TERRELL'S TUNEUP: BEST OF 2013

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Dec. 27, 2013

I recently read a funny article on Cracked.com titled “4 Common Music Arguments and What They Really Mean.” The very first argument struck me as I was compiling my annual best-albums list: “There Is No Good Music Anymore.” According to Cracked, what people who say this are really saying is “I don’t know how to use a computer.”

“Look, thanks to the Internet, there is good everything available pretty much everywhere,” Cracked contributor Adam Tod Brown writes. “And nothing is easier to find than new music. … It’s not rocket science. You can find anything on the Internet, and bands making music you enjoy are no exception.”

I’m aware that most people haven’t heard the music on this list or even heard of many of the artists I enjoyed in 2013. And sadly, record stores are scarce in these parts these days. So get yourself to a computer and check out any of my of my selections that sound interesting. And if you like any of them, buy the darn things.

Top 10 in 2013

John Dwyer of Thee Oh Sees
in Albuquerque

* Floating Coffin by Thee Oh Sees. This one’s a rocker, and I knew right away that it would end up high on my year-end list. It became the benchmark against which I measured all contenders.
Most of the songs have happy, catchy melodies that make you want to sing along. However, just below the surface there seems to be something sinister lurking. Just look at the cover. There’s a bunch of ripe red strawberries — delicious looking, except for vampire teeth and eyeballs peering out. Singer/guitarist/frontman John Dwyer has said, “These songs occur in the mind-set of a world that’s perpetually war-ridden. Overall, it’s pretty dark.”

Thee Oh Sees came to Albuquerque in November and performed a mighty show. But as I began preparing this list there came some bad news: The band is going on an “indefinite hiatus.” Dwyer is moving from San Francisco to Los Angeles, while keyboardist and vocalist Brigid Dawson is leaving for Santa Cruz. The one spot of good news is that Thee Oh Sees will be releasing a new album — hopefully not their final one — early next year.

* Vanishing Point by Mudhoney. Sometimes I wish it would have been Mudhoney instead of Nirvana to carry the banner back in the days when the flannel flew. I’d argue that Steve Turner is a better guitarist than Kurt Cobain was. Mark Arm’s lyrics have lots more humor than those of Cobain. Musically, Mudhoney drew far more from garage, psychedelic rock, and The Stooges than Nirvana did. Two decades after the glory days of grunge, Mudhoney has recorded one of its finest albums ever.

Black Joe in Santa Fe

* Electric Slave by Black Joe Lewis. This is the hardest-edged record so far in Lewis’ short but thrilling catalog. Electric Slave is raw, punk-infused electric blues rock — less jive and more wallop. Unlike his earlier records, this one was released under Lewis’ name alone, not with his band The Honeybears. While the Honeybear horn section is still here, the soul and funk elements of Lewis’ early work are less apparent.

* Merles Just Want to Have Fun by Bryan & the Haggards with Dr. Eugene Chadbourne. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of Merle Haggard fans who came across this album went away thinking that these guys were making fun of ol’ Hag considering some of the off-key horns and Bizarro World solos. But that’s not true. Eugene Chadbourne, an avant-garde guitarist, and sax maniac Bryan Murray just want to have fun. And even though Hag didn’t do it this a-way, this is a sincere tribute done with smiles on faces and love in hearts.

Barrence in Santa Fe 2009

* Dig Thy Savage Soul by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages. After a powerful comeback album (Savage Kings) a couple of years ago, Boston’s — perhaps the world’s — greatest R & B/punk-rock band shows the savagery continues. Once again the group gives us a near-perfect collection of songs for those who like a little garage rock in their soul music or a lot of soul in their garage.

* Desperation by The Oblivians. The first studio album by this Memphis trio in 16 years isfull of humor, passion, and lo-fi crazy slop, with echoes of soul, blues, rockabilly, and of course, wild, unfettered garage rock. There are even a few somewhat melodious tunes that almost suggest a certain tenderness.

* Pura Vida Conspiracy by Gogol Bordello. “Borders are scars on the face of the planet,” frontman Eugene Hütz sings in his thick Ukrainian accent on “We Rise Again,” the opening song. And where better to make such a proclamation than in El Paso, a real live border town? That’s where this New York-based multinational group recorded this rousing album.

* Wilderness by The Handsome Family. Once again Brett and Rennie Sparks have made a mysterious, dark, and alluring album. We wouldn’t expect any less from them. The melodies are mostly pretty, sentimental, and frequently sad, with sweet harmonies. Most tunes remind me of old folk songs or parlor music from some century gone by. But when you allow the lyrics to sink in, you realize there’s a lot more going on here than sweet nostalgia.

* Sonic Bloom by Night Beats. Here’s the psychedelic album of the year, a good-time rock ’n’ roll journey to the center of the mind. The Night Beats’ sound has several discernible DNA strands in addition to psychedelia. You’ll hear bits of T. Rex as well as The Velvet Underground and even echoes of 1960s soul music.

Hickoids in Austin this week

* Hairy Chafin’ Ape Suit by The Hickoids. Mamas don’t let your little babies grow up to be cowpunks. This record is a raw, trashy gas, a drunken joy ride down Thunder Road all the way to Armageddon.

Honorable mention:

* Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-blooey by The Dirtbombs
* Gone Away Backward by Robbie Fulks
* Old World’s Ocean by The Calamity Cubes!
* Haunted Head by Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds
* Divided & United: Songs of the Civil War by various artists
* Indigo Meadow by The Black Angels
* The Dinosaur Truckers (self-titled)
* Re-Mit by The Fall
* Bottom of the World by Terry Allen
* El Valiente by Piñata Protest (This might have landed in the Top 10 had it been a full album, not just a 15-minute EP.)

