JOHNNY & SATCH

Yes children, there was a time in which GIANTS WALKED HE EARTH!

This must be from Johnny Cash's ABC TV show circa '69-70. Here he sings Jimmie Rodgers' "Blue Yodel #9," which Louis Armstrong orginally recorded with the Singing Brakeman in 1930.

KSFR GETS BIGGER SIGNAL

It's true, KSFR's signal is increasing and the station will be moving up to 101.1 on the FM dial.

Basically it means we can be heard from Taos to Albuquerque -- though I understand the signal will only penetrate the northern part of Albuquerque.

Here's John Sena's story in The New Mexican.

Here's the KSFR site.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, June 29, 2007
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org


OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Poor Me by Big Al Anderson & The Balls
A Girl Like That by Steve Earle
Close Up the Honky Tonks by Bill Hearne's Roadhouse Revue
The Old Man and the River by Johnny Paycheck
Don't Go Back to Sleep by Patty Booker
Yellow Mama by Dale Watson
My Many Hurried Southern Trips by Porter Wagner
Blistered by Johnny Cash
Collegiana by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Never Settle For Less/Movin' by Lovin' by ThaMuseMeant
New Delhi Freight Train by Terry Allen
Steeple Full of Sparrows by The Gourds
Too Many Rivers by Webb Wilder
Soba Song by 3 Mustaphas 3
You Took My Thing and Put it In Your Place by C.W. Stoneking

To Begin Again by Goshen
Cajun Stripper by Doug Kershaw
Catch Me a Possum by The Watzloves
Jole Blon by Waylon Jennings
Born in 1947 by Ronny Elliott
Caves of Burgandy by Boris & The Saltlicks

Bayou Beauty by Ronnie Dawson
One Endless Night by Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Exit 194 B by Richmond Fontaine
Can't You See I'm Soulful by Eleni Mandell
Underneath the Stars by Peter Case
Trying to Get Home by David Bromberg
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: BACK TO THE GARAGE

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 29, 2007

The modern-day garage band refuses to die. In fact, some garage bands from the distant past refuse to die as well.

Here’s a look at some recent noise coming out of the allegorical garage.

*Hentch-Forth.Five by The Hentchmen. The Hentchmen is a Detroit band that arose in the mid-’90s steeped in the noble tradition of Michigan bands of previous eras such as The Stooges, ? and the Mysterians, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, and Amboy Dukes.

As documented on the 2001 compilation The Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit, bands like The Hentchmen, The Dirtbombs, The Von Bondies, and The Detroit Cobras got back to rock ’n’ roll basics in a most delicious way. However only one of the Sympathetic Sounds bands actually made it big — The White Stripes, a duo well on its way to glory when that compilation was released.

On Hentch-Forth.Five, originally released in 1998, The Hentchmen, led by Farfisa fiend John Hentch (aka John Szymanski, aka Johnny Volare), had a bass player named Jack White who went on to become singer and guitarist for The White Stripes. Detroit’s Italy Records has remastered the album, originally released on vinyl only, and rereleased it last week — on the same day The White Stripes’ new album, Icky Thump, was released. That’s a complete coincidence I’m sure, and if you don’t believe that, you’re probably one of those evil cynics who believe that campaign contributions to politicians are somehow connected to government policies favorable to the contributor.

But no matter what marketing forces might be behind it, I’m glad they made this album available again.

It starts off with a hopped-up guitar rocker called “Some Other Guy,” in which White and Hentch harmonize like the early Beatles. You can almost envision a John Lennon-like toilet seat around White’s neck as he wails.

And the music doesn’t let up. From there it goes into a song called “Psycho Daisies,” an obscure Yardbirds tune that namechecks American locales. Sample lyrics: “Down in Mississippi I’m told is nice/ But all the meals there, they come with rice.” There are actually two versions of this on the new version of the album, the “extended version” being one second longer than the shorter one.

The Hentchmen, who celebrate their 15th anniversary this Halloween, haven’t released a new album in about three years. Hope they’ve got more coming.

This record is available at the usual online sources. I downloaded my copy from eMusic.

* Los Valientes Del Mondo Nuevo by The Black Lips. I used to fantasize about recording a live album from the Spiral Staircase club in Juárez, Mexico. These Georgia rockers had a similar idea. They went and recorded a live album in a bar in Tijuana.

