Now in Living Color, The Big Enchilada

The world is a carousel of color, wonderful, wonderful color ... and it's a rainbow of sound right here on The Big Enchilada. Sit back and absorb them all.

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Here's the playlist:

(Background Music: Colors by Pharoah Sanders)
Ceased Colors by Yuppies Indeed
The Cat's Meow by The Darts
Why Do You Hate Me by Pussycat & The Dirty Johnsons
Waiting for Alberto by The Monochrome Set 
Little Mama by Suicide Generation
Thank You, Mr. K by Ty Segall
(Background Music: Without Warning by Vinnie Santino)

Colors by The Minutemen
What a Man Can Do by Louie Louie
Incubus by The Howlin' Max Messer Show
The Ladder by Travel in Space
This Situation by Lucy & The Rats
Changing the Colors of Life by Los Chijuas
(Background Music: Colors for Susan by Country Joe & The Fish)

Colors of Night by Peter Case
The Curse by Chivalrous Amoekons
Where Were You by The Mekons
You in Color by The Black Angels
(Background Music: Colour My World by The Edvard Munch Junior High School Choir)

Play it below:

THROWBACK THURSDAY: 89 Years of Threepenny Opera

On this night in 1928, The Threepenny Opera by composer Kurt Weill and playwright Bertolt Brecht opened in Berlin's Theater am Schiffbauerdamm.

According to a website dedicated to the work by the Kurt Weill Foundation,  the show "transformed saccharine, old-fashioned opera and operetta forms, incorporating a sharp political perspective and the sound of 1920s Berlin dance bands and cabaret. Weill's acid harmonies and Brecht's biting texts created a revolutionary new musical theater ..."

As Brecht said in  1956:

When The Threepenny Opera was originally staged in Germany in 1928 it had strong political and aesthetic impact. Among its successful results were: 1. The fact that young proletarians suddenly came to the theatre, in some cases for the first time, and then quite often came back. 2. The fact that the top stratum of the bourgeoisie was made to laugh at its own absurdity. Having once laughed at certain attitudes, it would never again be possible for these particular representatives of the bourgeoisie to adopt them. 

Another thing The Threepenny Opera had going for it: a bunch of great song that still resonate today.

Here are a few of those performed by some folks who weren't around for the original show.

Let's start with Nina Simone performing a song called "Pirate Jenny." It's about a cleaning lady who has some pretty intense revenge fanatasies.



Tom Waits' music has obviously been influenced by Brecht and Weill. He actually covered a Threepenny tune, "What Keeps Mankind Alive."



Of course the most popular song from the show is "Mack the Knife." It's been covered by many of the greats of American music. And also by Dee Snider. But seriously, I get a kick out this version. (And that's Lee Rocker of The Stray Cats on standup bass!)



Indeed, "Mack" is such a big one, it deserves a double shot. Here is The Doors doing it to introduce another  Brecht -Weill song, "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)"

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Another Birthday for R. Crumb!

Once again it's birthday time for America's greatest cartoonist Robert Crumb. The old boy turns 74 today.

As most of you know, in addition to his talents as a visual artist, Crumb also is a musician. His main love is old 1920s-30s jazz and blues.

With his string band The Cheap Suit Serenaders, which first came together in San Francisco in the late '60s, Crumb captured the crazy energy of those old sounds -- which also informed his vision behind his best cartoons.

So happy birthday one more time, Mr. Crumb and many more.

Here are a bunch of his songs on YouTube.

This one is called "I Had But 50 Cents."



Regular readers know I love the following song, "I'll See You in My Dreams" (See HERE and HERE.) Crumb and the boys do it justice.

.

This is about a girl who lives down by the firehouse.



This is a crazy little instrumental called "The Cuckoo Waltz." Enjoy the visuals.