Reissues/archival releases of the year:

* The South Side of Soul Street: The Minaret Soul Singles, 1967-1976 by various artists
* Honky Tonk Man: Buck Sings Country Classics by Buck Owens
* Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) by Bob Dylan
* Los Nuggetz: ’60s Garage & Psych From Latin America by various artists.
* I’m a Loser by Doris Duke. (This is my favorite album released as part of Alive/Natural Sound’s Swamp Dogg archives series. Too Many People in One Bed by Sandra Phillips, The Brand New Z.Z. Hill, and the self-titled Wolfmoon also are fine examples of late ’60s, early ’70s deep Southern soul. There’s also one in the series I haven’t heard yet by Irma Thomas. It’s hard to imagine that one not being worthy as well.)

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: Best of 2012

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Dec. 28, 2012

Here’s the music released in 2012 that I enjoyed the most.

1) Meat and Bone by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. A reunion album that actually works. The first studio album for Spencer’s unholy trio — which introduced a new generation of punk and alt-rock kids to real live razor-fightin’ Mississippi blues — is a true dandy, stuffed full of the maniacal, irreverent, rompin’-stompin’ sounds that shook the free world back in the ’90s. All the old ear-damaging intensity is still there. The Blues Explosion returns loud and trashy and sounding like they’re having a lot more fun than a bunch of middle-aged guys are supposed to be having.

2) Grifter’s Hymnal by Ray Wylie Hubbard. This album of folksy, blues-soaked redneck rock ‘n’ roll breaks little new musical ground, yet it’s refreshing. With his Okie drawl, Hubbard has a way of sounding wise even when he’s cracking wise. He seems highly spiritual even when he’s singing about shady nightclub characters and strippers. He sings proudly of being an upright, sober family man, yet he offers sharp insight into the carnal side of life. Hubbard is one of the very few musicians of his generation who has actually gotten better with age.

3) Locked Down by Dr. John. Hands down, the best record Mac Rebennack has made in decades.This music recalls his early work, but it has a sharp contemporary edge — for which we can thank producer Dan Auerbach, frontman of The Black Keys. It captured the thick, atmospheric, heady hoodoo Night Tripper excursions of his early albums — Remedies, Babylon, The Sun, Moon & Herbs, and especially his classic Gris-Gris. But refreshingly it doesn’t sound like a paint-by-number re-creation of the old sound.

4) Drop Dead by Figures of Light. This is blasting, primitive, raw two-or-three-chord rock ‘n’ roll. Some call it “proto-punk, ” but I think it might even be more proto than that. This band, originally based in New York, rose to obscurity in the early ’70s, broke up and revived itself a couple of years ago after Norton Records stumbled upon one of The Figures’ rare early singles. Singer Wheeler Winston Dixon and guitarist Michael Downey are aided by The A-Bones’ rhythm section (drummer Miriam Linna and Marcus “The Carcass” Natale on bass). And this time out, Mick Collins (of The Gories and The Dirtbombs) plays guitar and produced the album.

5) Slaughterhouse by Ty Segall Band. This is one of three (!) albums the prolific Californian released this year — the others being the recently released Twins, (listed under his own name as opposed to the “Ty Segall Band”) and Hair, credited to Segall and White Fence (who is actually just one guy, Timothy Presley). I like Slaughterhouse best because it’s the noisiest and the most relentlessly rocked out, though there’s enough melody to keep it interesting. It’s a wild and thrilling show from the first cut, “Death,” which begins with blasts of crazy feedback before launching into a demonic joyride with guitar and bass riffs that suggest The Stooges’ “TV Eye.” Segall and band do a crunching cover of Bo Diddley’s “Diddey Wah Diddey” and “The Bag I’m In” performed by The Fabs and dozens of other obscure garage bands, but written by Fred Neil, more famous for “Everybody’s Talking at Me.”

6) A Mighty Lonesome Man by James Hand. Let’s get right to the point: This was the best basic old-fashioned, honest-to-God heartache and honky-tonk country music of the year. Maybe in the last several years.

The themes and situations Hand sings about and the simple music with which he conveys them are not groundbreaking or innovative. They are just honest songs that prove that old-school country can still sound fresh and that mighty lonesome men can still make mighty powerful music.

7) Old Times There by South Memphis String Band. The central theme of this album is race. Within the context of the music of old time string bands and jug bands of the 1920s and 30s, this integrated band --  which includes Contemporary blues growler Alvin Youngblood Hart, Jimbo Mathus (Squirrel Nut Zippers, etc.), Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi All Stars) plus new member bassist Justin Showah -- confronts the race issue head on, with songs new and old. Some have archaic, and, frankly, racist lyrics that are bound to shock the squeamish and politically-correct.

The String Band not only recreates a particular sound from a particular time, but forces a listener to confront what was going on in the world that gave birth to that music.

8) A Killer’s Dream by Rachel Brooke Despite her innocent-sounding voice and her pretty melodies, Brooke’s lyrics reveal a dark, spooky side and are full of stories of all the things that make American folk music the deep, mysterious force it is.

And for this album, she’s got a band,  a Florida group called Viva Le Vox. They give her sound heft, and Brooke gets the opportunity to rock and even strut.

