CHOOO CHOOOO!

I guess this means my long-threatened train song special on The Santa Fe Opry will be Friday Dec. 12.

From the governor's office:

Governor Bill Richardson Announces Debut of New Mexico Rail Runner Express in Santa Fe

SANTA FE – Governor Bill Richardson today announced that after nearly a year-and-a-half of construction the New Mexico Rail Runner Express is ready to ride into Santa Fe. On Monday, December 15, 2008 the Governor will be joined by state, local and tribal officials, and several members of the public for the first inaugural train ride from Albuquerque into Santa Fe.

“This is a historic event that will bring long-term economic benefits to New Mexico and change the way we travel along the Middle Rio Grande Corridor,” Governor Richardson said. “During these tough economic times, the Rail Runner Express will provide thousands of commuters a much-needed savings while offering them a safe, viable and efficient transportation alternative.”

Commuter service into Santa Fe is scheduled to officially begin on Wednesday, December 17, 2008. On opening day, the South Capitol Complex Station at the State Government Complex north of Alta Vista Street and the Santa Fe Depot at the Railyard north of Paseo de Peralta, will be open to the public. Two additional stations, one at Zia Road and St. Francis Drive, and a stop in southern Santa Fe at I-25 and N.M. 599 are scheduled to open in the future.

“The Rail Runner Express will change the face of transportation in New Mexico,” said State Transportation Secretary Rhonda Faught. “With initial estimates of nearly 4,500 commuters riding the train between Albuquerque and Santa Fe on a daily basis, this will not only take a lot of stress off our roads, but will also enhance safety.”

“Bringing the train to Santa Fe represents the historic culmination of five years of hard work, and a significant investment in the future of New Mexico,” says Lawrence Rael, Executive Director for the Mid-Region Council of Governments. “As a regional organization, the Council of Governments has been proud to work with the Department of Transportation to make this project a reality. This is about our children having an alternative transportation system to work, play and travel in the region for generations to come.”

The New Mexico Rail Runner Express will run on zone-based fares, with a roundtrip fare from downtown Albuquerque to downtown Santa Fe costing $8. Throughout the first three months of service Santa Fe County residents will be able to ride the train free of charge by providing proof of residency such as a driver’s license. Finalized train fares and schedules are available at www.nmrailrunner.com.

On July 14, 2006, the New Mexico Rail Runner Express began serving commuters between Albuquerque and Bernalillo. Today, the 50-mile corridor between Bernalillo and Belen averages 3,000 commuters daily and has seen more than 1.3 million riders in the last two years. The New Mexico Rail Runner Express is part of Governor Richardson’s Investment Partnership, a $1.6 billion transportation and infrastructure initiative that is improving highways in New Mexico, creating new modes of transportation like the commuter rail and creating high-wage jobs.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, November 30, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Webcasting!
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Thanksgiving in Reno by Too Much Joy
Road by The Rockin' Guys
Mystery Trip by The Chesterfield Kings
Wreck My Flow by The Dirtbombs
Combination of the Two by Big Brother & The Holding Company
Bad News Travels Fast by The Fuzztones
Train in Vain by The Clash
Vanity Surfing by Jesus H. Christ & The Four Hornsmen 0f the Apocalypse

Jack Ruby by Camper Van Beethoven
Wasted by Pere Ubu
Cutester Patrol by The Grandmothers
Love of My Life by Ruben & The Jets
Ain't That Just Like Me by The Astronauts
Monkey See, Monkey Do by Untamed Youth
Somebody in My Home by John Schooley & His One Man Band
Your Dice Won't Pass by Edison Rocket Train
Cheaper to Keep Her by Johnny Taylor

Inside Out Over You by Mudhoney
Two Headed Sex Change by The Cramps
Midnight in Aspen by The Fall
Manimal by The Germs
This Bad Girl by The Golden Cups
Get Out of Here by Robert Cage
Chatterbox by New York Dolls
Funky Robot by Rufus Thomas
Sal Che Tornero by The Cocks
Hot Tamales by Bobby Hatfield

Your Monster by The Shondees
Shot in the Arm by Wilco
Belly Full of Fire by Giant Sand
Chillout Tent by The Hold Steady
Beekeeper's Daughter by The Residents
Cast No Shadows by The Mekons
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

STATE SENATE DEMS CHOOSE CISNEROS

State Senate Democrats, in the last hour or so, have selected Sen. Carlos Cisneros of Questa as their nominee for Senate President Pro-tem.

