Saturday, December 05, 2009

eMUSIC DECEMBER

* Johnny Cash Sings The Ballads Of The American Indian: Bitter Tears. I had this on LP when I was a kid and I've been meaning to buy a CD for years. But I was inspired to download the album after reading this article in Salon about Cash, Ira Hayes, Peter LaFarge, Bitter Tears, a clueless music industry (thank God that's all been cleared up by 2009) and Tricky Dick.

It's a sad album. It's one of the angriest albums released on a major label in the '60s -- especially the early '60s. It's all about broken promises, broken lives, damned rivers and damned peoples and Goddamn you, Great White Father, anyway.

And yet, there's a sweet ray in humor -- albeit black humor in one song: Cash's "tribute" to General George Armstrong Whazisname. "I can tell you, Buster, I ain't a fan of Custer/And the general he don't ride well any more."

And hey, isn't the melody of "Drums" a lot like that of "Running Bear"?

* The Whole Fam Damnily by The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band. This trio from Indiana is a damn family -- The Rev plays slide guitar, the Mrs. plays washboard and the brother plays drums.

And hey, they got Jon Langford to do the album cover!

It's a hopped-up homage to raw country blues, a pig sloppin;, snake-stompin' romp. You might hear a little Scott H. Biram in here, maybe some Legendary Shack Shakers, definitely some Southern Culture on the Skids influence.

But the lyrics, at least in several songs, are modern. True, the message of "Wal-mart Killed the Country Store" has been spouted by many a coffee house whiner. But "Your Cousin's on Cops" -- reportedly based on true Peyton family history -- is one of a kind.

And here's some good news, especially for those of us who missed them when they first played Santa Fe several months ago: Rev. Peyton and the family is playing the Santa Fe Brewing Company on Sunday, Jan. 31. I missed him last time he was here so I'm hoping to make it this time.


* Fall Be Kind by Animal Collective. Sometimes I have these weird time-travel fantasies about going back to the late 50s or early '60s and playing some of my favorite music for the folks. In some, my better angels prevail. I want to play stuff like, say, Rev. Peyton to assure people that good American roots music will survive in the 21st Century.

But sometimes my darker angels have the upper hand and I want to fuck with them. I'd play them Animal Collective and tell them that the aliens had invaded the Earth. And that they'd won.

Of course, the befuddled earthlings of the past probably would think I was talking about aliens who worshiped Brian Wilson.

Just a few months after releasing their album Merriweather Post Pavilion comes this 5-song EP. There's nothing as sweet and euphoric as "My Girls" from MPP. But just when you're floating along the cosmic plane on the opening song "Graze" and think you might you have it figured out ... ZAP! Of of the sudden you're in the middle of a weird Teutonic, cartoonic flute solo. For some reason it brings back strange memories of this coin-operated puppet show they used to have in arcades. The aliens have lost, and, at least for a few moments, the puppets have won.



* My Shit Is Perfect by Bob Log III Here's one of the most fun one-man bands out there.

This is just good down-home stomping blues with Log’s trademark distorted vocals (he performs in a motorcycle helmet making him look like some demented Power Ranger) and some scattered electronic embellishments.

I reviewed this album in a recent Terrell's Tune-up. If you missed my words of wisdom, check it HERE


* Invisible Girl by The King Khan & BBQ Show. What distinguishes this dynamic duo from all the other punk/blues bashing two-man outfits out there is its anchor in raw doo-wop. Your basic punk-rock roar is colored by some Ruben & The Jets/Sha Na Na/rama-lama-ding-dong silliness, but the music is based on some seriously pretty melodies and occasional sweet harmonies.

My favorites are the ones where Mark "BBQ" Sultan’s high voice soars, such as “I’ll Be Loving You” and “Tryin’.” Sometimes he sounds like a more ragged Sam Cooke.

I also reviewed this album in that recent Terrell's Tune-up. You can see the whole shebang HERE.

Plus

* 6 tracks I didn't already have from Wasn't Tomorrow Wonderful by The Waitresses. Recently discovering Tin Huey, which included Chris Butler, the songwriter and guitarist who conceived of The Waitresses re-sparked my interest in this long defunct Ohio band.

I was fortunate enough to get to see The Waitresses in Pasadena in May 1982. (I was out in California promoting Picnic Time for Potatoheads with my pals Alec and Rich, who owned the Potatohead van. Besides seeing The Waitresses, the most we got accomplished in the L.A. area was getting kicked out of the Capitol Records Building and getting propositioned by hookers at a Malibu sushi joint.)

I'd never heard of The Waitresses until a few days before, but KROQ was playing "No Guilt" continuously -- and "I Know What Boys Like" slightly less frequently. And unlike most songs played continuously on the radio, I didn't start hating it. In fact I still like it more every time I hear it. And I still grin every time Patty Donahue says "Sucker!" near the end of "I Know What Boys Like."

(We dropped a copy of Potatoheads by KROQ, but I don't think they ever played it.)