The Black Lips should team up with the San Diego group Deadbolt, whose 1996 album Tijuana Hit Squad might be a secret spiritual antecedent of this record.

Calling their sound “flower punk” (anyone remember the Frank Zappa song of that name?), the Lips are just a good, basic, primitive, lo-fi, minimalist rock ’n’ roll group with grimy echoes of “Psychotic Reaction” and the Blues Magoos. The Lips is basically a guitar group, colored sometimes by electric piano and harmonica.

The Lips get almost pretty on the early-’50s-sounding “Dirty Hands,” then recall the Rolling Stones’ “Mother’s Little Helper” on “Buried Alive,” which features a Middle Eastern-sounding guitar riff. The unison singing on “Fairy Stories” (“... my daddy has a gun ... ” ) reminds me of an even sloppier version of The Dead Milkmen. “Hippie Hippie Hoorah” is a slow-burning teaser that sounds as if it’s on the verge of exploding but never quite does.

Atmosphere is everything. On Los Valientes, you can hear the crowd going crazy, throwing bottles, heckling in two languages. Now and then stray mariachi music wafts through the proceedings. The liner notes describe the band meeting a “nylon-suit-clad mexi-sexual drug dealer” in the bathroom and local prostitutes performing lascivious acts onstage as the band plays.

Can’t wait for the DVD.

* The Remains. This is a bonus-fortified reissue of a 1966 album by a Boston band that never quite hit despite touring with The Beatles, having a major-label contract, and appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show and Hullabaloo.

Barry Tashian, the singer in The Remains — not to be confused with the tacky local band The Charred Remains — went on to a respectable post-Remains career. He played on Gram Parsons’ first solo album and played for most of the ’80s with Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band. He’s made several bluegrass-flavored albums with his wife, Holly.

According to their Web site, “The Tashians are available for all types of concerts, music camps, church services, workshops and festivals worldwide.” That’s a long way from the proverbial garage, but it beats the proverbial carwash.

The group, initially known as Barry & The Remains, wasn’t quite ready for music camp, but back in the ’60s it didn’t seem as wild and uninhibited as some of its proto-punk contemporaries like The Seeds, The Standells, etc. It’s not just the dorky suit and ties, as seen in The Remains CD booklet. The group’s sound was milder and a little slicker too.

The producer on several of the tracks is Nashville’s Billy Shirell, who is far better known for his work with George Jones and Tammy Wynette.

Still, there are some cool tracks here. One of my favorites is the first, “Heart,” a Petula Clark song (!) that starts out slow before it unleashes the rock. There are also fine covers of Charlie Rich’s “Lonely Weekend” and Bo Diddley’s “Diddy Wah Diddy” and original rockers like “Why Do I Cry” and “Time of Day,” which has an irresistible fuzztone.

I was able to catch the first set of ThaMuseMeant's gig at the Santa Fe Brewing Company Wednesday night. Opening up with familiar songs like "Grow Your Own" and "Movin' by Lovin'," (which turns into an infectious hippie gospel revival), it didn't take long to remember what it is about this band that made me love them in the first place, 13 or so years ago when they lived in Santa Fe.

I hadn't seen them in I don't know how many years. Nathan said it had been a year and a half since they'd all played together.

And this was the first time I'd seen them with their newest member Enion. She was damned impressive. There was one of her violin solos where she was every bit as inense and hypnotic as Symphony Sid Page in Dan Hicks' "I Scare Myself."

The strangest part of the evening was when lightning apparently knocked out the electricity in the Brewing Company. There were a few moments in darkness, but when the lights and sound came back on, the group went right back into the song, picking up exactly where they'd left off as if nothing had happened.

This supposedly was ThaMuseMeant's only New Mexico gig this year. But I hope they don't stay away long.

My review of ThaMusemeant's latest album can be found HERE.

More photos of Wednesday's show can be found HERE.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: A GOOD ROAD TO DIE ON

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 28, 2007

Soon to be on Gov. Bill Richardson campaign literature near you: A national study that ranks New Mexico high — for something good.

