Horses by The Fall
The Ball Game by Sister Wynona Carr

Hate to Say Goodnight by Goshen
The Barren Fields by Hundred Year Flood
It's Me by Dinosaur Jr.
Come on in This House by John Hammond
Outlaw Blues by Bob Dylan
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Saturday, June 09, 2007

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, June 8, 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
Crazed Country Rebel by Hank Williams III
Progressive Country Music For a Hollywood Flapper by Hank Penny
High and Wild by Ray Condo & His Ricochets
Snatch It and Grab It by Deke Dickerson
Have Love Will Travel by The Sharps with Duane Eddy
Drinkin' Wine Spo-De-O-Dee by Malcom Yelvington
Miss Froggy by Warren Smith
Nervous Breakdown by Eddie Cochran
Buddy I Ain't Buyin' by Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys
Old Man From the Mountain by The Gourds

Jesus Loves a Jezebel by Goshen
Rich Man's War by Hundred Year Flood
Trotsky's Blues by Joe West
Standin' So Still by Boris McCutcheon
Room 100 by Ronny Elliott
Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain by Carla Bozulich


Intro/The Border/Moving Back Home # 2/ $87 and a Guilty Conscience That Gets Worse the Longer I Go by Richmond Fontaine
Slow Hearse by Son Volt
Madalyn's Bones by Gurf Morlix
Four Strong Winds by Neil Young with Nicolette Larson
You Don't Care by Mike Monteil
Wine Me Up by Bill Hearne's Roadhouse Revue
Brown Liquor by John Anderson
The Ghost and Honest Joe by Pee Wee King

Opportunity to Cry by Willie Nelson
The River Bed by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Sorry Willie by Roger Miller
Jason Fleming by The Sadies with Neko Case
Ain't No God in Mexico by Waylon Jennings
Round the Bend by John Egenes
In Good Old Days When Times Were Bad by Dolly Parton
The River Hymn by The Band
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

Friday, June 08, 2007

COFFEE WITH CHARLIE, PUNCH IN THE SENATE

Tampa rocker Ronny Elliott writes about an encounter with the great Charlie Louvin on a cool little Web site called The Brink.

Last time I saw Ronny we were in the Austin airport. He was standing in line for ice cream and he'd just seen Karl Rove. But that's another story.

Speaking of political encounters, I wish the New Mexico Legislature was as fun as the Alabama state Senate yesterday.

Check out this story and make sure to watch the video. It might make us New Mexicans long for a rematch between Rod Adair and Raymond Sanchez.

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: SONGS FOR DESERT ROADS

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 8, 2007


In some respects, Thirteen Cities, the new album by the Portland, Ore.-based band Richmond Fontaine, sounds like a soundtrack record. Not for a movie; maybe for a book. Fontaine singer Willy Vlautin is a novelist whose book, The Motel Life, was recently published by Harper Perennial.

The title of the book is referenced in the song “Westward Ho”: “The Rancho and Sutro, the Time Zone and don’t forget/The Everybody’s Inn or the Monte Carlo/Motel life ain’t much of a life, and a motel ain’t much of a home/But I found out years ago that a house ain’t either.”

I haven’t read the book, but if it’s anything like Thirteen Cities, it has to be a cross between Steinbeck, Bukowski, and — I dunno — Gram Parsons?

This album is a literary work in itself. It’s a song cycle (alt-country opera?) about that motel life — character sketches and short stories, mostly in first person, of drifters adrift in the American West. Vlautin strips away all romantic notions of the West, portraying a dusty, windblown world of truck drivers, aimless hitchhikers, fugitives, illegal immigrants, tough bars, and mixed-up kids.

Musically the band sounds something like Wilco (Vlautin’s voice calls to mind Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy) colored by Calexico. There are reasons for that. Calexico’s Joey Burns plays bass and accordion on some songs, and that band’s Jacob Valenzuela lends his trumpet on some numbers. The album was recorded in Tucson, Ariz., so it’s only natural that local alt-rock godfather and Giant Sand-man Howe Gelb guests on piano on one song. There’s lots of moody steel guitar, giving a ghostly edge to sad melodies.

After a short instrumental prelude, Thirteen Cities’ first full-fledged song, “Moving Back Home #2,” with its quick rhythm and blaring trumpets, is more upbeat than most of the others, but the lyrics set the emotional mood. The narrator has been living in his mother’s basement, constantly bickering with her, and losing money at off-track betting. He is sitting on top of a parking garage and contemplating suicide. You know he won’t be in Mom’s house much longer, but there’s no real hope that a change of scenery will improve his outlook.

