ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: GOODBYE GAS GUZZLER

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
October 6, 2005

A governor should lead by example, Gov. Bill Richardson told reporters Wednesday. Therefore, in this energy-conscious time in which the high cost of gasoline is on the minds of most citizens, Richardson has decided it’s time to trade in his gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle for something more fuel-efficient.

“We’ve been talking about a hybrid vehicle or a natural-gas vehicle,” Richardson said at a news conference when asked about the SUV he uses for state business.

Two weeks ago, this column pointed out that the governor showed up in his huge Lincoln Navigator — which gets about 13 mpg — for a press conference to talk about the country’s over-dependence on gas and oil.

Richardson’s decision to trade in his Lincoln comes a couple of months after U.S. Rep. Tom Udall bought a Toyota Prius to use in his travels around his northern New Mexico Congressional District.

“He seems to like it a lot,” Udall spokesman Glen Loveland said Wednesday. “It saves a lot on gasoline costs.” The gas-electric hybrid gets 60 mpg in the city, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

“The Prius is for use in New Mexico,” Loveland said. In Washington, D.C. Udall usually walks from his home to the Capitol, Loveland said.

Richardson, however, said he probably won’t buy a Prius. “I’ll stick with American companies,” Richardson said. A spokesman later told the Associated Press that Ricahrdson is considering a Ford Escape, a hybrid SUV that gets about 36 miles per gallon.

Richardson said that state police, who are charged with protecting the governor, will have a say in what type of vehicle he eventually buys. “Security is a concern,” he said.

Beam me up: Don’t call her “Gail Beam” any more. The nine-year state House member announced Wednesday that she has legally changed her name to the one she was given at birth: Gail Chasey. The next part of her name will remain “D-Albuquerque.”

Chasey, a member of the House Judiciary Committee said the fact that she just started law school at the University of New Mexico had something to do with changing her name.

“This is a time of new beginnings for me,” she said in an e-mail “Going to law school has been a longtime goal of mine. I also feel that the time is right for me to reclaim my birth name, Chasey. Making both changes now seemed like an appropriate synergy in my life.”

She said her name changes honors her mother, who worked for many years at UNM, and her father, an Air Force B-29 pilot in World War II, who died earlier this year.
Chasey is married to former state Attorney General David Norvell.

Gavel me down: When Lt. Gov. Diane Denish calls the state Senate to order for the special session today, she will have one less gavel to chose from which to chose for the task.

Denish gave one of her four gavels to Sonya Carrasco-Trujillo, her former deputy chief of staff who recently became acting Santa Fe municipal judge while the state Judicial Standards Commission investigates suspended Judge Fran Gallegos.

Let’s just hope Denish doesn’t need four gavels during the special session.

Remembering the ‘90s gas wars: Last week in this column, Sen. John Grubesic talked about how state lawyers are no match for high-price oil company lawyers — with their “alligator briefcases” and “private jets” — in trying to prove price gouging.

He recalled how as a rookie lawyer for the state Attorney General’s Office was promptly humiliated in court by a small army of Houston lawyers in the early ‘90s.

This was when then-Attorney General Tom Udall was looking into allegations of price fixing by petroleum companies in Santa Fe.

“The industry had strategically filed three separate suits in New Mexico to quash our investigatory subpoenas, and all of them were in oil-and-gas country,” Grubesic said.

Jerry Marshak, an assistant attorney general who was with the office back then, has different memories. The oil companies had filed 35 to 40 cases to stop the attorney general’s subpoenas, Marshak said in an interview last week.

Marshak said he got “roped in” to handle the subpoena cases after Grubesic’s courtroom loss in Carlsbad. Marshak said he convinced the courts to consolidate all the remaining cases, and eventually the courts ruled in his favor.

“The suits and jets lost,” Marshak said.

The battle maybe, but not the war.

While the state got the documents they were seeking, the state never took any legal action concerning gas price fixing.

ODE TO BILLIE JOE

The main thing that struck me about last night's Green Day concert was how much the band has grown in pure showmanship since last time I saw them, 11 years ago. Their set at the 1994 Lollapalooza was just a short 45-minute set, and all I remember really is that Billie Joe flashed his weenie (which for a second or two I thought he was going to do last night) and got some white kid with dreadlocks from the audience -- who Billie Joe joked was "the guy from Counting Crows" -- up on stage to dance around.