Cisneros, who has been in the Senate since 1985, defeated incumbent president Pro-tem Tim Jennings of Roswell. However, Jennings told me he might seek Republican support to stay on when the full Senate votes on the position in January.

Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez and Whip Mary Jane Garcia were re-elected to their posts without challenge.

Jennings angered some Democrats when he defended Republican Senate Whip Leonard Lee Rawson -- and recorded a "robo call" for Rawson -- in the recent election. Rawson, of Las Cruces, was defeated by Democrat Steve Fischmann.

More in tomorrow's New Mexican.

UPDATE: Monday 12:39 AM
As promised, here's my story in Monday's paper: CLICK HERE

TOKIN' WITH LAWRENCE

I just stumbled upon this video from the Lawrence Welk Show in 1971. At the end of the video, Lawrence himself calls it "a modern spiritual."

This is not a joke! Read about it on Brewer & Shipley's Web Site.



Notice the guy's name is "Dick Dale." Not that Dick Dale!

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, November 28, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live by The Del-Lords
Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young by Faron Young
One Toke Over the Line by Brewer & Shipley
Bar Exam by The Derailers
Hadacol Boogie by James Luther Dickinson
Loudmouth Cowgirls by Kim & The Caballeros
I Ain't Never by Webb Pierce
That Mink on Her Back by Hank Penny
Sweet Kind of Love by The Pine Valley Cosmonauts

Engine Engine Number Nine by Southern Culture on the Skids
The Ballad of Roger Miller by Homer & Jethro
Guv'ment by Roger Miller
Got My Mojo Workin' by The Asylum Street Spankers
A Million Regrets by Cornell Hurd
Three Shades of Black by Hank Williams III
You'll Rue the Day by Spade Cooley
Blood on the Saddle by Tex Ritter
Pride Covered Ears by Johnny Paycheck

John Walker's Blues by Steve Earle
White Folk's Blood by House of Freaks
Worried Mind by Johnny Dowd
Single Girl, Married Girl by Levon Helm
Waiting For the Demons to Die by Boris McCutcheon & The Saltlicks
Fly Trap Liar by P.W. Long
Pure Religion by Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Marvel Group by Mother Earth
If I Could Only Fly by Blaze Foley
Marching to the CIty by Bob Dylan
Truly by Hundred Year Flood
Thanksgiving by Loudon Wainwright III
Pie in the Sky by Utah Phillips & Ani DiFranco
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: GIVE IT AIRPLAY

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 28, 2008

The reason I write this column, the reason I spend way too much time tracking down music — much of which most people will never hear and don’t care about — and the reason I do my own radio shows can be blamed on a disease I suffered in early 1962 — the measles.

I missed a week of school in third grade because of this ailment. And during that week, with the help of a transistor radio about the size of a pack of cigarettes, I discovered rock ’n’ roll radio. I’d listen religiously every night and sometimes during the day, enticed by the sounds of The Shirelles, Joey Dee & The Starliters, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, and so many more, wafting in like the voices of sirens over that cheap little radio, each song introduced by a disembodied voice, some wizard of sound who seemed happy and excited — sometimes a little too excited — to spin his 45s and share his magical sonic gifts.

Everybody liked TV, of course. But television was for everyone. The radio, with its waxy little earplug, seemed like my private joy. But I wasn’t alone. Millions of young people throughout the land of the free were following the pied pipers of rock ’n’ roll radio. These messengers and their medium are the subject of Airplay: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio, a documentary film by Chris Fox Gilson and Carolyn Travis, which shows during the Santa Fe Film Festival.

