Sunday, June 23, 2019

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST






Sunday, June 23, 2019
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
Surfin' Bird by Nobunny
Wild America by Iggy Pop
Filipino Box Spring Hog by Tom Waits
Woman Alone by Nots
Inside Looking Out by Eric Burdon & The Animals
Roll Me by Left Lane Cruiser
Stop it Baby by Roy Loney & The A-Bones
Shh Shh Shh by Boss Hog

Pink Lemonade by Daddy Long Legs
Time 2 Be Bad by Jon Spencer
Come Back Lord by Reverend Beat-Man & Izobel Garcia
Get On Board by Dead Moon
Deeper Way by The Jackets
You;ve Got Good Taste by The Cramps
Wasn't That Good by Wynonie Harris
Ghost Waves by The Vagoos
Dave Bartholomew 
The Dead Don't Die by Sturgill Simpson

Country Girl / Shrimp and Gumbo / Can't Take No More by Dave Bartholomew
Indian Red by The Wild Tchoupitulas
Just Because by Joe Barry
I'm Clean by Shinyribs
Revolution by Dr. John
I'm Gonna Be a Wheel Someday by Fats Domino

Let's Get It On by Alien Space Kitchen
A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall by Bob Dylan
Leave Me Along by Esquerita
You Flopped When You Got Me Alone by June Carter
Nothing Lasts Forever by The Kinks with Marianne Price
Marie by Leon Redbone
For You by Roky Erickson & Okkervil River
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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Friday, June 21, 2019

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: The Jackets, Nots and Walking with The Giants

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
June 21, 2018

Queen of the Pill (Voodoo Rhythm), the new album by The Jackets, is good, strong, punked-up variations of that wonderful 1960s sound of teenage Americans trying to imitate British bands imitating African-American blues and soul. It’s raw and rowdy and full of fuzz and fury.

Singer Jackie Brutsche’s voice ranges from Weimar Republic diva to riot grrrl screamer. It’s such an important ingredient of The Jackets’ sound that sometimes a listener will forget that it’s her guitar — mostly thunderous, but sometimes sweet and slinky — that’s also driving the songs.

Standouts here include the frantic “Loser’s Lullaby”; “Steam Queen,” featuring some nasty blues licks from Brutsche’s guitar just under the fuzz; and “What About You,” with lyrics by drummer Chris Rosales, who also does his most ferocious drumming on this one.

But best of all is the slow-burning, mysterioso “Floating Alice,” which sounds like it sprang from a mutant exotica record by Esquivel! on a mescal and mushroom binge, perhaps. The lyrics deal with a lady astronaut helplessly floating off into outer space away from her lover. “The stars shine so bright as I’m getting lost / Slowly fading away, at any cost …”

Also recommended:


* 3 by Nots (Goner Records). This is an all-woman punk, or maybe post-punk — or maybe, who cares about such distinctions? — band from Memphis that I discovered back in 2016 with their second album Cosmetic.

At the time, I described the record as the most urgent-sounding music I’d heard in a long time. Their new album is not such a big surprise to me as the previous one. But the sound is no less urgent.

There are some notable changes since their last album. For instance, there are no seven-minute rock odysseys here. No track even reaches four minutes, which probably is a good thing.

More significant is the loss of Nots’ keyboard player, Alexandra Eastburn, who provided Pere Ubu-like synth bloops and bleeps. Instead, singer Natalie Hoffmann fills in on keyboards on several songs, providing enough psychedelic embellishments to remain true to their sound.

As was the case with Cosmetic, it’s not easy to follow the lyrics. But you can tell Hoffmann is upset about something on basically every song. Her singing is more like desperate chanting. The song titles alone — “Woman Alone,” “Surveillance Veil,” and “Far-Reaching Shadows” — paint a bleak, maybe paranoid picture, which is reinforced by the music.

And I can’t help but wonder if Nots’ “Floating Hand” belongs to The Jackets’ “Floating Alice.”

* Meetings with giants, now deceased


Roky Austin 1995 (1)
Roky Erickson in the Iron Works BBQ parking lot
1995
Three musicians whose music I’ve long loved have died in recent weeks: postmodern vaudeville crooner Leon Redbone; psychedelic wailer Roky Erickson; and New Orleans voodoo rocker Mac Rebennack, aka Dr. John.

They were three very different musicians, but one thing they had in common was that I met them all, exactly once.

I interviewed Redbone in July 1981 when I was freelancing for the Santa Fe Reporter, and he was playing the late lamented Golden Inn.

Ever since his first album in the mid-’70s, Redbone was notorious for refusing to give his real age or place of birth. So naturally, that was one of the first things I asked him about. “Oh no, I’ve always answered questions,” he told me, politely adding that he was 41 years old and from Shreveport, Louisiana. This was very early in my journalism career, and I just took him at his word and included that in my story.

Decades later, I learned that Redbone, whose real name was Dickran Gobalian, was born in 1949 on the island of Cyprus. Oh well, a lot of people have lied to me in interviews since, but none of them could sing “Shine on Harvest Moon” or “Champagne Charlie” like Leon did.