The characters in these songs don’t burn, burn, burn like Kerouac’s mad highway angels. They’re sad refugees from oppressors who are never quite identified, seeking some better place that’s most likely a desert mirage.

"I started having dreams of the desert so real they haunted me/Always sunny and never gray no noise just wind and sage,” Vlautin sings in one song. “I began taking vacation days and driving out as far as I could/The people around me said I drew away that a ghost I became.”

One song, “$87 and a Guilty Conscience That Gets Worse the Longer I Go,” takes place partly in New Mexico. It starts out at a boxing match in Albuquerque. “The referee wouldn’t stop the bout/The kid’s blood hit the fifth row ... that was the night I gave up the fights.” The narrator and his traveling companion encounter an overturned semitrailer on Interstate 25 near Las Cruces. “We pushed in the windshield and pulled the guy out/ We left him on the side of the road/My friend said we had to leave before the cops showed/What he’d done I didn’t know.”

By the next verse the travelers are in Arizona, where they pick up a teenage hitchhiker. "Saddest eyes and rotten teeth/Said she was only 16.” The narrator’s friend stops at a motel and gets a room for himself and the girl — an act that outrages the narrator and effectively ends the friendship. You don’t know whether it’s moral outrage or jealousy. All you know is that he feels guilty when he calls the police.

Vlautin looks at the ugly current that rages inside the national immigration debate on a song called “The Disappearance of Ray Norton.” It’s spoken-word song over a wistful backdrop of guitar, bass, and clarinet; in it the narrator tells of a friend who hated Mexicans. “He started going on and on about it, how they’re all moving in, buying and renting all the houses around us, how they’re ruining the property values, how they’re ruining everything. He’d get real upset about it, start saying crazy things.” Ray, the friend, moves in with “a group of guys ... they all had shaved heads and tattoos.” That arrangement ends badly and eventually Ray disappears, shunned by his father, his employer, and his ex-girlfriend. But you get the feeling that the next time anyone hears of Ray Norton, it’s going to be tragic and ugly.

Immigration is the subject of another song, “I Fell Into Painting Houses in Phoenix, Arizona.” The narrator quits his job when he realizes an undocumented co-worker was stiffed by his employers for five days of work. The song ends with reflections on headlines dealing with “a family left in the trunk of a car, or a family abandoned in the desert alone.”

There’s a ray of hope in the upbeat “Four Walls.” The narrator is in love and wants nothing to do with anything from the outside world: “We’ll just lay around and our hearts will sing like mariachis.”

But that mood quickly dissolves in the last song, “Lost in This World,” in which Vlautin moans over Burns’ stark piano, “I barely know where I am/I’m sorry I ain’t called you in days/Maybe I’ll never get over Wes and the hospital/And now I don’t even have bus fare home.”

But you know he’s out there on some highway in Utah or Wyoming, nursing a beer and a broken heart, sweeping the floor in some back-road joint, playing the horses, and wondering if he’ll ever get back home — living the motel life and wondering how long it’s going to last.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: THOUGHTS ON SUNDAY'S DEBATE

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 7, 2007


Gov. Bill Richardson’s debate performance in Manchester, N.H., on Sunday was a vast improvement over his initial debate showing in South Carolina in April.

He was more relaxed and less inclined to grimace or scowl. And despite the New Hampshire humidity — which I’ll personally testify is an inspiration to perspiration — he didn’t appear to be sweating nearly as much as he did in that first debate.
RICHARDSON
Still it would be a mistake to call Sunday’s debate a big breakthrough for Richardson.

While he might be eligible for the “most improved” award, he still got some bad reviews. Even worse, he barely got mentioned in many national stories.

That might be less the fault of Richardson than CNN, which organized and televised the event. Many commentators pointed out the format seemed to favor the front-runners — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

One problem managing these debates is the sheer number of candidates. I started having ugly flashbacks of those unwieldy candidate forums years ago when Santa Fe had a dozen candidates for mayor.

Richardson wasn’t asked a question until 18 minutes into the debate. I could feel his pain when the question about making English the nation’s official language came up. Here was a chance to brag that he is governor of a state that has always had two official languages. But he didn’t get a chance to respond.

When Richardson was called on, however, his answers almost always reverted to his standard campaign rhetoric and meandered off subject.

When someone asks him a question on an issue, he starts shotgunning all his soundbites on that general topic. Thus, when asked Sunday about providing health insurance for all without raising taxes, he started talking about child immunization and getting junk food out of the schools.

