TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Dr. Demento's Punk Progeny

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Feb. 1, 2018

I’m a longtime fan of Barret Hansen, aka Dr. Demento, even though I never figured out what the difference between a “dementoid” and a “dementite” is, or which one applies to me.

So it’s probably not a huge surprise to learn that I’m also a fan of Dr. Demento Covered in Punk, a new tribute album featuring many of the oddball ditties as well as many of the artists who graced — or disgraced — his wacky weekly radio show.

Hansen is not a practicing physician. And he’s not a Ph.D., though he does have a master’s degree in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Los Angeles. He’s written serious pieces about music for serious publications, including Downbeat and Rolling Stone — and no, not about the history of fart jokes in 20th-century song. Despite his goofball persona, the guy knows his stuff when it comes to music.

According to song and legend, Dr. Demento earned his nickname back in the early ’70s when another DJ called him “demented” for playing the black-humor rockabilly classic “Transfusion” by Nervous Norvus on his show.

Embracing his inner weirdness — and frequently his inner corniness — the young doctor created a unique format that included novelty records old and new, song parodies, spoken-word comedy, outsider music, and, by the mid-’70s, a good smattering of punk rock.

On an October 1976 show that also included tracks by Spike Jones, Bobby “Boris” Pickett (but not The Monster Mash), The Mothers of Invention, Fats Waller, and Captain Beefheart, Demento played “Beat on the Brat” by The Ramones for the first time. He soon began playing the likes of The Sex Pistols, Devo, The Misfits, The Cramps, The Dead Kennedys, The Dead Milkmen, and others.

Demento’s syndicated show was one of the few national broadcast outlets that would play anything by many of these acts, one of the few safe harbors for punks in the putrid sea of commercial radio.

“It’s often been said that punk rock began as a reaction to the bloated corporate rock scene that had taken hold in the 1970s,” Hansen says between songs on Covered in Punk. “And you could say the same about the Dr. Demento Show as well. The Ramones wanted to bring back the youthful spirit of fun that had gone missing from the airwaves. And so did I.”

Covered in Punk is like an extended Dr. Demento radio show, with versions of his familiar opening and closing themes, celebrity promos — “Hi, I’m Tom Lehrer and you’re lucky enough to be listening to The Dr. Demento Show” — and Demento himself doing intros and outros after every couple of songs or so.

Some of the best songs here include “Surfin’ Bird,” covered by that “wascally wabbit” Nobunny (who also does a decent cover of “Monster,” originally performed by B-52s strongman Fred Schneider); Roky Erickson’s “Creature With the Atom Brain,” sung here by Quintron & Miss Pussycat; Balzac, a Japanese band, covering “Rat Fink,” an Allan Sherman tune; Los Straitjackets covering the definitive Alfred E. Newman instrumental “It’s a Gas” (which originally was available on a flexi-disc insert in an issue of Mad magazine); and The Meatmen doing Frank Zappa’s “My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama.”

I am not a huge fan of Weird Al Yankovic, the song parodist who is Dr. Demento’s most famous discovery. But I have to admit that I totally love his faithful, joyful cover of The Ramones’ “Beat on the Brat.” I’m glad he didn’t turn the song into some crappy parody. Eat on the Bratwurst? Build a Wall with Slats?

And three songs that I consider the holy trinity of Dementoland are represented here. The Bizarro World anthem “Fish Heads” — originally by a group called Barnes and Barnes (Billy Mumy, who played Will Robinson in TV’s Lost in Space was one of the Barneses, but I’m not sure which) — gets punked up by the band Osaka Popstar. (Guitarist John Cafiero also produced this tribute album.) The comically overwrought “Dead Puppies” also gets a punk-rock makeover by James Kochalka Superstar, a band led by comic-book artist Kochalka.

And “Shaving Cream,” Borscht-belter Benny Bell’s 1946 masterpiece, gets not one but two versions on this collection, both by East Coast kiddy-show host Uncle Floyd Vivino. The first has updated, punk-related lyrics (the singer steps in a pile of ... shaving cream in a mosh pit, etc.) while the reprise has the original Bell lyrics. Both are done as a thunderous waltz, featuring Vivino’s straight-outta-Shakey’s Pizza rinky-tinky piano.

But the greatest track on Covered in Punk is “Garbage Man,” sung by the grand master of the Golden Throats, Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner. Shatner bellows, growls, and over-emotes the lyrics over a fuzzy Peter Gunn guitar. “Do you understand? I’m the garbage man!!” It’s true that Shatner’s “musical career” was funnier back when he didn’t understand that people were laughing at his versions of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and “Mr. Tambourine Man.” But even though he’s in on the joke these days, he’s still Shatner. It’s so crazy, it’s magical.

It would be a huge exaggeration to call Dr. Demento a major figure in the punk-rock history. But show me a punk rocker who doesn’t like “Shaving Cream” or “Fish Heads” or “Dead Puppies,” and I’ll show you a humorless stiff who shouldn’t be allowed around other people.

Here are a buncha the songs from Covered in Punk

Here's Roky Erickson's "Creature With the Atom Brain."



There's a monster in Nobunny's rabbit mask



Weird Al does The Ramones



In the port of Amsterdam, where the sailors all meet, there's a sailor who eats only fish heads and tails ...



But there is not, nor will there ever be a singer as spectacular as Shatner!

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Postcards from Patti

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Jan. 18, 2018

"You gotta know how to pony ..."

“I hold the key to the sea of possibilities ...”

“Outside of society if you’re looking/That’s where you’ll find me ...”

“Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine ...”

This is just a tiny sampling of the lyrics of Patti Smith, just a brief glimpse of the wild incantations that spoke directly to my twenty-something self. With the help of her devastating band, especially guitarist Lenny Kaye, Patti brought me new faith in rock ’n’ roll — which, by 1975, when her first album, Horses, was released, had for the most part gotten soft and tired. Patti’s lyrics were mystical battle cries for rebellious souls who’d been wondering where all the rebellion had gone.