About the songs off this, The Waitress' 1982 debut, are on the CD The Best of The Waitresses, which I've had for years. Nice to see the full album available.


* Nine tracks from The Kids Are All Square - This Is Hip|Girlsville by Thee Headcoats and Thee Headcoatees. Billy Childish can get more use from basic Kingsmen/Kinks/Bo Diddley riffs than George Washington Carver could for the peanut. Thee Headcoats, his band from the late '80s until the early part of this century perhaps was his best.

The songs here include, not one, not two, not three, but four songs dealing with the American frontier -- an irreverent yang to the righteous ying of Johnny Cash's "Bitter Tears," though Cash's "Custer" would fit in with these songs.

There's Thee Headcoatees' "Davy Crockett," (which I didn't download because I already had it from another compilation) set to the tune of "Farmer John." In "Cowboys Are Square" Wild Billy takes the side of the Indians. "Pocahontas Was Her Name" is far cooler than any song used in the Disney movie. Then, heading up to frozen north, "Nanook of the North" is yet another fantasy about falling in love with a Native girl. ("I killed a pack of wolves with my frost-bitten hands/Just to prove to her I was a mighty mighty man.") It would be a good companion with Hank Thompson's "Squaws Along the Yukon."

But not all the songs are hysterically historical. One of my favorites is "Ballad of the Fogbound Pinhead." It's just a simple put-down song. "He never ever knew right from wrong/Never knew the words to a Headcoats song."

This basically is a two-album combo. I didn't have enough credits this period to get Girlsville, the second album, which is by Thee Headcoatees (Thee Headcoats' ladies auxiliary). I'll pick that up next week when my account recharges.

Friday, December 04, 2009

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, December 4, 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
Please Don't Take the Baby to the Liquor Store by The Rev. Horton Heat
Doghouse Blues by Wayne Hancock
Change in the Weather by John Fogerty
Cotton Fields by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Rockin' Granny by Nancy Apple
Little Bells by Rosie Flores & The Pine Valley Cosmonauts
Hot Dog That Made Him Mad by Carolyn Marks & The Roommates
Silver Threads and Golden Needles by Wanda Jackson

Big Mamou by Waylon Jennings
You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover by Sleepy LaBeef
Good Lovin' by Quarter Mile Combo
It's the Law by Bob Log III
Poor Little Critter on the Road by Trailer Bride
Mud by The Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band
Pontiac Joe by The Electric Rag Band
Darlin' by Jimmy Dale
Billy the Kid by Jacques & The Shakey Boys
Sal's Got a Meatskin by Cliff Carlisle

Border Radio by Bill Hearne
Jubilee Train by The Blasters
Monica's Mother by Gary Gorence
One Hour Mama by Maria Muldaur
Sadie Green (The Vamp of New Orleans) by Roy Newman & His Boys
Suits Are Picking Up the Bill by Squirrel Nut Zippers
Horse Doctor Come Quick by Corb Lund
Rabbits Don't Ever Get Married by Hank Penny

Droppin' Out by Ron Haydock & The Boppers
Lovesick Blues by Artie Hill & The Long Gone Daddies
Barn Dance Rag by Bill Boyd & His Cowboy Ramblers
Wrong Side of the Tracks by Guy Clark
Oil in My Lamp by The Byrds
Why Me Lord by Johnny Cash
The Birth of Jesus by Clarence Fountain & Sam Butler
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

Thursday, December 03, 2009

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: THE DIN OF THE TIN

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
December 4, 2009


It’s strange that one of the most exciting, innovative, and all-around crazy albums released this year was recorded in the late ’70s.

I’m talking about the “new” CD Before Obscurity: The Bushflow Tapes by the long-defunct Akron, Ohio, band Tin Huey.

Tin Huey rose from the same weird Midwestern creative ether as its homeboys Devo and Pere Ubu from nearby Cleveland.

Some people will be drawn to this record — consisting of previously unreleased live recordings and Huey rarities — because it features early work by sax maniac Ralph Carney, who has blown on some of Tom Waits’ finest albums along with guest shots with The B-52s, Ubu, Elvis Costello, The Black Keys, and many others. (Recently he’s been touring with They Might Be Giants.) Though best known for sax, Carney also plays clarinet, flute, guitar, harmonica, keyboards, Jew’s harp, and who knows what else.

Tip your Waitress: But it wasn’t Carney who first attracted me to Tin Huey. It was Huey singer/guitarist/Chris Butler and Huey’s connection with another Ohio band — The Waitresses. Butler was basically the brains behind The Waitresses, a band that rose to a short but well-deserved glory in the great New Wave scare of the early ’80s.

Fronted by singer Patty Donahue, whose hilariously whiny, disengaged-punk-chick, proto-Valley Girl voice epitomized the music of that era, The Waitresses actually had a hit with a song called “I Know What Boys Like,” which you can find on just about any Best of New Wave compilation in bargain bins across this great land. Butler wrote or co-wrote virtually every song Donahue ever sang with the group.