Back in 1994 they were a rising band with incredible buzz. When I saw them it was just a few days after their performance at Woodstock '94, where they were the most talked-about band. Dookie was a big hit at the time. But I never figured them for much more than a flash in a pan. In early 2004 that assessment would have been correct. But then came American Idiot. I would have loved to have been in the room with the band when they were informed that this album had become a major hit. It must have been like the scene in This Is Spinal Tap where, after a long, frustrating slide Nigil returns to inform them that the group had a big hit record in Japan.

When I talk about showmanship, I'm not talking about the pyrotechnics (which I thought were over used, though the kids loved them) or the funny hats they wore during "King For a Day." I'm not even talking about the pink Easter Bunny who opened the show by dancing to The Village People's "YMCA." I'm talking about stage presence and the way Billie Joe Armstrong engages the crowd.

They don't seem to have lost that crazy energy of the mid '90s (even though they've added a second guitarist, which means Billie Joe doesn't have to carry that load all the time). But they realize they've come way beyond the old punk rock days of small clubs, tiny crowds and sleeping on floors -- and there's no going back.

Among my favorite moments was a shtick where they get audience members to come up to "form a new band," taking over on drums, bass and guitar. Both the drummer and bassist chosen fit right in barely missing a beat. But the first guitarist, a girl who looked like a high schooler, choked terribly. I felt sorry for the poor kid, as apparently did Billie Joe. When the number was over, he called her back on stage and handed her his guitar again. "You keep this," he said. "No go practice!"

I also liked the fact that they covered The Isley Brothers' "Shout," done as a medley with Ben E. King's "Stand By Me" (which they performed with Billie Joe and other band members lying down.) This number included a horn section, which only played on a few tunes. I actually would have liked to have seen more of these guys. There are very few tunes that don't benefit from a good sax.

I still love their old hit "Basket Case." I probably humiliated my son as I sang along with the chorus "Sometimes I give myself the creeps/Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me ..." (Actually Anton looked like he was in Rock 'n' Roll Heaven throughout the whole show. I decided not to embarrass him by asking "You got anything with Herman's Hermits?" when we hit the T-shirt stand.)

But my favorite song was one of which I don't even know the title. It's a wild stomp that has serious Irish overtones. With the piano player/trumpeter playing accordion It almost sounded like a Pogues tune. (If anyone knows the song I'm talking about, please post it in the comments section.)

My only complaint about the whole night is the damned traffic situation. It took us well over an hour to get from I-25 around the Cesar Chavez exit to the parking lot. I've only been to two previous shows at the Clear Channel-operated Journal Pavilion. Neither the Jackson Browne/Steve Earle/Keb Mo show or last year's Styx concert attracted the huge crowd that went to Green Day last night.

We missed the entire opening act Jimmy Eat World. (But I did get to hear Joe Monahan on the radio talking about the Albuquerque city elections. We pulled into a parking space right after Joe and friends announced the results from the very first ballot box reporting.) Supposedly the new road to Journal Pavilion will be ready late next year.

TUESDAY IS GREEN DAY

I was extremely relieved last month when Gov. Bill Richardson announced the date of the special session and it wasn't on Oct. 4. This is the night of the Green Day show in Albuquerque and months ago I took this day off because my son Anton was not going to miss this concert.

Anton's in junior high now and this will be the first concert that he really wanted to see. The fact that his old man saw Green Day 11 years ago on a drunken trip to Phoenix with his Uncle Boo Boo doesn't even detract from his anticipation -- though he is praying to God that I'm only joking when I tell him I've been practicing all the latest dance steps so I can "groove out" to the music. (He has nothing to fear. I couldn't get ahold of Beatle Bob to give me some lessons.)

Of course I've taken Anton to several music shows that I wanted to see. He got rightly scared a few years ago at a strange experimental music show with J.A. Deanne and Al Faaet where a dancer acted like she was going to impale me with a hat rack. Anton actually liked Junior Brown and The Last Mile Ramblers when we saw them in Cerrillos a few years back. And someday he'll realize how cool it was that I took his picture in the lap of T-Model Ford at the 1999 Thirsty Ear Festival.

