TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Most of you probably figured out by the Thirsty Ear post below that I wasn't doing my radio shows this weekend. Tom Adler subbed for me Friday on The Santa Fe Opry. For Terrell's Sound World, I pre-recorded a show through the magic of computers.

Here's the playlist, (coming more than 30 minutes early.)

I'll post my wrap-up of the Thirsty Ear Festival probab ly late morning Monday. Right now, suffice it to say that Sunday, if anything, was even better than Saturday.

Sunday, September 2, 2007
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

Now Simulcasting 90.7 FM, and out new, stronger signal, 101.1 FM

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
The W.A.N.D. by the Flaming Lips
Earthquake by The 13th Floor Elevators
The Sky is a Poisonouse Garden by Concrete Blonde
Killing Me by Dead Moon
Justine Allright by Jon Spencer with The Sadies
The Orange Monster by The Gluey Brothers
Ms. Pinky by Frank Zappa
Speed the Tractor by 3 Mustaphas 3

Loose by Buick MacKane
Carry Stress in the Jaw by Mr. Bungle
Feet Music by John Zorn
Hypno Tease by James Chance
Sad Little Bug by April March

Lost in Laos by Dengue Fever
Super Taranta by Gogol Bordello
God Save the Queen by Opium Jukebox
Jatne by Kult
Menyeckse by Atomic Bomb Zigoto

One Better by Les Claypool
I've Been Watching You (Move Your Sexy Body) by Paliament
Let's Stay Together by Al Green
Stick to the Plan by Graham Parker
Don't Drive Me Away by The Staples Singers
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

2007 THIRSTY EAR FESTIVAL SATURDAY

Actually it's Sunday. I was too exhausted to write anything last night, especially after processing my photos.

Speaking of those pictures, I hope you people appreciate 'em. My right ear is still ringing from standing too close to the amps trying to get decent angles. The sacrifices I make for this blog!

It's no secret how much I love this festival. Hard to believe it's been going on since 1999 (except for one year ). Along with Fiesta, it's become my end of summer ritual. There's friends and acquaintances I see at Thirsty Ear that I never see any other time or place (which might just prove what a relative hermit I'm becoming in my middle age).

There's also a lot of music. Friday night, as has been the case with the festival in recent years, is basically a night for local musicians. I made it to the Eaves Ranch Friday in time to catch Michael Hearne' s South by Southwest (who did a fine version of Eliza Gilkyson's cool Elvis song, "Tennessee Roads") and local blues wunderkind Ryan McGarvey.

Saturday was an especially fine day of music, from the opening act on.

Songwriter Todd Snider opened Saturday's festival. It was just the man and his guitar and he reminded me of a younger John Prine. (Snider actually recorded a few albums on Prine's Oh Boy label these days.)

He didn't perform his song that was a kind-of local hit about 15 years ago, ("Alright Guy"), but he did his song about D.B. Cooper , his talking blues about "Louie Louie" and Marilyn Manson ("The Ballad of The Kingsmen"), one called "Conservative Christian, Right Wing, Republican, Straight, White, American Males," and a weird little ditty called "Enjoy Yourself," which he said comes from a Doris Day record that his parents used to dance around the kitchen to.

Acoustic bluesman Guy Davis was next on the main stage, also doing a solo set. He's played Thirsty Ear at least once before and as always he was a delight. Davis, son of actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, has a wonderful gravel-throat voice that makes him sound like a melodic Froggy the Gremlin. He plays guitar, banjo and harmonica. My favorite song he did Saturday was the double-entendre laden "Chocolate Man."

I later saw Guy roaming around the festival grounds and interrupted him as he was eating a Roque's carnita.


I've had a turnabout with the next act, The Be Good Tanyas. When they played the festival last year, I was frankly unimpressed. I didn't even blog about them. But a few weeks ago I heard a recording of a few songs of that very performance on Southwest Stages (which airs on KSFR just before the Santa Fe Opry on Friday nights.) It sounded great. I guess I just wasn't in the mood last last year. They do play a brand of soft girlie folk, so I do have to be in the mood, but there's plenty of dark edges in their music.

