TERRELL'S TUNEUP: HONKY TONK TALES

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Dec. 10, 2011


By the time The Pistol, the Bottle, and Shaded Pastures was released earlier this year, fans of Anthony Leon & The Chain were familiar with most, if not all, of the songs on the group’s first CD. But that’s OK. It’s great to have these tunes available to play any time you want.

Leon, a native of Virginia, has only been in New Mexico a few years. But it didn’t take him long to become a local favorite. For this album, not only did Leon have a batch of great songs under his arm, he gives an intense live performance, greatly aided by his crack rhythm section — Carlos Rodriguez on bass and drummer Daniel Jaramillo.

Sometimes the Chain gang is joined by other superb local musicians who add new dimensions to the sound. But that trio of Leon, Rodriguez, and Jaramillo provides an unbeatable foundation.

Santa Fe has lots of good bands playing country and country-flavored music, but what sets Leon & The Chain apart is the huge rockabilly influence that permeates much of the group’s material. No fake Happy Days nostalgia here, just a tough strain of American music that informs the band’s sound. As the first song on the album says, he’s a brand new model honky-tonk man.

At Frogfest 2010

When I first got my hands on this CD, I skipped to “Shotgun,” the fifth track. Leon has several tunes that hang around in my head, but this one’s my favorite. It’s a rocker about a jealous man warning some funky dude messing with his woman. It’s got a memorable refrain: “I’ve got a shotgun; tell you what I’m going to do/I’m gonna stick this 3-inch mag right up your wazoo.”

What can I say? I’m a sucker for poetry.

Almost as good is “White Dress,” another fast-paced song about a jealous lover. His ire is directed at his philandering sweetie, who’s got “10 other boys just like me cursing your sins.”

Another standout is “Uncle Sam,” a rockabilly choogler about a kindly dope peddler. I love when the beat slows down to a gospel-like bridge in which Leon and guest singer Felecia Ford sing, “Oh doctor, won’t you please ... his prescription for me,” over a heavy organ (played by Gary Miller).

My only complaint is that one of my favorite Leon and Chain songs (I forget the title, but it has to do with the devil and a saloon called Red’s), wasn’t included. The only consolation is that the band’s version of “Rudolf, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” which the group performed live last week on KSFR’s The Twisted Groove, also wasn’t included. Sorry, guys!

Leon — without The Chain — opens for Kinky Friedman at Santa Fe Sol Stage & Grill (37 Fire Place on Saturday.

More noises from the country:
*  Double Down by Ugly Valley Boys. The debut album by this Salt Lake City duo (singer/ guitarist/drummer Ryan Eastlyn and standup bassist Braxton Brandenburg) is a doozy.

The first song, “Pappy,” is a celebration of a moonshiner. It sounds like Eastlyn, who has a low, gruff voice, has been drinking his pappy’s product since he was a baby. “Sure did his best to keep the town from going dry,” he sings. “Cops said, ‘Hell, that’s the fastest man alive.’” It’s not quite in the same league as Robert Mitchum’s “The Ballad of Thunder Road,” but it’s one of the better moonshiner songs in recent decades and a good way to set the tone for the rest of the album.

There are several songs overflowing with Johnny Cash chunka-chunka and outlaw attitude. One of my favorites is “Clickity Clack,” an upbeat minor-key tune about a guy who has upset his girlfriend and perhaps everyone around him: “If you won’t get out of the way, I won’t step aside/If you got something to say, well get in line.”

“Ugly” might be in the group’s name, but these guys write some really pretty melodies. “Alota Guns” is about a man who brags that he has, well, a lot of guns — at least symbolically. The refrain (“Oh-oh, I gotta lotta guns and each one’s loaded with a different memory”) is an irresistible hook that will stick in your mind.

And even better is the melody of “Power Lines,” a lonesome-road tune with a happy if world-weary melody.