This one is relatively recent (2013). Instead of The Cheap Suit Serenaders, this is The East River String Band,



For more Crumb music check out my 2015 birthday salute and well as Songs That Crumb Taught Us from last year,

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, August 27, 2017
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist :

OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Saboteur Blues by Gogol Bordello
The Static God by Thee Oh Sees
The Ladder by Travel in Space
Dancing Fool by Butthole Surfers
The Future is Now (and it Stinks) by J.J. & The Real Jerks
Shiver by King Salami & The Cumberland 3
These Tears by The Howlin' Max Messer Show
Today I Learned to Drink by Dengue Fever

Freedom by Ty Segall
Little Mama by Suicide Generation
She Doesn't Laugh at My Jokes by Jonathan Richman
Eye by Audio Kings of the Third World
Lately by Left Lane Cruiser
Midnight Jungle by O Lendario Chucrobillyman
A Dirtier Job by The Blues Against Youth
Mon Nom by The Yawpers
Cranked Up Real High by The Grannies
Volare by The Drifting Mines
Triggs Beach by Molting Vultures

Go-Go Girls by Sam the Sham & The Pharoahs
Trippin' by The Ghost Wolves
Medicine by Black Angels
One Day I Will Kill You by Deadbolt
Puddin' Truck by NRBQ
Violence by Nots
Bitch Slap Attack by Lovestruck
No Cops by The Night Beats
Hooky Wooky by Lou Reed

Candlelight by Mystery Lights
Love Your Money by Lolita #18
Squatting in Heaven by Black Lips
Frankie Baby by Mojo JuJu
Fear and Beer by The Mekons
Motivation by Benjamin Booker
Love Train by The Holmes Brothers
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, August 25, 2017
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist :

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens
Lucifer and the Fallen Angels by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Amos Moses by Jerry Reed
Her Hair is a Mess by Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys
Genitalia of a Fool by Cornell Hurd featuring Justin Trevino
Write Your Own Songs by Dale Watson & Ray Benson
I Can Get Over You by Miss Leslie
Til the Well Runs Dry by Lara Hope & The Ark-Tones
George's Playhouse Boogie by Maddox Brothers & Rose
Blind Man's Penis by John Trubee (Ramsey Kearney vocals)

Florida by The War and Treaty
Smilin' Ed by The Imperial Rooster
Since She Started to Ride by Jonathan Richman
Highway Patrol by Junior Brown
So Many Curves by Jonny Barber & The Rhythm Razors
Johnny Law by Wayne Hancock
They Call Me Country by DM Bob & The Deficits
You're Gettin' a Good Girl by Caolina Cotton
Walkin' After Midnight by Cyndi Lauper

Henry, O My Henry by Hillstomp
Fun All Night by Banditos
Everyone is Guilty #2 by  Slim Cessna's Auto Club
Drunk on Jesus by Reverend Deadeye
Ghost of Th' Rails by The Goddamn Gallows
God's Mercy by The Yawpers
Botched Execution by Shovels and Ropes
St. Louis Blues by Pokey LaFarge

Drinkin; Thing by Gary Stewart
Take Me by Jesse Dayton & Brennan Leigh
Golden Days by Boris McCutcheon
Days of 49 by Steve Young
Beaten and Broken by Mini Mekons & Robbie Fulks
Desert by The Whiskey Charmers
Same God by The Calamity Cubes
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets


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Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Do the Chairs in Your Parlor Seem Empty and Bare?

OK, I realize that just a week ago Throwback Thursday featured a bunch of my favorite Elvis Presley songs to mark the 40th anniversary of his death.

But this week we're taking a slightly deeper dive into another Elvis song, "Are You Lonesome Tonight."

Basically this is a song about a guy who misses his woman so much he's fantasizing that she's so miserable without him, she'll gladly take him back on the strength of a pretty melody.

And he may be projecting a little mental instability on her:

Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare? 
Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?

As I sometimes do with songs I love, a wrote another verse to "Are You Lonesome Tonight" for my own amusement, building on that theme of insanity:

Do the shadows in your hall seem to whisper my name?
Do you pound on the walls seeking someone to blame?

