Sunday, November 24, 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
Jack Ruby by Camper Van Beethoven
Just Dropped In to See What Condition My Condition Was In by Mojo Nixon
WishThat She'd Come Back by The Mystery Lights
I Hate You by The Monks
Hornet by Jon Spencer
I Walked All Night by The Cramps
Mystic Eyes by Them Spirit in the Sky by Fuzzbox
Memwa'n by Moonlight Benjamin
Rational Actor by Nots
Get Yr Life Back by Kim Gordon
American Wedding by Gogol Bordello
Git Back in the Truck by Hickoids
Green River by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Creature With the Atom Brain by Roky Erikson & The Aliens
Nobody Spoil My Fun by The Seeds
Phantom by The Darts
Seven and Seven Is by Love
Breakfast Eggs by Ty Segall
Ride With Me by Sulfur City
Crawl by Eilen Jewell
Mesopotamia by B52s
Oh Catherine by Pere Ubu
Before the Next Teardrop Falls by The Mavericks
Black Temptation by The Flesh Eaters
Thanksgiving by Loudon Wainwright III
Lucky Day by Tom Waits CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Saturday, November 23, 2019 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Saturday Mountain Time Guest Host: Steve Terrell, subbing for DJ Spinifex 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
Lost in Music by The Fall
The Swamp by Sloks
We Want to Talk to Your Leader by The Scaners
Mechanics Wanted by Mekons 77
Spirit Hair by Quintron
Compared to What by Les McCann & Eddie Harris
Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head by Marshall Allen & Terry Adams
Walk on the Wild Side by Jimmy Smith
I've Known Rivers by Gary Bartz
Afrodesia by Dr. Lonnie Smith
Harry Hippie by Bobby Womack
Hico Killer/Long Mile to Houston by John Zorn
Extraordinary Woman by The Psychedelic Aliens
Advanced Romance by Frank Zappa, The Mothers & Captain Beefheart
Blue Suede Shoes by The Residents
The Hollow Earth by Pere Ubu
It's a Vanity by Gabo Brown & Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo
Monkey and Baboon by Dr. John
Nothing But Flowers by Talking Heads
Papa Legba by Pops Staples with Talking Heads
Papa Legba by Moonlight Benjamin
Blackheart Man by Bunny Wailer
Over the river and through the woods to The Big Enchilada we go! Here's a Thanksgiving feast of crazy rock 'n' roll that can help you overcome your tryptophan daze. I hope you count The Big Enchilada and Radio Mutation among your many blessings.
(This is the first Thanksgiving podcast I've done since 2011. Enjoy that masterpiece, titled "Jive Turkeys", HERE)
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.
The clocks have caught up with me, folks, it’s really time to go. This is my last Terrell’s Tune-up. After more than 32 years at The New Mexican, I’m officially retiring as of Nov. 22.
No, this column isn’t going to be a self-congratulatory walk down Memory Lane, recounting more than 30 years of writing this golden column.
Besides, I don’t want to write a tearful “farewell” column when I’ll probably resume writing music commentary in some form for Pasatiempo in a few months, and I don’t want to have to write a “How Can You Miss Me When I Won’t Go Away” column in the near future. (Those who like my weird tastes in music can still listen to Terrell’s Sound World, 10 p.m. Sundays on KSFR and my monthly Big Enchilada podcast at bigenchiladapodcast.com.)
But I’ve got some unfinished business here. I’m not going to be around at the end of the year, so I won’t be around to do my annual Top 10 album list. Even knowing I was retiring, I’d compulsively been compiling my favorite albums of this year. I hadn’t quite finished, so here are my Top 8 albums of (most of) 2019.
* Deserted by The Mekons (Bloodshot). This is the best album by this 40-plus-year-old band in more than a decade. It’s wild, somewhat cryptic, beautiful in spots — and it rocks like folks their age (or my age) aren’t supposed to rock. The first song, “Lawrence of California,” sounds like a lunatic’s call to arms, conjuring a last-gasp proclamation by a ragtag army of fanatics about to be mowed down. I’m also enthralled by the sweet, melodic, and pretty “How Many Stars?” which has deep roots in British folk music. The story is ancient, but the melody could haunt you forever.