They did a good set yesterday, even though one of the Tanyas (Tonya Harding I believe) was missing.


Acoustic time was over when blues guitar stud Joe Louis Walker took the stage. The crowd was ready to rock and so was Walker and his excellent band.

Basically, Walker does the basics. He plays good, steady blues without a lot of cheap flash and dazzle. He's not trying to be the next Hendrix, he just plays electric blues in a way that made us love the blues in the first place.

Did I mention his excellent band? Especially impressive was his keyboard player (whose name I didn't get). We actually were lucky to get to see Walker yesterday. He missed his plane Saturday morning but was able to make it to Santa Fe without significant delay. Maybe the brief rain storm in the afternoon was a stalling tactic.


When Robert Earl Keen's band started playing, the band launched into a mellow, lopping groove with a guitar part that started sounding more and more familiar. It took me a second, but I realized they were playing the intro to The Grateful Dead's "China Cat Sunflower." But then Earl started singing his own song, "Dreadful Selfish Crime."

Keen did a strong set including some of his best-known songs including "Gringo Honeymoon" and, of course, "The Road Goes On Forever." However he sounded hurried singing that song, which was his encore, as if he were late to an appointment. My only other complaint was that, unlike last time I saw REK, Terry Allen didn't join him on stage. Keen did acknowledge Allen as the songwriter though.


But the real disappointment was Rosie LeDet & The Zydeco Playboys. Not the band. They started off rocking. But right when they started, so did the rain. And it didn't let up. When the thunder getting as loud as the drums, Rosie and band decided, wisely, to play it safe.

Let's pray the weather holds up today. The Flatlanders, Beausoleil and others are on deck.

Come say hi to me at the KSFR booth.

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: ROKY'S ROAD

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
August 31, 2007

“An explorer of the mind and a pioneer of the heart”

That’s how Kinky Friedman described Roky Erikson, founding member of the ’60s group the 13th Floor Elevators, when introducing the psychedelic warrior at the 2005 Austin City Limits Music Festival. Roky, bless his troubled soul, looked strangely dignified, though not a little bemused, as he ripped into a version of “Cold Night for Alligators,” a powerful song of paranoia and horror from a tumultuous period in his life.

Of course, most of Roky’s life has been tumultuous, as is made clear by director Keven McAlester’s documentary You’re Gonna Miss Me, recently released on DVD.

This is a must-have for Roky fans. In addition to the documentary itself, the DVD contains loads of extras, including musical performances (though not nearly enough with full bands); weird poetry readings; and an unbelievable Erikson home movie — made by Roky’s mother, Evelyn — in which Roky is crowned “King of the Beasts.”

This isn’t your typical rockumentary. Sure, it features lots of famous folks — Patti Smith; members of ZZ Top and Sonic Youth; and even Santa Fe’s Angry Samoan, Gregg Turner — praising Erikson’s wild talent and piercing voice. There’s some sentimental gushing over the rise of the 13th Floor Elevators — credited with being the first band to use the word psychedelic to describe itself. And McAlester includes a black-and-white clip from the band’s mid-’60s appearance on American Bandstand, with Roky singing the hit that provided the film’s title.

There’s also an interview with Dick Clark.

“Who is the head man of the group here, gentlemen?” America’s Oldest Teenager asks.
Jug player Tommy Hall doesn’t miss the opportunity. “Well, we’re all heads,” he deadpans.

But the DVD also shows how the psychedelic pipe dream went sour. The drugs got harder, and the trips got crazier. And when Roky got busted for marijuana possession — then a felony in the great state of Texas — he pleaded insanity and ended up in a hospital for the criminally insane. McAlester interviews Roky’s psychiatrist from that stint, who recalls that Roky joined a band made up of patients. The doctor recalls, “one had killed his parents and one of his siblings. ... He played guitar.”