Fortunately for you, gentle readers, I've never recorded that, though I did perform an a Capella version last week at Whoo's Donuts.

Be that as it may, "Are You Lonesome Tonight," unlike many of Elvis' hits of that era, was already decades old when he recorded it.

It was written in 1926 (some sources say 1927) by the team of  Roy Turk (lyrics) & Lou Handman (melody).

Turk (1892-1934) also wrote the lyrics to "Walkin' My Baby Back Home," (recorded by Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and a jillion others) as well as the jazz standard "Mean to Me," (Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan) and Bing Crosby's "Where the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day."

By 1927 several artists of the day had recorded "Are You Lonesome Tonight." You'll notice in the early version, the song that we know, as sung by Elvis, is just the chorus of the song. The verses (the first one begins "Tonight I'm downheated / For though we have parted /I'll love you and I always will") have been forgotten through the years.

Here's the first recording of the song by crooner Charles Hart:



Here's a female singer, Vaughn De Leath, with another 1927 version.



I never realized until researching this that The Carter Family did a version in 1936 with a different melody.



Al Jolson recorded first version I could find to include the "world is a stage" spoken bridge. This is from 1950, just a decade before Elvis recorded it. (Despite the photo in the video, I don't believe Jolie did this one in blackface.)



Let's fast forward through a few decades. This is from the '90s but I bet Tiny Tim loved this song even before Elvis did. (Song doesn't start until after the 4 minute mark.)



Finally, here's Elvis.





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

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Truly Trubee

John Trubee, God knows how many years ago.

This is as good of a Wacky Wednesday as any to celebrate the music of one of my offbeat heros, John Trubee.

He was born in Rapid City, South Dakota about 60 years ago. Raised in New Jersey, Trubee has lived for at least a couple of decades in California. He's a one-of a kind musician / songwriter / prankster.

Usually backed by a revolving-door group called The Ugly Janitors of America, Trubee plays wild funk, skewed pop, crazy noise  -- and sometimes even pretty acoustic music.

As writer Charlie Swanson wrote in a 2015 feature in Bohemian.com:

If Trubee had become a filmmaker, he might draw a comparison to horror director and American Movie documentary subject Mark Borchardt. Had he taken the author's route, he might be another Charles Bukowski. As it is, Trubee is a music man, and his dark, profane and subversively hilarious songs have offended the conservative and mystified even the most progressive listeners for 30 years.

Trubee described his approach to his music in the notes for Forgotten Afternoon, a 2015 acoustic album he recorded with singer Laurie Amat:

Once I record my songs, I no longer hear them in my head, and new songs supersede them to continue to drive me crazy. I strongly regret not possessing the time and resources to more frequently record my multitude of song ideas. This is the terrible struggle of my life--somehow getting all this music out of my head before I am dead while I am continually enervated and depleted from my full-time workaday job routine

Chances are you've never heard of Trubee. He's not the kind of guy who naturally cozies up with the music industry. I don't think he'd compromise his artistic principles if you stuck a gun to his head.

But enough of my blather. Let's get to the assortment of Trubee tunes I've assembled below. If you like what you hear check out Trubee's Bandcamp page and buy some of his work.

Let's start out with a funky one, "Cram The Plastic Down My Throat" in which Trubee reveals that "The CIA invented LSD to blow out the brains of idiots like you ... Goddam the Trilateral Commission, goddamn the Russians, goddamn the CIA ... They want to kill us .."



Here's a live performance of a song called "You Idiot I Don't Believe You"



On this one, Trubee observes that "Many Whores Copulate for Money"



Here's a tender little ditty called "Field of Corpses."




Besides music, Trubee also does surreal phone pranks



Finally, here's one you've heard many times on The Santa Fe Opry. I'm pretty sure there is a federal statute requiring anything published about John Trubee has to include "Blind Man's Penis." This is not quite a hit, but definitely his best known song. It's a song poem. which means Trubee wrote the lyrics and paid some fee for a company to write the melody and record it. The singer is Ramsey Kearney, a monster of song poem vocals.