9) Americana by Neil Young & Crazy Horse. This is bound to be my most controversial choice. Lots of people, including many Young fans, just couldn’t get into the selection of dusty old folk tunes like “Oh Susanah,” “Tom Dula” (better known as “Tom Dooley”), and “Gallows Pole” (no kids, Led Zeppelin didn’t write this song) — plus, for some reason, “God Save the Queen” (not the Sex Pistols song) and the doo-wop classic “Get a Job.”

But I love seeing these old songs being given new life.  I'm especially impressed at how Young delved into the hoary apocalyptic origins of "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain," which started out as an African-American spiritual about the end of the world called "When the Chariot Comes." (Young calls it "Jesus' Chariot.") And this album contains the best version of "Darling Clementine" since Huckleberry Hound's.

10) Glow in the Dark by LoveStruck. This is a basic guitar/bass/drums trio seeped in garage punk with recessive rockabilly DNA led by Danish-born Anne Mette Rasmussen. The album is full of rocked-out, hooky tough-chick tunes, but the best is the title song. a slow, sleazy minor-key tune that might best be described as “garage noir.”


Honorable Mention

* Mr. Trouble by Stan Ridgway
*Unsound by Mission of Burma
* Thankful n Thoughtful by Bettye LaVette
* Tempest by Bob Dylan
* Falling Off the Face of the Earth by The Electric Mess
* Between the Ditches by The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band
* Que Wow by Joe King Carrasco
* Leaving Eden by The Carolina Chocolate Drops
* No Regrets by Johnny Dowd
* I Bet on Sky by Dinsosaur Jr. 

Below is my Spotify playlist featuring songs from the above albums that were available on Spotify. (16 out of 20 ain't bad!)

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: BEST of 2011

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Dec. 30, 2011

Here are my favorite albums of 2011. Do yourself a favor and go buy as many of these as possible, including — nay, especially — the ones you haven’t heard of.

*  Bad as Me by Tom Waits. In these difficult economic and political times, hearing music this excellent from an old master — who is well along the road to senior citizenship — is a sweet and welcome beacon in the fog, even when much of the music is dark and threatening. It’s reassuring that Waits is awake and creating, making music that still matters, growling with the alley cats, and bellowing like an immortal. Waits is such a monster that he attracts a whole boatload of star performers as sidemen, and yet you never once forget that Bad as Me is a Tom Waits album, not a guest-star extravaganza.


*  Wild Flag. This isn’t the rebirth of Sleater-Kinney, but it is definitely some of the most satisfying rock ’n’ roll I heard in 2011. Guitarist/singer Carrie Brownstein and drummer Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney are together again in this self-titled album. But wait, as the late-night TV ads say, there’s more! This band also includes singer/guitarist Mary Timony, who fronted a 1990s indie band called Helium, and Rebecca Cole of The Minders. Like S-K, Wild Flag makes wild and timeless rock ’n’ roll with brawn and brains.



*  Is That You in the Blue? by Dex Romweber Duo. Like this duo’s previous album, this is a minimalist masterpiece basically consisting of Romweber (formerly of The Flat Duo Jets, a pioneering roots-punk twosome) on vocals and guitar and his sister Sara Romweber bashing away on drums, subtly aided by other instruments in certain spots — an organ here, a sax there, standup bass here and there. There are lots of rocking stompers here, but my favorites are the slow, spooky ones highlighting Dex’s haunting croon.



*  Down in the Barnyard by Rachel Brooke. She’s the Wednesday Addams of country music. Her voice is sweet, almost cute. On most songs, the accompaniment is spare and simple -- mostly just her guitar. But listen to the lyrics on some of the songs on this unassuming little album, and you’ll realize she’s got a twisted, evil side. Like my favorite folk songs, these tunes are full of murder, sex, and mystery.



*  Savage Kings by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages. After a quarter decade, East Coast R & B and soul shouter Barrence Whitfield reunited last year with the core of his original band, The Savages, a move instigated by his old guitarist Peter Greenberg, now a Taos resident. Besides rereleasing their first self-titled album, Barrence and the boys recorded a mighty new album full of wild delights including The MC5’s “(Your Love Is Like a) Ramblin’ Rose”; “Willie Meehan,” a tale of an old boxing champ written by Greenberg and Taos crony Mike Mooney; and my personal favorite, the Lightnin’ Slim dirty-blues classic “It’s Mighty Crazy.”


*  Simon Stokes and The Heathen Angels. This self-titled album has everything I like about Simon Stokes — boozy biker rock, some credible honky- some mad folk-inspired ballads that would make your typical folkie wet his pants in fear. “Hey You” is an instant Stokes classic dealing with a confrontation between a man on edge who is basically irate with the world and someone who looks at him wrong. “Let’s Do Wrong Tonight,” a duet with Annette Zilinskas (formerly of The Bangles), is a 100-proof honky-tonker. And “Down for Death” is what Fairport Convention would have sounded like had the group been fronted by a homicidal motorcycle outlaw.



*  Rat City by Jack Oblivian. Memphis rocker Jack Yarber has played in respected outfits like The Compulsive Gamblers and, of course, The Oblivians, whence he got his stage name. This album is full of sweet, sweaty rockers, many of which are graced with understated pop sensibility. The title song is a crunchy blues-punk workout, while “Old Folks Boogie” sounds like John Lee Hooker filtered through a meat grinder. “Girl With the Bruises,” about an abused woman, could almost be a lost Paul Westerberg song. And there’s even a good-time version of Billy Swan’s “Lover Please.”