Alas, none of my heroes from WKY in Oklahoma are in this movie, but the film does tell the stories of many of the giants of rock radio — Rufus Thomas, Alan Freed, Cousin Brucie, Murray the K, and Wolfman Jack among them.

The basic story of Airplay, especially to longtime rock fans, is well known and oft-told: bored suburban white kids discovering black music on black radio stations and white radio getting in on the fun, with some white DJs blatantly imitating their African American counterparts. Then came Elvis, then the payola scandal. And by the time AM radio was getting corny and irrelevant in the late ’60s, along comes Tom Donahue, who pioneered “underground” free-form radio on the FM dial.

Though the tale is familiar, there’s enough tasty music and period news clips to keep Airplay lively. There’s a brief interview with Pat Boone, who downplays the element of racism in the opposition to rock. Talking about how rock ’n’ roll concerned “preachers, teachers, and legislators,” Boone says, “They thought it was going to be a terrible influence on young people not because it was black. Though that entered into it, I guess.” This is immediately followed by footage of some unnamed segregationist standing in front of a large “We Serve White Customers Only” sign, talking about setting up a “20-man committee to do away with this vulgar, animalistic rock ’n’ roll bop.”

Some of the old DJs interviewed tell wonderful stories of their youth. Dick Biondi, a Chicago radio giant who now resembles Harry Dean Stanton, tells a hilarious story of being irritated one day with his boss (“a pain in the butt, to be very honest”). Biondi described over the air what kind of car the guy drove (a gray Impala convertible) and told listeners to throw a rock through the window. One of Biondi’s fans followed through.

The strongest part of the documentary deals with payola. DJs were raked over the coals in the halls of Congress and in newspaper headlines for accepting “booze, broads, and bribes” from record promoters in exchange for airplay. The hearings were conducted by Rep. Oren Harris, who had previously tackled one of the other major devastating problems of that era — the fixing of television game shows. Payola destroyed the career of Freed as well as many other rock jocks.

The DJs speak candidly about payola. Cleveland’s Joe Finan, who lost a job over it, recalled a DJ convention in Miami in which Elvis Presley’s manager, Col. Tom Parker, brought in a hooker from Holland for the enjoyment of his favorite DJs. Philadelphia’s Jocko Henderson admits taking payola but says, “I would never take money for a record I didn’t like, ’cause if I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t play it.”

No, you can’t justify payola. Still, it’s pretty loathsome to see low-paid DJs persecuted by the very same type of self-righteous hypocrites who get all huffy when you suggest that campaign contributions might influence decisions they make in office.

The weakest part of Airplay is its discussion of the decline of rock radio. You go from the rise of disco to a brief tribute to KROQ in Los Angeles to MTV (with the obligatory playing of the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”). There’s a short nod to hip-hop; then finally comes the era of satellite radio. In fact, much of the last few minutes of Airplay almost seems like an ad for XM and Sirius, which have apparently become the latest refuge for several golden-era rock jocks, like New York’s Cousin Brucie.

But there’s no mention of college radio, which became a major “underground” force in the 1980s, attracting untold numbers of rock fans who didn’t give a flying hoot about corporate radio or MTV. There’s nothing about Internet radio or podcasting, which appeals to those of us who don’t want to shell out big bucks to pay some megacorporation for satellite radio.

The truth is, neither satellite radio nor podcasts are going to incite actual teenage riots, as Freed did in the ’50s. I just fantasize that those radio waves from those early years are still bouncing around the universe somewhere and that someday some of them will find their way into the transistor radio of some kid with the measles on some distant planet.

Airplay is showing at 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 4, and at 8 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 7, in Tipton Hall at the College of Santa Fe, 1600 St. Michael’s Drive.

Blog Bonus: Here's a trailer for Airplay:

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: WE'RE GONNA MISS THIS GUY

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 27, 2008

It’s been nearly a week since the leaks about Gov. Bill Richardson’s being the probable secretary of commerce in the Obama administration, and I don’t think it’s really sunk into most of us what a huge change in New Mexico politics this appointment would be.

We don’t have the official word yet — and the governor, the lieutenant governor and everyone else involved are being annoyingly, if understandably coy about the situation.