He had a couple of good moments. His idea to threaten a 2008 Summer Olympics boycott to pressure China into helping stop the violence in Sudan might not turn out any better than Jimmy Carter’s 1980 Olympic boycott. But it’s an idea that might have made national headlines had Clinton or Obama suggested it.

Richardson also gave a good, concise answer on veterans’ health care. His idea of a “hero health card,” which would allow veterans to get care at any hospital, deserves more discussion.

But, several times in the debate, moderator Wolf Blitzer had to cut off Richardson or try to steer him back on course. That happened to other candidates as well, but Richardson wasted much of his precious television time this way.

Must be doing something right: Polls show Richardson gaining, though still a second-tier candidate. A WBZ/Franklin Pierce College poll taken the day after the debate shows the only two candidates gaining significant strength in New Hampshire are Clinton and Richardson.

Clinton has picked up 6 points since March, putting her at 38 percent. Richardson gained 5 points, putting him at 8 percent. He’s tied with Al Gore — who hasn’t declared he’s running — but still lagging behind Obama and Edwards. Joe Biden has moved up slightly since March, to 4 percent from 1 percent.

This poll showed 60 percent of the people who had watched the debate and read, saw or heard media reports thought Clinton won the debate. One percent said Richardson.

The numbers are based on telephone interviews Monday with 424 likely Democratic presidential primary voters. The margin of error is 4.8 percentage points.

Meanwhile, the latest Rasmussen poll, released Wednesday, showed Richardson gaining on Republican candidates. The poll, taken two days after Richardson’s May 27 Meet the Press appearance, showed him trailing Rudy Giuliani by only 4 points, 43 percent to 39 percent.

Meanwhile, John McCain was ahead of Richardson by 5 points, 43 percent to 38 percent.
This national telephone survey of 800 likely voters has a 4-point margin of error.

“Richardson has improved significantly against both candidates over the past several months,” according to the Rasmussen Report Web site. “In April, Giuliani was leading Richardson by 17 percentage points, 51 percent to 34 percent. In late February, Richardson trailed McCain by nine points, 36 percent to 45 percent.

“Richardson’s competitive showing is as much a function of soft support for the leading GOP candidates as his own viability as a runner-up Democratic candidate. At least 18 percent in each match-up are undecided or prefer a third party option.”

The bad news for the governor from Rasmussen is that Richardson’s disapproval number is bigger than his approval number — 42 percent to 31 percent.

Worst-case scenarios: One of the cheesiest aspects of the presidential debates this season are those questions that seem ripped out of Tom Clancy novels or episodes of the TV series 24.

On Sunday, a question initially posed to Dennis Kucinich was “if you were president of the United States and the intelligence community said to you, ‘We know where Osama bin Laden is. He’s in Pakistan. We’ve got the specific target. But he’s only going to be there for 20 minutes. You’ve got to give the order yes or no to take him out with a Hellfire missile, but it’s going to kill some innocent civilians at the same time: What would be your decision?”

Such questions are irritating and probably make a sad comment about the mentality of today’s electorate. But I bet they’re fun to write.

Here’s my suggestion for the next debate: “What if a giant meteor were heading toward Earth and the only one who could stop it was God, and the only way He’d do it was if the U.S. agreed to allow children to pray in public schools. Would you do that? Raise your hands if you’d allow it.”

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Laurell filled in for me on the Santa Fe Opry Friday when I was in New Hampshire. Here's her play list.

I don't know whether Dan did a play list for Sound World Sunday. I heard a little bit of his show via the Internet just in time to hear my favorite Archers of Load song, "All the Nation's Airports." If he does have a play list, I'll post it when I get it.

Thanks, Laurell and Dan. Good job, both of yas.

Friday, June 1, 2007
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Substitute Host: Laurell Reynolds


Ed's Place - Horace Heiler
Jubilee - Patti Smith
Mississippi Queen (Live)- Mountain
97 Men In This Here Town- Buffy Sainte-Marie
Back In the Saddle Again- Gene Autry
8 Weeks In A Barroom - Ramblin Red Bailey
Drinking All My Troubles Away- Paul Howard & His Cotton Pickers
Enchanted Forest - Mohawk & The Rednecks
Women Do Know How To Carry On- Waylon Jennings
Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head - B.J. Thomas
Nat'l Weed Grower's Assoc. -Michael Hurley