For years after his release, Roky’s mental state was iffy at best. In the late ’70s, he recorded what is hands-down his greatest album, The Evil One, which features frightening lyrics about devils, ghosts, and monsters of the id. Interviews with those who knew him then indicate that such apparitions were very real to Roky.

By the 1990s, Roky had hit bottom. His hair was matted, his teeth were a mess, he was overweight, and he looked dazed and confused. In his small apartment in Austin, he used an array of radios, televisions, and other electronic devices to create a weird cacophony intended to keep the demons away, and he would catalog pieces of junk mail as if they were priceless documents.

McAlester delves into what became a struggle between Evelyn and three of Roky’s brothers. Dead set against giving Roky medication for his mental problems, Evelyn is portrayed as being crazier than her infamous son. She’s a frustrated artist herself — she wrote poetry and filmed her own plays (some of those films are included in the DVD extras). With her scrapbooks, her Hobby Lobby artwork, her maudlin piano playing, and her long-abandoned swimming pool — cracked and overgrown with weeds — the well-meaning Evelyn starts to look like the villain in McAlester’s film.

All sorts of family shadows come to light in the film — depression, drugs, alcoholism, abuse, and other manifestations of dysfunction. Roky’s brother Sumner talks about, as a child, having to yell before going into the kitchen, in order to scare away the rats. A disheveled Roky reads a disturbing poem called “I Know the Hole in Baby’s Head,” which tells the story of a family helpless in the face of constant fighting, crying infants, accumulating garbage, and bad smells.

Sumner got into a court battle with his mother over guardianship of Roky and, in 2001, won the case. Roky moved in with him, started a regimen of medication, and even began to play music again. In one of the film’s final scenes, from 2002, he’s singing a haunting song with the refrain, “Goodbye sweet dreams, goodbye sweet dreams.”

But there are two postscripts. One is about Roky’s performance at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in 2005. In the footage, he still looks pretty spacey but seems happy, soaking up the cheer from well-wishers in his hometown. But more surprising is a sequence shot earlier this year. Roky, Sumner, and Evelyn are back in the courtroom, but this time everyone is happy. Roky is off his meds and, according to everyone there, doing great. The judge agrees that Roky is doing better, rules that Roky is “fully capacitated,” and restores all his rights.

Outside the courtroom, Sumner nods adoringly as a new psychologist, one we don’t see in the main film, talks about his philosophy of mental illness.

“This whole concept of mental illness is a metaphor for physical illness, and it doesn’t really exist,” he says. “Schizophrenia is a made-up, garbage term that’s used to describe people who are troubled or troubling or that are in extreme states of mind that we don’t understand and are afraid of. ... Roky’s not mentally ill and never was. His story needs to be reinterpreted, and that’s why I’m here.”

In other words, Sumner has come around to Evelyn’s way of thinking about psychiatric medication.

So it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut might have said.

But while watching this part of the DVD, something twisted in me reminded me of one of my favorite songs from The Evil One, and in my head I could hear the voice of the old, haunted Roky: “I am the doctor/I am the psychiatrist. ... I never hammered my mind out/I never had the bloody hammer.”

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: STATE EMPLOYEES WACKY FOR WIKIPEDIA

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
August 30, 2007

A new Web site called Wikiscanner — which can trace the source of changes to that increasingly omnipresent online encyclopedia that anyone can edit known as Wikipedia — has been called a muckraker’s dream and an Internet spin-doctor’s nightmare.

This recent Internet sensation was invented by Virgil Griffith, a Cal-Tech graduate student and a visiting researcher at the Santa Fe Institute. Griffith created a system whereby you can look up a company or government agency and determine what if any changes have been made to Wikipedia articles by people using computers that have Internet IP numbers registered to those companies or government agencies.