* I Used to Be Pretty by The Flesh Eaters (Yep Roc). This band rose up during the pioneer days of the great Los Angeles punk rock explosion of the early 1980s. It’s a revolving door supergroup that in some incarnations included a who’s who of southern California punk and roots rock. The band that recorded this includes frontman Chris Desjardins, some vocals from his ex-wife and longtime Flesh Eater Julie Christensen, as well as various members of The Blasters, X, and Los Lobos. Desjardins also lends some vocals here. His voice sounds as if he’s just woken up from a nightmare — and his cronies capture the spirit of the unique bluesy, noirish sounds they were making back at the dawn of the Reagan years. The band still is powerful and a little bit frightening.
* Human Question by The Yawpers (Bloodshot). This trio of Colorado roots rockers, whose album Boy in the Well became a serious obsession of mine a few years ago, continue their raw, blues-infused rock. This record grabbed me and refused to let go in the opening seconds of the locomotive onslaught of “Child of Mercy,” which deals with the putrid pangs of romantic collapse. And the next song, an even more brutal romp called “Dancing on My Knees,” sealed the deal. While I mostly like their rowdier tunes, the soul-soaked “Carry Me,” the type of song you could imagine being covered by Solomon Burke, hits just as hard.
Country Squire by Tyler Childers (Hickman Holler). Childers plays country music, basic fiddle-and-steel country music, singing honest tales of life with a little sob in his voice and, I imagine, a little bourbon on his breath. Many of the themes in Childers’ lyrics traverse along well-trodden country themes. Yet when Childers sings, it never sounds corny.
* 3 by Nots (Goner Records). This is an all-woman punk, or maybe post-punk, band from Memphis that I discovered back in 2016 with their second album Cosmetic. Though the new album didn’t take me by surprise like their last one, the sound is no less urgent, painting a bleak, paranoid picture of 21st-century life.
* Too Much Tension! by The Mystery Lights (Wick). A budtender in Durango and fellow public-radio DJ first alerted me to this wailing, psychedelia-touched, garage-fueled band. The Lights are fronted by singer Mike Brandon and guitarist Luis Alfonso Solano, who, inspired by the first-wave garage-rock madness of the old Nuggets compilations, as well as groups like The Velvet Underground and Suicide, started playing together as teenagers. This album is just as good if not better than the group’s self-titled debut.
* Gypsy by Eilen Jewell (Signature Sounds). In recent years, this former St. John’s College student has become one of my favorite lady roots rockers. This, her latest album, is packed with many fine songs, from the swampy rocker “Crawl” to hardcore honky-tonkers like “You Cared Enough to Lie” and “These Blues,” as well as lovely acoustic numbers like “Miles to Go” (which reminds me of Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic”) and even a funny protest song, “79 Cents (The Meow Song),” which deals with sexism and economic disparity and has a catty reference to the current commander in chief.
* Gastwerk Saboteurs by Imperial Wax (Saustex). After Mark E. Smith — founder, frontman, and frothing prophet of The Fall — died last year, surviving members of his band decided to go on together. I was prepared to be cynical about this project, but I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if someone had played me these songs without mentioning anything about The Fall, I still would have liked them. It’s just good, aggressive, guitar-driven, punk-painted rock.
So long, gentle readers. And watch out for flying chairs!
Updated Nov. 30, 2019 AD
Here's a Spotify playlist with selections from all these albums:
Norman Greenbaum, composer and performer of the classic psychedelic Jesus boogie known as "Spirit in the Sky" turns 77 years old today.
Happy birthday, Norman!
Greenbaum nearly went to that spirit in the sky in 2015 when he was critically injured in an auto accident in Santa Rosa, Calif. But he survived and has performed since then
As I've written here before, most people who remember Greenbaum, know him for his 1969 hit, which decades later was used in movies like Apollo 13, Wayne's World 2 and Sunshine Cleaning, tv shows including Law & Order, House and Big Love and even commercials for Gatorade, Nike, American Express and HBO.
Ramhorn City's finest
But a few years before "Spirit" he had a novelty hit called "The Eggplant That Ate Chicago" with his neo-jug band, Dr. West's Medicine Show & Junk Band.
I was in junior high in Oklahoma City at the time. My favorite radio station, WKY had a contest to draw the invasive eggplant, and I was one of the winners. My prize was the Dr. West album. This album inspired my brother and me to form our first band, The Ramhorn City Go-Go Squad & Uptight Washtub Band.
We covered several Dr. West songs, including "Eggplant," though we never quite nailed that one.
Here are a few of the Dr. West songs we loved so well. (and you can find more HERE)
This first one, "Patent Medicine," inspired me to write a forgotten Ramhorn City classic called "Tizzic Cream."
To appreciate Dr. West's Medicine Show & Junk Band. you had to be at least little weird
What can you say about the modern-day fish?