*  Unentitled by Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. This Denver band delivers that backwoods hellfire old-time religion on this album. The best songs are dark and spooky. “Hallelujah Anyway” is a twisted tale of an arranged wedding. “United Brethren” is an emotional song about a preacher losing his congregation to another church, which also happened to his great-grandfather. It’s not a problem most of us will ever face, but when singer Jay Munly pleads “Lord have mercy upon us” at the end of the song, in his lonesome tenor with just an autoharp behind him, only the most hard-hearted heathen would be unmoved.


*  Scandalous by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. Black Joe and his band from Austin gave one of the best live shows in Santa Fe this year and released one of the best albums. This sophomore rock ’n’ soul effort will glaze your ham. It’s got more hard rock and electric blues packed in its grooves than the group’s first album, Tell ’em What Your Name Is. The whole album is a blast, but the most fun has to be “Mustang Ranch,” a tale of a visit to the famous Nevada cathouse.


*  Cannibal Courtship by Dengue Fever. For the uninitiated, Dengue Fever sprang from the crazy, psychedelic music that flourished in Cambodia in the pre-Pol Pot years. But Dengue isn’t about faithfully recreating that music, which was brutally driven underground by the Khmer Rouge during the Killing Fields era. Fronted by Cambodian singer Chhom Nimol, this California band builds upon the music of artists like Pan Ron, Ros Sereysothea, and Sinn Sisamouth — the same way The Rolling Stones built upon the foundation laid down by Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry.



Honorable mention:
*  Gorilla Rose by Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds 
*  El Santo Grial: La Pistola Piadosa by Slackeye Slim
*  Ersatz GB by The Fall
*  Bad Ingredients by Scott H. Biram
*  Crazy Clown Time by David Lynch
*  Go-Go Boots by Drive-By Truckers
*  Louisiana Sun by Mama Rosin and Hip Bone Slim
*  Eleven Eleven by Dave Alvin 
* Decent People by The Imperial Rooster
* Boogie the Church Down by Juke Joint Pimps/Gospel Pimps

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: TOP ALBUMS OF 2010

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
December 31 , 2010

Here’s the 10 albums released in 2010 that I liked best.

* Reform School Girl by Nick Curran & The Lowlifes. Curran plays some of the roughest, rawest R & B/rockabilly being made today, with raspy voice, banging piano, wailing sax, and a guitar that sounds as if Chuck Berry used it in voodoo rituals. It should remind you of that era when crazed DJs unleashed their sinister communist plot of corrupting America’s youth by playing wild, primitive sounds oozing with sex and rebellion.


* Agri-dustrial by Legendary Shack Shakers. The title is a pretty apt description of the basic Shack Shakers sound. It’s rootsy but with a hard-rocking edge. Singer and frontman J.D. Wilkes plays a mean harmonica and occasional banjo and jew’s-harp, while co-conspirator Duane Denison, formerly of punk-noise patriarchs The Jesus Lizard, makes some crazy noise on his guitar. The rhythm section is grounded in metal as well as in cowpunk. This might be considered a concept album about the South. Or maybe it’s a collection of horror stories, with song titles like “Two Tickets to Hell,” “The Hills of Hell,” and “God Fearing People.”



* Grinderman 2 by Grinderman. The first album by Nick Cave’s Grinderman is an intense burst of bile, anxiety, rage, obscenity, and loud, sloppy rock ’n’ roll. This year’s follow-up, while slightly less ragged than the original, is almost as good. On “Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man, “ Cave howls like Howlin’ Wolf on “Smokestack Lightning.” You can hear echoes of Patti Smith’s “Gloria” and The Doors’ “When the Music’s Over,” as well as an intentional nod to blues belter Lucille Bogan’s “Shave ’Em Dry.” “Worm Tamer” — full of fun innuendo and double-entendre — rocks even harder, with a mutated Bo-Diddley-conquers-the-Martians beat. “Super Heathen Child” takes us right to a nightmare world. A girl is “sitting in the bathtub sucking her thumb,” though she’s fully armed as she waits for the Wolf Man.



* Wig! by Peter Case. Case is so good in his acoustic troubadour role that many of his listeners might not even realize that he’s also an accomplished rocker. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, he was the frontman for The Plimsouls and, before that, The Nerves. Now, aided by guitarist Ron Franklin and D.J. Bonebrake, the drummer for X, Case recorded a bunch of blues-soaked, swampy rockers for this album. And it’s some of the toughest music he’s ever made.



* I’m New Here by Gil Scott-Heron. Produced by Richard Russell, this album, Scott-Heron’s first in 16 years, is harrowing. It’s mostly low-key and somber and almost like an encounter in a dark alley with a ghost. The album kicks off with a sweet memory of being raised by his grandmother. But at the end of the song, his granny dies “and I was scared and hurt and shocked,” Scott-Heron says. And then the music gets louder, the beat turns harsher, and suddenly the singer finds himself in an electronic mutation of one of Robert Johnson’s most frightening blues, “Me and the Devil.” Scott-Heron drifts from nightmare to revelry and back again. In “New York Is Killing Me,” he sings a blues melody over persistent hand claps and a clacking rhythm, punctuated by bass drum. A gospel choir comes in a couple of times but disappears like a dream figment. The album is less than 30 minutes long. But it’s one intense half hour.



* Self Decapitation by Delaney Davidson. Traces of Salvation Army marching bands and dark blues permeate this New Zealand native’s album. You can hear influences of American blues, early jazz, and Eastern European/Gypsy sounds. Davidson performs “In the Pines” as an industrial-edged blues tune with an acoustic guitar and altered vocals yielding to over-amped guitar and crazy-loud drums. But my favorite is the delightfully filthy “Dirty Dozen,” a foul-mouthed country-blues stomp that reminds me why I love music in the first place.



