Thursday, April 11, 2013

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: Contemporary Psychedelia

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
April 12, 2013

Once again The Black Angels prove that a band can play psychedelic music without sounding campy or even all that retro.

Granted, on its new album, Indigo Meadow, the Austin band certainly employs some sonic tricks from the psychedelic era: lots of reverb, lots of fuzz, some Mideastern/East Indian-sounding guitar licks and melody lines here and there, creepy electric organ — and in a couple of places you’ll hear that electric jug sound pioneered by the Angels’ Texas forebears, The 13th Floor Elevators.

The band’s music is strong enough that it doesn’t seem defined by these musical embellishments. It’s fresh and powerful. It seems like a logical progression from the psychedelia of yore, not some cute re-creation — even though the band does have a song with the unfortunate title “I Hear Colors.”

Like the group’s previous album, Phosphene Dream, on which the Angels moved away from 16-minute astral odysseys, Indigo Meadow puts more emphasis on melody and has shorter and punchier tunes than those found in the band’s early work. Indeed, the longest song here is shorter than the shortest song on the Angels’ 2008 album Directions to See a Ghost.

But if anything, Indigo Meadow seems heavier and more hard-rocking than Phosphene Dream. For instance, the fuzz-drenched guitar riff that starts off “Evil Things” could aptly be described as “Led Sabbath.”

On the title song, Stephanie Bailey’s thunder drums and a tense, repetitive guitar riff — almost suggesting the soundtrack of the shower scene in Psycho — set the mood before singer Alex Maas begins what isn’t exactly a tender tune of love: “Lay your hands across my chest, girl/You’ve been a problem since the moment I met ya/You always cause a real friction/Put your pale hands on my face, my love.”

Fractured romantic tension is one of the underlying themes of Indigo Meadow. True, the hopped-up, electro-poppy “You’re Mine” sounds like the singer has a bad case of schoolboy puppy love, but other songs show the darker side of love.

On “Holland,” one of the more mellow tunes on the album, Maas sings, “I’d rather die than to be with you tonight.” In the refrain of “Love Me Forever,” as Maas repeats the song’s title, it sounds more like a command of a megalomaniac than the plea of a lover.

And an undercurrent of misogyny seems to creep into one of band’s attempts at a timely topical tune, “Don’t Play With Guns.” This is the Black Angels, so it’s not going to be your typical protest number. It’s about a young woman who manipulates people to “kill for fun” for her. “Now Angie she was a demon/She had six arms and Lucifer eyes/She always had this glow.”

Some of the best songs here are those on which the Angels seem to be having fun. “The Day” sounds like some forgotten Yardbirds tune. “Twisted Light” is nice and trippy, showing off Bailey’s heavy-fisted drums. And even though I made fun of the title, “I Hear Colors” (subtitled "Chromaesthesia") is a wild stomper with crazy organ (it would make Ray Manzarek proud) and a theremin exploring the colors of sound.

I’ve always felt that psychedelic rock withered too soon back in the late ’60s. Attempts at a revival in subsequent decades have fallen flat, usually devolving into fey self-parody. But The Black Angels are one of the few bands that didn’t forget the “rock” part of psychedelic rock. Long may they fly.

Also recommended:

* In the Ley Lines by Dengue Fever. This is being billed as Dengue Fever’s lost album. It features five alternative mixes of previously released Dengue tunes, plus another five recorded live in Peter Gabriel’s studio four years ago.

This collection wasn’t actually “lost.” It just wasn’t widely circulated, available only for subscribers to the Bowers & Wilkins Society of Sound, a service for audiophiles set up by a British company that manufactures stereo and home-theater speakers.

Although I’m familiar with almost all of the songs on the CD, I’m glad the album is available for us plebeians. The live tracks are especially full of the kind of the wild energy that you expect in a Dengue Fever show. (The band played in Santa Fe at least three times in recent years. I’ve caught them twice and would go again.)

A little Dengue 101 for the newcomers: the group was the brainchild of Zac and Ethan Holtzman, California brothers who were huge fans of late ’60s/early ’70s Cambodian rock ’n’ roll. This was a crazy sound that was heavily influenced by American surf, psychedelic, garage, and soul music.