Back in the post-Watergate era, she made good on the promise that Janis Joplin couldn’t keep: “I’m gonna show ya, baby, that a woman can be tough.” She carjacked Wilson Pickett’s “Land of 1,000 Dances,” shouting, “Seize the possibility!” And those of us who heard the urgency of her call could never understand why others could ever dig Frampton Comes Alive!.

Patti comes to Santa Fe on Saturday, Jan. 19. No, it’s not going to be a crazy rocking concert like the one she did under a big tent next to SITE Santa Fe with her band in the summer of 1997. She’ll be reading passages from her recent books — Devotion, M Train (which I’ve read and recommend), and Just Kids. The Jan. 19 event at the Lensic Performing Arts Center is being billed as an “evening of stories (and an acapella song or two) about love, loss, art, and New York City.”

(Bad news for us procrastinators: The show has been sold out.)

But back to the old daze: After I graduated from college in 1976, I decided I should announce my arrival to the “real world” by sending jackalope postcards to the three people I admired the most — Rodney Dangerfield, Billy Carter (the beer-drinking good old boy brother of Jimmy Carter, who’d just been elected president), and of course, Patti Smith. I don’t quite remember the logic behind this weird stunt, if indeed there was any. It just seemed like a cool thing to do.

Amazingly, all three of my postcards got responses. Rodney, or at least someone in his official fan club, sent me an autographed glossy black-and-white publicity photo. Billy sent me a postcard featuring a color photo of himself holding a beer can, naturally, at the gas pumps of the service station he ran in Plains, Georgia.

But Patti sent me the coolest response of all. It was a plain white postcard with a sticker for her then-latest album, Radio Ethiopia (still my favorite Smith album, though most critics disagree), and a handwritten personal message. “Dear Friend S.S.,” it began. She’d gotten my last name wrong — blame my “alternative penmanship” — addressing her card to “Stephen Sevele.”

She continued, “Thanks for the Jackalope ... Is real cool.” (I knew she’d understand! Then she addressed a question I’d asked her on my card.) “Bull Dog Brawer is my favorite wrestler,” she said, referring to Richard Gland, who wrestled under the name of Dick “Bulldog” Brower. “I think wrestling is a lot like Blue Oyster Cult … Happy maniac energy.”

Then Patti spoke of an accident she’d recently had on stage: “I’m recovering from Olympic injuries. Send spinal energy. XXX Patti Smith.”

Those “Olympic injuries” were no joke. On Jan. 23, 1977 — 42 years ago next week! — when opening for Bob Seger (!) in Tampa, Smith tripped on a sound monitor and fell from the stage, a drop of about 15 feet, into the orchestra pit, leaving her with a fractured spine and broken vertebrae in her neck. In 2012 she told Uncut magazine that she still suffers from those injuries. “My neck,” she said. “I still get discomfort, spinal discomfort. It’s nothing I can’t live with.”

I sent her a couple more postcards, and she replied, though the responses got shorter and shorter. I still treasure the note in which she wrote the phrase “Tongue of Love” on a green slip of paper. I display it in my front room, right with the autograph from Wilson Pickett I got a few years later. Both are sacred talismans, chiding me because I never learned how to pony (like Bony Maroney), as the song goes.

Though she’s never matched the impact and intensity of her first three albums in the ’70s (the two mentioned above plus Easter, released in 1978), I’ve remained a fan. I’ve seen her live three times — in New York and in Santa Fe in 1997, then in Austin during South by Southwest in 2000. Each of those were full of what only can be described as “happy maniac energy,” on the part of Patti, her band, and her audience.

Sure, I’d much rather see Patti the rocker, making thunder with Lenny and the boys, than politely listen to a sedate poetry reading.

But this lady is a true artist. She’s seventy-two years old and has given her heart and soul to rock ’n’ roll. She’s long ago earned the right to present her visions any way she sees fit. We all should feel lucky that she’s still out there, sailing the sea of possibilities.

Here's a Patti primer on Spotify

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Best Albums of 2018

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Jan. 4, 2018

Here is a list of my favorite albums released in 2018.

* The Difference Between Me & You by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. Longtime fans of young Black Joe should immediately realize that this record is a back-to-basics move for this Austin band. The Honeybears still have their excellent funky horn section, and a handful of songs here are closer to sweet soul ballads than rump-rousing rock. But the overall sound of Difference is raw and rowdy, with roots stretching back to Bo Diddley and Howlin’ Wolf.



* The Night Guy at the Apocalypse Profiles of a Rushing Midnight by Hamell 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. It’s a lo-fi affair recorded in its entirety on Hamell’s iPhone in various locales.



* Songs from the Lodge by Archie and the Bunkers. Kids these days, conventional wisdom goes, don’t love rock ’n’ roll like we did when I was a lad. But not these two teenage brothers from Cleveland. Drummer Emmett and organ player Cullen O’Connor have a unique high-energy sound they call “hi-fi organ punk.” Plus, they do a couple of songs here about Twin Peaks: “Fire Walk With Me” and “Laura.” These kids not only have talent, they have taste.




* Thought Gang by David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti. Speaking of Twin Peaks, 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. Recorded in the early 1990s, the music is spooky, unsettling, and sometimes even funny.




* See You in Miami by Charlie Pickett. This guitar singer from Florida had an enthusiastic regional following back in the early-to mid-’80s, but he jettisoned his musical career to become a lawyer in Miami. This album, Pickett’s first original-material release in decades, picks right up from his ’80s
heyday. He still does songs that sound like ZZ Top trying to rewrite The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street.




* Wild! Wild! Wild! by Robbie Fulks & Linda Gail Lewis. Fulks takes a break from the heaviness of his recent work and tears up the honky tonk with a boogie-woogie country gal on this duet album with rockabilly royal Lewis. And Lordy, it’s fun. Wild! is full of rockabilly romps, country weepers, blue-eyed soul, bouncy blues, sweet harmonies, drinkin’ songs, cheatin’ songs ... the sounds that made America a beacon of the free world.