* A. Enlightenment, B. Endarkenment (Hint: There Is No C) by Ray Wylie Hubbard. As with other recent Hubbard efforts, this record features a minimalist bluesy sound. There are lots of slide guitar, fierce but simple drums, and lyrics concerning sin and salvation — but little else. Some songs have echoes of bluegrass, with mandolin, banjo, and fiddle occasionally emerging from the primordial blues bog.



* The Big To-Do by Drive-By Truckers. This is the DBT’s best album since 2004’s The Dirty South. It’s full of sex, crime, humor, strippers, circus acts, and girlfriends who say, “I’m too pretty to work and you’re uglying up my house.” All that and loud, loud guitars. Unfortunately, the only mediocre song on the album is one titled “Santa Fe.”



*A Poison Tree by Movie Star Junkies. Images of murder, torture, and betrayal color the lyrics of this album, which features dark but melodic tunes colored by with spaghetti-Western guitars over Farfisa organ and drums that evoke marching bands. The Junkies proudly cite The Birthday Party as an influence, and sure enough, you can hear echoes of early Nick Cave. The last song, a seven-minute epic called “All Winter Long,” ends in a dense instrumental with fuzzy guitar licks that bring back memories of The Electric Prunes.



* Descending Shadows by Pierced Arrows. Back with his previous band Dead Moon, singer Fred Cole bragged that he’s “been screaming at the top of my lungs since 1965.” That’s true — he was in a band called The Lollipop Shoppe that produced a garage-band classic “You Must Be a Witch.” The good news for Dead Moon fans is that Pierced Arrows sounds like a continuation of Moon’s basic guitar/bass/drums sound. Fred Cole and wife/bassist Toody Cole still sound wild and ferocious.



Honorable Mention:
* You Are Not Alone by Mavis Staples
* Wake Up the Snakes by Johnny Dowd
* $ by Mark Sultan
* The Wages by The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band
* Phosphene Dream by The Black Angels

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: BEST OF 2009

Last week I wrote about my favorite albums of the decade. Here’s my favorite of the past year.

* Tell ‘Em What Your Name Is by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. This Austin, Texas outfit doesn’t see soul music as some fragile museum exhibit — it’s a funk/punk Saturday night fish fry that never ends. The horn section is loud, the guitar has a bite, and the organist sounds as if he has been force-fed a steady diet of Jimmy Smith and The Animals. And Lewis shouts like Wilson Pickett’s long-lost grandson.

* Dracula Boots by Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds. Brian Tristan, the El Monte, California, native better known as Kid Congo Powers, has been a member of The Cramps as well as of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and The Gun Club. With The Pink Monkey Birds, his M.O. is reciting strange tales over insane psychedelic guitar. Sometimes there’s New Wave-y keyboards adding some science-fiction zing to the mix. There’s a song about Santa Fe’s favorite ghost La Llorona, two songs about Santa Claus, and a cover of a funny Thee Midnighters tune.

* Not Now! by The A-Bones. This band of New Yorkers — led by the first couple of Norton Records, Billy Miller and Miriam Linna — sounds like those anonymous combos playing at sinister nightclubs or hopped-up youth dance parties in black-and-white teen-exploitation movies. A little dangerous, a little sleazy, but ultimately inviting because they’re so much fun.

* Viper of Melody by Wayne Hancock. Wayne the Train is perhaps the greatest living purveyor of ’50s-style roadhouse honky-tonk. With a tip of the hat to western swing and a sly wink at rockabilly, Hancock is retro to be sure. But he never sounds hokey. My favorite song here is a murder ballad, “Your Love and His Blood,” which contains a should-be-classic line: “The next time we’re together, you’ll be on the witness stand.”

* Raw, Raw, Rough by Barrence Whitfield. His first solo album since 1995 is full of early rock ’n’ roll/crazed R & B spirit. Barry probably gets sick of Little Richard comparisons, but in many ways such talk is well deserved. He also can sound almost pretty — in an Otis Redding kind of pretty.

* Invisible Girl by The King Khan & BBQ Show. There’s a big element of stripped-down blues bashers like Flat Duo Jets and White Stripes in KK & BBQ. But what distinguishes this dynamic duo is its anchor in raw doo-wop. The basic sound, therefore, is punk-rock roar, embellished by some Ruben & The Jets/Sha Na Na/rama-lama-ding-dong silliness but frequently based on some seriously gorgeous melodies and occasional sweet harmonies.

* Ruins of Berlin by Dex Romweber Duo. Speaking of Flat Duo Jets, founder Romweber was back this year with a new duo, this time with his sister Sara. Some songs sound like Flat Duo Jets Mach II. But other tracks feature guest musicians including a bevy of female guest vocalists, such as Exene Cervenka, Neko Case, and Chan Marshall. Try not thinking of Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet while listening to Marshall singing “Love Letters” with the Duo.

* Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective. My one concession to “modern” rock and my one favorite you’ll probably find on most those real rock critics’ list. Some of this music sounds like an advanced civilization of space creatures who worship Brian Wilson. One of my favorite songs of the year is the sweet, euphoric and irresistible “My Girls.”

* The Fine Print (A Collection of Oddities and Rarities 2003-2008) by Drive-By Truckers. I find this collection of outtakes, alternate versions, cover songs, and other previously unreleased tracks fresher than the Truckers’ past couple of studio albums. The strongest cut is Patterson Hood’s slow burner called “The Great Car Dealer War,” about a guy paid to torch vehicles at a car lot. The best lyrics: “I don’t ask questions, I don’t assume/I just take a long hard look when I walk into a room.”