An annual survey of state highway systems ranks New Mexico fourth in the nation for most cost-effective road systems. Our ranking hasn’t changed since the previous year, according to The Reason Foundation, a libertarian research organization. But seven years ago we were ranked 27th.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that as far as highway fatalities go, only seven states are worse than New Mexico.

Translation: You’re more likely to be killed on a New Mexico road than on the roads in most other states. But your death would take place on one of the country’s most cost-effective highway systems.

It fills a soul with pride.

“New Mexico is one of several rural, generally Western states that remain high in traffic fatalities,” David T. Hartgen, one of the study’s authors, said in a phone interview Wednesday. “You’ve come down, but you’re still above the national average.”

Hartgen is a professor in the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, specializing in transportation planning.

New Mexico’s fatality rate is 2.036 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles.

The Reason Foundation, which has been conducting these highway studies since 1984, looks at a dozen categories to determine each state’s cost-effectiveness. These include traffic fatalities, congestion, pavement condition, bridge condition, highway maintenance and administrative costs.

According to the most recent study, based on 2005 statistics, New Mexico reported 12,205 miles under state control.

This state was tied with 22 others for No. 1 in the category of rural interstate condition and toward the middle of the pack in terms of urban interstate condition.

We were the ninth lowest in urban interstate congestion, 12th for condition of bridges and 16th for rural primary pavement condition.

The road condition rankings are based on data each state submits to the federal government, Hartgen said.

New Mexico scored its worst ratings in administrative cost per highway mile (35th) and that pesky fatality category. But the study concluded, “New Mexico’s solid condition ratings are more than enough to offset its high fatality rate and administrative costs.”

According to the study, the state spent $67,581 per highway mile in 2005. More than $11,000 per mile of that was spent on administrative costs.

The study can be found HERE.



Giving credit: Last year in this column I reported that aspiring New Mexico filmmakers applying for state grants in a state program were required to “acknowledge Governor Richardson and the New Mexico Film Office’s New Visions/New Mexico Program in the end credits of the completed film.”

Apparently, that’s no longer the case.

This year’s application merely says, “Awardees are asked to acknowledge the New Mexico Film Office’s New Visions/New Mexico Program in the end credits of the completed film.”

They’re just asking — and rather politely. And the form says nothing about thanking the governor.

Last year when I talked to Film Office Director Lisa Strout about the requirement, she told me: “What’s important is acknowledging the state.” Specifically mentioning the governor, she said, “isn’t a requirement, in my mind.”

The Film Office this week announced a call for proposals for New Visions/New Mexico. The program will provide a total of $160,000 in contracts for New Mexico-based producers and directors to create narrative films, documentaries, animated and experimental works.

Applications are available HERE, and at the New Mexico Film Office, 418 Montezuma Ave.

I was a teenage colonel: I was not among the 519 recipients of a colonel-aide-de-camp certificate issued by Secretary of State Mary Herrera during days when she served as acting governor. And, because of my recent stories on that subject, (ClICK HERE and HERE)I’m not counting on getting one any time in the near future.

However, in the interest of full-disclosure, I should confess that I’ve been “coloneled” in the past. Walter Bradley, in December 2002, his final month as lieutenant governor, gave me one of the honorary certificates. I was never sure why, except that Bradley’s a nice guy who didn’t take offense when I teased him in this column about his affection for dreamcatchers.

And years before, back when I was in high school, I was declared an aide-de-camp to then Gov. David F. Cargo.

WHY I HATE THE MUSIC INDUSTRY, PART 492

This from the Oregonian:

A disabled single mother from Beaverton has filed a federal lawsuit against the Recording Industry Association of America, claiming that she is the victim of abusive legal tactics, threats and illegal spying as part of an overzealous campaign to crack down on music pirating.

The recording industry sued Tanya J. Andersen, 44, in 2005, accusing her of violating copyright laws by illegally downloading music onto her computer. Andersen claims in a suit she filed last week in U.S. District Court in Oregon that the recording industry refused to drop its case after its own expert supported her claims of innocence.

Instead, industry officials threatened to interrogate Andersen's 10-year-old daughter, Kylee, if she didn't pay thousands of dollars. The intimidation included attempts to contact Kylee directly. A woman claiming to be Kylee's grandmother called the girl's former elementary school inquiring about her attendance, according to Andersen's suit.

If that doesn't disgust you enough, read the whole article HERE.