Thus there have been news stories about corporations changing their own Wikipedia articles.

Someone with an IP address registered to Exxon edited the Wikipedia article about the Valdez oil spill. Meanwhile someone at an IP address registered to Philip Morris deleted a sentence from a history paragraph of the Marlboro Wiki article. Someone at Diebolt reportedly removed 15 uncomplimentary paragraphs from the article about Diebolt’s voting machines. Recently the prime minister of Australia was busted by Wikiscanner. His staff, or at least people with IP addresses belonging to his staff, made hundreds of changes in Wikipedia, many of them pertaining to Australian government controversies.

Surely people working for the state of New Mexico couldn’t resist the temptation of puffing up certain politicians on Wikipedia or at least editing out embarrassing information.

But I was disappointed. Doing a Wikiscanner search of the name “State of New Mexico,” with the location of Santa Fe, I found relatively little activity from state computers related to politicos.

Someone from the state added a small American flag image to the article about Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr. Another added a line in the Harrison Schmitt article about an elementary school in Silver City being named for the former astronaut and U.S. senator.

On April 10 someone used a state computer to add Lt. Gov. Diane Denish to Wikipedia’s “List of Notable Democrats.” Two days later, someone removed her name from the list.

Wacky for the Wiki: But that doesn’t mean state employees have shied away from editing Wikipedia. I found 537 edits from state government IP numbers going back to 2004. Our state government computers have been used to offer their expertise on a wide variety of subjects, most of which has little if anything to do with New Mexico or state government.

Among the subjects weighed in on by people using state computers include the movie Highlander, astronaut Leroy Gordon Cooper, the Hog Farm commune, movie director Frank Oz, the Battle of Stalingrad, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the late heavy metal star Dimebag Darrell, artist M. C. Escher, the Soapbox Derby, the Treaty of Frankfort, Michael Moore, the “List of people from West Bengal,” serial killer Ed Gein, the barn owl, American Idol winner Carrie Underwood and Dante’s Inferno.

Someone on a state computer contributed a single line to the article on 9/11 Conspiracy Theories. In the section on President Bush’s remaining in a Florida classroom for 10 minutes reading to children after learning about the World Trade Center Attacks, the state worker added, “Run Georgie RUN!” The next day someone (one of the “true” conspirators?) removed the wisecrack.

Someone in state government apparently is an expert on video game culture. The same state computer was used to make 15 edits on Wikipedia articles concerning 8-Bit Theater, a web comic based on the video game Final Fantasy I. Wiki Scan shows that the same computer was used to make edits in articles including “Mythology of Final Fantasy X,” “Final Fantasy Magic,” Tetris, Mario (the video game character, not the Albuquerque blogger), Mega Man and “The Force (Star Wars).”

Another state computer was used to make 12 edits on the article about The Legion of Christ, (a Catholic religious order established in Mexico), and six edits in the article about Marcial Maciel, the founder of the order, who has been accused of sexual abuse.

There’s one state computer used to edit Wikipedia articles on several professional wrestlers including Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Richard Rood (better known as “Ravishing Rick Rude”) and golden-age grappler Bruno Samartino, as well as on entries for musicians like the late singer Jim Croce and the band Widespread Panic.

But this computer also was used for more serious topics on Wikipedia. It was used to edit the article on Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, adding a section about a controversy that occurred in 2003 when Barbour spoke at a rally to raise funds for the Blackhawk School, a private school established in reaction to the integration of public schools. The same state computer was used to edit the article on the Council of Conservative Citizens, adding, among other changes, the description of the group as “a contemporary incarnation of the racist U.S. movement of White Citizens' Councils.” Apparently this section has been changed several times since.

So what’s the problem?: If it was against the law to goof off on the Internet at work they couldn’t build enough cells to hold us all. But is it against state policy for employees to use state computers to update Wikipedia entries on Monty Python & The Holy Grail or college basketball?