* Benton County Relic by Cedric Burnside. If anyone thought that Mississippi Hill Country blues died with R.L. Burnside — or T-Model Ford or Junior Kimbrough or Paul “Wine” Jones — get your ears on this album and think again. Cedric, who is R.L.’s grandson (and former drummer) has those
blues in his blood. Like the work of all those ascended masters, Cedric’s music is rough, raw, and sometimes hypnotic. Somewhere up above, R.L. is looking down smiling, saying, “Well, well, well ...”




* Years by Sarah Shook & the Disarmers. I was somewhat apprehensive when I got a copy of this album. How could it be anywhere as good as her debut, Sidelong, coming just a year later? Am I bound to be disappointed? But I wasn’t. Her sophomore effort is full of impressive tunes about love gone sour. But there is little, if any, confessional self-pity. Shook’s confidence, pride, and humor frequently shine through the heartache.




* A History of Violence by Harlan T. Bobo. Despite all the songs about romance gone wrong and the tensions between a man and a woman — and the fact that the Memphis rocker got divorced between his previous album and this one, Bobo has said this is not a breakup album. Either way, the songs here are packed with frustration, desperation, and loneliness. And some of the hardest rocking tunes are obviously dark fantasies of wanton violence.




* King of the Road: A Tribute to Roger Miller by various artists. It’s true that most tribute albums suck the warts. But partly because Miller really was one of the greatest songwriters to ever live — and partly because of the caliber of the talent that producer (and Roger’s son) Dean Miller has
wrangled for this project — nearly every track is a winner. The songs capture Roger’s wide emotional range: the funny tunes, cool anthems, honky-tonk stompers, and surprisingly powerful heartache songs. Standout tracks include the stunning bluegrass cover of “When Two Worlds Collide” by the female-fronted band Flatt Lonesome; a soulful take on a little-known Miller song called “I’ll Pick Up My Heart and Go Home” by Lily Meola; “The Last Word in Lonesome Is Me,” by Dolly Parton and featuring Alison Krauss; and the slow, jazzy “Lock, Stock, and Teardrops” by Mandy Barnett.



Honorable mentions (Damn! There really were a lot of fine albums released last year):

Spencer Sings the Hits by Jon Spencer

The Beast Is You by The Electric Mess

Psychic Action by The Vagoos

Clippety Clop by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs

Trouble and Desire by The Callas with Lee Ranaldo

Blues Trash by The Reverend Beat Man & The New Wave

Soul Flowers of Titan by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages

Fire Dream by J.D. Wilkes

Smote Reverser by Thee Oh Sees

In This Time by The Ar-Kaics

UPDATED Jan. 6, 2019: Here's a Spotify playlist with 2 songs each from the Top 10 albums and one each from the "honorable mentions" (except Holly Golightly's, which isn't available on Spotify)

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Something to Bother or Perhaps Even Frighten Everyone.

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 by Hamell 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 in The 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."



Remember kids, stay away from gangs and drugs!

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Jon Spencer's New Hits

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Dec. 7,  2018

Jon Spencer has been on a roll the past six years or so. After an eight-year hiatus, in 2012 the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion crashed back onto the stage with Meat + Bone, an exuberant blast of twisted blues- and soul-tinged raw and crazy clunk-punk, which was their best work since the mid-’90s. That was followed in 2015 by another mighty album called Freedom Tower - No Wave Dance Party 2015. Last year, one of Spencer’s other bands, Boss Hog, released a cool album, Brood X, but Spencer’s wife Cristina Martinez is the real star of that group.

And now, Spencer is back, this time with a solo album called Spencer Sings the Hits! Don’t let the “solo album” thing scare you away. Spencer ain’t singing sensitive, introspective acoustic songs or recording with the London Philharmonic or stinking up the place with usual-suspect guest vocalists. And despite the title, none of the dozen songs here have ever been hits for Spencer or anyone else.

No, this is just Jon Spencer as we love him. As a matter of fact, had I not already known it was a solo album, you could have fooled me into thinking it was a new one by the Blues Explosion. However, for reasons I don’t know, Explosion members Judah Bauer (guitar) and Russell Simins (drums) are absent here. They’re replaced by keyboardist Sam Coomes (from Quasi) and drummer M. Sord, with Spencer’s guitar and shouted vocals as crazed as ever.

Spencer in DC, 2015

From the opening drumbeats of “Trash Can” — soon joined by Spencer singing, “Do the Wobble, Do the Wiggle … Kick that can/Do the Trash Can ...”— through the last song, “Cape” (which has a similar guitar hook as The Cramps’ version of Charlie Feathers’ “Can’t Hardly Stand It”), Spencer fans will immediately know that they’ve come to the right party.

Among the highlights are “Love Handle,” slower than most of the tunes here, in which the guitar licks of the verses have echoes of Memphis soul. “Time 2 Be Bad” features keyboards that sound like Devo on a skid-row bender, and “I Got the Hits,” the closest thing to a title song here, is a tongue-in-cheek brag: “I got the hits ... I got corruption, malice, I got deceit, I got lies, I got it all baby, and it’s all for you ...”

But it ain’t all fun and games. While Spencer usually sounds as if he’s bemused by the world, in a couple of songs he sounds downright angry. I don’t know the “counterfeit punk” Spencer is eviscerating in the song “Fake” (“Your ideas are wrong/You’re lukewarm/Washed-up and bland …”) but I’m glad it’s not me.

Maybe it’s the same target he unloads on in “Beetle Boots.” He starts that song growling about some poser in “imitation leather and plastic zipper.” Then later in the song, Spencer seems like he’s taking personal offense at this jerk. “You think it’s easy being in a band?/Wrong priorities/Misguided intentions/Ironic distance just reinforces convention ...”

It’s a cruel world, and the plastic-zipper phonies are way more likely than Spencer to get the hits. But as long as he keeps raging and playing his goofball Frankenstein blues, Spencer’s call of the wild will continue to resonate with those of us who love to wobble and wiggle.