Blue Moon - Cowboy Junkies
Blue Moon of Kentucky - Elvis Presely
Blue Moon Nights - John Fogerty
Cattle Call-Eddy Arnold
Too Many Pills- Arkey Blue
Beer Bottle Mama- Andy Reynolds & His 101 Ranch Boys
Don't Touch Me - Jeannie Seely
I Wish I Was A Single Girl Again - The Maddox Brothers & Rose

Country Pie- Bob Dylan
Santa Fe- Bob Dylan
Same Old Man- The Holy Modal Rounders
Down And Out - Chuck Wells
Dolores- Eddie Noack
Spanish Pipedream- John Prine
Black Cadillac -Rosanne Cash
Still Doin' Time- George Jones
Beautiful- Gordon Lightfoot
Gentle On My Mind- John Hartford
Magdalene Laundries- Emmylou Harris

Monday, June 04, 2007

RICHARDSON: BOYCOTT THE OLYMPICS?

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 4, 2007



(If you're looking for my debate blog, it's the previous post. Just scroll down.)

RICHARDSON SPINNING IN SPIN ALLEY

MANCHESTER, N.H. — At a debate with seven other presidential candidates Sunday, Gov. Bill Richardson said the U.S. should pressure China to take a bigger role in establishing peace in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The statement came as Richardson and the other candidates competed for time and attention in the two-hour debate, which was held at Saint Anselm College and shown nationally on CNN.

Richardson said he is not in favor of using military force in Darfur, which is in the midst of a civil war many call a genocide on the part of the Sudanese government.

“This is what I would do,” Richardson said when asked about how he would try to bring peace to the region. “Number one, more U.N. peacekeepers. The government is refusing to make this happen. Secondly, economic sanctions. We’ve imposed them, but they’re weak. We need European countries to make them happen. Third, we need China, to lean on China, which has enormous leverage over Darfur. And if the Chinese don’t want to do this, we say to them, maybe we won’t go to the Olympics.”

The 2008 Summer Olympics are scheduled to be held in Beijing. The last time the U.S. boycotted the Olympics was in 1980, when President Carter protested the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. The Olympics were held in Moscow that year.

Later in the debate, moderator Wolf Blitzer returned to Richardson to ask about the his boycott idea.

“China purchases a lot of their oil — most of it, a good part of it — from Sudan. And my view is that they are a leverage point. And they have not been strong on the Sudan,” Richardson said.

Addressing one of his opponents, Richardson said to Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, “We don’t need, Joe — with all due respect — another military involvement. Iraq is enough. And we must get out of Iraq. What we need to do is move forward with the toughest options. Am I for a no-fly zone? Yes. I think we need strong economic sanctions.

“And we lack the moral authority to build international coalitions to fight genocide in Darfur,” Richardson continued. “We should shut down — I would as first day as president, I would shut down Guantánamo. I would shut down Abu Ghraib and secret prisons. That is the moral authority that we don’t have.”

Richardson has experience in the Sudan. Last year, he went there to negotiate the release of a U.S. journalist captured by government forces. Early this year, he went to Darfur to attempt to negotiate peace. He got two sides to agree to a cease-fire — though the violence there goes on.

“I got a very fragile cease-fire put together there three months ago,” Richardson said in the debate. “And we made things a little better.”

One of Richardson’s rivals, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, disagreed with Richardson about using the Olympics as leverage. It’s important to engage the Chinese in the Darfur crisis, Dodd said, “But the idea that you go in and stop the Olympics from happening, I don’t think gets you there. I think that’s more likely to delay the kind of influence and support China ought to be providing.”

But another candidate disagreed with Dodd. “I think that we should use whatever tools available to us,” said former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.

Richardson and other candidates were asked how they would use former President Bill Clinton, the most recent Democratic president.

Richardson said Bill Clinton should be secretary-general of the United Nations. He also said he would ask the former president to serve as a special envoy to the Middle East.

In April, Richardson, speaking to the National Jewish Democratic Council, said he’d consider bringing back James Baker — former secretary of state under the first President Bush — as a special envoy for the Mideast peace process.

One of Richardson’s opponents, front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, hinted there could be a role for Richardson in her administration.

“In my administration, (there would be) diplomacy, patient, careful diplomacy, the kind of diplomacy that Bill Richardson did for my husband, that really gets people to stay with it over time.”