As a special birthday treat here's Norman's biggest hit performed in the mid '80s by the British New Wave group Fuzzbox
Sunday, November 17, 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
Where Evil Grows by Gore Gore Girls
Murdered Out by Kim Gordon
Break Your Mind by The Darts
What a Way to Die by The Pleasure Seekers
Mustang Ranch by Black Joe Lewis & The Honey Bears
Gone Deep Underground by Stan Ridgway
I Don't Want to Wash Off Last Night by The Gaunga Dyns
Space X-Ploration by The Scaners
Uncontrollable Urge by Devo
The Beat Goes on by The Pretty Things
Robotic Centipede by Mean Motor Scooter
I'm On the Dish But I Ain't No Rag by The Toy Trucks
The Crawler by Ty Segall
I Won't by The Replacements
Spectacle by Dead Moon
Girl from '62 by Thee Headcoats Shaving Cream by Uncle Floyd Vivino & Oogle
Big Iron by Mike Ness
I Am a Big Town by Jon Langford Mule Skinner Blues by Van Morrison & Lonnie Donegan
Get Behind the Mule by Tom Waits
Two Women by Jimmy "Duck" Holmes
Shake 'til You Get Enough by Bobby Rush
Oh Catherine by Pere Ubu
From the Estate of John Denver by DBUK
Creeker by Tyler Childers
After the Rain by The Mekons
My Special Angel by Doc Watson CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
I've been listening to a podcast about Dolly Parton and, the other day while driving around I heard a segment about one of Dolly's greatest early hits, "Muleskinner Blues."
As you'll see here, and probably already know, Dolly wasn't the first to record this song, which was written by country music pioneer Jimmie Rodgers with George Vaughan. It's been recorded by Roy Acuff, Woody Guthrie, Merle Haggard, The Maddox Brothers & Rose, skiffle master Lonnie Donegan and countless others.But some argue Dolly did it best, which is true -- at least until The Cramps.
Here she is on the Porter Wagoner Show in 1970:
Jimmie Rodgers' was the first version of the song to involve mules, but two years before "Blue Yodel #8," a bluesman named Tom Dickson released the strikingly similar "Labor Blues."
While "Muleskinner Blues" is about a guy applying for a job, Dickson's song is about a laborer who's quitting his job because the "captain" isn't great about paying him on time for his hard work.
Like the more famous song, "Labor Blues starts out "Good morning captain / Good morning shine ..." basically a dialogue between boss and worker. It has to be noted that "shine" is a racial slur against African Americans (which Dickson was." Some of the "Muleskinner" versions that followed kept the word "shine" thought some, such as Dolly's changed it to "son" or "sir."
Here's the Singing Brakeman, who wanted to skin some mules. Actually, as Fred Sanders explained on his excellent article about the song a few years ago: “Muleskinner” is just a funny name for a muleteer or mule-driver; a person who specializes in keeping the mules moving. “I can pop my initials on a mule’s behind” is a comical boast about proficiency with a whip. The mule gave a song full of aural hooks the lyrical hook it needed to catch on.
Bill Monroe turned the song into a bluegrass standard
Dolly Parton was not the first woman to skin this mule. That would be Odetta, who drove the mule back to its black roots
The Fendermen, a rockabilly duo from Wisconsin made it rock
The Cramps, obviously inspired by The Fendermen, took it to Voodoo Island
Sunday, November 10, 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
Organic Frequency by Mean Motor Scooter
Plant the Seed by Imperial Wax
The Double Axe by Thee Mighty Caesars
Murdered Out by Kim Gordon
Yeah! by The Cynics
I Tripped Over the Ottoman by The Dead Milkmen
Earthquake by Butthole Surfers
Look in the Mirror by Gregg Turner
What Now My Love by Stan Ridgway
Breakfast Eggs by Ty Segall
I Like U But Not Like That by The Darts
Don't Be So Easy by The Toy Trucks
Drive By Buddy by Black Lips
Police Brutality by Alien Space Kitchen
My Underwear Froze to the Clothesline by The Legendary Stardust Cowboy
Get Busy Living by Trixie & The Trainwrecks
Please Abduct Me by The Scaners
Fleshy Boy by Spray Paint HAPPY QUARTER CENTURY BLOODSHOT RECORDS!!!!