Some have dismissed The Waitresses as a one-hit-wonder or an ’80s novelty band. But if you ever saw them live (I did, at Perkins’ Palace in Pasadena in May 1982) or listened to their albums, you know that their music was strange and deceptively complex. There was a definite Zappa/Beefheart influence, as was the case with Tin Huey. The Waitresses had a sax player named Mars Williams who was a crazy performer — though, recently re-rereading the liner notes of The Best of The Waitresses CD, I realized that Carney, not Williams, played sax on “I Know What Boys Like” and sax and harmonica on my personal favorite Waitresses tune, “No Guilt.”

The first song on Before Obscurity is an early version of “Heat Night,” which would appear on The Waitresses’ first album, Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful. But even better for Waitresses’ fans is “The Comb.” It’s a live performance featuring Donahue on lead vocals. Butler considers this to be the birth of The Waitresses — it was the first time he and Donahue performed together in public. For devotees of Donahue, who died of lung cancer in 1996, this alone will make Before Obscurity mandatory listening. It’s a sweet reminder of her cool persona.

But wait, there’s more: Even without the Waitresses connection, there’s lots to love about Before Obscurity. I already mentioned the debt to Zappa and Beefheart and common cultural roots with Devo and Pere Ubu.

There’s some obvious proto-punk influence, most apparent in the group’s cover of The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog” (which must have been recorded on or around April 21, as they begin the track singing “Happy Birthday” to Iggy). You can also hear some Velvet Underground, and there’s probably a Television influence, especially on the song “Return Engagement.” (I thought I heard a little Mission of Burma here, but that’s not likely, because that band from Boston didn’t release its first recording until 1981. Must have been something in the air.)

Even though Huey was obscure, I wouldn’t be surprised if some musical acts that came later were hip to the group. Listen to Mr. Bungle, for instance, and you might hear echoes of Tin Huey. A few nights ago, when the Huey tune “Remi” came up on random shuffle mode on my iTunes, at first I thought it was Primus — but with an arrangement by Tom Waits. (This track is actually credited to “Ralph Carney & Friends,” with an explanation that the friends include “one or more Hueys.”)

“Pink Berets” is a dated political spoof about letting women into the military (there’s a reference to the ERA. Don’t know what that was, kids? Look it up!). The punch line is, “Now I’m a boy in the USO.” (I prefer the spoof from the early '90s by Santa Fe's Jim Terr: "The Ballad of the Queen Berets.")

Here’s a disclaimer for the last four tracks on the album: they are best listened to if you’re a longtime fan, musicologist, or flirting with unconsciousness. (I wonder how many people fall into all three categories.) These are lo-fi live recordings of the band, apparently without Butler or Carney. Though not truly representative of Tin Huey’s sound, it’s good rocking fun.

Free Huey: Do check out the band's Web site. There you’ll find a free MP3 of a cover of Talking Heads’ “Don’t Worry About the Government.”

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

WEASELS "DEFEND" KOOKABURRA

Speaking of reasons to despise the music industry, I heard a report on NPR tonight that got me pig-bitin' mad.

Weasels in the Land Down Under!

It seems some Australian music publishing company is suing Colin Hay and Ron Strykert of the early '80s band Men at Work claiming copyright violation. Oh no, did The Men steal "Down Under" from somewhere?

Well, not the whole song. But if you listen close to a little flute part between verses you'll hear a little snatch of "Kookaburra" -- you know, the kiddie song about the bird who sits in the old gum tree.

Apparently that's a copyrighted song, written by an Australian school teacher in 1934. In the NPR piece you'll hear an Aussie lawyer explain, "Kookaburra' is a four-bar song. Over half that song is used in 'Down Under,' which is the test of law."

As NPR reporter Neda Ulaby points out, half of four bars is two bars!

Next we'll hear that Larrikin Music Publishing is coming after this little music pirate.



And here's The Men from the early days of MTV:


Tuesday, December 01, 2009

HAVE I TOLD YOU LATELY HOW MUCH I HATE THE MUSIC INDUSTRY?


Thanks to a Twitter pal (was that you, T. Tex?) I stumbled across this loathsome tale of music industry weaselry.

It's a blog post by Tim Quirk lead singer of long defunct band Too Much Joy. (I've played songs like "King of Beers," "Long Haired Guys From England" and of course their wonderful cover of "Seasons in the Sun" for years on Terrell's Sound World -- and I saw them live once at South by Southwest circa 1995).

Anywho, Tim dissects his royalty statement from Warner Brothers and makes a pretty good case that it's, well, not that accurate.

... I am conflicted about whether I am actually being a petty jerk by pursuing this, or whether labels just thrive on making fools like me feel like petty jerks. People in the record industry are very good at making bands believe they deserve the hundreds of thousands (or sometimes millions) of dollars labels advance the musicians when they’re first signed, and even better at convincing those same musicians it’s the bands’ fault when those advances aren’t recouped ...


Read the whole thing HERE.

Meanwhile, here's a little Too Much Joy:



(And to learn about Too Much Joy's bizarre relationship with Newt Gingrich CLICK HERE.)

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

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