* High, Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project by Loudon Wainwright III. Wainwright plays lots of songs associated with Poole — a hard-living, ramblin’, gamblin’, singing moonshiner — as well as some original tunes about the influential singer. It’s hard to find anything as cosmically kooky this year as Wainwright’s version of Poole’s “I’m the Man Who Rode the Mule Around the World.”

Honorable Discharges

* Haymaker! by The Gourds
* Blue Black Hair by The Del Moroccos
* Before Obscurity: The Bushflow Tapes by Tin Huey
* Tangled Tales by Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks
* Dave Alvin & The Guilty Women

Best Live Album/DVD Set:

*Live From Axis Mundi by Gogol Bordello

Best Oldies Compilation:

* I Still Hate CDs by Various Artists

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: BEST of 2008

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
January 2, 2009

What does it say about a year in music in which two of my top 10 CDs are retrospectives and one of them is a reworking of old songs?

What can you do? I calls ‘em as I sees ‘em. Here’s my favorite albums of 2008.
Top 10 albums of the year

* We Have You Surrounded by The Dirtbombs. Apocalyptic paranoia reigns here. On nearly every song, singer/guitarist Mick Collins seems to be looking over his shoulder and not liking what he sees. Civilization is decaying, burning. The future’s so dim Collins can barely wear his shades. The end is near, and everyone’s out to wreck his flow.


The Dirtbombs are one of the many Detroit bands of the 1990s that didn’t become famous when The White Stripes rose. (But don’t call his group a “garage band,” or Collins will twist your head off and eat your children.) With a lineup that includes two bassists and two drummers, Collins pays vocal tribute to the soul greats of his hometown’s past.


* The Supreme Genius of King Khan & The Shrines. This is a full-fledged psychedelic soul band, complete with horn section led by a Canadian guitar picker of East Indian heritage who lives in Germany. You’ll hear punk and garage rock influences in Khan’s grooves, even a flicker of speed metal. But make no mistake, this album — the band’s first proper U.S. release, consisting of material released on previous European albums — has soul!


* I Have Fun Everywhere I Go by Mike Edison & Rocket Train Delta Science Arkestra. Here’s a journalist after my own heart, a writer, editor, and/or publisher for a rich array of publications — Screw magazine, High Times, and Wrestling’s Main Event. This album is a hilarious companion piece to Edison’s autobiography, also published last year. It’s a spoken-word record, with Edison reading from the book over hard-driving psychedelic/techno/blues backdrops produced by Jon Spencer.

* Recovery by Loudon Wainwright III. Wainwright looks back at his oldest material here with the help of producer Joe Henry. Most of these tunes are like old friends to me — including the song “Old Friend.” Nearly all of the tunes have held up extremely well over the past four decades. Wainwright infuses them only with a tangible wistfulness but also with an earned wisdom.

* Venus on Earth by Dengue Fever. Dengue Fever isn’t just a fun band with a unique sound, retro and innovative at the same time. Nope. this The Southern California pyschedelic/garage/lounge/worldbeat group fronted by Cambodia-born singer Chhom Nimol, represents a sweet, symbolic triumph of freedom over totalitarianism; of rock ’n’ roll over the killing fields; of sex, joy, fast cars, and loud guitars over the forces of gloom and repression. Dengue’s music revives the upbeat, urgent, sometimes shamelessly cheesy brand of rock that flourished in Cambodia before the evil Khmer Rouge wiped it out in the late ‘70s.

* The Golden Hour by Firewater. Recorded in India, Pakistan, Turkey, and Israel, this record, the latest project of former Cop Shoot Cop frontman Tod A, has an international rock sound influenced by the music of those nations as well as Balkan music and even some Latin and Caribbean styles. The album has the feel of a political exile’s diary, angry, melancholic, and above all, rockin’.

* Bar Band Americanus by Charlie Pickett And. Why would anyone be interested in an obscure Florida bar band, a group that rose in the early ’80s and then sputtered to a stop well before the end of the decade, leaving behind no real hits? Why would anyone care about a beer-drenched band led by a singer who called it quits, left showbiz for law school, and never looked back? Because they sound so dang good. Pickett played a high-charged brand of roots rock that’s basically timeless and fresh.

* Between the Whiskey and the Wine by Miss Leslie. Hands down, the best country album of the year — unadulterated hard-core, heartache honky-tonk music. Don’t look for irony. Don’t look for hipster detachment. Leslie Anne Sloan’s clear, intense voice just stops you in your tracks. There’s nothing sugary, flirty, or kittenish about her voice as she sings songs apparently in inspired by her recent divorce.

* Can You Deal With It by Andre Williams & The New Orleans Hellhounds. This R&B codger apparently is indestructible. He’s in his early 70s and has survived drug problems, homelessness, poverty, and obscurity. But he keeps cranking out hot and nasty albums. With the funky punky Hellhounds, Williams gives dirty old men a good name.

* Women as Lovers by Xiu Xiu. This San Francisco band, which played at the College of Santa Fe in early 2008, creates some of the craziest but most enticing music I’ve heard in a long time. Singer Jamie Stewart has one of those morose, sobbing, 4 a.m.-suicide voices that sometimes get on my nerves, but Xiu Xiu’s New Year’s Eve-in-the-nuthouse sound, with the vibes clinking, drums crashing, horns blaring, and synths screeching sometimes sounds as if you’re on an amusement park boat ride drifting into a forbidden area of It’s a Small World.