Two years later, I got to interview Dr. John at Club West in Santa Fe, also for the Reporter. I lived close to downtown then, so I walked to work that night. Just down the street from Club West, I passed The Forge, where saxophone great Eddie Harris was playing. I stood in the doorway to listen to a couple of his songs thinking, Dang! This is a hopping little town!

In our interview, Dr. John talked a lot about his hometown hoodoo. Voodoo in New Orleans, he said, “is more like the Masons than religion. To me, it was more like a fraternal brotherhood thing. Also, it worked for me like therapy. I never got into it full swing. If I had stuck with it, I would have become a different type of person to deal with than I am now.”
Roky Austin 1995 (2)
Rollins and Roky

I never actually interviewed Erickson, but I met him in Austin in 1995, the first time I went to South by Southwest. He was supposed to do a book signing at a downtown BBQ joint, having just published a book for Henry Rollins’ publishing company. As I approached the restaurant, a bearded, disheveled guy who looked like a cross between a saint and a wino walked out the door. It was him!

I introduced myself.

“Hey Roky, my name is Steve ...”

“I know.”

“I’m from Santa Fe ...”

“I know,” he said, shaking my hand. “You have any cigarettes?”

I didn’t but he still was friendly and chatty — and started bumming cigarettes from passersby as we talked in the parking lot. I learned that he had bolted the book signing after he started feeling claustrophobic inside. A few minutes later, a frustrated Rollins emerged from Ironworks BBQ, trying to coax Roky back inside. “You want me to get your iced tea, Roky?” he asked.

Finally, he got Roky to agree to get into a car and sign books there. Including one that I bought.


Roky walked with the zombie. Dr. John walked on golden splinters. And Leon never walked without his walking stick. I’ve walked with some giants, if only briefly. Rest in peace, Leon, Mac, and Roky.

Some videos for you

First The Jackets



Here's Nots



Here's Roky from just a couple of years ago



A litttle gris-gris from the Doctor



Without my walking stick, I'd go insane




Wednesday, June 19, 2019

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Happy Birthday Stringbean!



With his long nightshirts and low-hanging pant, belted around the knees, his funny hat, his deadpan face -- and a truly dangerous banjo --  David Akeman, who most people knew as "Stringbean," was a comic star of the Grand Ol' Opry from the '50s through the early 70s.  And he was part of the original cast of Hee Haw, which introduced him to a new generation of hillbilly music.

He was born June 17 in 1915, though I've also seen reports that say he was born in 194 or 1916. Whatever is true, he'd be well over 100 if he were still alive.

But he's not.

Following a performance at the Opry on Nov. 10, 1973, Akeman and his wife Estelle were shot and killed killed at their cabin in  Goodlettsville, Tenn. near Nashville by a couple of burglars looking for a big stash of money they -- wrongly -- thought was there.

But I don't want to dwell on his murder, which has been well-covered elsewhere. This is Wacky Wednesday, so let's remember his music and the laffs he gave us.

Here's an early TV appearance with none other than Earl Scruggs on second banjo.



"She's as pretty as a plum ..."



Who doesn't love a pretty little widow?



Everyone got the hillbilly fever by now?

Sunday, June 16, 2019

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST




Sunday, June 16, 2019
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

Be Gone by Daddy Long Legs
Dropout Boogie by Captain Beefheart
Built Environment by Nots
Hit it and Quit it by Ty Segall
Dreamer by The Jackets
Space Brother by Alien Space Kitchen
Pretty Good for a Girl by Pussycat & The Dirty Johnsons
Two Headed Demon by Urban Jr.
Night of the Living Dead by Sickkidz

Sing it Right by Shinyribs
Voodoo Stomp by The Saucer Men
Te ta Te Ta Ta by Ernie K. Doe
Toe Up from the Flo Up by Ronnie Dawson
All I Wanna Do by The War & Treaty
Watching the News Gives Me the Blues by The Mystery Lights
Isis by Bob Dylan


Around the World in a Daze\

American Wedding by Gogol Bordello
Hold My Hips by Dengue Fever
In My Dreams by Prince Alla
Im Nin'alu by Ofra Haza
Sono Meu by Maria Bethania & Gal Costa
The Bunker by Beirut
Wait for Me by Roger Damawuzan

Lonely Dying Love by Houndog
Good Stuff by Bobby Rush
Mack the Knife by Dr. John
I Walk on Gilded Splinters by Jello Biafra & The Raunch 'n' Roll All-Stars



CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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At Last Online: The FINAL Santa Fe Opry


One year ago this week I did my last Santa Fe Opry, the hillbilly music show I did for KSFR, Santa Fe Public Radio, for more than 20 years.

Here is the first hour of that show, featuring some of my favorite songs I played on it over the years, including a couple of live performances from musical guests. My friend Scott Gullet was there with me.

If I ever find the second hour, I'll post it here also.

The playlist for the show is HERE




The FINAL Santa Fe Opry  6-15-18

Thursday, June 13, 2019

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Look Out, Ol' Mackie's Back


From the 2018 German film Mackie Messer - Brechts Dreigroschenfilm

It was last week's death of a man named Mac -- Mac Rebennack, aka Dr. John, that got me thinking of this wonderful song. It probably was the first song about a serial killer to become a huge American pop hit: "Mack the Knife." The Night Tripper recorded it on his last album released while he was still alive, Ske-Dat-De-Dat ... The Spirit of Satch (2014).

