TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, April 6, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Now Simulcasting 90.7 FM, and our new, stronger signal, 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

Support the KSFR Fundraiser. Call and pledge, 505-428-1393

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
The Money Will Roll Right In by Mudhoney
Money (That's What I Want) by Junior Walker & The All Stars
No Money No Honey by Beck
Rainbow Jackson by Bayou City Beach Party
Al Capone by Salvajes
Jesus Christ Twist by Reverend Beat-Man
It's Not Fun Until They See You Cry by The Dirtbombs
I'm Shakin' by The Blasters
Just Wanna Be Your Man by The Aberration

Try Me on For Size by The Electric Prunes
It Was You by Deadbolt
No Blues by The Come n' Go
My Shark by King Automatic
Higgle-Dy-Piggle-Dy by The Monks
My Shiney Hiney by The Fleshtones
Around and Around by The Flamin' Groovies

Take a Stroll Through Your Mind by The Temptations
Puerto Rican Blonde by The Gluey Brothers
World of Freaks by Harry Perry
Don't Step on the Grass Sam by Steppenwolf
I'm in Love With You by Jack Oblivion
Dizzy Miss Lizzy by Larry Williams

White Nerd by Xiu Xiu
Love Song by Pere Ubu
Hi-Tension Line by The Fall
Wiki Wiki by The Beaches
Borneo by Firewater
That's How Much I Need Your Love by Chuck Prophet
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

RICHARDSON EXILED TO ARIZONA

At least according to the Trinidad & Tobago Express:

That power, however, appears at last to be fading. How else to interpret the Clinton campaign's loud denunciations of Arizona Governor Bill Richardson for endorsing Obama, two weeks ago?

I know Trinidad is in Colorado, but where is this Tobago?

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 4, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

Now Simulcasting 90.7 FM, and our new, stronger signal, 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org
Support the KSFR Fundraiser. Call and pledge, 505-428-1393

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
If You've Got the Money (I've Got the Time) by Willie Nelson
Too Sweet to Die by The Waco Brothers
Money Music by Dollar Store
Move it On Over by George Thorogood & The Destoyers
Making Believe by Social Distortion
Wild Places by James Intveld
Satan is Real/ Straight to Hell by Hank Williams III
Where's the Money by Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks

Old Faithful by Bill Hearne's Roadhouse Revue
Walker by The Santa Fe All Stars
Leaving Train by Gillian Welch
Going Nowhere by Jason & The Scorchers
You and Your Crystal Meth by Drive-By Truckers
Oxycontin Blues by Steve Earle
White Trash Wedding by The Dixie Chicks
Poon-Tang by Deke Dickerson with The Treniers

Just Us Kids by James McMurty
Hittin' it Hard by Jim Lauderdale
High Plains Jamboree by Terry Allen
Green Green Grass of Home by Kelly Hogan
The Gallows by Possessed by Paul James
Oh Ms. Bushee by Eric Carlson
Old Joe's Place by The Folksmen

Whispering Pines by Iris DeMent
I Drink by Mary Gauthier
Hesitation Blues by The Flatlanders
I See the Want To in Your Eyes by Gary Stewart
Hard Headed Me by Roger Miller
Million Dollar Funeral by Califone
Red-Winged Blackbird by Kathy Matea
A Satisfied Mind by Porter Wagoner
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots
Radio list

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: XIU XIU 'NUFF

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 18, 2008

Here’s some of the craziest but most enticing music I’ve heard in a long time. Women as Lovers, the new album by northern California avant-garde rockers Xiu Xiu, pushes boundaries I didn’t even know were there. And the band will be pushing them in Santa Fe at a Monday night, April 7, show at the College of Santa Fe.

Xiu Xiu (pronounced “shoe shoe”) might remind listeners of the San Francisco band Deerhoof. The two bands have collaborated in the past, and Deerhoof’s drummer and keyboardist Greg Saunier plays on Women as Lovers. I also detect a certain kinship with another San Francisco experimental rock band, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282. There’s a similarity in some of the batty sounds, although Xiu Xiu’s music lacks the lighthearted, goofball quality of the Thinking Fellers. And then there’s Mr. Bungle, another Bay Area weirdo, kitchen-sink band. Xiu Xiu’s Ches Smith was a member of that group.

Singer Jamie Stewart has one of those morose, sobbing, 4 a.m.-suicide voices that sometimes get on my nerves (he’s been compared with The Cure’s Robert Smith). Stewart’s voice gives a definite gravity to Xiu Xiu’s eccentric, eclectic musical assault, which can include sax, vibraphone, chimes, banjo, flute, harmonium, glockenspiel, bells and whistles, all sorts of electronic gadgetry, and — on their best songs — loud, maniacal drumming.