Also recommended:
* Digital Garbage by Mudhoney. Speaking of angry lyrics, this album is basically Mudhoney’s state of the union address, and they aren’t very happy about what’s going on here during the Trump era.

Among the topics of disgust on this album by these Seattle grunge survivors are white supremacists (“Listen to the footsteps/Echoing in the streets/Here come the footsteps/Echoing in the hall/These are the footsteps/That echo through history,” Mark Arm sings in “Night and Fog”); conspiracy loons (“Vaccines, chemtrails, false flag plots/Government camps, Sharia law,” from “Paranoid Core”); mass shooters (“We’d rather die in church,” the narrator of “Please Mr. Gunman” pleads); and the religious right. Lordy, how Mudhoney loathes the religious right. “21st Century Pharisees” lambastes evangelicals’ loyalty to the current chief executive. “He doesn’t give a fuck about your Jesus,” Arm wails.

Topical songs might be a turn-off to a lot of rockers. But don’t worry. This ain’t Joan Baez. Mudhoney rocks just as ferociously as they did when they unleashed the song “Touch Me, I’m Sick” back in the late ’80s. With his garage-psychedelic licks, guitarist Steve Turner is every bit the monster he was in the early days. So if it’s politics that’s getting them charged up these days, then so be it.

* Trouble and Desire by The Callas, with Lee Ranaldo. A former guitarist with Sonic Youth,
Ranaldo is more than sixty years old, but on this record he shows he’s still got some “Teenage Riot” in him.

I admit that I was a little apprehensive when I heard he was teaming up with a Greek art-rock band I’d never heard of. After all, as much as I loved most of Sonic Youth’s impressive three-decade catalog, I tended to avoid most of their forays into artsiness — and much of the post-breakup output of Sonic Youth members falls into that category.

Fortunately, however, Trouble and Desire sounds a lot more like Daydream Nation than Sonic Youth’s journeys into artistic pretentiousness like Koncertas Stan Brakhage prisiminimui.

You can hear echoes of the Sonic Youth spirit in “The Magic Fruit of Strangeness,” the first real song on the album. It’s a hard-driving, minor-key rocker with a little bolero in its urgent rhythm. “Μελανιά” (which in English means “bruise”) reminds me a lot of the bass-heavy verses in Nirvana’s version of “Love Buzz.”

Meanwhile, the pounding “Acid Books,” featuring the women of The Callas providing shout-along vocals in the choruses, is some of the wildest rock ’n’ roll you’ll hear all year. I don’t know what they’re shouting, but I’m not about to argue about it.

Here are songs from each of these albums. First Spencer:


Now Mudhoney


Now, The Callas with Ranaldo

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: You Think Rock's Dead? Listen to These New Albums

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Nov. 23, 2018

Recently, a music critic and Facebook friend of mine posted something stupid. No, he wasn’t agreeing with President Trump that the solution to forest fires was better raking. “Rock is dead. Who killed it?” he asked, then listed a few suspects, mainly bands he doesn’t care for.

My first reaction: “Oh no, not again.” The whole “rock is dead” debate has popped up again and again throughout the years, ever since the days when Elvis enlisted in the Army, and Buddy, Bopper, and Ritchie fell from the sky. Then there was wimp warrior Don McLean (whom Rolling Stone once dubbed “Nixon’s Dylan”) whimpering about “the day the music died.” Then there was the rise of disco — then hip-hop, then boy bands, then electronica. Then the demise of decent commercial radio, the birth of smartphones and streaming, then — who knows — some impending Bobby Goldsboro revival?

Rock is dead? Not on my watch.

Maybe you do need a metaphorical rake to get rid of some of the rotting foliage on the proverbial floor. But I’m firmly in the Neil Young camp here: “Hey hey. My my/Rock ’n’ roll can never die ...”

But, one might argue, today’s youth care a lot more about dumbed-down pop dreck and other non-rock sounds than actual rock ’n’ roll. Can’t deny that. But I’ll always remember the words of this crusty old guy who worked in The New Mexican’s backshop years ago talking about our beloved wild and primitive sounds: “This stuff is better when it’s coming from the underground.”

And in support of that contention, I offer two recent hard-charging, rocking guitar-centric albums with strong roots in the blues and creative recycling, both of which I’ve been loving a lot lately.

Black Joe Lewis in Santa Fe, Oct. 2012

* The Difference Between Me & You by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. Longtime fans of young Black Joe should immediately realize that this record, released in September, is a back-to-basics move for this Austin band.

It’s true: The Honeybears still have their excellent funky horn section, and a handful of songs here are closer to sweet soul ballads than rump-rousing rock.

And at least one track, the tasty “Suit or Soul?,” sounds so much like some long-lost blaxploitation soundtrack, I wouldn’t be surprised if it showed up on some episode of The Deuce. But the overall sound of Difference is raw and rowdy, with roots stretching back to Bo Diddley and Howlin’ Wolf.

The first song, a mid-tempo gem called “Nothing but a Cliché,” starts off with a guitar lick that evokes memories of classic Muscle Shoals soul. Wilson Pickett should return from the dead to cover this one.

Then there are tunes like “She Came Onto Me,” which has menacing echoes of ascended Fat Possum masters like R.L. Burnside, T-Model Ford, and Junior Kimbrough; “Hemmin’ & Hawin’,” which owes its lead hook to ZZ Top; and “Girls on Bikes,” which justifies the Diddley comparison above.

And in the category of strange cover songs that are better than the originals, Lewis and band do a version of Wilco’s “Handshake Drugs.” Wilco’s original, on the album A Ghost Is Born, is a lilting, pleasant little tune built around acoustic guitar and piano, colored by psychedelic electro-squiggles. Black Joe’s version is a ferocious ride into paranoia and insanity.

Lewis, by the way, is the second African-American singer (that I know of) who’s covered a Wilco song. A few years ago J.C. Brooks & The Uptown Sound did a rough-hewn, soulful version of “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.” What can I say? Jeff Tweedy is a soul man.