Sunday, June 03, 2007

BLOGGING THE DEBATE IN MANCHESTER

UPDATE: I went back and cleaned up most the typos here. Also I caught a couple goof-ups. Richardson said we should lean on China to help bring peace to Sudan -- not "leave on China" as I somehow typed. Also Gravel said anybody who voted for the war resolution should be disqualified. I originally said "nobody." Got tripped up on the double negative there.

8:59 PM EDT: It's over. Gonna take a spin to the Spin Room.

8:57 PM EDT: Richardson talks about improving education as his top priority in the first 100 days. Mentions New Mexico went from 49th to 29th under his watch -- possibly an attempt to nullify some of the Meet the Press talk of bad NM statistics.

8:52 PM EDT: Gravel has been far more subdued tonight. He's talking about line-item vetoes. I like it better when he says stuff like the other candidates scare him. He's coming to life a little bit saying Congress got surpluses during Bill Clinton by raiding social security.

8:47 PM EDT: Richardson brags that he's balanced five state budgets. This drives New Mexico reporters nuts! He has to balance the budget according to the state constitution. There's no option.

8:37 PM EDT : I believe the biggest applause line so far tonight was when Hillary said they should quit asking hypothetical questions. Biden is shouting to establish a no-fly zone in Darfur.
Richardson pressed on Olympic boycott. Don't need military action. But now he's going back to his campaign speech about "On the first day I'm president ..."

8:34 PM EDT: Richardson says he wouldn't use force. More UN peacekeepers, Economic sanctions. Need to lean on China. Threaten to boycott Olympics. "America should care about Africa and we don't."

8:32 PM EDT: Darfur. Here's a good Richardson question. But Biden butts in.

8:27 PM EDT: Except for the question about veteran hospitals, most of the New Hampshire citizens asking questions seem to be most concerned about foreign issues -- Iran, Pakistan. Wolf is asking Kucinich whether he'd launch a missile to kill Osama bin Laden. Sounds like a good movie. Kucinich doesn't like assassinations. Obama says he'd kill Osama.

8:22 PM EDT: Hillary has good words for "the type of diplomacy Bill Richardson did for my husband."

8:18 PM EDT: Richardson gives a good clear answer to funding veteran hospitals. Of course this is a pretty apple-pie issue.

8:15 PM EDT: In general Richardson seems more relaxed and a lot less scowly than he did in the South Carolina debate. He hasn't made any major mistakes. His main problem is that his answers seem to revert to campaign rhetoric and meander. He's not alone in this. That's a major sin of many politicians. The second problem is that he just doesn't have enough time to make an impression with all these candidates. These debates (the Republicans too) are reminding me of Santa Fe mayoral election back when we had 16 candidates.

8:10 PM EDT: They're back.

8:05 PM EDT: Break time! I need coffee.

8:00 PM EDT: A change in format is about to come. Audience members will soon start asking questions. But first Richardson is asked if oil companies are gouging. He starts out by saying NM is the clean energy state. He also wants states to have more authority to investigate price fixing. He starts talking about his "Apollo program" for clean energy. Wolf again has to cut him short.

7:54 PM EDT: Richardson says Bill Clinton should be secretary general of the United Nations. He says he'd use Clinton to be Middle East peace envoy. But didn't he say a few weeks ago he wanted James Baker for that role?

RICHARDSON SPEAKS
7:50 PM EDT: Cynical press dogs laugh openly when Biden says "Nobody asks whether you're gay in those holes." We're turning into Bevis & Butthead! Richardson pipes in. Makes fun of senatorial courtesy. Says he would get hate-crime, civil-union laws.

7:47 PM EDT: Hillary won't say her husband's "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy was a mistake. "It was a transitional policy." She quotes Barry Goldwater! "You don't have to be straight to shoot straight."

7:42 PM EDT: Richardson -- in New Mexico we insured every child. Got rid of junk food in the schools. Junk food in the schools? Not quite on topic. Wolf cuts him short.

7:39 PM EDT: Edwards talks about raising taxes to fund national healthcare. But he's not saying whether Richardson and Hillary are being "dishonest" for saying no tax increases are not needed.

7:35 PM EDT: Raise your hand if English should be the official language of U.S. Gravel is the only one. Obama says the question is designed to divide us. Hillary is answering now. Richardson I know would love to answer this but he can't get a word in edgewise.

7:32 PM EDT: Richardson asked about immigration, why he supports path to citizenship. He meanders a little at first. Why isn't this amnesty? Because Richardson says, it sets standards. You don't immediately get amnesty, citizenship. It takes about 13 years. But he says it separates families. Wolf is trying to cut him short.

