Friday, October 26, 2018

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Harlan T. Bobbo's Latest

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Oct. 26, 2018




Harlan T. Bobo isn’t exactly a household name — unless you’re a dedicated devotee of the underground rock scene in Memphis. And he seems to consciously choose to cling to his anonymity. Though the singer says he’s legally changed his name to the one you see on his records, like Leon Redbone, he keeps his birth name secret. He’s been known to wear masks at his performances and in general doesn’t seem to have a naked thirst for big-time success and stardom.

But he’s good, and his sporadically released records are well worth seeking out. A great place to start is his latest, A History of Violence, which is his first album since 2010’s Sucker and his best so far.

While there are several stark, moody acoustic songs here, most of the strongest tracks are the ones in which Bobo and his stripped-down band of Memphis mafiosos rage and roar as if they are fighting off demons from a madman’s dreams. These include “Spiders,” “Paula,” and “Town” (yes, he uses one-word song titles), which starts off with Bobo singing, “God damn this town” and proceeds to get even angrier.

Like his first album, Too Much Love, this one is considered a break-up album. It comes in the wake of his divorce. That would put it in the same stratosphere as romance-on-the-rocks records like Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks; Phases and Stages by Willie Nelson; Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear; Sinead O’Connor’s I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got; Back to Black by Amy Winehouse; and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. (I don’t care what anyone says, a ripping version of “Go Your Own Way” by Bobo and combo would have sounded great on this album.) Maybe even Frank Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours.
They call me MISTER Bobo!

However, Bobo claims it’s not really a break-up album at all. In an interview in Memphis Flyer a few months ago, he said, “The fact is, the record has very little to do my marriage. A couple songs are about that, but the rest of it is addressing something that’s disturbed me since childhood, and it’s that aggression wins, you know? It wins out on top of consideration for people, diplomacy, because all those things are very boring compared to the visceral excitation of aggression and violence,” referring to the southern French city of Perpignan, where he lives these days with his young son. “And the place I live in now, it’s not violent like anything in America, but it’s very aggressive. And the way people raise their children and treat each other is really disturbing to me,” he said.

Still, it’s hard not to think that the emotional strain of divorce doesn’t seep into these songs, which are packed with frustration, desperation, and loneliness. Some of the hardest rocking tunes are obviously dark fantasies of wanton violence. There’s “Nadine,” a tragic tale of a cabaret singer, and “Paula,” in which a musical crime spree ends with a disturbing vision of the narrator swinging from the gallows after being dragged through the town by angry citizens.

It’s not the most fierce rocker on the album. One of the most powerful tunes here is the brooding, slow-burning “Ghost,” which invites comparisons with Nick Cave. It’s one of the obvious break-up songs here. The most heart-wrenching verse is a scene from a marriage in which the singer recalls some tensions sprouting from a day at some carnival: “You remember that fish you won at the fair/You said I fed it too much, I said you didn’t feed it enough/Either way, the damned thing died.” But immediately after that bad memory, Bobo’s attention turns away from the fish and toward a child. “That boy’s gonna suffer, and Lord, he’s suffered enough/He’ll make someone suffer from all he’s learned from love ...”

A History of Violence is not easy listening by any stretch. But unless you’re a cold, dead fish, it’s a rewarding listen for the stout of heart and deserves a wider audience.

Also recommended:

3 Cheers to Nothing by Trixie & TheTrainwrecks. Trinity Sarratt is a California-born singer who moved to Berlin. There she began performing in a number of bands, even doing a stint as a one-person group called Trixie Trainwreck No-Man Band. With the aid of harmonica blower called Charlie Hangdog, she assembled a group, The Trainwrecks, and recorded this album of what their label Voodoo Rhythm Records accurately calls “overdriven-long-gone-broken-hearted-country-blues-trash numbers from the wrong side of the tracks.”

But it’s the kind of trash I like.

Made up mostly of original tunes, Trixie romps through rough-edged bluesy tunes like “Daddy’s Gone,” “Poor and Broke,” and “Commuter Blues.” She invokes the ghost of Jimmie Rodgers on “Yodelin’ Bayonne Blues” (with the best use of a slide whistle since The Hoosier Hotshots) and does a sweet cover of one of my favorite Hank Williams songs, “Lonesome Whistle.”

