Oh the weather outside is frightful, but this episode of The Big Enchilada is delightful. Warm up to some rocking tunes as Jack Frost nips at your toes ... the evil old pervert!
And remember, 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.
Sunday, December 30, 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
Happy New Year by Spike Jones & His City Slickers
There She Goes by The Night Beats
Chameleon by Sleeve Cannon
Trouble and Desire by The Callas with Lee Ranaldo
Monkey in My Head (I Gotta Move) by Mairano
The Youngest Profession by The Flesh Eaters
The Old Man's Soul by Henry Townsend
7 and 7 Is by The Ramones
Distemper by The Ar-Kaics
Call on Me by Cedric Burnside
Goin' Down South by R.L. Burnside (with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion)
Wilderness by Jon Spencer
Gut Feeling by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
Riot City by Archie & The Bunkers
Dr. Benway by Mean Motor Scooter
Stay Away from the Crack by The Mighty Hannibal
Ghost Waves by The Vagoos
Jazz is Dead by Sloks
Humiliation by Mark Sultan
Wild Man by Being Dead
Angry Little Girl by Sons of Hercules
Little Jimmy by Johnny Dowd
Some Other Guy by The Hentchmen
You're on Top by Reverend Beat-Man
I've Got Five Dollars and It's Saturday Night by George Jones & Gene Pitney
Aggie & The DA by Hamell on Trial
Logic and Common Sense by Thought Gang
Are You Ready to Love Me by The War and Treaty
I Just Left Myself Today by Hickoids
Tingle by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Sweet Little Girl by Stevie Wonder SUBSTITUTE CLOSING THEME: Auld Lang Syne by Guy Lombardo & His Royal Canadians
Sunday, December 23, 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
Six Bullets for Christmas by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies
Hey Neanderfuck by Mudhoney
My Shadow by Jay Reatard
Beetle Boots by Jon Spencer
The Black Godfather by Andre Williams with The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Straight Shooter by The Reigning Sound
NonToxicGreenCheapJellyBoy by The Vagoos
Face Like Tom Stone by A Pony Named Olga
Sunrise Through the Power Lines by The Reverend Horton Heat
Black Magic by Mark Sultan
Shameless by Johnny Dowd
Poor Until Payday by The Reverend Peyton's Big Damned Band
Death Bell Blues by Cedric Burnside
Freak Magnet by L7
The Garden by Modular Sun
Desolation Row by The Chocolate Watchband
The Snake and Jake Shake by The Ghost Wolves
Love at First Sight by Hamell on Trial
Springtime in Argentina by Billy Joe Winghead
Nailhouse Needle Boys by Thee Oh Sees
Cab it Up by The Fall
Jack Paints it Red by Thought Gang
In Hell I'll Be in Good Company by The Dead South
Miss Muerte by The Flesh Eaters
Too Much Love is Spoiling You by Bill Hearne
Galactic Chin by Dirk Geil
Jinglecide by The Rockin' Guys
Dirty White Shoes by Maiorano
Star of Wonder by The Roches
O Holy Night by Brian Wilson CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican Dec. 20, 2018
Here are three new albums that on the surface don’t really sound much like one another. But you can classify all as “uneasy listening” — music with something to bother or perhaps even frighten everyone.
* The Night Guy at the Apocalypse Profiles of a Rushing Midnight byHamell on Trial. This basically is a song cycle by singer/songwriter Ed Hamell centered around a fictional hardcore dive called The Apocalypse, which is populated by drunks, drug addicts, backdoor beauties, angel-headed hipsters, small-time criminals, and tough guys.
Yes, other artists have covered similar ground, the most obvious being Tom Waits. But a major difference between Waits and Hamell is that none of Hamell’s hookers have hearts of gold. And all of his Romeos are bleeding.
One of the key themes running through Night Guy is vigilante justice. The denizens of the Apocalypse might be powerless in the traditional sense, but they’re perfectly capable of taking care of the occasional Nazi, child molester, wife beater, crooked politician, or other evil creep who makes the mistake of walking into the bar.