7:27 PM EDT: Gravel says anybody who voted for the resolution should be disqualified from being president. They made a political decision and showed a lack of moral judgment. Hillary says if she knew then what she knows now ...

7:25 PM EDT: Hillary's talking again about her "sincere" vote for the war in 2002. Tries to wiggle out of answering question whether she regrets not reading the National Intelligence Assessment. Says she was fully briefed. So does Edwards. But he says he was wrong to vote for the war resolution.

7:21 PM EDT Kucinich points out that Iraq is now the Dem's war.

7:19 PM EDT: Mike Gravel points out that the Democrats in Congress supported the original war resolution.

7:18 PM EDT: Richardson on withdrawal from Iraq leading to genocide. There is a fundamental difference in his position and the others. Wolf tried to lead him back to the genocide question. He says he'd keep troops in Kuwait and move them to Afghanistan.

7:16 PM EDT : More than 15 minutes through debate and Richardson hasn't been called on.

7:14 PM EDT: Obama and Edwards getting down. Edwards criticizes Obama's hesitancy over recent vote. Obama says Edwards is a Johnny come lately to the anti-war position. Hillary reminds everyone it's Bush's war.

7:11 PM EDT: Hillary won't criticize Biden for voting for the war funding. She went on to attack the Republicans who support the war and President Bush. Sounds like she's looking ahead of the Democatic primaries.

7:03 PM EDT: "I'm Bill Richardson, the proud governor of New Mexico."

7:02 PM EDT: Wolf Blitzer says they're going to prevent candidates from getting off topic. Good luck!

6:58 PM EDT: Bad sign. Something seems to be wrong with the sound in the media room. If it ain't fixed pretty quick there's going to be hundreds of angry reporters. Someone came by and said "they're working on it." Hope he's right

6:06 PM EDT As you can see, I'm not taking or posting many photos at this point. Nothing much exciting to see in the media room.

But I did get a few yesterday, so check them out over at my FLICKR site.

P6030093



5:49 PM EDT: Those wascally Wepublicans. On a table just outside the media room are a bunch of unflattering profiles of the Democratic candidates from the Republican National Committee.

These have been updated since the Carson City forum, when they wrote similar studies of the Dem contenders.

For the governor of New Mexico, the sheet is titled "Meet Bill Richardson (D-NM): A Self-Serving Washington Insider With a Controversial Record." (Back in February he was merely a "self-promoting" Washington Insider, etc.)

The new Richardson sheet concentrates on recent contradictions over Iraq, immigration, the Red Sox/Yankee rivalry, etc. (I just had lunch with a rabid Red Sox fan. I tell you, they take that stuff seriously up here.)

These GOP "Meet the Candidates" efforts is just typical partisan politics. I'm sure Richardson and the other candidates aren't too worried. However the one on Richardson did hit below the belt in one area:

They criticized his Bill Richardson salsa at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. I'd argue that anything that spreads New Mexico salsa to other parts of the country is a good thing. I'm still sore that the Secret Service confiscated mine at the convention. (CLICK HERE and scroll down toward the bottom of the post)


5:09 PM EDT

THE MEDIA ROOM


4:30 PM EDT: I'm here in the media room for the debate at Saint Anselm College. We're in a gym next door to the main event.

The last one of these dog and cattle shows I personally attended was the one in Carson City, Nev. last February. So far -- two-and-a-half hours before the debate even starts, it's easy to tell that things have intensified since then.

First of all at least a few of the candidates have gobs of supporters out in force. Joe Biden is winning the sign wars, at least on the approach from NH 114. However, driving around the neighborhood with a local friend a couple of hours ago we found pockets of Edwards supporters and one small area where several yards had Richardson signs.

As I was turning into the media parking lot (a huge area of beautiful green grass, being slowly trampled by hundreds of press-dog vehicles) a group of Obama supporters started feverishly chanting their candidate's name at me. later, walking through the rain to the press center, I heard in the distance a group of people happily chirping out the letters "H-I-L-L-A-R-Y"

Then, unlike the Carson City event, there's actual security here, complete with metal detectors. Just my luck that I wore a metal bolo tie.

I haven't done a formal count, but there seems to be about twice as many spaces for journalists than there was in Nevada. There are assigned spots for all of us and no chart or anything to help a lonely reporter find his spot. I'd assumed they'd stick the smaller publications in the back, so I started looking there. However, after searching several rows, I learned they'd actually put me somewhere north of the middle. I'm right between reporters from Newsweek and U.S. News & World report.