Something tells me Green Day will be more fun than the special session. And I bet I know one legislator who agrees. Rep. Dan Foley, R-Roswell might be one of the most conservative members of the House, but he loves his rock 'n' roll. He told me a few days ago that he's going. And he's not even taking his kid -- he just likes Green Day. (I have sources that say Dan does a mean karaoke version of Metallica's "Enter Sand Man" too.)

Speaking of music and the special session, I figured the session will go late Friday, so Laurell Reynolds will be substituting for me on The Santa Fe Opry Friday. (Give to the KSFR fund raiser!!!!)

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, October 2, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
It's Money That I Love by Randy Newman
Money (That's What I Want) by Jerry Lee Lewis
Brother Can You Spare a Dime by Dr. John & Odetta
Money Money Money by ThaMuseMeant
Money Like Water by kevin Coyne
Money is King by Growling Tiger
It's Money That Matters by Randy Newman

Wake Me When September Comes by Green Day
Jackie Dressed in Cobras by The New Pornographers
Your Time Has Come by Audio Slave
Two Headed Dog (Red Temple Prayer) by Roky Erickson
The Nurse by The White Stripes
Underdog by The Dirtbombs
My Baby Loves the Secret Agent by The Detroit Cobras
Dirty Water by The Standells

Didn't Know Much About Education by Otis Taylor
In My Time of Dying by Alvin Youngblood Hart
You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover by Bo Diddley
Keep Mediocrity at Bay by Van Morrison
Have You Ever Had the Blues by Howard Tate
Fef Ka Efe by Fela Kuti

If You Can't Give Me Everything by The Reigning Sound
Leslie Anne Levine by The Decemberists
Hijack by Paul Kanter & The Jefferson Starship
Ashes on the Ground by Yo La Tengo
Row Boys Row by Richard Thompson
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

GUITARS UNDER THE STARS AT VILLANUEVA

It was a night of good food, good music and good company out at the Villanueva home of my friends Steve and Sherry (formerly known as "Steve Scott & Denise DeLeon" of the late lamented radio show The Real Deal on KFUN in Las Vegas, N.M.

Memphis country singer Nancy Apple and Mark Autry -- the inspiration for Nancy's song "My Boyfriend" (which I played on The Santa Fe Opry last night) -- were there, so naturally a campfire guitar pull was on the agenda. (Pictured above are Nancy on harmonica, two Steves, and Mark. Anton is standing in the shadows. Photos by Helen.)

Nancy says she considers her annual trip to New Mexico as work rather than vacation, because she uses the time to write songs. She wrote four on Saturday and Mark says he likes three of them. I sure liked the ones she played for us last night.

She's got a new duet album with Rob McNurlin coming out pretty soon. Hopefully I'll be playing it real soon on The Opry. Nancy and Rob will be touring soon and a Santa Fe gig is a possibility.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, September 30, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Four Leaf Clover by The Old 97s
The Dishwasher's Dream by Marah
Endless War by Son Volt
I Want to Live and Love Always by Junior Brown
The Meanest Jukebox in Town by Alvin Youngblood Hart
Me and My Uncle by The Grateful Dead
Drinkin' & Cheatin' & Death by The Waco Brothers
My Own Kind of Hat by Rosie Flores

My Boyfriend by Nancy Apple
Shopping For Dresses by Steve Young
Third Rate Romance by Russell Smith
Rain Keeps A-Fallin' by Josh Lederman y Los Diablos
Goin' Up to 'Burque by Bayou Seco
Funky Butt by Mark Weber
Down in The Flood by Bob Dylan
Satisfied Mind by Jonathan Richman

Boozoo That's Who by NRBQ
Oh Black Girl by Boozoo Chavis
My Toot Toot by Fats Domino & Doug Kershaw
Half a Boy and Half a Man by Queen Ida
Malinda by BeauSoleil
Saturday Night Special by Lesa Cormier & The Sundown Playboys
Tear-Stained Letter by Jo-El Sonier
The Whole Thing Stinks by Rico Bell & The Snake Handlers
Jole Blon by Vin Bruce

I Still Believe That You're Gone by Willie Nelson
Say Goodbye by Eleni Mandell
Gabriel's Call by Hazel & Alice
Heaven by Joe West
Shelter From the Storm by Rodney Crowell with Emmylou Harris
Until the Day I Die by Steve Earle
In My Hour of Darkness by Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

PAOLO SHOW CANCELLED

The Hurricane Katrina benefit concert with Los Mocosos I posted about yesterday has been cancelled --ironically due to weather.