“Aggie and the D.A.” is about an elaborate plot to use a comely floozy to set up a drunken prosecutor who happens to be a pedophile. Of course, sometimes the vigilantism goes too far, like the arrogant lawyer (or was he a CEO? A politician?) who takes a brick to the head, fatally, in the opening song, “Slap.” Sings Hamell: “He didn’t do anything overtly bad/’twas just that fucking smirk he had ...”
This album is a lo-fi affair recorded in its entirety on Hamell’s iPhone in various locales. Some are recorded at Hamell shows with audiences singing along, others away from the stage — from inside his car in a Detroit parking lot to an airport restroom in Iceland.
Not for audiophiles, but I suspect the regulars at the Apocalypse don’t love audiophiles any more than they love corrupt politicians.
* Family Picnic by Johnny Dowd. Here’s another artist who embraces losers, down-and-outers, and pictures from life’s other side.
On his latest (soon-to-be-released) album, Dowd embraces his musical past. His last few records have found the moving company owner drifting into minimalist, sometimes menacing electronic weirdness as a backdrop to his Texas drawl. But Family Picnic is closer in sound to his classic turn-of-the-century output.
And more good news: Singer Kim Sherwood-Caso, who graced most of Dowd’s works until the dawn of this decade, is back. And she’s still delightful.
There are nods to the blues here — albeit the blues through a crazy Dowd filter. There’s the harmonica-driven shuffle of “Vicksburg,” in which the music suggests good times as Dowd sings about the carnage of the Civil War.
Likewise, the song “Conway Twitty” is a distorted blues tune about a rube soaking in the bright lights of New York City, dreaming of being a star “like Conway Twitty.”
Longtime Dowd fanatics will recognize “Dream On” as a version of a song that originally appeared on Chainsaw of Life by Hellwood — a short-lived band Dowd had with singer Jim White circa 2006. In the song, Dowd confesses a fear of burning out. “You called me a dreamer, but I’m all dreamed out/I’m just a whisper/I don’t know what I was shouting all about,” he sings.
“Thomas Dorsey,” the last song on Family Picnic — and another one from the Hellwood project — is a tribute to the greatest songwriter in the history of gospel music. While the Hellwood version is dark and minor-key, here Dowd turns it into what on the outside sounds like a happy cowboy song — though the fadeout, where Johnny and Kim repeat the refrain, “I wish that Satan would let me go,” is jarring in this context.
* Thought Gang by David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti. This album — full of avant-garde jazz, synthesized rumblings, and sinister beatnik-style poetry — is required listening for anyone who claims to be a fan of David Lynch and his musical henchman Angelo Badalamenti.
It was recorded in the early 1990s, somewhere around the time Lynch had finished his film Wild at Heart and the original Twin Peaks TV series and was working on the movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. In fact, a couple of the tracks here — “A Real Indication” and “The Black Dog Runs at Night” — appeared in that latter film and its soundtrack album.
Reportedly, a few stray Thought Gang snippets have been used in subsequent Lynch works. But the lion’s share of this music has sat in the proverbial vault — or maybe some nameless necromancer’s crypt — for nearly 30 years.
Badalamenti, who has worked with Lynch since the mid-’80s, has already proven himself a master in musically capturing and enhancing the strange moods and disturbing undercurrents of Lynch’s unique storytelling.
Sometimes it was lush strings, as heard on “Love Theme From Twin Peaks,” or the heartbreaking dream pop of Julee Cruise on “Mysteries of Love” (from Blue Velvet), or slinky jazz, like Twin Peaks’ “Dance of the Dream Man.”
But the music of Thought Gang is even crazier.
According to a recent Lynch interview inThe Guardian, the director would tell the musicians to create soundscapes for strange scenarios, such as one featured on this record for the 16-minute epic “Frank 2000”: “OK, there’s a bar downtown, not a great bar, and it’s 2:30 or 3 a.m., and there’s a lot of drunk and strung-out people coming out. There’s a shootout and there’s all this running and fear and guns going off. And these pick-up trucks start showing up because there’s a plan to take some of these people out to the desert.”