Cambodian rock was basically destroyed — as was much of Cambodian civilization — by the evil Khmer Rouge regime in the late ’70s. The Holtzman boys and their pals got down the instrumental component of this brand of rock, but Dengue Fever didn’t really blossom until it hired Cambodian-born singer Chhom Nimol, from a family well known in Cambodian music circles.

The band’s first three studio albums are well represented. (The fourth, Cannibal Courtship, was released after Ley Lines was recorded.)

There are rousing versions of “New Year’s Eve” and “Hold My Hips” from the group’s 2003 self-titled debut album, a nice spooky rendition of “One Thousand Tears of a Tarantula,” which was a highlight of Dengue’s breakthrough album Escape From Dragon House, and two duets with Nimol and Zac Holtzman that first appeared on the third album, Venus on Earth. These are “Tiger Phone Card” and “Sober Driver,” which sounds slinkier and sexier here than it did in its original form.

While all the songs on this lost album have appeared elsewhere before, a couple may be new to casual fans because they were available only on deluxe versions of Dengue albums.

“The Province” is one of those slow, pretty mysterioso tunes the band does so well. But I prefer “Doo Wop (Today I Learnt to Drink),” a rocking little tune originally done by Cambodian star Ros Serey Sothea. She disappeared during the reign of Pol Pot, but thanks to Nimol, her song lives on.

Blog Bonus: Here's some videos for you r viewing and listening pleasure




Here's Dengue Fever in Santa Fe last year. The picture is fuzzy, but the sound ain't bad. I shot it with my little iPhone

Sunday, April 07, 2013

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST


Terrell's Sound World Facebook BannerSunday, April 7, 2013 
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
In the Mood by Ray Stevens
I Like It Small by Mudhoney
Evil Things by The Black Angels
Devil in Me by Churchwood
Indians by The Mokkers
I Can't Control Myself by The Ramones
Muscle Man by The Ty Segall Band
Doo Wop (Today I Learned to Drink) by Dengue Fever
Hairball Alley by Rocket From the Crypt
Midnight Hour by Question Mark & The Mysterians

On the Hill by The Blues Against Youth
Golden Card by The Copper Gamins
Motor City Baby by The Dirtbombs
Do the Heartstopper by The Soledad Brothers
Sweet Nothins by Jenny & The Steady Gos
Shake a Tail Feather by Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels
Something for Nothing byThe Oblivions
The Crusher by The Novas
The Freak Was Clean by Thee Oh Sees
Ju Ju Hand by Sam the Sham & The Pharoahs

Alchohollywood by The Raunch Hands
Around and Around by The Flamin' Groovies
Yosemite Sam by King Salamai & The Cumberland 3
Wogs Will Walk by Cornershop
Surf in the City by Havana 3 a.m.
El Microscopico Bikini by Los Straitjackets with Cesar Rosas
Try Me One More Time by The Demon's Claws
Grease Monkey Go by The X-Rays
Satisfaction by Swamp Dogg

Wynona's Big Brown Beaver by Primus
What Was That by Dinosaur Jr.
You're Just Another Macaroon by Figures of Light
Sally Go Round the Roses by Holly Golightly
No Woman's Flesh But Hers by Johnny Dowd
Bluebird by Leon Russell
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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Saturday, April 06, 2013

Latest eMusic Downloads

Rough Guide to Psychedelic Africa by various artists. This collection reminded me how much I love some of the strange and wonderful sounds that were coming out of Africa in the late '60s and '70s. (It also sparked the idea to include a set of African psychedelia on the latest Big Enchilada podcast, even though no tracks from this collection ultimately made it to that episode.)

It was a time in which African musicians were discovering  Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana and Funkadelic. And we can't forget James Brown, who though not normally considered "psychedelic," injected his wild energy on all musicians who took him to heart. That's definitely the case with Nigerian shouter Victor Abimbola Olaiya, whose "Let Yourself Go" opens the album.

The real star of this record is another Nigerian Victor -- singer/guitarist Victor Uwaifo. Not only is his spacy classic "Guitar Boy" here, but there's an entire "bonus" disc worth of Uwaifo cuts. Sometimes these songs start out as fairly conventional Nigerian highlife, then take a sharp turn toward the astral plane when Uwaifo takes a guitar solo.