* See You in Miami by Charlie Pickett. Charlie Pickett & The Eggs was one of the coolest bands of the 1980s who I never heard until 20 years after they’d broken up. It wasn’t until Bloodshot Records released an amazing Pickett compilation called Bar Band Americanus in 2008. That one ended up on my Top 10 list that year.

But those of us who haven’t been able to catch the occasional Pickett gig in Florida have never heard another peep out of Pickett — who jettisoned his musical career to become a lawyer all those years ago — since that greatest non-hits collection 10 years ago.

Until now.

The good news is that See You in Miami picks right up from Pickett’s music when he went off to law school. He still does songs that sound like ZZ Top (them again!) trying to rewrite Exile on Main Street. (Pickett has said in interviews that his favorite period in rock was the Stones’ Mick Taylor era.) R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, who produced an Eggs album in the ’80s, supplies the lead guitar on several songs.

Starting off with “What I Like About Miami,” the joyful ode to his adopted hometown and its beaches, nightlife, empanadas, and Cuban girls, which could be a candidate for some future Miami tourism commercial, the album is full of south Florida references.

But not everything here is pretty girls and Cuban delicacies. “Bullshit Is Goin On” is a slow, menacing, and soulful protest against political skulduggery, while “So Long Johnny,” written by Buck, is a lament for Johnny Salton, a former Eggs guitarist who died of liver cancer in 2010. The “Spirit of Johnny Salton” is credited for “inspiration guitar” on the song.

The longest song here, the near-seven-minute “Four Chambered Heart,” is fortunately one of the strongest on Miami. Inspired by The Dream Syndicate, a neo-psychedelic 1980s band from California, after the four-minute mark it morphs into an instrumental version of Television’s “Marquee Moon.”

Like other Charlie-come-lately fans, I wish I could have seen Pickett & The Eggs tear up the stage in some Florida dive back in the day. But See You in Miami is so strong it’ll make you want to see him this weekend.

Here are some videos:

 Black Joe doing "Culture Vulture"



"Girls on Bikes"



Here's some live Pickett



"Four Chambered Heart"

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Peter Case Comes to Town plus Tony Joe White's Last Album

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Nov. 9 , 2018

Peter Case 2010

The last time I saw Peter Case was in the summer of 2010 at one of Russ Gordon’s free shows at the Pajarito Mountain Ski Area. Case was touring for his album Wig, a punchy, bare-boned, blues-infused record that rocked harder than anything he’d done since his tenure with The Plimsouls in the early ’80s. (And, as far as I’m concerned, it’s still one of my favorite Case solo albums.) At the Los Alamos concert, he was backed only by longtime Santa Fe drummer Baird Banner. It was a terrific show, probably the best live Case set I’ve ever witnessed. Eight years later, I’m still jabbering on about it.

But maybe after next week, I’ll have something else to jabber about. Case is playing a show at Gig Performance Space (1808 Second St.), on Sunday, Nov. 11. (He’s also playing tonight,  Friday, Nov. 9 at The Cooperage in Albuquerque.)

So who is this guy?

Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1954, Case grew up in a nearby small town called Hamburg. Inspired by the record collections of his older sisters, he found himself playing in local rock ’n’ roll bands. His love for folk music took a quantum leap after he found a Mississippi John Hurt record in his local library. Soon he was playing in coffeehouses and on the streets of Buffalo.

By the mid-’70s, he was busking on the streets of the North Beach district of San Francisco. “That period was really the last explosion of the 1960s,” he told me in an interview in 2000. “It was great. Allen Ginsberg might walk up while you’re playing and start making up new verses.”

It was there where Case met songwriter Jack Lee. Leaving the folk scene, the two started the Nerves, one of the first California punk bands. When they split up, Case formed The Plimsouls, a roots-conscious power pop band.

Although The Plimsouls achieved national acclaim — Case’s “A Million Miles Away” became an early-’80s rock classic — Case just wasn’t satisfied. And one night in 1983, on a stage in Lubbock, it hit Case. “I longed to do the type of music I used to do,” he said. Soon after, The Plimsouls broke up and Case, at least in a metaphorical sense, was on his way back to the street corner.

Case at SXSW 1996

Case’s self-titled 1986 solo debut album and, even more so, its successor, The Man with the Blue Postmodern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist Guitar, were so raw, so connected to musical, literary, and cultural undercurrents that had been repressed during the first half of the ’80s, they were downright jarring.

By the mid-’90s, Case was taking a dive into the deep end of folk music, signing to the venerated folkie label, Vanguard Records, which released Peter Case Sings Like Hell in 1993. It consisted of traditional roots songs on which he cut his proverbial teeth. Then came a string of strong records.

Case’s latest, On the Way Downtown, consists of live radio performances on FolkScene, a syndicated radio show from KPFK in Los Angeles. He played two performances there during his Vanguard years — one in 1998, the other in 2000.

The album features many of his best songs, including “Blue Distance,” “Icewater,” “Honey Child,” “Beyond the Blues,” “Still Playin’,” and the quirky “Coulda Shoulda Woulda,” which contains the immortal lyrics, “Coulda shoulda woulda stayed in school/James Brown was right/I was a fool.”

So here’s the deal: The chance to see Peter Case play in an intimate performing space like Gig is an opportunity not to be missed. Tickets to Case’s 7:30 p.m. gig are $22 in advance, $27 the day of show, at holdmyticket.com or 505-886-1251. Doors open at 7 p.m.

Also recommended:

* Bad Mouthin’ by Tony Joe White. I never got to meet Tony Joe White. But just from his deep drawl, his music straight out of the swamp, the hat, the sunglasses — I naturally assumed that the man who brought us “Polk Salad Annie” was the coolest guy alive.

And I still believe that, except for the “alive” part. American music lost a giant on Oct. 24, the day that Tony Joe died at the age of seventy-five. If Tony Joe’s death wasn’t sad enough, the swamp reaper came for him just after he’d released what would be his final album.