Roy Soto, secretary of the newly created state Department of Information Technology, did not seem overly concerned. State policy, he said Wednesday, does allow “incidental personal use as long as it doesn’t interfere with their work.”

Said Soto, “We block some sites, but not Wikipedia. Our librarians use it a lot.”

HOLY CRAP!

The Albuquerque Tribune is for sale!

There have, of course been rumors about the fate of Albuquerque's afternoon daily for years. This means, if a buyer isn't found, that the Journal will be the only daily in town.

That would be wrong.

Read the official story HERE

THE TOMMY RODELLA SAGA

Last week I got my hands on correspondence from Rio Arriba County Magistrate Tommy Rodella to the state Judicial Standards Commission indicating that Rodella, husband of state Rep. Debbie Rodella, D-Espanola, is under investigation by the commission.

The only issue mentioned in the document was the July 4, 2005 incident in which Rodella drove to Tierra Amarilla to free a DWI suspect.

That incident eventually led to a spat between Rodella and Gov. Bill Richardson, (who had appointed Rodella earlier that year), and eventually to Rodella's resignation. However Rodella ran for and won the magistrate seat in 2006. (An old story about that resignation can be found HERE.)

My story on the investigation was in Sunday's New Mexican and can be found HERE.

In today's paper I have a story about allegations by Rodella's lawyer, former state Supreme Court Justice Tony Scarborough. He claims Judicial Standards actually has expanded its investigation and in fact is "“conducting a wide-ranging, illegal and secret investigation into the conduct of present and former state legislators, other public officials and candidates for public office from Rio Arriba County, as well as ordinary citizens” -- which JSC denies. That story can be found HERE.

Always lots of fun in Rio Arriba!

R.I.P. BOB JOHNSON

This man was a champ!

I was stunned this morning to learn of the death of Bob Johnson, a founder of and the driving force behind New Mexico Foundation for Open Government.

I knew Bob as a voice on the phone years before I met him. He's the one a reporter would call whenever some tin-horn bureaucrat tried to keep public information from the public.

Sometimes FOG would instigate a lawsuit if some agency wouldn't budge. Whatever the case, Bob was always good for a quote, a concise explanation why openness not only is a good idea, in most cases, it's the law.

When I began covering the Capitol in late 2000, I got to know Bob better. He was there nearly every day during a legislative session, usually on his never-ending crusade to convince lawmakers to put an end to "the last bastion of secrecy," closed conference committees -- — panels made up of members of both houses to iron out differences in bills that have passed both chambers.

Bob would always look pained when senators made their ridiculous arguments against open conference committees. ("We can't open conference committees until the governor opens all his meetings." "How come the press wants open conference committees when newspapers don't open their editorial meetings?") And it was always a kick in the teeth for Bob when the foxes in the Senate inevitably would vote against installing a new light in the hen house.

Of course Bob didn't see it that way. He would say -- quite rightfully -- that it a vote against openness was a blow to democracy, not just an affront to him.

Last week I attended a ceremony in which the state treasurer named a conference room after the late radio reporter Bob Barth. (For my column on that, CLICK HERE and scroll down). That gives me an idea.

a) Open the damned conference committees!

b) Designate a room in the Capitol "The Robert H. "Bob" Johnson Conference Committee Meeting Room."

Johnson, of course had a long career before FOG. A couple of years ago I wrote about his experiences during Watergate. (CLICK HERE and scroll down.)

Bob, you will be missed!