Honorable Mention
* Take a Good Look by The Fleshtones
* The Lucky Ones by Mudhoney
* Damn Right Rebel Proud by Hank Willaims III
* Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
* Recapturing the Banjo by Otis Taylor (and friends)
* Triskaidekaphilia by Jim Stringer and the AM Band
* That Lucky Old Sun by Brian Wilson
* Introducing Los Peyotes
* Poison by Hundred Year Flood
* Waco Express: Live and Kickin’ at Schuba’s Tavern, Chicago by The Waco Brothers


* Agree? Disagree? Post your comments here. Don't be shy. I'm your friend, I'm not like the others.

* Hear songs from these albums Sunday night on Terrell’s Soundworld. I’ll do a cheesy Casey Kasem-style countdown beginning after the 11th
hour and intersperse the honorable mentions beginning around 10 p.m. That’s on KSFR, Santa Fe Public Radio.

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: BEST OF 2007

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
December 28, 2007

This past year wasn’t a bad one for music. Not a landmark year, but there was a lot of good stuff — if you know where to look for it.

I realize my best-album list is full of old favorites — Nick Cave, Bettye LaVette, The Fall, The White Stripes, Peter Case, The Band’s Levon Helm. What can I say? I’m becoming an oldster and somewhat predictable in my tastes. But the truth is, some of these artists released their most vital work in years, and they need to be recognized for it.

Here are lists of my favorites in 2007.

Best albums

1) Super Taranta! by Gogol Bordello. If The Pogues were Ukrainian, if The Clash had been raised in a Gypsy caravan, and if Brave Combo had a New York snarl, then they might be Gogol Bordello. Super Taranta! is a lusty, vodka-fueled stomp that not only has the band’s trademark Gypsy craziness but also delves into dub reggae and Italian music.

2) The Scene of the Crime by Bettye LaVette. With her slightly raspy voice and impeccable taste in material, Bettye is on fire. She’s backed here by The Drive-By Truckers, which sounds like Muscle Shoals: The Next Generation. The Truckers’ contribution makes for a harder-edged sound than heard on previous LaVette efforts, but the band never overwhelms her. In fact, these guys seem to inspire her.

3) Grinderman by Grinderman. Rock ’n’ roll supposedly is a young man’s game — traditionally, some of the best of it is created by horny, sexually frustrated young guys. But with his latest band Grinderman, Nick Cave proves that horny, sexually frustrated middle-aged men can rock, too. Cave rocks harder here than he has since his 1980s band The Birthday Party. But the middle-aged Cave of Grinderman seems even more dangerous than the bellowing junkie of his old group.

4) Miracle of Five by Eleni Mandell. Mandell has just about the sexiest voice in showbiz today. This album drives home this point. This is contemporary torch music with subtle touches of film noir. It makes great background music for reading Raymond Chandler or Ross MacDonald or even James Ellroy.

5) Icky Thump by The White Stripes. Jack and Meg return to their basic guitar/drum attack. Jack plays his guitar like a maniac and warbles like the reincarnation of Marc Bolan hopped up on trucker crank. Meg is playing drums less like Moe Tucker and more like The Mighty Thor.

6) Dirt Farmer by Levon Helm. A throat-cancer survivor, Helm has nursed his vocal cords back to health, and his new solo album shows him in fine form. The voice that brought us “Up on Cripple Creek,” “The Weight,” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” is back. And the material here is worthy of that voice.

7) Favourite Worst Nightmare by The Arctic Monkeys. This one sneaked up on me. I started out prejudiced against this young band of Brits because a couple of years ago they were the hot new gonna-conquer-the-world buzz band. But toward the end of the year I realized that I was enjoying this, their sophomore effort, more than almost anything else released this year.

8) Rise Above by Dirty Projectors. Here’s one of the strangest new albums I’ve heard in a long time. It’s a remake of songs from Black Flag’s 1981 punk rock classic Damaged. But instead of slavishly reverent recreations, Dave Longstreth (the main Projector) filters Black Flag tunes through his own private universe. It doesn’t sound close to what normal mortals consider punk rock — except when Longstreth’s voice turns from a creepy croon to a grating scream during otherwise pretty musical passages.


9) Reformation Post TLC by The Fall. Thirty years on the road and Mark E. Smith is still cranking out his crazy brand of rant ’n’ roll, shouting his incomprehensible, half-comical lyrics over steady, driving beats; bubbly, fizzly synth noises; and ever-tasty, irresistible, garage-band guitar riffs. It’s a tried-and-true formula and one from which the former dockworker from Manchester, England, rarely strays. But dagnabbit, the darn thing still works.


10) Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John by Peter Case. This album — which is almost all acoustic and is named for late Tennessee bluesman John Estes — harks back in spirit to Case’s early solo albums. It’s good to know that troubadours as vital as Case are still among us.

Honorable mention
1) Thirteen Cities by Richmond Fontaine
2) 100 Days, 100 Nights by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
3) Wagonmaster by Porter Wagoner
4) Dangerous Game by Mary Weiss
5) Push Comes to Shove by John Hammond

Best reissues

1) I Hate CDs: Norton Records 45 RPM Singles Collection Vol. 1 by various artists
2) Lullabys, Legends and Lies by Bobby Bare
3) Stand in the Fire by Warren Zevon4) Pardon Me, I’ve Got Someone to Kill by T. Tex Edwards & Out on Parole
5) Hentch-Forth.Five by The Hentchmen
Best Music DVDS1) The Best of The Johnny Cash TV Show
2) Voodoo Rhythm: The Gospel of Primitive Rock ’n’ Roll
3) Fancy (Les Claypool live)
4) UFOs at the Zoo (Flaming Lips live)
5) Bloodied but Unbowed: Bloodshot Records’ Life in the Trenches

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: BEST of 2006

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
December 29, 2006

It’s just a gut feeling at this point, but when compiling this list of top albums of 2006, I’m starting to think that the digital revolution in music has begun to take its toll on the album as an art form. Sure there was plenty of great music out there this year — there always is when you know where to look for it.