But no, even though  Louis Armstong did one of the best versions of the song,  "Mack the Knife" did not originate in some Storyville  cat house where jazzbos picked it up, It came from Germany

According to an article by Laurence Senelick  on the Boston Lyric Opera website, Die Dreigroschen Oper (The Threepenny Opera) "was a rethinking of The Beggar’s Opera, a 1728 English satire of Italian opera by the poet John Gay. Elisabeth Hauptmann had translated the work, thinking it appropriate to a Germany roiled by post-war economic depression, conspicuous depravity and political turbulence. The left-wing poet Bertolt Brecht gave it a make-over, setting it in a mythical Victorian London, and providing his own sardonic lyrics. The jazz-flavored music was by [singer/actress Lotte] Lenya’s husband, the distinguished composer Kurt Weill."

And the brightest penny from The Threepenny Opera was "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" better known as "Mack the Knife." Says Senelick:

Macheath is a womanizing highwayman, a rollicking, amoral rogue. Brecht’s Mackie Messer is rather more ruthless, archetypal of the modern capitalist. Paulsen had devised his own foppish costume: spats, a sword-stick, a light-colored derby and a sky-blue butterfly tie that matched his eyes. Shortly before the show was to open, he demanded an entrance song that would announce his character. Brecht decided to compose one that would counteract the dandy image, and so penned .

A Moritat is a murder ballad—from the Latin, mori, of death, and the German tat, deed, especially dastardly deed. A Moritat was traditionally intoned by street singers and illustrated by lurid pictures on a pole or easel. In Brecht’s verse, Mackie is not directly accused of the song’s list of crimes, as if the street singer feared the consequences; they are imputed to him. 

Three Pernny Opera premiered in Berlin in 1928 at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm. A movie was made by G.W. Pabst in 1931. And when the Nazis came to power in 1933, they banned it.. Brecht, Weill and Lenya fled the country and ended up in the US.

Here's a German version of "Mack" sung by Brecht himself.



And here's Lotte Lenya singing lyrics translated by Marc Blitzstein.  She starred as "Pirate Jenny" the pickpocket in both the original 1928 German production, the 1931 German movie and the 1954  Broadway version.



It didn’t take long for “The Ballad of Mack the Knife” to become a jazz and pop standard. Louis Armstrong recorded an upbeat version on September 28, 1955. Since Lenya was in the studio during the session, he added her name to the list of the killer's victims.

Here's a live video from the TV variety show Hollywood Palace in 1965



Bobby Darin recorded probably the best known and most popular version in December 1958. Here he is 12 years later on The Andy Williams Show.



Folk giant Dave Van Ronk did an pretty, somewhat spooky, acoustic version in the 1990s. He must have been a Three Penny Opera fan. When I saw him in the early 80s, he played "Alabama Song," (better known as "Whiskey Bar," which is what The Doors called it.)

Van Ronk includes a verse similar to the little-used final verse (also used by Mark Lanegan, which is based on Van Ronk's interpretation):

Some are children of the darkness
Some are children of the sun
You can see the sons of daylight
Sons of dark are seen by none



Fast forward to the early part of this century and Polish rocker Kazik Staszewski brought Mack and company back to Europe. And yes, under the catchy title "Straszna Pieśń O Mackiem Majchrze," ("A Terrible Song About  Mack Maikara"). he made it rock! This is from his Kurt Weil tribute album



And yes, the late, great Dr. John funked it up on his version featuring jazz trumpeter Terrence Blanchard and rapper Mike Ladd.


For more deep dives into songs, check out The Stephen W. Terrell Web Log Songbook

Sunday, June 09, 2019

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST




Sunday, June 9, 2019
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
Snagglepuss by Daddy Long Legs
Collection of Regrets by Weird Omen
I'm So Tired (of Living in the City) by The Mystery Lights
I'm a Man by Ty Segall
Boppin' the Blues by Carl Perkins
Give Punk a Chance by Alien Space Kitchen
Journey to the Center of the Mind by Amboy Dukes
She's My Witch by Fire Bad!
Poor and Broke by Trixie & The Trainwrecks
The Patriot by Unknown Instructors
Saying Nothing by Imperial Wax

The Hippies Killed the Polka Stars by The Polkaholics
Explosion by April March & The Makers
My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama by Frank Zappa
Steam Queen by The Jackets
Break You Down by Left Lane Cruiser
Creature With the Atom Brain by Quintron & Miss Pussycat
Hog of the Forsaken by Micheal Hurley

Dr. John Celebration
(All songs by Dr. John except where noted)

Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya-Ya
Junko Partner
Locked Down
Morgus the Magnificent by Morgus & The 3 Ghouls
Right Place, Wrong Time
Such a Night by Dr. John & The Band

Indian Red
Mardi Gras Day
I Been Hoodooed
Zuzu Mamou
Litany of the Saints
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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.

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TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

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