Other high points here include "Nijaay" by the Senegal-based Orchestra Baobab, featuring some other-worldly guitar (This is a fairly recent recording, from 2007);  Ethiopian Alemayehu Eshete's slow-burning "Eruq Yaleshew"; and the rubbery guitar of Celestine Ukwu of Nigeria on the meandering tune "Obialu Be Onye Abiagbunia Okwukwe" is downright trippy.

Howver, I'm certainly not the first to point out that this Rough Guide collection has a rough definition of "psychedelia" and that much of the material here, while being decent African dance music, won't immediately remind a listener of The Doors or Quicksilver Messenger Service or the Electric Prunes.

So if you want to get acquainted with true African psychedelia, you'll find more actual journeys to the center of your mind on collections like those great Soundway Records compilations like The World Ends: Afro Rock & Psychedelia in 1970s Nigeria and Nigeria Rock Special: Pyschedelic Afro-Rock & Jazz Funk in 1970s Nigeria -- not to mention the fantastic Luaka Bop collection Love's a Real Thing: The Funky Fuzzy Sounds of West Africa.

Do You Feel It, Baby? by Question Mark & The Mysterians. Through the magic of the Internet I've recently made the acquaintance of Question Mark, whose "96 Tears" was one of the most bitchen songs of 1966 -- which truly was one of the most bitchen years in rock 'n' roll history. It was a song that helped define the sounf that later would be called "garage" rock.

This live album from Norton Records was recorded in 1997, which wasn't such a  bitchen year, though it was recorded at the Cave Stomp Festival in Coney Island, which by all accounts was a mega-bitchen affair. As Question Mark recently explained to me, his set lasted well past the wee hours of night into the next morning.

It's a high-charged set that includes 19 gems from The Mysterians' heyday. And even though the band at that point was 30-plus years beyond "96 Tears," they played with enough energy to put much younger players to shame.

(For my recent radio interview with Question Mark CLICK HERE. And hey, I downloaded Aretha Franklin's version of "96 Tears" especially for that show.)


The Rock Garage Texas Live Concert Series Vol. 1. This is a collection of live performances in Austin, Texas in 2009 and 2010 compiled  by photographer/videographer/rocker Michael Crawford on his label The Rock Garage.

It includes songs by The Hickoids and Churchwood (both of which I've come to know through Saustex Records); revered Texas garage-punk bands including The Ugly Beats and The Pocket FishRmen (who have their own live album released by The Rock Garage) ; some cool alt-country such as The Texas Sapphires (who used to play Santa Fe fairly regularly a few years ago) covering X's "The New World"; electro-punx Pong; and more.

Not all the bands are from Texas. This album has tracks by Nashville Pussy as well as Dash Rip Rock from New Orleans.

You have to note that "Volume 1" is in the title here. Here's hoping for a Volume 2 in the near future.


* Give 'em as Little As You Can…As Often As You Have To…or…A Tribute To Rock 'n' Roll by Swamp Dogg. eMusic gave everyone a $5 bonus last month because their site's search function went kapoot for a couple of days.

This occurred at the time I was starting to write my column on the new Swamp Dogg reissues, so I couldn't resist using my bonus to pick up the latest (2009) studio album by Swamp (at least his latest non-Christmas album.)

This is a covers album, with Swamp putting his own stamp on rock, soul and blues standards. You might think the Free World doesn't really need new souped-up versions of old chestnuts like "Johnny B. Goode," "Great Balls of Fire" and "Heartbreak Hotel" But Swamp Dogg makes them all irresistible. You haven't heard them like this before. He even makes "I Want to Hold Your Hand," one of my least-favorite Beatles songs sound fresh.

Swamp covers The Stones, Fats Domino, Aretha, Springsteen, Bob Marley, The Temptations ... and, yes, Swamp Dogg. There's a new version of his own classic "Total Destruction to Your Mind." I like the original best, but this one ain't bad.

Plus :
* Several Celt-punk songs I used for my St. Patrick's Day set on Terrell's Sound World.

