It's the third anniversary of Michael Kaiser's groundbreaking, earth-shaking RadiOblivion podcast over at GaragePunk.com. I was honored to be part of a panel of rock 'n' roll cronies on the show, which you can find HERE.
Go get yourself to RadiOblivion. Download it 0r listen on your computer. But whatever you do, don't really blow your radio up, baby!, like Kaiser says or you won't be able to hear me on KSFR Friday and Sunday nights.
Sunday, November 8, 2009 KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M. Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org
OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres C.C.C.P. by The Hydes Odessa by The Red Elvises American Wedding by Gogol Bordello Hey Clown by Firewater Nitro by Dick Dale Some Other Guy by Terry Dee & The Roadrunners Bad Blood by The Sons of Hercules Hang on Sloopy by Lolita #18 Ain't That Lovin' You by Link Wray
Gee I Really Love You by Heavy Trash She Came Before Me by The Almighty Defenders Fake Skinheads in Love by King Automatic Six Long Weeks by The A-Bones El Tren de la Costa by The Del Moroccos Buzz Buzz Buzz by The Blasters Amazons and Coyotes by Simon Stokes Hey Little Girl by The Dead Boys My Mumblin' Baby by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Blues Blues Blues by The Cramps (The Welfare) Turns Its Back on You by Freddy King Fox Hunt by Little Freddie King Can't Read Can't Write Blues by Big Joe Turner Wish I Was a Catfish by T. Model Ford Mama Long Legs by Charlie Muselwhite Bang Your Thing at The Ball by Bob Log III
Lucky Luck Luck by Carla Bozulich & Evangelista Redhead Walking by Beat Happening Good Cheer by Mission of Burma True Believers by Half Japanese Undertaker by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 Murder in My Heart for the Judge by Moby Grape Cocaine Lil by The Mekons Late Night Scurry by Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
* Locust Abortion Technician by Butthole Surfers. These days when you hear the phrase "indie rock," chance are you think mopey wimps singing wistful little tunes full of irony and suburban pain.
Twenty years ago, your image of "indie rock" likely would included visions of crazy motherfuckers with shotguns playing intense psychedelic guitar riffs against a visual backdrop grotesque medical school films of bloody operations
With each passing year I realize more and more what an essential band The Butthole Surfers truly were. Raw psychedelic punk with a Texas drawl. How could you beat that?
This album, their third, was released in 1987, when indie was still underground. The Buttholes were pretty close to their peak at this point. I downloaded it a couple of weeks ago because a hip kid who listens to my Sunday night radio show requested I play "Graveyard" on my Terrell's Sound World Spooktacular . I realized I didn't already have Locust Abortion Technician, and when I listened to the first few seconds of "Graveyard," I realized I needed the whole album.
True story: In 1993, after seeing the Butthole Surfers open for Pearl Jam, my daughter and I saw Gibby Haynes at the old IHOP on Menaul and University in Albuquerque. From that point on, we referred to that place as Butthole Pancakes.
* 99 Chicksby Ron Haydock & The Boppers. I wasn't familiar with this Chicagobilly until earlier this year when the rowdy title track of this collection appeared on Norton Records'I Still Hate CDscompilation.
On this Norton album, there's some decent rockabilly in the mode of Haydock's hero Gene Vincent -- who is the subject of a tribute song here called "Rock Man."
But it's not all rockabilly. The later period of Haydock's musical work comes right out of the world of 1960s era drive-in movie culture.
Indeed, Haydock's life became even more interesting when the original Boppers broke up in 1960. He moved to Hollywood and began writing and editing for horror movie magazines, including my childhood favorite Famous Monsters of Filmland. He even landed some parts in some tacky drive-in type movies including The Thrill Killers (there's some audio from the trailer for that included on the album) and the starring role in Rat Pfink a Boo Boo, a comedy that dealt with a rock 'n' roller who moonlights as a super hero. Five songs, plus film dialogue and a clip from the trailer appear on this album.
Somewhere along the line Haydock started writing what his bio at the Internet Movie Data Base calls "gloriously lurid porno novels" under the pen name Vin Saxon. His musical career apparently was over, but he kept his hand in writing for monster mags and occasional B movie roles. But he began suffering severe depression. According to IMDB,
Unfortunately, Ron suffered a severe mental breakdown in 1977. On August 13, 1977 Haydock was struck and killed by an eighteen-wheeler as he was walking on an exit ramp on Route 66. He was 37 years old. Ron Haydock was buried on the same exact day that Elvis Presley died.
The Very Best of Julia Lee. Here's a Kansas City piano player with a knack for good dirty songs. No, she wasn't crude in the mode of a Lucille Bogan or, skipping ahead a few decades, as explicit as a Denise LaSalle. Lee, whose band was called Her Boyfriends, was the queen of the double-entendre. She was sexy, cleaver and funny, and she could rock that piano.
Back in the mid-to-late '40s, she didn't need to talk dirty for people to know what her songs like "King Size Papa," "My Man Stands Out," "Don't Come Too Soon" and "Don't Save It Too Long" were all about.