Now that I'm settled in, nothing's going to happen for a few hours. But keep refreshing that browser

RICHARDSON IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 3, 2007


P6030122MANCHESTER, N.H. — Gov. Bill Richardson spent Saturday morning with Democratic activists at a political convention, but he spent part of the afternoon personally seeking Hispanic voters in an urban neighborhood.

Richardson and his entourage — followed by a gaggle of reporters and photographers — stopped in at several local Latino-owned businesses on Union Street, speaking to supporters, potential supporters and curious neighborhood kids in English and Spanish.

“I’m running for president as an American who is Hispanic,” he told a crowd jammed into the Don Quijote restaurant. “I want to be president of the whole country.”

But one man who talked to the crowd a few minutes later said Hispanos should vote for Richardson because “he’ll take care of us.”

Hispanics are a small but growing minority in the Granite State, making up an estimated 14 percent of the population. According to some reports, the Hispanic population has grown 80 percent in the past decade.
P6030113
The New Hampshire primary, scheduled for late January 2008, is the first primary in the presidential campaign.

On his walk down Union Street, Richardson was accompanied by several local politicians and political activists, including state Rep. Lily Mesa and Manchester Alderman Mike Lopez.

Although he initially said he wanted to eat some tacos at Don Quijote and shouted out an order to owner Sandra Sepulveda, his handlers hustled him out of the cafe for his short trip down the street.

He stopped at the home of a family named Zapata, knocking on the door ostensibly to ask if he could put a “Richardson for President” sign in the front yard. Apparently the family already had agreed to let him to do this. However, a next-door neighbor came out and asked the Richardson team if she could have a sign as well. The governor happily obliged.
THE UNION STREET KIDS LOVE RICHARDSON
Even before Richardson’s appearance, several of his signs dotted the street.

Richardson stopped into the Tropical Food Market, where he joked with a clerk. He also made the rounds at the Latin Style Men’s Hair Salon, talking to customers as well as the barbers.

“How much you charge for a haircut?” he asked owner Tomas Barrera, who replied, $15.
“How much for bad hair like mine?” Richardson asked. “$50?”

Barrera said he’d cut it for free if Richardson promised to have his first haircut “after you’re elected president” at Latin Style.

Richardson promised that if elected, he’d do that.

Earlier in the day, Richardson was one of several presidential candidates to speak at the New Hampshire state Democratic convention, which was held in the gymnasium of a middle school in Concord, the state capital. Several delegates and other attendees noted there was no air conditioning in the hot gym.

“I cut my speech short because I saw people were sweating,” Richardson joked with reporters following his appearance.

Apparently only “second-tier” candidates showed up for Saturday’s event. Richardson’s speech followed talks by Sens. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd and Rep. Dennis Kucinich. Each got a resounding reception from the delegates, who were generous with their standing ovations.
P6030064
A couple dozen Richardson volunteers stood at the side of the stage and cheered as Richardson spoke. They were enthusiastic, but not as loud as Dodd’s supporters, who used inflatable plastic “thunder sticks” to increase the decibels when they applauded their candidate.

Among Richardson’s supporters at the convention were Walter “Butch” Maki and his wife, Patty Maki, who parked their sleek bus — decorated with Richardson banners — across the street from Rundlett Middle School.
PATTY & BUTCH
Butch Maki — a former Richardson congressional staff member who now lives in his native New Hampshire — is a former Santa Fe resident who still owns a large lobbying firm in New Mexico. As he held a Richardson sign to greet people walking up the driveway to the school, he said he’s mainly been working on Richardson’s campaign in recent months.

ONE LAROUCHE SUPPORTER

Friday, June 01, 2007

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: REUNION RIOTS

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 1, 2007



Am I just becoming a sentimental old coot or are “reunion” albums not as crass and cheesy as they used to be? Specifically, I’m talking about amazingly enjoyable, hard-rocking new efforts by The Stooges and Dinosaur Jr.

Back in the old days, reunions by groups like The Byrds, The Animals, and Jefferson Airplane ranged between pathetic and disappointing.

The early 1990s Velvet Underground reunion had its moments, but, like your average casino-circuit oldies act, the group stuck with its old material, not attempting to come up with new songs.

The Band, minus Robbie Robertson, did three albums in the ’90s. The first one, Jericho, had a few good songs (including some old recordings by Richard Manuel, who killed himself in 1986). The next one, High on the Hog, was surprisingly weak. I seem to recall a friend sending me a tape of the last one, Jubilation, but I don’t even remember any of the songs.