These were:
* "Rosettes" by The Men They Couldn't Hang
* "Nantucket Girls Song" by The Tossers
* "Drunken Lazy Bastard" by The Mahones
* "Breaking Through" by Blood or Whiskey
* "Brennan on the Moor" by The Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem (This isn't Celt-punk in form, ony spirit)

Friday, April 05, 2013

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST


Santa Fe Opry Facebook BannerFriday, April 5, 2013 
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
Long Road Home by Wayne Hancck
Let's Elope Baby by Kelli Jones-Savoy
Overunderstimulated by The Imperial Rooster
Sweeter Than the Scars by Shinyribs
Burn the Place to the Ground by The Dinosaur Truckers
Julia Belle Swain by The Howlin' Brothers
The Other Life by Shooter Jennings
Harder Than Your Husband by Frank Zappa with Jimmy Carl Black
That's Alright Mama by The Country Blues Revue

Frogs by The Handsome Family
You Can Come Crying to Me by Carla Olson with Juice Newton
He Calls That Religion by Maria Muldaur
Jesus Triology by The Electric Rag Band
Hesitation Blues by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
New Old Blue Car by Peter Case


76 Years Young on Saturday
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HAG!

I'll Fix Your Flat Tire Merle by Pure Prairie League
All My Friends Are Gonna Be Strangers by Merle Haggard
Swinging Doors by Justin Trevino & Johnny Bush
My Own Kind of Hat by Rosie Flores
Sweet Georgia Brown by Johnny Gimble with Merle Haggard
If You've Got the Money, I've Got the Time by Merle Haggard
Today I Started Lovin' You Again by Rufus Thomas
You Don't Have Very Far to Go by Lucinda Williams
Someday We'll Look Back by Merle Haggard

The Band Played On by Richard Thompson & Christine Collister
Took the Children Away by Roger Knox & The Pine Valley Cosmonauts
Walk Through This World With Me by Don Rich
The Cold Hard Truth by George Jones
The Apathy Waltz by Junior Brown
Queenie's Song by Terry Allen
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

Thursday, April 04, 2013

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: Bitter Tears from Australia

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
April 5, 2013

Back in the mid-’60s, when I was but a lad, my mom, knowing how much I liked Johnny Cash, gave me an unusual album. It was called Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian.

Unlike the other Cash records I had, there were no big radio hits on this one. It had to be one of the angriest county albums released on a major label in the ’60s — or, come to think of it, ever. The songs were all about broken promises, broken lives, damned rivers, and damned peoples.

And yet, there was some wicked humor in at least one song, a “tribute” to a certain notorious Indian fighter: “I can tell you, buster, I ain’t a fan of Custer/And the general he don’t ride well any more.” Like most the songs on the album, “Custer” was written by Peter La Farge, son of the late Santa Fe writer Oliver La Farge.

There’s a recently released CD that deals with the plight of indigenous people, and it’s not about American Indians: Stranger in My Land by Aborigine singer Roger Knox (backed by Chicago’s Pine Valley Cosmonauts). The stories told take place in different locales than those on Bitter Tears, but many of the themes are similar.

Knox has been performing and recording in the land down under for more than 30 years. This collaboration with the Cosmonauts, a loose-knit country-rock collective headed by Jon Langford (best known for his work in The Mekons and The Waco Brothers) is his American debut.

The teaming was instigated by Langford, who first read about Knox in a book by Australian author Clinton Walker called Buried Country, which chronicles Aboriginal country musicians. In a recent Chicago Tribune interview, Langford said that the book “really struck a chord in me, that black people in Australia would use basically a white American music form as a way of telling their stories.”

For this album Langford gathered an impressive bevy of guests including fellow Mekon Sally Timms, R & B codger Andre Williams, and American country giant Charlie Louvin (who died since he contributed his vocals to the song “Ticket to Nowhere”). Kelly Hogan, Will Oldham, and Tawny Newsome added some vocals, and The Sadies, a Canadian band that has collaborated with Langford before, became honorary Cosmonauts.

There are several sentimental wish-I-was-back-home tunes here, a familiar theme in American country music. There is “Home in the Valley” (with sweet harmonies by Timms) and “Blue Gums Calling Me Back Home,” in which Knox gets nostalgic about “a land where the kangaroos and emus roam.”

In “The Land Where the Crow Flies Backwards,” Dave Alvin and Knox’s son Buddy swap electric-guitar leads as Knox tells about a previous career herding cattle and admits to the harsh brutalities of the cowboy’s life: “The mosquitoes and flies torment you, and the sun beatin’ down so hard/You might think it’s a hell of a place, but to me, it’s my own back yard.” In “Streets of Tamworth,” he longs for “didgeridoos droning in the night,” “the taste of porcupine,” and being where “the white man’s ways won’t bother me no more.”