Xiu Xiu songs have a way of sneaking up on you. The opening tune, “I Do What I Want, When I Want,” has a slow, plodding, ominous beat, punctuated by what sounds like kazoos. Eventually the song drifts into a strange section of whistles and gongs, like an amusement park boat ride drifting into a forbidden area of It’s a Small World, and by the end there’s a wild, jazzy sax (by guest Howard Wiley).

Sometimes the lyrics are as bizarre as the music. “Crush a pastry into your breast ... crush an ashtray into your breast,” Stewart croons on “In Lust You Can Hear the Axe Fall.”

But don’t think they’re not serious. “Black Keyboard” deals with child sexual abuse in a direct and shocking manner. “Why would a mother say such things? Why add tongue to a kiss good night?” Stewart sings over an acoustic guitar.

Xiu Xiu takes a stab at politics with “Guantanamo Canto,” which in spots sounds almost like a Javanese gamelan piece. “My country needs this freedom to contradict your humanness,” Stewart sings. One of the highlights of the album is a cover of David Bowie’s and Queen’s “Under Pressure” that features guest vocals by Swans’ Michael Gira and Wiley’s explosive sax.

Sometimes the slower songs on Women as Lovers get way too shoegazey for my tastes. “Master of the Bump” (“If you say my dancing is effeminate I will never dance again.”) is about a guy whose masculinity is being questioned. I guess the slow, weepy arrangement is supposed to reinforce those questions. And I might have fallen asleep during “Black Keyboard” had that first line, quoted above, not jolted me so. I vastly prefer the full New Year’s Eve-in-the-nuthouse mode, with the vibes clinking, drums crashing, horns blaring, and synths screeching.

Women as Lovers demands repeat listens. You’ll discover new textures and unexplored corridors almost every time you play it.

Xiu Xiu, with opening act Thao Nguyen and the Get Down Stay Down, is scheduled to play at the College of Santa Fe SUB, in St. Michael’s Hall, 1600 St. Michael’s Drive, at 8 p.m. on Monday, April 7. The show is free for CSF students and $8 at the door for the rest of us. Call 473-6217 for information.

Say it ain’t so, Tony!

Here’s some shocking news from state government: Tony Orlando is no longer a New Mexico music commissioner.

During a recent shake-up on the New Mexico Music Commission, Mr. “Knock Three Times” didn’t see the yellow ribbon ’round the ole oak tree, so he stayed on the bus and kept riding. He was one of about a dozen members of the 26-person commission who was replaced at the beginning of the year. Strangely, there was no press release announcing the changes.

Speaking of strange, the appointment of Orlando to the state panel in 2005 was one of the most mysterious appointments of the whole Richardson administration. Orlando doesn’t live in New Mexico. He’s not from New Mexico. He doesn’t play here much, not even the casinos. He’s never recorded any songs by Al Hurricane or Joe West. He hasn’t had a hit in almost 30 years. And, of course, he never attended any commission meetings or did anything to advance New Mexico music as far as anyone could tell.

Still, I’m going to miss the cheap punch lines he often provided me with.

Here’s the good news: the new commissioners include a gaggle of New Mexicans actually involved in music here. Among them are a couple of Santa Fe folk who have done great work with the community in general as well as with musicians — Ana Gallegos y Reinhardt, the force behind Warehouse 21, and David Lescht, who started the Outside In, which has brought good music to nursing homes and hospitals and provided guitar lessons to kids in jail.

One drawback with Gallegos y Reinhardt and Lescht: neither ever hosted a weekly variety show in the ’70s on national TV. But with a little encouragement, I’ll bet they can overcome this handicap.

The Music Commission, with or without Tony, has been busy. It’s responsible for a television show called New Mexico Southwest Sounds that airs on KOAT-TV, Channel 7. (The last one featured Jimmy Stadler, Micky Cruz, Wayne Johnson, and Poor Man’s Ferrari.) You can see videos of past shows HERE

And, according to commissioner George Adelo, commission executive director Nancy Laflin referred the producers of the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men to musician Michael Sanchez, who wrote a mariachi song used in the movie.

The commission has a good Web site too: CLICK HERE.

TODAY'S MUSICAL TIME-WASTER

Here's a mash-up of two artists I love, but don't normally think of in the same sentence: Dolly Parton & Stan Ridgway.