The Last Honky Tonk in Chicago by Wild Earp
Cowboy in Flames by The Waco Brothers
Mirage by The Mekons
Matadora by Cordero
Bowling Green by Neko Case
My Baby Didn't Come Home by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Trucker's Speed by The Meat Purveyors
Liza Jane by The Dyes
Reason to Believe by The Yawpers
I'm Lonesome Without You by Hazeldine
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart by JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound
I Was Drunk by Alejandro Escovedo
Be Real by Bottle Rockets
Lonely Ain't Hardly Alive by Robbie Fulks CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican November 8, 2019
Gregg Turner and Sam Minner, courtesy Gregg Turner
I’ve found punk rock in dingy bars, at big music festivals, blasting out of beat-up old cars. I’ve found punk rock on the radio and on vinyl records, cassette tapes, CDs, iPods, and music streaming services. I’ve found punk rock on left-of-the dial radio, on music videos, and in the movies.
But one place I’ve never seen punk rock is on a university syllabus.
Until now.
Professor Gregg Turner has gotten the green light to teach an actual college class for New Mexico Highlands University called A History of Punk Rock, in the spring semester. It’s a bona fide class, with papers, tests, projects, and three college credits if you don’t flunk out like some stupid punk.
Turner is a founding member of the Southern California band the Angry Samoans, a math professor at Highlands — and a certified Terrell crony. (Full disclosure: Turner and I have been pals for about 25 years. I portrayed the groom in the video for his song “Satan’s Bride.” I’ve frequently done gigs with him at Whoo’s Donuts, where I never made any money, but I’ve been paid with untold numbers of pastries.)
When Turner first mentioned this idea to me a few months ago, I told him it sounded like a great one. But deep down I was thinking, “Yeah, wait until the administration finds out …”
So I was surprised — and more than a little impressed — when I got a written statement from Highlands President Sam Minner.
“Like other music genres, punk rock exploded onto the scene to directly challenge the status quo,” Minner wrote. “Early punk rockers like Gregg Turner and his bandmates in the Angry Samoans said — I would say yelled — ‘We’re going a different way and not accepting that music or culture has to be static.’ ”
Minner continued: “I really think that The Angry Samoans were incredibly influential in the punk movement of the ’70s. I listen to the Stones most every morning as I drive to work, but sometimes, depending on my mood, I play the Samoans and get to work ready to take on the world.”
Turner told me that he, too, was surprised when he went to talk to Minner and learned that the NMHU president had a copy of the Samoans’ classic first LP, Back From Samoa. “He’d bought it in 1983,” Turner says. “He pulled it from his shelves with all his academic books. My jaw just dropped.” Minner told him he’d played in a punk band in Missouri around the same time.
Gregg Turner with Blood-Drained Cows,
Live at CK's 2007
Samoan primer: The Angry Samoans didn’t get as big as other L.A. punk groups like X or Black Flag, or as notorious as The Germs or Fear. In fact, Turner and Samoans frontman “Metal’’ Mike Saunders, along with the rest of the band, basically were outsiders among outsiders. Starting out in Van Nuys in the late ’70s, the group soon gained a high place on the enemy list of influential Los Angeles disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer. It seems the Angry Samoans gave Rodney no respect in their song “Get Off the Air.”
The group broke up in 1991. By this time Turner was becoming more serious about his career in academia. Turner earned his Ph.D. in math and moved to New Mexico a couple of years later to teach at the College of Santa Fe.
Back to the present: It was an appointment with Turner’s urologist, Eric Anderson, earlier this year that inspired the punk history class. Anderson told Turner he was a major fan of The Dead Kennedys and Black Flag. That started the gears turning.
The official class description notes that punk rock was a reaction to “the corporate mass-produced, self-aggrandized pop music offerings that had become standard fare by the late ’60s and the early and mid-’70s.”
The music that Turner will teach (to “explore the anger and rebellion that instigated and fueled the genre at that point in time”) isn’t going to start with The Ramones or the Sex Pistols. According to the course description, the class also will explore “incipient manifestations early on in the ’50s (Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard) and brash counter-cultural outcroppings in the ’60’s (Kinks, Sonics, Seeds, Standells, Iggy and the Stooges, MC5, etc.).”
Also, Turner says the class will “pick apart the historical, sociological, and political contexts that provided the impetus for the outrage and the vitriol indigenous to these different time periods. The evolution of ’70s punk rock to ’80s hardcore and Nirvana will also be discussed.”
And, if he can get a travel budget, Turner hopes to be able to bring in some of his old punk-rock pals from California, who include some well-known musicians he says have expressed an interest.
Turner says — and I don’t think he’s joking — that he’s thinking of requiring students to listen to lengthy sets of recordings by some of the more loathsome prog rock of that era, such as Yes and Genesis, to give the students an idea of what made punk rock necessary.