Bad Mouthin’ is a collection of Tony Joe literally singing the blues — blues filtered through White’s Louisiana soul and backed only by a drummer and White’s guitar.

There are several standards here that any casual fan of the blues should recognize, including Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man,” Muddy Waters’ “Baby Please Don’t Go,” and John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom” and “Heartbreak Hotel” — made famous by a man called Elvis, who did probably the second-greatest version of “Polk Salad Annie.”

And there are more obscure songs, like Charley Patton’s “Down the Dirt Road Blues” and several Tony Joe originals, including the title tune, “Cool Town Woman,” in which you can hear Hooker’s influence. “I dreamed about you baby and the dog just howled all night” may be the best line in the whole album.

But at the moment, my favorite track here is the longest: A six-minute-plus version of Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “Awful Dreams.” Like Hopkins, Tony Joe does “Awful Dreams” low and slow. But long as it is, the song never drags. “I don’t know if I’m goin’ to heaven or hell,” he moans near the end of the song.

I don’t know, but it seems to me any heaven without Tony Joe White wouldn’t be heaven at all.

It's video time!

Here's Peter Case singing one of my favorites, "Entella Hotel"





Here's a rocker, "New Old Blue Car." (Warning: long introduction. You can skip ahead to about the 1:15 mark)



And here is Tony Joe live ... about a month before he died

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

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

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

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

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

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

They call me MISTER Bobo!

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

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

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

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

Also recommended:

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

But it’s the kind of trash I like.

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

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

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

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

Here are some videos:

Meet Nadine



A Ghost for Halloween



And here's some Trixie ...

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: In praise of Damaged Goods

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Oct. 12, 2018

Which way ya goin', Billy?

Steven John Hamper — or is it William Charlie Hamper? — of Chatham, England, aka Billy Childish, sometimes records under the name of “Wild Billy Chyldish” and other variations of his pseudonym.

He's a painter, a photographer, a poet, and — let’s go full Kristofferson here — a picker and a prophet and a prolific pusher of a do-it-yourself aesthetic of rock ’n’ roll that is informed by punk, garage, blues, folk, and probably other influences that lesser mortals have yet to uncover.

This infamously curmudgeonly contrarian has been responsible for a crazy number of bands since the mid-’70s, including The Pop Rivets, Thee Milkshakes, Thee Mighty Caesars, The Delmonas, Thee Headcoats (which spawned the all-girl group Thee Headcoatees), The Buff Medways, The Chatham Singers, The Musicians of the British Empire, The Spartan Dreggs, and, most recently CTMF — unless he’s started a new group since I began writing this.

As could be expected, this fifty-eight-year-old artist — who says he’s made more than 150 albums, never using a producer — has recorded on a long list of independent record companies including Sub Pop, Sympathy for the Record Industry, K Records, Amphetamine Reptile, Get Hip, and his own Hangman label.

But when I think of Billy Childish, the first label I think of is Damaged Goods, the British label started 30 years ago by a guy called Ian Damaged (who’s married to a lady named Alison Wonderland). And now, that wondrous label is releasing a two-disc, 37-song 30th anniversary compilation called Damaged Goods 1988-2018, described by the DG media machine as “a selection of top tracks, deep cuts, lost gems, and personal favourites.”

No, Damaged Goods and Billy Childish are not synonymous. DG started out as a punk-rock reissue label, and Childish didn’t start recording for them until 1991 (initially with Thee Headcoats, which served as his major music vehicle through most of the ’90s).

And Childish probably isn’t as well known with the general public as the Manic Street Preachers, who went on to major labels after their 1990 debut on Damaged Goods, New Art Riot E.P. (The title track is included here, but, frankly, it’s not all that impressive.)

But Damaged Goods began managing Billy’s back catalog a few years ago, and I’d argue that even though he was a little late to the party, he quickly became the soul of the label. I’m not comparing Ian Damaged to Sam Phillips, but trying to discuss Damaged Goods without Billy Childish is like trying to talk about Sun Records without mentioning Elvis Presley.

Besides, Childish is all over this collection.

He’s responsible for a quarter of the tracks on the first disc. Following a cool blast of punk by a guy called Johnny Moped called “Ain’t No Rock ’n’ Roll Rookie,” Thee Headcoats barge in with a tune of classic Childish self-loathing called “Every Bit of Me.” Childish, who has frequently talked publicly about being molested at the age of nine by a “friend” of his family, roars in this song about that defining incident: “He was forty years old inside my jeans/I was nine years old and feeling unclean/He told it’s a secret to keep to myself/I wanted to hate him but I hated myself/with every bit of me, every bit of me ...”

In another Childish song in this compilation, “I Don’t Like the Man That I Am,” recorded with the folk-punk group The Singing Loins, Childish works a similar introspective theme. Backed only by banjo, acoustic guitar, and bass drum, he sings, “I don’t love you ’cause I don’t like the man I am.”

There’s another autobiographical tune, a fierce rocker called “Archive From 1959” (that’s the year he was born) by The Buff Medways, and some weird noodling from Childish and his crony, fellow artist-poet-singer Sexton Ming called “Sing Shed Sing” (a minute and 16 seconds of spoken word over what sounds like a toy organ and chimes). I also like “Are You a Wally?” by The Spartan Dreggs, though I have no idea what Childish is singing about here. (Could it be that I’m a Wally?)

But the best song on the whole collection is “Punk Rock Enough for Me,” by Childish’s CTMF — and don’t ask me what that alphabet soup of a band name stands for. The song is basically a list of musicians, writers, artists, and some inanimate objects, like a cup of tea — all of which Billy considers to be punk rock — sung over a tune that sounds like a hard-edged version of Them’s “Gloria.”

Among this esteemed company are Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix (in Beatle boots), Bo Diddley, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Billie Holiday, Nikolai Gogol, and Buddy Holly. And I almost did the Freddie when Childish included the ’60s British band Freddie and The Dreamers. This tune is a dandy put-down of punk-rock purity.