UPDATE: Thanks to a friendly reader who alerted me to some typos. That's always appreciated. They've been fixed.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, August 26, 2007
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Now Simulcasting 90.7 FM, and out new, stronger signal, 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
We Can't Be Killed by The Floors
Down the Drain by Monkeyshines
Caveman by The Blood-Drained Cows
A-Bomb Bop by The A-Bones
Gonna Murder My Baby by Pat Hare
Loaded Heart by The Gore Gore Girls
Blindness by The Fall
Searching by The Omens

Way Down South by The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker
Hook and Sing Meets the Funky Superfly by Sharon Jones
The Flag Was Still There by George Clinton
No Regrets by King Kahn & His Shrines
Petey Wheatstraw by Nat Dove & The Devils
Cissy Strut by The Meters
Guitar by Prince

King Cobra by The Budos Band
Path of the Blazing Sarong by Ravi Harris & The Prophets
Jon E's Mood by Jon E. Edwards & The Internationals
Got to Have it by Soul President
How Do You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul? by Public Enemy
Stool Pigeon by The Soul Deacons
Steam Train by Lee Fields
Total Destruction of Your Mind by Swamp Dogg

You're Just About to Lose Your Clown by Joe Louis Walker
Lonely Just Like Me by Arthur Alexander
Ana by Los Straightjackets with Little Willie G
Poco de Todo by King Richard & The Knights
Shocking Curse Bird by The Mekons
Do You Realize by The Flaming Lips
Down Where the Valleys are Low by Judee Sill
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, August 24, 2007
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

Now Simulcasting 90.7 FM, and our new, stronger signal, 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos

Bye Bye Boozoo by Beausoleil
I've Always Been Crazy by Waylon Jennings with Travis Tritt
Bad News by Johnny Cash
Jason Fleming by Neko Case with the Sadies
Cocaine Blues by Holy Modal Rounders
Tequila Shiela by Bobby Bare
The Heart of California (for Lowell George) by Terry Allen
Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee, Drinking Wine by Johnny Burnette & The Rock 'n' Roll Trio

The Eggs of Your Chickens by The Flatlanders
Looking for a Job by Todd Snider
Bonapart's Retreat by Glen Campbell
I Cast a Lonesome Shadow by Hank Thompson
A Girl in a House in Felony Flats by Richmond Fontaine
She Baby by Heavy Trash
Flavor on The Tongue by The Gourds

Don't Lose My Trail by Eleni Mandrell
Empty Bed Blues by Maria Muldaur
Dancing on the Ashes by Robbie Fulks
Dancing with the Ghost of William Bonney by Bone Orchard
Molly Crow by Hundred Year Flood
Another Place, Another Time by Jerry Lee Lewis
Final Straw by John Egenes

Elijah's Church by Low Red Land
White Stone Door by The Mekons
Underneath the Stars by Peter Case with Carlos Guitarlos
No Earthly Good by Billy Joe Shaver with Kris Kristofferson
The Kiss by Judee Sill
Young Wesley 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: STIRRING THE SOUL

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
August 24, 2007

Good God, ya’ll! Do you hear that funky sound? There’s a soul revival going on!

Truth be told, there probably is always a soul revival going on somewhere on the outskirts of American music. At any given time in the past couple of decades, some venerated old soulster from the days of yore was making a comeback, and a bunch of new, obscure bands are doing their best to carry on the traditions of the J.B.’s or Bar-Kays, while some cool underground labels are specializing in funky sounds (think Soul Fire in the early part of this decade or its predecessor Desco in the late ’90s).

Even though the current crop of soul revivalists doesn’t attain the heights reached by James Brown, Otis Redding, or Aretha Franklin, and there’s little, if any, chance in today’s musical climate that a revival will break into mainstream popularity like it did in the golden years, there are some cool, funky sounds coming down that definitely are worth hearing. They include the following albums:

* Kaboom! by The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker. This record CD represents both a new band specializing in good old soul as well as a comeback vehicle for a respected vet.

Charles Walker has been in the music game for many decades. One of his songs, “No Fool No More” (by Charles Walker & the Daffodils) was included on the second volume of Night Train to Nashville, that wonderful collection of R & B, blues, and soul hits from the country music capital.

Walker’s voice has grown deeper and a little rougher since his Daffodils days, but it’s no less powerful. He’s a perfect match for this horn-heavy Nashville ensemble. All the songs here are original numbers, and all but one were penned by Dynamite chief guitarist Leo Black.