I don’t know, though. I assume Highlands has strict policies forbidding torture.
Turner’s class will be held at 1 p.m. to 3:50 p.m. Saturdays at the Santa Fe Higher Education Center, 1950 Siringo Road, starting Jan. 18. Sign up through Highlands’ Office of the Registrar (nmhu.edu/office-of-the-registrar). (NOTE: The time and day of the class changed after this was originally published. What you see here has been corrected.) College ain’t cheap. In-state tuition for undergrads is $771 for three credit hours. But for elderly rockers like me, 65 or older, the senior citizen rate is $5 per credit hour, or $15. And no, you won’t need a note from your urologist. Video Time! Turner still performs this Angry Samoans song Angry Samoans meet The Chambers Brothers
The legendary "Satan's Bride" video, starring the beautiful Kristina Pardue
On this day in 2007, the greatest country music Hank not named Williams died. Hank Thompson -- whose hits included "The Wild Side of Life," "A Six Pack to Go" and "Oklahoma Hills" -- was 82 when he went to that great honky tonk in the sky..
This sad anniversary falls on Wacky Wednesday this year, so let's celebrate Hank by featuring some of his funniest tunes. In addition to all his other talents, the man knew his way around a novelty song.
A personal note here, if you indulge me in a little name-dropping: I met Hank in the early '80s and even more bitchen, I was introduced to him before his show at the old Line Camp in Pojoaque by none other than Roger Miller. Roger told Hank, "Steve's from Oklahoma City, he said, truthfully. But then he added, "I think he was raised on Reno Street," referring to an old OKC skid row. All three of us laughed out loud.
Anywho, have some laffs and remember Hank.
Here's a seasick song from 1949
"No Help Wanted" was a Top 10 country hit in 1952
Years before Merle Haggard started recording, Hank was singing about strangers.
This one could never be played on the radio today -- perhaps with good reason -- but in 1958 it was a number 2 country hit. Hank was still singing it in 1991.
Finally here's one of his last recordings, a duet with my old Santa Fe High School lockermate, Junior Brown in 1997.
Sunday, November 3, 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
Built Environment by Nots
Air B&B by Kim Gordon
Miss Muerte by The Flesh Eaters
Human Question by The Yawpers
Save My Soul from Hell by Reverend Beat-Man
Texas Ranger Man by Hickoids
Ninety Nine and a Half (Won't Do) by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Into the Sun/The Galaxy Explodes by The Mekons
Saying Nothing by Imperial Wax
I Worship the Dog by Ty Segall
Perverts in the Sun by Iggy Pop
I'm Not Like Everyone Else by The Rockin' Guys
I'm Bigger Than You by The Mummies
Busload of Faith by Lou Reed
Schoolbus by Toy Trucks
Dolemite by Ben Taylor
Ding a Ling Dong by Rudy Ray Moore
Go Ahead Baby by Jessica Lee Wilkes
Beat the Drum by Eilen Jewell
Nobody Spoil My Fun by The Seeds
Let it Be Me by Social Distortion
Gigantor by The Dickies
Traces by The Mystery Lights
Police Call by Drywall
Blood by REQ'D
Here Comes the Summer by Fiery Furnaces
Party in My Pants by Barnes & Barnes
Along for the Ride by Alien Space Kitchen
I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day by The Pogues
Dreamin' and Workin' by The Hoth Brothers CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
* I Used to Be Pretty by The Flesh Eaters (Yep Roc). This band rose up during the pioneer days of the great Los Angeles punk rock explosion of the early 1980s. It’s a revolving door supergroup that in some incarnations included a who’s who of southern California punk and roots rock. The band that recorded this includes frontman Chris Desjardins, some vocals from his ex-wife and longtime Flesh Eater Julie Christensen, as well as various members of The Blasters, X, and Los Lobos. Desjardins also lends some vocals here. His voice sounds as if he’s just woken up from a nightmare — and his cronies capture the spirit of the unique bluesy, noirish sounds they were making back at the dawn of the Reagan years. The band still is powerful and a little bit frightening.
* Gastwerk Saboteurs by Imperial Wax (Saustex). After Mark E. Smith — founder, frontman, and frothing prophet of The Fall — died last year, surviving members of his band decided to go on together. I was prepared to be cynical about this project, but I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if someone had played me these songs without mentioning anything about The Fall, I still would have liked them. It’s just good, aggressive, guitar-driven, punk-painted rock.