Sounds like Lynch may have had a couple of cocktails at the Apocalypse Lounge.
It's video time!
First some Hamell on Trial
This is a 2006 version of Johnny Dowd's "Thomas Dorsey."
A sizable portion of the population is so sick of holiday music that they risk flying into a homicidal rage if they hear one more version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" or "The First Noel." (No actual evidence of that, but many people are saying ...)
So, like the past couple of years, I won't be doing a Big Enchilada Christmas podcast this year.
But some things are sacred, so on this Wacky Wednesday before Christmas I'm bringing you just a few of the classics. So gather the kiddies around the old computer screen and let's start with the Ho Ho Ho ...
First, this beloved classic from Angry Johnny & The Killbillies:
Here's one from the Rev. Glen Armstrong
This one's for my youngest grandson, Clive, who I understand has become a Daniel Johnston fan:
Some Yuletide cheer from the great Johnny Dowd
And for all my friends from the Oklahoma hills where I was born, who know it's not Christmas without this song
So merry Christmas to all. And if you really need more crazy Christmas music, you'll find hours of entertainment HERE.
Sunday, December 16, 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
TV Eye / Dirt by The Stooges
We Made It by Cedric Burnside
C by Thee Oh Sees
Alien Humidity by Jon Spencer
You're Telling Me Lies by Question Mark & The Mysterians
The Man of Your Dreams by Johnny Dowd
Hanging by a Thread by Cowbell
Reckless Rider by The Thick 'uns
Baby I'm Doomed by Bad Mojos
Valium Queen by The Vagoos
Beautiful Gardens by The Cramps
We're Gonna Crash by The Electric Mess
Hemmin' and Hawin' by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
That's What I Want by Muck & The Mires
Jeep Cherokee Laredo by The War and Treaty
Love at First Sight by Hamell on Trial
Trouble Everyday by The Chocolate Watchband
Heed This Message by Mark Sultan
I'm Wise (Slippin' and Slidin') by Eddie Bo
Baby Fang Thang by Ghost Wolves
I Had a Dream by Charlie Pickett
Go Fritz Go bt Dirk Geil
Night and Fog by Mudhoney
Storied by Harlan T. Bobo
I Dreamed I Had to Take a Test / Sharkey's Night by Laurie Anderson
A Meaningless Conversation by Thought Gang
Mysteries of Love by Julee Cruise
Down the Dirt Road Blues by Tony Joe White
Turn it On by Lindsey Buckingham CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
I'm not sure what led me recently to go seek out different versions of one of the most mysterious blues songs ever recorded.
But diving into Geeshie Wiley's "Last Kind Words has its own rewards.
Who is this Lillie Mae "Geeshie" Wiley?
The New York Times Magazine in 2014 published a lengthy story John Jeremiah Sullivan, who was obsessed with Geeshie's "Last Kind Words" and another song recorded in 1930, Elvie Thomas' "Motherless Child Blues."
I have been fascinated by this music since first experiencing it, like a lot of other people in my generation, in Terry Zwigoff’s 1994 documentary Crumb, on the life of the artist Robert Crumb, which used “Last Kind Words” for a particularly vivid montage sequence.... ... Geeshie’s “Last Kind Words,” a kind of pre-blues or not-yet-blues, a doomy, minor-key lament that calls up droning banjo songs from long before the cheap-guitar era, with a strange thumping rhythm on the bass string.
"Last Kind Words" reminds me of a Dadaist exhibition I saw at the Smithsonian a few years ago. It's
full of death and dread with that "German war" looming in the background. All sorts of references to corpses and deathbed wishes: If I get killed, please don't bury my soul /
Just leave me out, let the buzzards eat me whole."
Former Carolina Chocolate Drop Rhiannon Giddens does a moving version
The Dex Romweber Duo teamed up with Jack White for this one
Meanwhile "Last Kind Words" inspired The Mekons to record this song called "Geeshie" on their Ancient & Modern album a few years ago. A wise critic once wrote that Sally Timms "sings it sultry, like a temptress in a speakeasy near the gates of Hell."