And yes, dear yuppies, the word is still album not CD. A CD is just the medium, while the album is a collection of songs in any medium, vinyl or not. Sorry, that’s just a pet peeve. My fear is that not only could CDs go extinct but albums as well.

An entire generation of music lovers is thinking in terms of individual downloads rather than the album. It’s as if the novel became obsolete, replaced by, well, chapters.

The truth is, nothing really stood out as “album-of-the-year” quality to me until Tom Waits released Orphans, his sprawling three-disc extravaganza. Funny thing is, this project holds together as a unified work — kind of like a three-ring circus — even though it started off as a collection of outtakes and stray songs from soundtracks, tribute albums, and other scattered projects.

So while we still have “albums,” let’s celebrate the best of them. Here are my favorites of 2006:


1. Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards by Tom Waits. His songs are dispatches from an archetypal shadow land of underdog America, a place where a nation’s dreams go to die — but where a thousand more dreams are born. He bellows skid-row serenades that seemingly spring from cheap back-alley dives, hobo jungles, storefront churches, and grimy bus stations. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll say, “What the hell was that?”





2. Goodbye Guitar by Tony Gilkyson. Most solo albums by sidemen only prove that most sidemen deserve to remain sidemen. But this album proves there are major exceptions to that rule. Gilkyson — a former member of X and Lone Justice — made an album in which all 11 songs are winners. It’s solid roots rock with some stomping honky-tonkers here and a magnificent dirge of self-loathing called “My Eyes.”








3. Gulag Orkestar by Beirut. Like Gilkyson, Zach Condon is a former Santa Fe resident who slipped the surly bonds of New Mexico. While most American musicians his age are inspired by punk rock or hip-hop, Condon was set aflame by the soundtracks of Eastern European movies and the Balkan brass bands he heard while bumming around overseas. He created a unique sound with slightly off-kilter trumpets, accordion, rat-a-tat drums and — for reasons not explained — a ukulele. Not to mention his vocals, which sound far too world-weary for a 20-year-old.




4. Snake Farm by Ray Wylie Hubbard. Here’s a bluesy stomp-dance of a record, heavy on slide guitar and raunchy licks. With Hubbard’s songs of reptile ranches, God, the devil, heartaches, damnation, and redemption, it’s spiritual in its own peculiar way, almost like the Book of Revelation as interpreted by Hank Williams and Howlin’ Wolf.








5. Powder Burns by The Twilight Singers. Like Greg Dulli’s best work, the sound is big — guitars, keyboards, and drums work into crescendos — and he works his voice into inspired frenzies. Sometimes, you don’t notice that he’s been screaming until the song starts to fade.







6.Nashville by Solomon Burke. This is something of a country homecoming for Burke, who was cutting soul versions of country songs nearly a half-century ago. “That’s How I Got to Memphis,” the classic Tom T. Hall song sounds as if it was written for Burke. And on Gillian Welch’s “Valley of Tears,” he sings like a condemned man contemplating the lethal-injection table.








7. Bitter Tea by The Fiery Furnaces. While the Furnaces don’t really sound like anyone else, you could spend an afternoon trying to trace the influences. The music changes from song to song — and often several times within a song. Electronic madness bounces off an old-timey tack piano. Sugar-pie-honey-bunch Motown hooks slither below. Eleanor Friedberger’s voice seems like an earthly anchor for a ship tossed into a stormy, unpredictable musical sea.


8. Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, & Chanteys by various artists (produced by Hal Willner). How could I not include an album featuring wild and rasty tunes by Nick Cave, Richard Thompson, Lou Reed, and Stan Ridgway? It even has Pere Ubu’s David Thomas croaking “What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?” But the most gloriously obscene and most hilarious “pirate” song here is Loudon Wainwright III’s “Good Ship Venus.”








9. I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Kick Your Ass by Yo La Tengo. Yo La happily is all over the place, strolling down some strange avenues of pop sounds. Sometimes the group sounds like Sonic Youth, sometimes closer to Fleetwood Mac. Actually Yo La reminds me of a lo-fi, punkier version of NRBQ.






10. Zoysia by The Bottle Rockets. The title is a type of grass used in suburban lawns, fittingly because the image of suburban lawns is at the metaphorical center of this album by Brian Henneman and his trusty band of blue-collar rockers. It’s a loose-knit concept album about yearning for normalcy and moderation — yearnings not normally associated with rock ’n’ roll. But in these strife-ridden times, Henneman makes it sound attractive.





Honorable Discharge
* Why I Hate Women by Pere Ubu
* Last Days of Wonder by The Handsome Family
* The Longest Meow by Bobby Bare Jr.
* Good Bread Alley by Carl Hancock Rux
* Blue Angel by Hundred Year Flood
* After the Rain by Irma Thomas
* After Hours by Big Al Anderson
* The Town and The City by Los Lobos
* Modern Times by Bob Dylan
* Bahamut by Hazmat Modine