One of the highlights is the seven-plus-minute “Way Down South,” a slow-cooking, swampy protest song in which Walker moans about crooked judges and hurricanes “with beautiful names.” Then there’s the up-tempo, muscular “Killin’ It,” which concludes the album. It’s sheer madhouse funk, with Black’s guitar and Tyrone Dickerson’s organ rising over the horns.

*The Budos Band II by The Budos Band. As the name implies, this is the second album by this 11-piece instrumental band from Staten Island, N.Y., that blends soul, funk, and an ominous touch of crime jazz with a discernible West African pop sound. It’s like a soundtrack Fela Kuti never made for a great blaxploitation movie that exists only on the astral plane.

There’s definitely an undercurrent of danger here. The album cover shows a scorpion about to strike. One of the song titles is “King Cobra” — both a dangerous arachnid and a malt liquor.

Horns and percussion dominate the Budos sound, but organist Mike Deller’s slinky riffs also stand out. His solo on “Deep in the Sand” sounds like it came straight out of The Arabian Nights, while the hook on “Ride or Die” sounds like it owes a debt to ? & The Mysterians (or perhaps to the contemporary psychedelic Cambodian American rock band Dengue Fever).

In the middle of the album, you might think you recognize one of the melodies — or at least the pulsating bass intro. But you might have a hard time placing it. “His Girl” is a minor-key rearrangement of “My Girl.” The Temptations never sounded this evil.

*Skippin’ Church by The Soul Deacons. Yes, Santa Fe has a bird in this cockfight. Brother E. Clayton and the boys, who live here, are as friendly and inviting as The Budos Band is sinister. But that’s not a bad thing. This high-spirited record is almost as irresistible as the band’s live performances.

Unlike The Dynamites or The Budos Band, members of The Soul Deacons don’t write much of their own material. But they have a good knack for choosing songs that aren’t that well known or overcovered, so the band can make the songs their own.

At the moment my favorite tune on the album is “Stool Pigeon,” originally performed by Kid Creole and the Coconuts. Steve O’Neill’s Stevie Wonder-like clavinet is nice and subtle, while Nick Thompson’s sax solo is exquisite. And among the background singers is none other than Chris Calloway.

While most the tracks are upbeat and danceable, Clayton slows it down on the closing song, “You’ve Got to Hurt.” It’s sweet and packed with soul, with Clayton accompanied only by piano, organ, and sax.

Also recommended:
*Lonely Just Like Me: The Final Chapter by Arthur Alexander. Back when The Beatles was a cover band, one of the group’s most powerful numbers was the mournful “Anna.” When John Lennon sang the line, “So I will set you free, go with him,” you could tell even then there was a primal scream building up in the guy.

The song was written by Arthur Alexander, who is best known as a behind-the-scenes songwriter whose songs were recorded by The Rolling Stones, Johnny Rivers, and all sorts of rock, soul, and country artists. His own solo career never quite took off, though his understated, earnest voice perfectly fit his solemn songs of heartache.

This is a reissue — fortified by bonus tracks — of Alexander’s 1993 comeback album. True to his reputation as one of soul music’s saddest hard-luck stories, Alexander, died shortly after the album’s original release.

The original album, which featured sidemen like Spooner Oldham, Dan Penn, and “Funky” Donnie Fritts, includes some of his best-known songs — “Every Day I Have to Cry” (Rivers did my favorite version of this), “In the Middle of It All,” and “If It’s Really Got to Be This Way.”

One of the most gripping songs is “Lonely Just Like Me,” which unexpectedly turns into a murder ballad. The studio version sounds almost like a Marty Robbins song, but there’s also an a cappella version recorded in a hotel room that’s stark and startling. And, yes, there’s a live version of “Anna” that’s just heartbreaking.

Students of soul should get well acquainted with Arthur Alexander.