(My favorite quote of the week came from a spokeswoman for Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, asked in an Associated Press story early this week whether Denish and Richardson had discussed a transition of power: “It’s early to be talking about a transition because there hasn’t been any official announcement yet.” Holy mackerel! If there’s any truth to the Commerce leaks and they’re seriously waiting until an “official announcement” to discuss these critical matters, that’s the story.)

I guess I let myself get bothered by little stuff like that to distract myself from the obvious: Assuming the big announcement is coming, there’s going to be a giant crater in New Mexico politics where there once was Richardson.

“Put on your tennis shoes. You’ll be running to keep up,” was the advice that former Richardson staffer Butch Maki gave me shortly after Richardson was elected governor the first time in 2002.

He wasn’t joking. I realized the first week of his administration — when North Korean diplomats came to Santa Fe to discuss nuclear disarmament with the governor of New Mexico — that this wasn’t going to be like covering a regular state government.

For most of his first term, it seemed like everything he did was preparing his argument on why he should be president. I may be exaggerating a little, but in those early years, it seemed like he was having three press conferences a week, each one to announce some new “bold initiative,” and most of them beginning with remarks alluding to the historic nature of the occasion.

Some of those bold initiatives turned out to be big deals — the Rail Runner and the Spaceport, for instance.

Some seem pretty weird in retrospect. Statewide trials for Billy the Kid to see if the famous outlaw deserved a pardon? A pro football team for Albuquerque?

Then there was all the overt national political activity. In Richardson’s first few months in office, he arranged for the first debate of the 2004 Democratic candidates to take place in Albuquerque. He got himself elected chairman of the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. He twice was chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. And reporters joked the most unsafe place in the Capitol was in the hallway by the television studio if Richardson was late for an interview on CNN or Fox News. (Luckily, those times were rare. He was far more punctual for the national media than he was for us local yokels.)

I’m waxing a little nostalgic here because most of this truly was fun to cover.

There’s things I won’t miss though.

Trying to get information out of Richardson’s office was often a frustrating exercise for reporters working on a story that wasn’t part of his “message.” In recent weeks, for instance, Richardson’s office has seemed to have the attitude that it’s nobody’s business when the governor is out of state. He and some of his many press aides frequently were thinned-skinned if they didn’t like what a journalist was writing. Once last year, Richardson angrily told me I was the only one who said his performance in a recent debate had been sub-par.

I’m not the only one saying this: It’ll never be the same around here once Richardson leaves.

Interesting facts about the secretary of commerce: It’s no big secret the Commerce Department is a consolation prize for Richardson, who really wanted to be secretary of state. Some people have told me they believe this is a place-holding job for Richardson, who will move up when something else is available.

That might be true. But if history is any indication, there’s only so far a secretary of commerce can go.

Only one commerce secretary later became president. That was Herbert Hoover, who headed the department for more than several years under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge.

Another commerce secretary was a vice president. That was Henry A. Wallace, who was President Franklin Roosevelt’s veep during his third term. Roosevelt dumped Wallace from the ticket in 1944. Roosevelt appointed Wallace as commerce secretary — apparently as a consolation prize. Wallace was fired from that job in 1945 by President Harry Truman.

Richardson wouldn’t be the first Hispanic commerce secretary. That would be the current secretary, Carlos Miguel Gutierrez.

And he wouldn’t be the first Commerce Secretary Richardson. That honor goes to Elliot Richardson, who was appointed to that position by President Gerald Ford.

Elliot Richardson, however, is better known as the attorney general who resigned rather than follow President Richard Nixon’s order to fire special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox in what went on to be known as the “Saturday Night Massacre” in October 1973.

The secretary of commerce is a relatively low-key position, but some secretaries ended up in tragedies or scandals.

Ron Brown, President Bill Clinton’s first commerce secretary, died in a 1996 plane crash in Croatia, while on a trade mission.

Nixon’s first secretary of commerce, Maurice Stans, who also served as Nixon’s campaign finance chairman, was indicted in 1973 for Watergate-related charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. He was found not guilty.