I don’t think Eastlyn and Brandenburg have fired all their guns yet. I’m looking forward to more. And, hey guys, New Mexico’s not that far from Utah. Come on down!

Honky Tonk Hustlas

*  South of Nashville by Honky Tonk Hustlas. When I first saw this band’s name I feared it might be some crappy alt-country/hip-hop fusion group. But then I heard one of Honky Tonk Hustlas’ songs on Outlaw Radio Chicago and realized these guys, who come from Montgomery, Alabama, sound a lot more like Wayne “The Train” Hancock than they do Cowboy Troy.

And actually, they sound a bit like the Ugly Valley Boys. too. Like the UVB, the Hustlas is a two-man band — except when others join in. The permanent members are singer and guitarist T. Junior and Stemp on standup bass. The sound is acoustic-based traditional country with lots of fiddle, mandolin, and dobro.

Even if country radio still played good country music (and it doesn’t), it would never play the Hustlas. That’s not just because of the band’s occasional use of profanity, or because the song “Corporate Man” might hurt the feelings of the soulless suits who run commercial radio. It’s because the lyrics to some of the songs are so dark and stark. “My Worst Enemy,” “Pray I Won’t Wake Up,” and even the upbeat “Never Gonna Quit” deal frankly with self-destructive urges. And the chilling “Death’s Cold Sting” reminds me a lot of Hank Williams’ “Alone and Forsaken” — which wasn’t exactly a big radio hit for Williams.

Not all the Hustlas’ songs are grim. The title song is a fiddle-driven toe-tapper, while “Drinkin’ With My Friends” is just a good honky-tonk tune.

However, in the context of some of the other songs, you might worry that after a night of drinking with his friends, the narrator could end up sitting on the edge of his bed in a lonely room with a gun in one hand and a whiskey bottle in the other singing “Death’s Cold Sting.”

R.I.P. HOWARD TATE

Soul singer Howard Tate died last week at the age of 72 following a bout with cancer.

I loved the man's music.

I'm not sure what it was back in the summer of 1975 that led me to buy that LP by a soul singer I'd never heard before in the bargain bin of some Albuquerque discount store. The singer's cool pompadour probably had something to do with it. And the 79-cent price tag sealed the deal.

But I bought that album by Howard Tate and it quickly became a favorite. At the time I didn't even realize that this was original version of Janis Joplin's swan song, "Get it While You Can." There was no copyright date, so I mistakenly assumed he was covering Janis.

There were some songs I associated with B.B. King — “Every Day I Have the Blues, ” “How Blue Can You Get?” and “Ain’t Nobody Home” as well as other electric blues like the song “Part Time Lover.”

But the basic sound was horn-driven, gospel-rooted soul. The Georgia-born, Philadelphia-raised singer had more in common with Sam Cooke than B.B. There were funny tunes like “How Come My Bulldog Don’t Bark” and “Look at Granny Run Run." And there were powerful soul-on-fire pleas like “I Learned It All the Hard Way” and the title song. The primary songwriter, as well as producer, was Jerry Ragovoy, whose songwriting credits include the classic tunes “Time Is on My Side” and “Piece of My Heart” as well as “Get It While You Can.” (Ragovoy died earlier this year.)

Around the same time I discovered Tate in the cut-out bin, Tate had said goodbye to the music industry and was about to embark on a decades-long descent into the shadows.

Here's what I wrote about that in my review of his 2003 comeback album Rediscovered:

Frustrated with his lack of success, Tate turned to selling insurance for a living about that time. For years none of his old friends in the music industry knew what had happened to him. Ragovoy tried to locate Tate in the early ’80s because European promoters wanted to book him.

As recently as 1995, a CD reissue of Get It While You Can put it this way: “Sometime in the 1970s, he disappeared into legend.”

Disappeared into hell is more like it. Tragedy struck the Tate family in 1976. There was a fire at his home, and his 13-year-old daughter was killed.

A few years later he was divorced and, in his own words, “started hanging out with the wrong crowd.” Years of drugs, drink and destitution followed.

Those hellish years continued until 1994, when Tate found religion. Eventually he started his own ministry in Philadelphia, The Gift of the Cross Church.

It wasn’t until 2001 that Howard Tate was rediscovered. Ron Kennedy, one of Harold Melvin’s Blue Notes, saw Tate at a supermarket in New Jersey. Seems that a local DJ, Phil Casden, inspired by the CD release of Get It While You Can, had periodically been asking listeners to help find Tate. This fortunate encounter led to the new album. Tate hooked up with Casden and reunited with Ragovoy, and the Internet helped spread the good news.

So Howard got his comeback. He never became a household word like Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett, he  made some fine records in his final years. I'll play some of those on a tribute Sunday on Terrell's Sound World.

Here's a nice piece in the great Funky 16 Corners blog.

And enjoy the videos below.

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TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, December, 2011
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(at)ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Lyin' Girl by The Reigning Sound
White Rabbit by The Frontier Circus
Plastic Fantastic Lover by The Jefferson Airplane
I'm Not Like Everyone Else by The Rockin' Guys
Bob Log Stomp by The King Khan Experience
Shake a Little, Wiggle It and Jiggle It Too by Bob Log III
Happi Song by The Fall
Cherry Red by Lorette Velvette

Dream On (Little Dreamer) by Hunx And His Punx
Bunker Mentality by Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds
Twój Mój Czas by Kult
I Got a Right by iggy & The Stooges
Stop by The Dirtbombs
Inside Looking Out by Eric Burdon & The Animals
Little Suzie by Harmonica Lewinski
Mystic Eyes by Them
Skull and Crossbones by Sparkle Moore

Hubert with Howlin' Wolf

R.I.P. Hubert Sumlin
Backdoor Man by Howlin' Wolf
Iodine in My Coffee by Hubert Sumlin
Going Down Slow by Howlin' Wolf
This is the End, Little Girl by Hubert Sumlin

Wonderful Girl by Jack Mack & The Heart Attack
Stay Free by The Revelations featuring Tre Williams
Stop Trying to Break Me Down by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Willie Meehan by Manby's Head

Strange and Unproductive Thinking by David Lynch
Hoodoo Party by Tabby Thomas
Don't Change on Me by Ray Charles
God's Mighty Hand by Rev. Utah Smith
Last Leaf on the Tree by Tom Waits with Keith Richards
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis


 Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

Terrell's Sound World Now Has Its Own Facebook Page Too

Yes, less than 24 hours after I stunned the world by creating a Facebook page for The Santa Fe Opry, I made good on my threat to create such a page for Terrell's Sound World too, Just click HERE.


Just like the Opry page,this is the place to share news and links about the music we like, to communicate during the show itself and to request songs on the show (remember, I bring almost all my own music to the station, so the earlier you request, the more likely it will be played. Tell your friends!)

For the uninitiated TSW is the home of Freeform Weirdo Radio. You're going to hear a lot of wild old R&B, surf, psychedelic, garage, gutter blues, psychobilly and sweaty soul music. I play vicious punks, happy drunks ... and sometimes I drift into world music, gospel, jazz from various dimensions ... I play whatever I'm in the mood for. And I get in some weird moods sometimes.

Sound World airs Sunday nights 10 p.m. to midnight on KSFR, 101.1 FM and streaming live on the web.

And of course my Big Enchilada podcast has been on Facebook for some time now.

Don't just like them at home. Go to Facebook and LIKE them all!

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, December 2, 2011
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
I'm Movin' On by Willie Nelson
Down on the Corner of Love by Buck Owens
Funnel of Love by T. Tex Edwards
Ain't Got A Clue by Josie Kreuzer
A Date With Jerry by Wanda Jackson
New Mexico by Jay Cawley
Peroxide Blonde by Deke Dekerson
Barstool Mountain by The Frontier Circus
Western Union Wire by Kinky Friedman & The Texas Jewboys

Gas Station Women by Phil Ochs
Don't Give a Damn by Honky Tonk Hustlas
My Boy Elvis by Janis Martin
Down On The Farm by Kim Lenz
Honky Tonk Man by Sleepy LaBeef
Burn Your Bra Baby by Benny Johnson
Over the Mountain by Anthony Leon & The Chain
My Rifle My Pony and Me by Dean Martin & Ricky Nelson
John Hardy by The Gun Club
Cold Beer, Hot Women and Cool Country Music by The Derailers

Jesus Is My Pusher by Margie Singleton
It Won't Be Long (And I'll Be Hating You) by Rex Hobart & The Misery Boys
Who's Julie? by Mel Tillis
More Like Them by Lydia Loveless
The Little Monster by Russ "Big Daddy" Blackwell
Hallelujah Anyway by Slim Cessna & The Auto Club
The Wayward Wind by Jackie "Teak" Lazar

In Tall Buildings by John Hartford
Big Dark Worls of Hate and Lies by Graham Lindsey
The Man In the Bed by Dave Alvin
Pappy by The Ugly Valley Boys
Weakness In A Man by Waylon Jennings
Little Valleys by Broomdust Caravan
Judgment Day by Slackeye Slim
Tryin' to Get Myself Home by Stevie Tombstone
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

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

Santa Fe Opry Now Has Its Own Facebook Page

It was bound to happen! Yes, I've created a new Facebook page for the Santa Fe Opry. Check it HERE

This is the place to share news and links about the music we like, to communicate during the show itself and to request songs on the show (remember, I bring almost all my own music to the station, so the earlier you request, the more likely it will be played. Tell your friends!)

The Santa Fe Opry airs Friday nights 10 p.m. to midnight on KSFR, 101.1 FM and streaming live on the web .

I'll soon be creating a Facebook page for my Sunday night radio show, Terrell's Sound World.

And of course my Big Enchilada podcast has been on Facebook for some time now. It's HERE

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: Enjoy The Winter With The Fall

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Dec. 2, 2011

I never thought that first (and only) time I saw The Fall in concert, back in the early ’80s, that 30 years later I would a) be reviewing a brand new Fall album and b) find that fact reassuring.

Although Fall guy Mark E. Smith was surprisingly open and friendly when I interviewed him over a couple of beers at Evangelo’s that night — until then I thought I might be the only person outside my small circle of friends who loved both Johnny Cash and Captain Beefheart — The Fall’s concert was confusing and even a little threatening.

As I wrote at the time, I felt like Dylan’s Mr. Jones. I knew something was happening there, but I just didn’t know what it was. It took me a couple of years to appreciate and eventually love The Fall, though I’ve never really understood them.

Here we are in 2011, and Smith is still leading a band called The Fall. The group’s new album, Ersatz GB, is a rocking joy — even though I can’t pretend to really understand it any more than I did that show at the old El Paseo Theater back in the summer of 1981. The album is somewhat confusing and, yes, a little threatening. It’s one of the band’s better efforts in the last decade or so.

Then again, I probably said that about other recent Fall studio efforts — including last year’s Your Future Our Clutter and 2007’s Reformation Post T.L.C. I believe the band is on a roll.

Mark E. Smith

Worth inserting here is a tongue-in-cheek — I think — summation of Ersatz GB from The Fall’s online forum: “The Falls’ 531st line-up release their 608th album of Smith’s curmudgeonly grumpy put-downs and slurred one-liners.”

“Cosmos 7,” the opening song, kicks off with a throbbing bass, madman drums, and almost tentative one-finger synth gurgles. Then comes the obligatory Smith rant, inaudible at first, rising from the frantic music. “Rat’s head! Cosmos! / For awaits Cosmos 7 / A mythical medical European lifestyle.”

What he said!

Things slow down just a bit for the next song “Taking Off.” But The Fall roars back with abandon on “Nate Will Not Return” and the warped psychobilly riffs of the subsequent “Mask Search.”