Perhaps the recent trend of decent reunions was started by Mission of Burma, the Boston-based post-punk band that re-formed earlier this decade and made two albums, Onoffon and The Obliterati, both of which stand up well beside the group’s 1980s work.

Let’s look at The Stooges and Dinosaur Jr.

The Weirdness is the first full album by The Stooges since a few years ago, when Iggy Pop and the brothers Asheton buried whatever hatchets had led to the destruction of the original band back in the mid-’70s. The Stooges have done at least one tour together and recorded a few songs that appeared on Iggy’s 2003 “solo” album, Skull Ring.

Bass stud Mike Watt (The Minutemen, Firehose) takes the place of Dave Alexander, who died in 1975. Original Stooge sax maniac Steve MacKay joins the band on some cuts here (though I wouldn’t have minded if he played on all of them).

I realize I’m swimming against the critical current in praising The Weirdness. Most of the reviews I’ve seen for this album have been scathing.

“An album that hideously disgraces the band’s original work,” Pitchfork proclaims.

“Pop’s lyrics about his penis and ATMs are beyond self-parody,” The Guardian sniffs.

“This is not the sound of a band with anything on the line,” The Austin Chronicle laments.

Give me a break. This is the dadgum Stooges we’re talking about. The band rose to glory on its intensified slop and clamor and dum-dum lyrics. The Stooges has always been proudly way beyond self-parody.

“Last year I was 21/I didn't have a lot of fun,” Iggy sang in “1969,” on the group’s self-titled first album. “And now I’m gonna be 22/I say oh my and a boo-hoo.”

Oh my. Boo hoo.

These are a bunch of guys on the far side of middle age. Iggy recently turned 60, and Ron Asheton and Scott Asheton are around that age. They aren’t hungry kids anymore. And they’re not breaking any new barriers like they did in their first incarnation. They’re old guys with massive chips on their shoulders; as Jerry Lee Lewis would say, they’re “middle-age crazy, trying to prove (they) still can.”

And the geezers are relentless. Nearly every song here rocks like the studio is about to explode. Ron Asheton strangles his guitar as if he’s trying to kill it.

Sure, you can imagine them all panting for breath and almost collapsing after every song. Maybe that’s part of the weird fun of The Weirdness.

Like Nick Cave on Grinderman, Iggy sounds more lecherous than lusty. But again, that’s part of the wicked charm of this record. He might not seem as dangerous as the Iggy of old (or as Grinderman, for that matter), but his disturbing combination of arrogance and creepiness is a marvel to behold.

The climax of The Weirdness is the last song, “I’m Fried.” It builds up to a bloody, musical punch-out between Ron Asheton and MacKay. I’ve heard very little stuff from youngsters and critical darlings that matches this inspired craziness.

As for Dinosaur Jr., with his long, graying hair, J. Mascis looks like he’s turning into Dinosaur Sr. This band’s history isn’t nearly as tumultuous, much less as essential, as that of The Stooges. But, going back to the mid-’80s, it was a vital group whose sound helped shape and inspire the great grunge groups. Mascis’ blaring guitar and mumbled vocals created a roaring but vulnerable persona that summed up much of the spirit of indie rock at the time.

Even without knowing the history of these musicians, Beyond is a dynamic and timeless rock ’n’ roll record. Beyond is not only the first new Dinosaur Jr. album in a decade, it also marks the reunion of Mascis and original member Lou Barlow, who left the band in the late ’80s to form another fine band called Sebadoh. That band was either more grating and discordant than Dino Jr. or more melodic, depending on the song. (I still say Roy Orbison should return from the dead just to record “Soul and Fire,” my favorite Barlow/Sebadoh song.)

Barlow contributes a couple of songs (and lead vocals) on Beyond. Both “Back to Your Heart” and “Lightning Bulb” are strong tracks, but this is mainly Mascis’ show.

Mascis is one of the only true guitar giants of indie rock. He makes the guitar solo an honorable thing in a genre that tends to turn its nose up at guitar solos. While his style owes little or nothing to the blues, like the best blues guitarists, Mascis infuses his solos with so much emotion that everything else seems almost superfluous. This is best illustrated by the last half of the six-minute “Pick Me Up,” which is one of Dinosaur Jr.’s finest moments of any decade.

Though Mascis is the main attraction, I believe that there’s real chemistry between him and Barlow. After all, when Barlow left, each Dino album became progressively less consequential.

Until now. I hope this reunion isn’t a one-shot deal.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

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