There’s an instrumental called “Everybody Goes to Heaven,” though the words in the title appear in the next track, “End of Nowhere.” (Neither is the Mose Allison classic.)

Big Halloween podcast: It’s the dynamic 10th anniversary of the Big Enchilada podcast, as well as my annual Halloween episode. You’ll hear horrifying sounds from the likes of Thee Oh Sees, Black Joe Lewis, The Fuzztones, The Compulsive Gamblers, Ronnie Dawson, and New Mexico’s own Alien Space Kitchen.

Also this week, check out Terrell’s Sound World, my local radio show on KSFR, 101.1 FM, or ksfr.org, where you’ll hear a lot of spooky tunes in honor of this sacred holiday season. (And you'll also hear a tribute to the late Tony Joe White.) The show starts at 10 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 28.

Here are some videos:

Meet Nadine



A Ghost for Halloween



And here's some Trixie ...

Thursday, October 25, 2018

THROWBACK THURSDAY: A Christmas Song Better Suited for Halloween

Lawson family portrait, taken about a week before Charlie killed all but one of them.

On Christmas Day, 1929, a western North Carolina tobacco farmer named Charlie Lawson woke up, engaged in some father-and-son bonding in the form of some varmint hunting.

Then when son Arthur went into town to buy more ammunition, Charlie went back to his house and shot and killed his wife and his six youngest children. Before Arthur got back. Charlie had gone back to the woods and killed himself.

It's that most wonderful time of the year ...

The Lawson family massacre was discussed in a recent episode of the true crime / comedy podcast My Favorite Murder -- in their typically irreverent and hilarious fashion. To the credit of co-hosts  Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, they credit my favorite true-crime podcast, Criminal with Phoebe Judge, which covered this bloody Xmas massacre a few years ago.

I'm not going to go into the gruesome details of the crime. Listen to Karen & Georgia and / or Phoebe for that. (Plus it's all over Google. Try THIS for starters.)

The reason I'm posting about the killings -- and a big reason people are still talking about it after nearly 90 years -- is because of a song.

Just months after the killings. singer Walter "Kid" Smith and fiddler Posey Rorer, in a group called The Carolina Buddies, recorded a hillbilly waltz they'd basically ripped from the headlines. And this is it:



Never mind that Karen & Georgia poked vicious fun at the recording, the song was a big hit for Columbia Records. And through the years, all sorts of folk, country and bluegrass artists have kept it alive. Here's a version by The Stanley Brothers.



Fast forward to the turn of this century and Dave Alvin covered it -- using the original lyrics but a different melody, on his Public Domain album. Alvin talked about the song with author Paul Slade:

 "Most murder ballads tend to be about one person killing another, or maybe one person killing two other people. In this case, it's a whole family. There's usually an innocent in a murder ballad, but this was an innocent family. And there's little justification given for it. It's left to the listener to decide. Was it economics? Was it insanity? Why did this guy kill his family? So that mystery gives it some power. 

"It's the murder of innocent children, which is pretty intense. And then it has that final verse, which is kind of sentimentally sweet but at the same time gives the whole scene some kind of redemption." 

Here's Dave's version.



This more one is by an Ohio band called Sport Fishing USA from their 2012 album Live at the Pool. The words and music are different but the story basically is the same.



Finally here's the spooked-out version Phoebe used on Criminal. It's by Elephant Micah (aka  Joseph O'Connel)l, a singer/songwriter from Indiana.




"They all were buried in a crowded grave / while the angels watched above /
"Come home, come home, my little ones / to a land of peace and love". 


Sunday, October 21, 2018

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST




Sunday, October 21, 2018
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org


Here's my playlist :

OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Pet Semetary by The Ramones
I Was a Teenage Werewolf by The Cramps
Me and The Devil by The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
Haunted House by Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs
Hooky Wooky by Lou Reed
The Wolf by The Bloodhounds
Father and Son by Oizone
High Tide Killer by The Morlocks
Elephant Man by Meet Your Death

Negro Gato by King Salami & The Cumberland 3
Daddy's Gone by Trixie & The Trainwrecks
Big Cluckin' Mistake by MFC Chicken
Burn, Baby, Burn by Stud Cole
I Smoke Dope by The Gears
Two Girls (One Bar) by Pere Ubu
Leave the Ghost at Home by Troy Gregory
Falling Star by The Velquins
Do the Freddie by Freddie & The Dreamers