Though she was known for her sex songs, this album includes several standards like "When You're Smiling," "Trouble in Mind" and "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles."
Settle down, Beavis!
* Rob Zombie presents Captain Clegg And The Night CreaturesOn his previous music project, Texas singer Jesse Dayton, whose résumé includes stints as a guitarist for Waylon Jennings and Ray Price, teamed up with bluegrass singer Brennen Leigh to create an album of sweet country duets. Since that time, Dayton was apparently kidnapped by Rob Zombie and transformed into a fiend named Captain Clegg to sing hillbilly horror songs.
I reviewed this album recently in Terrell's Tuneup. Read thatHERE
Friday, November 6, 2009 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 Ghost Riders in the Sky by The Last Mile Ramblers Arizona Rose by The Waco Brothers Last Thing on My Mind by Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton Five Against One by Al Duval Cougar Mama by Quarter Mile Combo Ain't I'm a Dog by Ronnie Self Laws of Sanity by Koffin Kats Dark Enough at Midnight by Rosie Flores & The Pine Valley Cosmonauts
Kiwi Moon by John Egenes I'm Just a Honky by The Ex Husbands I Love the Way You Do It by Zeno Tornado Lovely by Shannon McNally Rake at the Gates of Hell/The Scoundrel's Halo by Sharon Shannon with Shane MacGowan Big Old World by Boris & The Saltlicks Sam Hall by Tex Ritter
Johnny Horton Tribute The Woman I Need (Honkey Tonk Mind) by Johnny Horton Honky Tonk Man by Dwight Yoakam North to Alaska by Ted Hawkins Battle of New Orleans by Johnny Cash Whispering Pines by Johnny Horton Lover's Rock by Johnny Horton
A Lotta Lotta Lovin' by Robbie Fulks Red Rose by The Blasters Start the Music Without Me by Neil Mooney Georgia Black Bottom by The Georgia Crackers
Don't Look Down by Tom Russell She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye by Jerry Lee Lewis Drinkin' Thing by Gary Stewart My Rosemarie by Stan Ridgway The Late John Garfield Blues by John Prine Pinpoints by Exene Cervenka That Feel by Tom Waits with Keith Richards
MORE TO COME (Keep refreshing your browser until midnight)
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 6, 2009
It supposedly started out as a band that played rockabilly — though admittedly a bizarre, mutated strain of rockabilly. Heavy Trash— made up of Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray — does to rockabilly what Spencer’s previous band, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, did to the blues.
And on their third album, Midnight Soul Serenade, Spencer and Verta-Ray expand their trashy palette. Even more than on the group’s previous efforts, Going Way Out With Heavy Trash (2007) and its self-titled debut (2005), Spencer and Verta-Ray sift through the rubble of all sorts of rock ’n’ roll and funky soul styles and make them part of their unique joyful noise.
While Heavy Trash doesn’t really sound much like any other group (except maybe The Blues Explosion), several songs on Midnight Soul Serenade sound as if they could be adapted by other bands.
For instance, the opening blast, “Gee I Really Love” sounds like Spencer and Verta-Ray spent a little time dumpster diving at the Brill Building. It has a Shangri-Las feel and would be perfect for the next Mary Weiss solo record. It comes far closer to the New York Dolls spirit than almost anything on the last New York Dolls album.
That song is followed by the dark, bluesy “Good Man,” which sounds as if it could be a long-lost Los Lobos tune. Take a listen and imagine César Rosas on lead vocals. And wouldn’t it be cool if Al Green took a crack at “Isolation,” a slinky little soul-influenced tune with that slinky organ sound found on Green’s early records?
No two songs sound the same. “Sweet Little Bird” sounds like one of Tom Waits’ graveyard blues monsters (think “Big Black Mariah” or even “Jesus Gonna Be Here”). “Pimento” is a Latin-tinged surfy instrumental that starts out with a nylon-string guitar riff. And “(Sometimes You Gotta Be) Gentle” is probably the roughest rocker on the record. “In My Heart” is a greasy ballad featuring a guitar right out of Santos & Johnny’s “Sleep Walk.” There’s even a “sermon” during the instrumental break: “Don’t you see, the soul of a man is a terrible thing. ... Cracks in the wall, spiders in the basement/Without love, you got nothin’ but torment.”
All the songs here are original, with the exception of one of my favorite LaVern Baker songs, “Bumble Bee.” Still, my favorite non-LaVern version of that R & B classic — known for its refrain, “Ooo wee, you hurt me like a bee/A bumble bee, an evil bumble bee!” — was by The Searchers, an underrated British Invasion band.
The one tune that doesn’t really do much for me is “The Pill.” No, it’s not a Loretta Lynn cover. It’s a spoken-word shaggy-dog story about a girl named Betty (“She wore black jeans and a feather in her hair like an Indian.”) over a slow-burning music backdrop featuring a droning guitar and occasional notes from a piano. Maybe I’m not following it closely enough, but I never figured out whether the pill here is LSD or Viagra.