Besides Childish himself, Damaged Goods 1988-2018 includes what might be the most popular song by the lovely and talented Headcoatees, the cool, wacky “Davy Crockett,” which has a melody similar to Don and Dewey’s “Farmer John.”

Even better are some lesser-known songs by former Headcoatees who went on to solo careers. There’s the soulful “Love Pours Out of My Heart” by Miss Ludella Black (I can imagine Sally Timms of The Mekons singing this one) and a couple from the ever-delightful Holly Golightly, who sings a bluesy, sultry “Walk a Mile,” as well as a song with The Brokeoffs, “Just Around the Bend.”

Speaking of girl groups, the best non-Childish tracks on the compilation are by female bands or singers. Thee Dagger Debs sound like a tougher Bay City Rollers on the catchy “Ain’t Worth the Time.” The Period Pains do a tune called “Spice Girls (Who Do You Think You Are?),” while Betty and The Werewolves toast a pop star from a previous era, “David Cassidy.” And speaking of werewolves, The Priscillas have a great spook-rock tune called “All My Friends Are Zombies” just in time for Halloween.

With the music biz imploding and transforming at a near-deadly pace, it’s refreshing to see that a determined independent label like Damaged Goods can last three decades. Here’s to 30 more years for this wonderful company.

Let's see some videos:

Here's some live Billy & The Buffs



Thee Headcoatees were the queens of the wild frontier



I don't think I'm a Wally, but how can I be sure?


And as a special treat, here is my Spotify playlist of various Billy Childish bands, offshoots and related artists.

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Blaze on Film

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Sept. ,28 2018

Ben Dickey as Blaze Foley with Alia Shawkat as Sybil Rosen.

One of the sturdiest genres of cinema is the biopic — and a lucrative subgenre of the biopic in the last several decades has been the movie about celebrated popular musicians.

There have been biopics about Hank Williams (I Saw the Light in 2015 and Your Cheatin’ Heart in 1964); Billie Holiday (Lady Sings the Blues, 1972); Sid Vicious (Sid and Nancy, 1986); Buddy Holly (The Buddy Holly Story, 1978); Loretta Lynn (Coal Miner’s Daughter, 1980); NWA (Straight Outta Compton, 2015); Charlie Parker (Bird, 1988); Ritchie Valens (La Bamba, 1987); The Runaways (The Runaways, 2010); Patsy Cline (Sweet Dreams, 1985); Ray Charles (Ray, 2004); Glenn Miller (The Glenn Miller Story, 1954); Bessie Smith (Bessie, 2015); Brian Wilson (Love and Mercy, 2014); Johnny Cash (Walk the Line, 2005); and who knows how many more.

One thing all those films have in common (not counting the fact that most of them had tragic endings) was that every subject was famous in their respective fields, and well-known hit-makers of their times.

That’s not the case with singer-songwriter Michael David Fuller, aka Blaze Foley. But Foley, who died virtually penniless nearly 30 years ago, now has his own biopic. Blaze stars Ben Dickey, an actor who, at least up to now, probably is even less famous than Foley — though hopefully his future is brighter. The film opens in Santa Fe on Friday, Sept. 28.

A man called Blaze

Foley turned out to be a respected songwriter, though much of that respect came years after his death. Like so many rough-hewn geniuses, his life was a mess.

A self-destructive alcoholic, he was essentially homeless during the last months of his life, sleeping under pool tables at bars. He’d patched up old shoes — and basically everything else — with duct tape.

He was shot and killed in a drunken argument in Austin, in 1989, just a few months after his 39th birthday.

Actor-director Ethan Hawke was familiar with Foley’s story. Hawke — who starred in a 2015 biopic about jazz trumpeter Chet Baker — set out to make a film about a musician who never achieved actual fame but was true to his art, though enslaved by his demons.

Instead of thrilling scenes in which the hero fights his way through the star-making machinery, plays that big important concert, or makes that big important record and conquers the world, this movie shows the bumbling Foley screwing up every opportunity ever presented to him.

He unwittingly pushed away the one woman he really loved and hurtled toward his senseless and violent fate. There is no big important concert here — much of the film shows Foley playing somberly at an Austin dive called The Outhouse. He played there the night he was killed, capturing 24 songs in a two-hour gig before a small audience that didn’t seem to care.

No, Foley didn’t set the music industry ablaze. His biggest impact on the business side of music was bankrupting a small record company that gambled on him. One of the movie’s funniest scenes, in a dark sense, was when the three former Texas oilfield roughnecks in charge of Zephyr Records — played by Sam Rockwell, Richard Linklater, and Steve Zahn — confront a drunken Foley over his role in the company’s demise.

While Foley remains unknown to most of civilization, he caught the eyes and ears of many major players in country, alternative-country, and folk circles.

Lucinda Williams eulogized him in her song “Drunken Angel,” as Townes Van Zandt — Foley’s most famous crony — did in “Blaze’s Blues.” John Prine recorded Foley’s song “Clay Pigeons” for his 2005 album Fair & Square. Lyle Lovett sang a Blaze tune called “Election Day.” Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard recorded a 1987 duet of Foley’s greatest song “If I Could Only Fly.” And then Hag re-recorded an even more heart-wrenching cover of that song, making it the title track of his excellent 2000 comeback album.

Much of the story in Blaze is based on Living in the Woods in a Tree, the memoir of Foley’s girlfriend and muse for many of his greatest songs, Sybil Rosen (who is portrayed in the film by Alia Shawkat, best known for her role as Maeby in the TV comedy Arrested Development). Rosen (who has a cameo as her own mother in the movie) co-wrote the screenplay with Hawke.

The movie is framed by a recurring radio interview featuring an unnamed radio host played by Hawke (we only see the back of his head during these scenes) and Van Zandt, who is impressively played by Austin guitar picker Charlie Sexton.