Kim Deal by Johnny Mafia
Gigantic by The Pixies
Some Conversations You Just Don't Need to Have by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
No Vacancy by The Ar-Kaics
Gangsters by The Dustaphonics
The Witch by Syndicate of Sound
So Long Johnny by Charlie Pickett
Walking Through My Hell by The Peawees
Spice Girls (Who Do You Think You Are by Period Pains
Baron Samedi by The Dead Brothers
Nikki Hoeky by P.J. Proby

Tease It to Jesus by Miss Celine Lee
Storied by Harlan T. Bobo
Candy by Iggy Pop with Kate Pierson
Wayfaring Stranger by Raw Death
Last Day of Our Acquaintance by Sinead O'Connor
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Like the Terrell's Sound World Facebook page


Want to keep the party going after I sign off at midnight?
Go to The Big Enchilada Podcast which has hours and hours of music like this.

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast CLICK HERE

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

WACKY WEDNESDAY: A Musical Tribute to Dennis Hof


Dennis Hof, brothel owner / GOP legislative speaks at a campaign rally hours before he died.
That's porn star Ron Jeremy backing him on harmonica.

Dennis Hof, legal brothel owner, HBO Cathouse star and Republican legislative candidate in Nevada, was found dead at one of his establishments called the Love Ranch Tuesday.

Hof, 72, had been partying with friends like Ron Jeremy (who found Hof's lifeless corpse) and former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss after a campaign rally attended by  anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist and disgraced (but pardoned) Arizona Sheriff  Joe Arpaio. Fox News host Tucker Carlson had called into the event to express his support for Hof's candidacy.

His supporters didn't seem concerned that Hof was accused just last month of raping a woman and previous accused of other sexual misconduct by several ex-employees at his brothels. Somewhere in the Great Beyond, former New Mexico state Sen. Eddie Barboa is shaking his head and saying, "I was born 40 years too early."

Anyway, here's a little musical tribute to Mr. Hof, a set of songs about the business he so loved.

First this gem from 1990 by a group called HWA (Hoez With Attitudes)



Here's one by singer Cliff Ferre, who despite the weird accent here, was an American



Nevada's not the only place with legal brothels, as Dave Van Ronk knew.



Of course, the ultimate whorehouse song is House of the Rising Sun. I did a deep dive into that song, which you can see HERE



Tuesday, October 16, 2018

10 Rockin' Years of The Big Enchilada!

THE BIG ENCHILADA



Welcome to the 10th anniversary of The Big Enchilada!!!!! And just like my very first podcast back in October 2008, it's another Halloween show. So brace yourself, Bridget, it's a twitchy, witchy, blood-suckin', flesh-eatin' nightmare of an episode and there's not a ghost of a chance that you won't love it.

Remind your loved ones that The Big Enchilada is officially listed in the iTunes store. So go subscribe, if you haven't already (and gimme a good rating and review if you're so inclined.) Thanks. 

SUBSCRIBE TO ALL RADIO MUTATION PODCASTS |

Here's the playlist:

(Background Music: Halloween Hell by The Goldstars)
Happy Halloween by The Fuzztones
All My Friends are Zombies by The Priscillas
Leave The Ghost at Home by Troy Gregory & The Sights
I Drink Blood by Rocket from the Crypt
I Came From Hell by The Monsters
Ghost Riders by Ronnie Dawson

(Background Music: Ghost Surfer by The Surf Lords)
Zombie Outbreak by Alien Space Kitchen
Ghost on the Highway by Trailer Bride
Cuidad Muerto by Los Eskeletos
Zombified by Southern Culture on the Skids
Runnin' from the Ghost of Your Past by Stevie Tombstone
The Ghost With the Most by Almighty Defenders

(Background Music: Ghost Train by Stompin' Riff Raffs
Ghost in the Trees by Thee Oh Sees
My Love is a Monster by Compulsive Gamblers
Spooks by Ghost Bikini
Vampire by Black Joe Lewis
(Background Music: Night of the Werewolf by Lee Kristofferson)

Play it below:


Support Radio Mutation on Patreon




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...