Speaking of The Blues Explosion: Here’s good news for those of you who might have missed them the first time around. Late next spring, according to last week’s Billboard, the Shout! Factory label will begin reissuing that band’s catalog, beginning with 1995’s Now I Got Worry and a new best-of collection. Some of the reissues will include bonus tracks.
Also recommended:
* The Almighty Defenders. Goodness Gussie, it’s a dadgum garage/punk, trash/blues, lo-fi supergroup, a Marvel Team-Up of Black Lips and The King Khan & BBQ Show. And it’s (falsely) advertised as gospel music.
The back story behind this album is that the Atlanta-based Black Lips fled the great nation of India during their world tour earlier this year. (They’ve said in interviews that they were afraid they were going to be arrested for “homosexual acts” onstage.) The group landed in Berlin at the home of Arish “King” Khan, and the jams that ensued resulted in this album.
The album has a relaxed, informal feel — the recordings sound like spontaneous musical outbursts. You could argue that the sum is less than the parts since the “regular” albums of both groups are superior to this collaboration.
But there’s lots of fun stuff here. On the first song, “All My Loving” (not the Beatles’ song of the same title), Khan leads the band in a simple but exhilarating singalong. Mark Sultan, aka BBQ, a Canadian who’s in love with doo-wop, really shines on several cuts, especially “Cone of Light.” It’s a sweet soul shuffle — and the most gospel-sounding track on this unholy record. With Sultan on lead vocals, it sounds like Sam Cooke live at CBGB’s.
Another favorite is “Bow Down and Die,” which sounds like a punk reworking of the country gospel chestnut “Glory Glory.”
There’s one cover, albeit an obscure one — The Mighty Hannibal’s “I’m Coming Home,” a soul song about a soldier going off to war.
I even like the two less-than-two minute instrumentals — “30 Second Air Blast” and “Death Cult Soup ’n’ Salad.” I just want to know who’s doing the Moe Howard imitation at the beginning of the latter.
Too bad these guys aren’t famous enough to be on the right-wing radio radar. “Jihad Blues,” with the line “just gimme a box cutter and a one-way ticket,” would be enough to set off a great fake controversy.
All and all, The Almighty Defenders is keeping me satisfied until I get my hands on the just released new one by King Khan & BBQ, Invisible Girl. (Watch this space.)
The National Hispanic Cultural Center will unveil the official State of New Mexico guitar, the “New Mexico Sunrise,” on 6 p.m. Saturday, November 21.
The guitar was created by Pimentel & Sons of Albuquerque. According to the state Department of Cultural Affairs, "Immediately following the presentation, which includes a special performance on the state guitar by Ben Perea, a free public concert will be offered by renowned guitar masters Gustavo Pimentel and Hector Pimentel and Leyenda."
Earlier this year, the state Legislature passed and Gove. Bill Richardson signed Senate Bill 52, which made this the state’s official state guitar. It joins other official state symbols including birds, reptiles, cookies, poems, songs and question. ("Red or Green?")
The Sunrise, according to the DCA is "a steel-string acoustic guitar, made of East Indian rosewood, red Sitka spruce, Honduras mahogany and ebony." It features five Zia emblems, (designed with the permission of Zia Pueblo) inlaid with coral, mother of pearl and ebony, and adorned with the New Mexico sun, a Navajo star, a bear claw, a roadrunner, an outline of the state of New Mexico and an American flag.
Everything but a Roswell alien and a jackalope.
The guitar will be on temporary display at the NHCC through the remainder of 2009 and early 2010, and eventually will be placed permanently in the collections of the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe.
Pimentel and Sons was established in 1951 in El Paso, Texas by Lorenzo Pimentel. His sons Rick, Robert, Victor and Agustin have carried on the tradition in Albuquerque,
Sunday, November 1, 2009 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 Yabba Ding Ding by Joe "King" Carrasco King Takes Queen by King Automatic Big Game Hunter by Hipbone Slim & The Knee Trembers Action Packed by The Del Moroccos A Different Kind of Ugly by The Sons of Hercules Your Miserable Life by Movie Star Junkies Sometimes You Got to Be Gentle by Heavy Trash Money Rock 'n' Roll by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Oink Jones by The Marathons
Jihad Blues by The Almighty Defenders Too Much in Love by The King Khan & BBQ Show Talking Main Event Magazine Blues by Mike Edison & The Rocket Train Delta Science Arkestra Human Cannonball by Butthole Surfers Several Sins by The Birthday Party Bad Girl by The Detroit Cobras Puto by Davila 666 I Broke Out Your Windshield by Wesley Willis
7 and 7 Is by Love (Johnny Echols & Baby Lemonade) Hideaway by The Electric Prunes Psychodelic Nightmare by Dead Moon Geronimo Stomp by Barrence Whitfield Deep Shit by Wiley & The Checkmates A Teenager in Love by Roky Erikson Cat Man by Ron Haydock & The Boppers
Smooth Jazz by Carla Bozulich & Evangelista Dog Eat Robot by The Meteors Take it Like a Man by Mudhoney Giant Killer by TAD Stewball by Thee Headcoats It's No Secret by The Jefferson Airplane American Life by Primus Don't You Make Me High by Merline Johnson CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