There are also some scathing political songs. “Warrior in Chains” is about an Aborigine inmate who commits suicide in an Australian prison. (Knox, as well as many of the songwriters whose works are on this album, spent some time within the Australian corrections system.) “Brisbane Blacks” deals with alcoholism among the Aborigines. “Wayward Dreams” is about the destruction of tribal customs because they don’t fit into the white man’s “wayward scheming dreams.”

And most heart-wrenching of all is “Took the Children Away,” written by Archie Roach. This is about the cruel Australian policy of taking Aborigine children from their homes in an attempt to assimilate them into the white culture. The policy officially ended around 1970.

My favorite song is “Scobie’s Dream,” a lighthearted tune about a drunk with severe d.t.’s. Poor Scobie hallucinates about an animal hoedown — “dancin’ kangaroos,” “two black crows playing the old banjo,” “Mr. Bandicoot in a gabardine suit dancing with a little brown pig,” etc. — for a whole week. The song, written by Dougie Young, is described in the liner notes as about “a jailbird and a drunk.” It exemplifies country music’s proud tradition of finding weird humor in even the most tragic situations.

Also recommended:

* My World Is Gone by Otis Taylor. Many of the best songs on My World Is Gone, like the material on Roger Knox’s album, deal with the plight of tribal people — in Taylor’s case, American Indians. The Denver bluesman is aided by Mato Nanji of Indigenous, a Native blues-rock band, on about half the tracks.

The most memorable “Indian songs” here are the title cut, a slow lament featuring Nanji’s guitar and fiddle by Anne Harris; “Sand Creek Massacre Mourning,” which deals with a 1864 attack by the Colorado militia (and a company of New Mexico volunteers) on Cheyenne and Arapaho villages in which mostly women and children were slaughtered; “The Wind Comes In,” featuring some tasty interplay between Nanji’s guitar, Brian Juan’s electric organ, and Taylor’s banjo; and the quick-paced “Lost My Horse,” a re-recording of a song that first appeared on Taylor’s 2001 album White African.

As usual, Taylor’s lyrics are sparse, repetitive, and short on detail. The words provide a loose framework, and he lets the instruments create the mood. Sometimes only Taylor seems to know what the song is actually about.

For instance, I had no idea what “Girl Friend’s House” was about until I read the liner notes: “After catching his wife in bed with her girlfriend, the husband decides he wants to join in.” I listened to the song a couple of more times to try and catch some juicy details, but alas, I could find none.

Blog Bonus:

Here's Roger Knox with the Pine Valley Cosmonauts live in San Francisco. Sally sounds especially lovely here.




One Hundred Years of Muddy Waters!



Muddy Waters was born 100 years ago today.

It oughtta be a national holiday, dammit!

Muddy might not have realized it at the time, but truly he helped get America's mojo working.

He died in 1983, but his music lives on.

So even though we don't get the day off, show your patriotism and take a few minutes off work and watch these videos. You owe it to Muddy. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to America.

Happy birthday Mr. Morganfield.

Here's Muddy on television in Europe in 1960 with Sonny Boy Williamson, and a band featuring Willie Dixon and others



Here's Muddy around the same time at the Newport Jazz Festival


And here's Muddy with a bunch of British guys in the early '80s.





Tuesday, April 02, 2013

The Question Mark Interview



In case you missed my live interview with the one and only Question Mark of Question Mark & The Mysterians, you can listen to it here through the magic of Mixcloud.

The actual interview starts about 20 minutes into the show following some hard thumping garage rock (including some of the bands I saw at The Detroit Breakdown at Lincoln Center in New York in 2010 -- where I saw Question Mark & The Mysterians for the first time ever. (There's also a little fumbling when I was having trouble getting the telephone to come out over the air.)

Be sure to listen to the end, or you'll miss the story of how Question Mark was nearly crushed to death by Meat Loaf in a rollaway bed.

So wake your friends, slap your neighbors and listen to this crazy stuff.





And while you're at my Mixcloud site, enjoy some of my other radio shows and podcasts posted there.

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...