New Mexico Music Commission director Nancy Laughlin said Friday because of this week’s rains, the ground around Paolo Soleri was so muddy trucks couldn’t get in to unload equipment.

The Music Commission has another hurricane relief benefit featuring New Mexico performers scheduled for Oct. 7 at Albuquerque’s Kimo Theater.

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: OTIS & ALVIN

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
September 30, 2005

Otis Taylor has to be the most eccentric blues stylist working today. His new album Below the Fold, is a sonic wonder and — par for the course for Taylor — an intense listen.

You know you’re going to be in for a ride in the opening stains of the first song, “Feel Like Lightning.” A plunking banjo is joined by a screaming guitar, a crazed fiddle drums and bass, as Otis shouts “Oh Yeah!” It’s a joyful one-chord acoustic cacophony -- and there’s a cello in there too.

And to illustrate Taylor’s bizarre sense of arrangements, the song “Boy Plays Mandolin” indeed features Taylor picking that instrument. But when he sings, “When I was a boy, I played, I played the mandolin …” he’s answered by Ron Miles’ cool trumpet.

And while Greg Anton’s martial drumming on “Right Side of Heaven” suggests an Otha Turner-like fife and drum number, there’s no fife to be found. Just a dangerous showdown between Miles’ trumpet and Taylor’s harmonica.

Speaking of drums, this is the first time Taylor has employed them since reviving his music career in the late ‘90s. Anton only appears on about half the songs on Below the Fold, but the addition is welcome. Drums certainly don’t make this music sound conventional.

Taylor’s songs are portraits drawn from historical injustices -- often little-known stories -- and shadowy corners of the singer’s personal history.

“Your Children Sleep Good Tonight” is about the 1914 Ludlow Massacre in which Colorado National Guard troops shot at and set fire to a tent community of striking miners, killing 11 children northwest of Trinidad. None of the Guard members were ever prosecuted. “Hey hey, Mr. Rockefeller, I know your children sleeps good tonight,” Taylor taunts. (The Rockefeller Family controlled Colorado Fuel & Iron, the major coal operator in the region.)

“Government Lied” tells the story of German soldiers in World War II shooting American soldiers. According to Taylor’s liner notes, “At the end of the war, the responsible Germans were hanged for killing the white soldiers, but the U.S. government said that the black soldiers were missing to they wouldn’t have to account for them.”

Taylor has to write the darkest “Mama” songs in all of popular music. His last record had a ditty called “Mama’s Selling Heroin.” On this CD there’s “Mama’s Got a Friend,” an autobiographical story of a boy with two mommies. He never says exactly how he feels about the situation, but the tension of music -- the repeated minor-key acoustic guitar riff, droning cello, edgy fiddle, sinister trumpet -- paints the emotional landscape as “Every time I go to school, people ask me about my sister,” Taylor moans.

Below the Fold is a powerful testament to Taylor’s strange vision of the blues. It’s an album that somehow manages to be jolting as well as hypnotic.

Also Recommended:

*Motivational Speaker by Alvin Youngblood Hart. If Otis Taylor is blues’ great eccentric, Hart is the great eclectic.

His musical interests cover a wide field of musical styles that touch on the blues. Following his 2002 effort Down in the Alley — which was basically an acoustic collection of songs by ascended masters like Charlie Patton. Skip James and Sleepy John Estes — on his latest CD the gruff-voiced Hart returns to his high-voltage electric — and far more varied — sound.

There’s a couple of tunes here that are juiced-up, fiery versions of tunes Hart had previously recorded in acoustic versions -- “Big Mama’s Door” (subtitled “Might Return” in this version) and “How Long Before I Change My Clothes.” Blues purists probably prefer the original versions, but I bet the electric versions here would make Howlin’ Wolf smile.