The interviewer isn’t hip to Foley — he calls him “Blaze Folly.” Sexton’s Van Zandt corrects him and fills him in on the life of his friend — some of which, like his infamous twisted tall tale about digging up Foley’s grave to get a pawn ticket out of the dead man’s jacket — are likely more fiction than fact. But I bet Blaze would have gotten a kick out of most of the stories.

Dickey is the real star of the show. He captures Foley’s lumbering presence, his menacing scowl, his mumble, and his vulnerability underneath a thick beard and oversized cowboy hat.

And he even sounds a lot like Foley when he sings. There is an album to go along with the movie, Blaze (Original Cast Recording), featuring Dickey’s versions of Foley tunes. It’s decent, but I suggest that before you buy that, seek out Foley’s original material. Though — as the film makes clear — Foley was a flawed human, his soulful music deserves wider recognition. ◀

Blaze opens at Violet Crown Cinema on Friday, Sept. 28.

Video Time!

This is the official trailer for Blaze.



Here's one of my favorite Blaze tunes



Another Foley classic. John Prine thought so too.



Some hard-hitting political commentary.



And here's Blaze's greatest

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Roger Rides Again!

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Sept. 14, 2018

He enlightened us with the hillbilly zen wisdom of avoiding rollerskating in a buffalo herd. He introduced us to the concept of “maple surple.” He struck an early blow in support of transgender people with his song “My Uncle Used to Love Me But She Died.” Growing up in Oklahoma, Roger Miller was a member of my Holy Okie Boyhood Heroes Trilogy, along with Mickey Mantle and Leroy Gordon Cooper.

“My name is Roger Miller, probably one of the greatest songwriters to ever live … I have written a few songs, probably eight or 900 in my professional career, and we’d like to do about 700 or 750 here tonight.”

That’s a little Miller stage banter that kicks off the new various artists tribute album, King of the Road: A Tribute to Roger Miller. It’s true that most tribute albums suck the warts. But partly because Miller really was one of the greatest songwriters to ever live — and partly because of the caliber of the talent that producer (and Roger’s son) Dean Miller has wrangled for this project — nearly every track is a winner. The songs capture Roger’s wide emotional range: the funny tunes, the cool anthems, the honky-tonk stompers, the surprisingly powerful heartache songs.

Among the various artists here are classic country cronies of Miller’s, a few current commercial country singers, a couple who fall into the basket called “Americana,” and some truly offbeat but enjoyable choices, including Ringo Starr, actor John Goodman, and alt-rock bands like Cake and Toad the Wet Sprocket. And here’s the news: Huey Lewis sings “Chug-a-Lug,” backed by Asleep at the Wheel, and does a credible job.

Roger Miller at home in Tesuque, N.M., 1980
Photo by Pam Mills

There are several artists here I’d never heard of, and I consider some of them to be important discoveries. For instance, the female-fronted band Flatt Lonesome does a stunning bluegrass cover of “When Two Worlds Collide.” And Lily Meola, who I don’t believe had ever graced my eardrums before, sings a soulful take on a little-known Miller song called “I’ll Pick Up My Heart and Go Home.”

I haven’t heard all 900 of Roger’s songs — probably only 650-675 of them — but I’ve heard enough to realize that for every Miller that makes you chuckle, there’s at least one that’ll rip out your heart and stomp on it.

And even though songs like “Dang Me” and “Chug-a-Lug” are what first drew me to Miller, it’s those sad ones that made me stay. Many or most of them were written back when Miller was a sideman for country stars like Ray Price and Minnie Pearl (!) while writing hits (and occasional misses) for the likes of George Jones, Faron Young, and Jim Reeves — long before he broke out as a solo artist.

Besides those tracks by Flatt Lonesome and Lily Meola, my favorite cry-in-your-beer songs on King of the Road include “The Last Word in Lonesome in Me,” a hit in the mid-’60s for Eddie Arnold and sung here by Dolly Parton and Alison Krauss; “You Oughta Be Here With Me,” sung as a medley with “I’ve Been a Long Time Leaving” performed by Krauss with The Cox Family; Loretta Lynn’s heart-stopping version of “Half a Mind”; “World So Full of Love” by Rodney Crowell.

And at this writing, my favorite song on the whole double-album, “Lock, Stock, and Teardrops” sung by Mandy Barnett. It’s slow, a little jazzy, and a lot countrypolitan. Every time I hear it, the song conjures an image of Roger and Patsy Cline smiling down on me from Hillbilly Heaven as Miller reflects, “We could have left it in a lot worse hands.”

There also are many notable upbeat songs on King of the Road. Dean Miller, backed by The McCrary Sisters, turns his dad’s “You Can’t Do Me This Way” into a soulful romp. Kacey Musgraves’ contribution, “Kansas City Star,” concerns a local celebrity who believes that big fish often do better in small ponds, even if you have to decline more money, all expenses paid, and a car.

Dwight Yoakam sings a tune he co-wrote with Miller, “It Only Hurts Me When I Cry.” John Goodman, who appeared in Miller’s 1985 Broadway musical Big River, sings — or, actually rants — the song “Guv’ment,” which he performed in that production.

And now, here’s the conventional part of a tribute album review in which the critic whines, “But they left out one of my favorite songs.”

In this case, it’s “The Moon is High (And So Am I),” which was one of Miller’s funniest from his early solo career, as well as being an early showcase of Miller’s mad genius at wordplay: “Well, the moon is high and so am I, the stars are out and so will I be pretty soon ... But come the dawn and it will dawn on me you’re gone ...”

That omission aside, Miller fans should love this album. It was put together by folks who loved Miller and his musical legacy. But unlike many tribute albums, before King of the Road can get too close to being overly sentimental, an interspersed, irreverent sound clip of Miller onstage brings it back to ground.

Hopefully this album will attract new fans who can enjoy discovering the source material.

O.K., enough of my yack: Here are some videos.

First, a promo video for this album:



Hello Dolly (and Allison too):



Mandy Barnett kills on this great Roger song:


Here's Flatt and Lonesome: