Friday, June 08, 2012

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST


Santa Fe Opry Facebook BannerFriday, June 8, 2012 
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
Single Girl by The Dirt Daubers
Bible, Candle and Skull by Legendary Shack Shakers
Rock Your Baby by Candye Kane
Hillbilly Thunder Machine by Joe Buck
11 Months and 29 Days by Dave Alvin
Ice Cold Water by Ray Condo
Mama's in a Honky Tonk Downtown by Karen Collins & The Backroads Band
I Said My Nightshirt & Put On My Prayers by June Carter with Homer & Jethro
Psycho '84 by T. Tex Edwards

Can You Blame the Colored Man by South Memphis String Band
Bootlegger Blues by The Great Recession Orchestra
Deep Elum Blues by Harmonica Frank
Pass the Booze by Ernest Tubb
Crazy Boogie by Merle Travis
I Love You Honey by Cathy Faber's Swingin' Country Band
August 1967 (Hippies Call It STP) by Holy Modal Rounders
Uneasy Rider by Charlie Damiels

Down in Mississippi by James Luther Dickinson & The North Mississippi Allstars
Ramblin' Man by Soda
Small Ya'll by George Jones
Three Times Seven by Doc & Merle Watson
The Bad Girl I Keep in My Heart by Cornell Hurd
Before All Hell Breaks Loose by Kinky Friedman
I'll Save My Tears by Hank 3
My Pretty Quadroon by Jerry Lee Lewis

1957 Ford Meteor by Menic
Footprints in the Snow by Jimmie Dale Gilmore & The Wronglers
Someone to Give My Love To by Big Al Anderson
Lovin' Ducky Daddy by Carolina Cotton
Breaking Up Party by Arty Hall
Bony Fingers by Hoyt Axton
Wore Me Down by Martin Zellar & The Hardways


MORE TO COME (Keep refreshing your browser until midnight)


CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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TERRELL'S TUNEUP: The Strange Story of Willis Earl Beal

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
June 8, 2012


It’s still a long way to Halloween, but I’m going to tell you about some haunting songs from a haunted singer and, to steal a line from Concrete Blonde, the ghosts inside his haunted head.

The artist here is Willis Earl Beal, who is from Chicago, though he recently spent a few years in Albuquerque — August 2007 until June 2010, according to the weekly Chicago Reader. He was homeless for at least part of his time there. It was during his time in the Duke City that Beal began recording homemade CDs of his songs and leaving them in public places where unsuspecting listeners could find them.

The mysterious CD-Rs and his hand-drawn fliers with messages like “Write to me and I will make you a drawing” and “Call me and I will sing you a song” led to his discovery. (That message, complete with his name and phone number, also can be found on Beal’s website.)

A flier featuring a self-portrait of Beal in a bow tie and a message seeking female companionship was featured on the January 2010 cover of Found magazine. (“I am a good person. I am employed. I pay rent for a studio apartment living space. I dwell alone,” it reads. The message includes a 505 phone number.)

A similar message discovered in a Chicago bookstore (“I want some friends & stuff ... I am not a Weasel”) sparked a lengthy feature about Beal in Chicago Reader last year.

And that built enough interest for XL/Hot Charity records to release an actual album — the lo-fi, almost no-fi Acousmatic Sorcery — earlier this year. And now he’s touring Europe — though, as I’ll explain later, that hasn’t worked out well so far.

Local-pride aside: The material on the album was recorded during Beal’s Albuquerque years. Here’s what Beal told Chicago Reader about New Mexico:

“I had to get out to Albuquerque, because Albuquerque was the place where I was gonna grow as an artist.” When he left Chicago for New Mexico, he’d just been fired from a night-shift security job at the Sears Tower — now the Willis Tower, as Beal likes to point out. He’d developed a romanticized idea of Albuquerque as a beautiful, barren place based on the 2003 film Off the Map. “A guy who worked for the IRS went out to Albuquerque to audit somebody, this family, and decided that he was an artist, and he never came back. I think it was Santa Fe,” he says. “Much to my dismay, Albuquerque was nothing like that.”

Beal leaving his self-burned CDs around Albuquerque has biographical echoes of his fellow “outsider” artist Daniel Johnston recording cassettes of his music and handing them out to students on the University of Texas campus back in the 1980s.

The first Willis Earl Beal song I ever heard was “Take Me Away,” a raw, spirited blues shout that Pitchfork compared to a field holler. Beal sings: “Now I have been wiser, I’ve been the fool/I’ve been the teacher and a pupil in the school/I’ve followed and I’ve broken each and every rule/Lord, I’m as tired as a mule.”

I was astounded. I immediately thought he was young Ted Hawkins or Abner Jay. Accompanied only by percussive bashing on what sounds like an oil drum, the song is a wild joy. Tom Waits would have killed to have done this song.

Seeking out the rest of the album, I was fascinated with the opening instrumental, “Nepenenoyka,” played on what sounds like a cross between a zither and a kalimba. This brought to mind the mysterious, itinerant Texas gospel singer Washington Phillips, who in the late 1920s recorded some powerful songs using what same say was a fretless zither. This instrument also appears on other Acousmatic Sorcery songs, notably “Bright Copper Noon.” On that song, Beal’s voice sounds less like Ted Hawkins and more like Terence Trent D’Arby, the 1980s soul rocker who could go from an angelic croon to an Otis Redding growl in the blink of an eye.

You’ll also hear Beal’s kalimba or whatever it is on “Cosmic Queries.” This song is downright spooky. It’s a minor-key moan with what sounds like some sort of woodwind. I hear Waits in this one, as well as Brazilian experimental composer Tom Zé. And then there are some lyrics about what is apparently Beal’s favorite food — oatmeal. Oatmeal pops up in other Beal songs as well. It’s something of a trademark. On the drawing that made the cover of Found magazine, Beal confessed, “I like oatmeal, train stations, night time and chamomile tea.”

But despite the power of “Take Me Away” and the quirky charms of the songs just mentioned, I have to admit I was ultimately disappointed with most of Acousmatic Sorcery. Too many songs are mopey midnight guitar dirges, the kind of stuff you could hear at 2 a.m. in any given college dorm across this great land during the past 40 years or so. Then there’s the strange but strangely uninspiring stab at rap called “Ghost Robot.”

Beal redeems himself somewhat on the last track, “Masquerade.” He sounds like Screamin’ Jay Hawkins reciting a twisted bedtime story in a disturbing half-shout (unintentionally scaring children in the process). Appropriately, the track ends in maniacal laughter.

Unfortunately, Beal’s rapid rise to cult hero status recently took a dark-side-of-fame detour.

He was arrested in late May in the Netherlands after a performance at a festival called Le Guess Who? Beal allegedly kicked a homeless heckler in the face during his show. “Because of a few bad apples, we all miss out on one more glorious, fantastic, lovely performance,” he told the festival audience. “I love you, and I even love the guy whose face I kicked in. I love him, too. He’s a good guy. He’s just drunk, a little.”

Let’s hope this is just a bump in the road for Beal. Though too many songs on his first album are undeveloped, it’s obvious that Beal possesses a wild genius that I hope to hear more of.

Blog Bonus: Let this Beal video take you away:

Tuesday, June 05, 2012

BIG ENCHILADA 49: Attack of the Tacky Tikis


THE BIG ENCHILADA



Inspired by a series of startling hallucinations in the gardening section of my local K-Mart, this month The Big Enchilada takes you to an uncharted desert isle where the world's tackiest Tikis plot in secrecy. All the tacky Tikis, where do they  all come from? Can you withstand the Attack of the Tacky Tikis?

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Here's the playlist:
(Background Music: Tiki by The Waitiki 7)
Everybody Says by TikiTiki Bamboos
Run Away by Dead Man's Tree
My Groupie by Thee Martian Boyfriends
Dance With You by The Black Lips
Drop in and Go by The Molting Vultures
Tiki Man by Deadbolt

(Background Music: Bi-Aza-Ku-Sasa by The Mogambos)
I'll Make You Happy by The Kontikis
I Lost My Mind by The Angry Samoans
Cat Food by Bottle Service
Good Night, Sleep Tight by The Bloody Hollies
Sasquatch Love by Horror Deluxe
Black Plague Blues by Figures of Light
Prisoner of the Tiki Room by Mojo Nixon

(Background Music: Daktari Ooh Ah by Chaos Inc.)
Payday Loans by The Winking Tikis
Little Suzie by Harmonica Lewinski
She's My Baby Doll by Terry Clements & The Tune Tones
Soul Typecast by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Circuit Breaker by Love Collector
Wine Head by Johnny Wright
Voodoo Idol by The Cramps

Play it here:



Sunday, June 03, 2012

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST



Terrell's Sound World Facebook BannerSunday, June 3, 2012 
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
Election Day by El Pathos
Black Plague Blues by Figures of Light
A Natural Man by The Dirtbombs
Evil One by The Tex Reys
Rocketship to Freedom by The Molting Vultures
Weedeye by Churchwood
Not Too Soon by Throwing Muses
Watching My Baby by Reigning Sound
Noo, No , No by Die Zorros

Buddy Holley Glasses by The 99ers
Geraldine by The A-Bones
Please, Please Baby by The Five Hearts
Telephone Baby by Johnny Otis
Honey Please by The Evil Eyes
Evil Eye by Pussy Galore
Tangerine Submarine by The Nevermores
Parade by Pretty Girls Make Graves
Ruby Go Home by The Oh Sees

JOEY RAMONE TRIBUTE

Now That I Am Dead by French, Frith, Thompson & Kaiser
I Couldn't Sleep/Seven Days of Gloom  by Joey Ramone
I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone by Sleater-Kinney
The Crusher by The Ramones
Eyes of Green by Joey Ramone
Pet Sematary by The Ramones
Dancing With Joey Ramone by Amy Rigby
The Return of Jackie & Judy by Tom Waits
What a Wonderful World by Joey Ramone

Days and Days/ Your Haunted Head by Concrete Blonde
Having a Party by The Mekons
I'm Shakin' by Jack White
This Could Go On Forever by Tav Falco
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
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Friday, June 01, 2012

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST


Santa Fe Opry Facebook BannerFriday, June 1, 2012 
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
Can't Go to Heaven by The Dirt Daubers
Buster's Crawdad Song by The Tune Wranglers
Hucklebuck by June Carter with Homer & Jethro
Your Cousin's On Cops by The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
Texas Whore Pleaser by Slackeye Slim
There's No Fool Like a Young Fool by Ray Price
Trooper's Holler by Hank3
The L-Ranko Motel by Bell & Shore
Bullfrog Blues by Legendary Shack Shakers

Jack's Red Cheetah by Bob Coltman
Blues Keep Callin' by Cathy Faber's Swingin' County Band
Lucky Stars by J.P. McDermott and Western Bop
Sales Tax by The Great Recession Orchestra
Bed Spring Poker by Mississippi Sheiks
I Love Onions by Susan Christie
Jesus Walking on the Water by Asylum Street Spankers
Daisies Up Your Butterfly by The Cramps
A Girl Named Johnny Cash by Harry Hayward

DOC WATSON TRIBUTE SET 
(All songs by Doc Watson except where noted)
Freight Train Boogie by Doc & Merle Watson
Country Blues
The Cuckoo
Don't Monkey Round My Widder by Doc Watson & Chet Atkins
Going Down This Road Feeling Bad
You Are My Special Angel
Wabash Cannonball by Doc Watson & Jean Ritchie
Tennessee Stud
Last Thing on My Mind by Doc & Merle Watson

Hard Morning in a Soft Blur by Giant Giant Sand
Window Up Above by Johnny Paycheck
Walking in the Woods by Tom Irwin
No Reason to Quit by Merle Haggard
Hard Road by Vince Bell
Santa Fe by Eilen Jewell
Maverick by George Thorogood & The Destroyers
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 Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

  Sunday, March 24, 2024 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM, 101.1 FM  Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell E...