On several cuts on Motivational Speaker, Hart tips his hat to the psychedelic blues of Cream and Jimi Hendrix.

There’s “Stomp Dance,” which starts out with what sounds like tribal drums, soon joined by a fuzzy bass before building up to a “Crosstown Traffic” frenzy and “Shoot Me a Grin,” which sounds like an invocation to prehistoric guitar gods.

“The Worm,” (written by Paul Rodgers in his days with Free), is slow and heavy with a hint of wah-wah in the guitar. Meanwhile the six-minute “Shootout on I-55” is a frantic jam.

Hart tries straight-ahead soul -- complete with a rag-tag horn section and a female backup singer (Susan Marshall) -- with his cover of Otis Redding’s “Nobody’s Fault But Mine”

And he’s no stranger to country music. One of the greatest delights on his 1998 album Territory was a lap steel-heavy tune called “Tallacatcha,” which, though written by Hart himself, sounded like a lost treasure from the Hank Williams song book.

On Motivational Speaker Hart goes hardcore honky tonk on a Johnny Paycheck stomper called “The Meanest Jukebox in Town,” then shows his latent cosmic cowboy tendencies on a Haight Ashbury-era Doug Sahm song, “Lawd I’m Just a Country Boy in This Great Big Freaky City.” (Hart has included this one in his live repertoire for years.)

But perhaps the strongest number here is a traditional tune called “In My Time of Dying.” Hart plays it slow with dreamy guitars -- including an inspiring slide played by Audley Freed.

THE RICHARDSON BOOK: CHAPTER 2

Some of my sneak preview book review of Bill Richardson's upcoming autobiography Between Worlds got cut, I presume for space. (Here's what was published in The New Mexican Sunday.)

There were several interesting items about Richardson’s childhood and early adulthood in Between Worlds. I thought I might put the cutting-room-floor stuff in my column yesterday, but there wasn't space.

So here's some of the other parts of the book I quoted from:

* Richardson talks about his childhood in Mexico city, where he was His father — a Republican who was a friend of President Eisenhower — was very demanding and stingy with compliments — traits Richardson admits he picked up. “I admired my father enormously as I grew up, and loved him too. I only wish I’d have told him so, just once.”

* Richardson’s father made sure both his children were born on U.S. soil so there would be no doubt about their citizenship. The Richardson had been born aboard a ship.

* Moving from Mexico to Massachusetts for prep school, Richardson felt like an outsider. “Here I was, not quite thirteen, the dark-skinned boy from Mexico among a bunch of fair-skinned kids from cities like New York and Boston and Chicago and their posh suburbs. A few of the kids called me Pancho, but I didn’t take as a slur as much as a recognition of the obvious: I wasn’t one of them.” Richardson goes on to say that it wasn’t until he proved himself on the baseball field that he gained acceptance at the school.

* Richardson’s first election was president of the Delta Tau Delta at Tufts University. But there was a serious move to throw him out of office after he clamped down on marijuana use at the frat house. Richardson’s book repeats his long-standing statement that he’s never tried marijuana.

Remember, folks, as the governor's office reminded me this week, all of this is from an advance copy and is subject to change before the November publication.

KATRINA BENEFIT AT PAOLO

The state Music Commission is among the sponsors for a benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina victims scheduled Saturday at Paolo Soleri Amphitheater.


The concert will feature Los Mocosos, a San Francisco-based Latin-rock band, plus my buddies Bayou Seco and The Georgie Angel Blues Band. Also playing are Chris Dracup, Hillary Smith, Native Spirit, Jimmy Stadler, Teri Lynn Browning, Mosaic Dance Company, Moving People Dance Company, Wise Fool Circus performers, Paz and Luke Reed & Western Civilization.

Tickets are $20. Gates open at 3 p.m. All proceeds will go to the Salvation Army’s hurricane relief effort.

The Music Commission has another hurricane relief benefit scheduled for Oct. 7 at Albuquerque’s Kimo Theater.

And hey, the Music Commission has it's Web site up. Check it out. There's even a page for Commissioner Tony Orlando.