Fall keyboardist (and Smith’s wife) Elena Poulou takes lead vocals on “Happi Song,” in which the melody and the organ sound like a mutated update of The Doors’ epic “The End.” Then on “Greenway,” the band turns to Sabbath-era heavy-metal riffs as Smith chants, “It’s good enough for me / It’s good enough for you.” I assume it’s named for the latest Fall guitarist Pete Greenway, though allegedly it’s based on a song called “Gameboy” by a Greek metal band.

A frequent flaw on Fall albums is including at least one lengthy monotonous track. Here it’s the eight-minute “Monocard,” which features more metal riffs and sci-fi synth squiggles. If it were half its length I probably wouldn’t complain.

Of course, Smith thrives on irritation. He wouldn’t be Mark E. Smith otherwise.

Also recommended:

* A Little Bit Psycho ... A Little Bit Western by The Frontier Circus. Back in the 1990s, thanks to a former co-worker from the Land of Opportunity, I became a fan of an obscure band from Arkansas called The Rockin’ Guys.

I’m pretty sure the Guys — led by one Danny Grace, aka “Rockin’ Dan” — had broken up before I ever heard them, but they resurfaced in 2007 with an impressive album called Performance Art Miscreants, featuring versions of songs by Jonathan Richman, The Cramps, Johnny Paycheck, Kim Fowley, and others.

Rockin’ Dan, who by day is a professor of theater arts in Arkansas, has now taken the guise of Frontier Dan, heading a group called The Frontier Circus. They sound very similar to the good old Rockin’ Guys with similar sources of material (including The Velvet Underground and Roky Erickson) — just a little more country. In fact, they sound like an unholy collision of or collusion between the Angry Samoans and T. Tex Edwards.

This album consists mainly of irreverent covers of a variety of artists. There are versions of honky-tonk classics like Paycheck’s “Barstool Mountain,” Merle Haggard’s “The Bottle Let Me Down,” and Webb Pierce’s “There Stands the Glass” with Grace drawling the lyrics over screaming feedback.

There are also classic ’60s hits from psychedelia and beyond — “White Rabbit,” Erickson’s “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” and “Secret Agent Man.”

One of my favorites is “Glorious Heroin,” a strange melding of the classic Velvet Underground song with Them’s “Gloria.” And while I’ve always loathed America’s lame Neil Young rip-off “Horse With No Name,” The Frontier Circus, calling it “Horse With No Water,” weaves in The Sons of the Pioneers’ “Cool Water” and makes it something weird and wondrous.

This album is available only on limited-edition orange vinyl and digital download. See www.maxrecordings.com.

* Raw Power Live: In the Hands of the Fans by Iggy & The Stooges. This is a recording of one of those concerts where a band plays a classic album in its entirety decades later.

Lou Reed got away with it on his recent live version of Berlin, as Pere Ubu did with The Modern Dance,  Patti Smith with Horses and Dinosaur Jr. with Bug. And let’s not forget the fabulous Pixies, who came to Santa Fe last month to play the entire Doolittle album. So why not Iggy?

The original 1973 Raw Power has been remixed, repackaged, and regurgitated so many time it’s hard to keep track. The 2010 version includes a live disc from a 1973 concert in Atlanta featuring half of the Raw Power songs.

This latest version of the album is available as a DVD featuring high-definition video recorded by several fans who had won some sort of contest. The music is available on vinyl as well as digital downloads from all the usual online spots. (The digital version has a bonus track, “I Got a Right.”)

Raw Power Live was recorded last year at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in New York with a Stooges lineup that featured original Raw Power ax man James Williamson on guitar. He’s a welcome addition.

Iggy and the other surviving original Stooges are in their mid-60s now (bassist Mike Watt, who’s been a Stooge on recent outings, is the baby of the group. He’s only in his 50s). Even so, they rock like young bucks half their age.