Friday, June 04, 2010

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: RURAL SHADOWS

Josh Peyton continues to preach his rocking, righteous slide-guitar gospel on The Wages, the latest musical sermon by The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band.
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This big damn band is actually a trio from rural Indiana. As locals who saw the group at the Santa Fe Brewing Company early this year know, it’s a family band — or a “fam damily” to play upon a previous album title — featuring The Rev. on vocals and slide; his wife, Breezy, on the rub board; and cousin Aaron Persinger on drums.

Even though they’re a bunch of yam dankies, the Peyton clan could pass for Mississippi Hill Country. Their basic slide/drums/washboard sound has classic Fat Possum written all over it. They play acoustic instruments, but nobody can say they aren’t high-voltage.

The burly, bearded Peyton is proud of his rural heritage. “Born Bred Corn Fed,” the opening song, celebrates a traditional way of life. “Buy a melon from a roadside stand/Honor system, leave a dollar in the can/Somebody dies, you bring their family a pie/Fire Department’s Got a Friday night Fish Fry.”

But The Wages isn’t all about country sunshine and waving fields of grain. Far from it. There’s no honor system in “Lick Creek Road,” in which Peyton sings, “Don’t answer the door without a pistol anymore.” Even more explicit is “In a Holler Over There” — not far from his own home, the singer sees starving children, meth labs, and failing farms.

Indeed, the recession permeates several songs here. “Just Gettin’ By” is one of them. And in “Everything’s Raising” (“but the wages” completes the refrain), Peyton castigates bankers, big corporations, and congressmen.

Yet despite all this seriousness and hard times, The Wages can’t be seen as a downer. There are loads of good times and plain goofiness.

Peyton is a fine storyteller. He proved that on the last album with the hilarious “Your Cousin’s on Cops,” a reportedly true account of watching TV and realizing that the poor, dumb redneck being handcuffed by officers on the television show was a relative.

There’s some similar fun on this album, especially in “Fort Wayne Zoo,” which begins with the line, “My brother stole a chicken from the Fort Wayne Zoo.” You have to wonder what kind of crappy zoo has chickens, but as you contemplate that, Peyton starts singing, “There’s a lot of crazy women living in Fort Wayne.”
Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band
“Two Bottles of Wine” is a 90-mph drunken stomp. Guest accordion player Jason Webley gives the song a Cajun feel. It starts off with someone evoking The Ramones by shouting “1-2-3-4!”

The album ends with “Miss Sarah,” a sweet farewell to a woman who was queen of her own kitchen. “We’ll miss ya, Miss Sarah. Who’ll make the biscuits?” It’s a song you can imagine Doc Watson or Mississippi John Hurt singing, a low-key coda to a wild trip through the boonies.

Also recommended:

* Agri-dustrial by Legendary Shack Shakers. Here’s another band with one foot planted firmly in American roots music and another planted in punk-rock craziness.

“Agri-dustrial” is a pretty apt description e basic Shack Shakers sound. It’s rootsy but with a hard-rocking edge.

The singer and frontman, Col. J.D. Wilkes (I’m not sure which branch of the military he served in), plays a mean harmonica and occasional banjo and Jew’s harp, while co-conspirator Duane Denison, formerly of punk-noise patriarchs The Jesus Lizard, makes some crazy noise on his guitar. The rhythm section is grounded in metal as well as in cowpunk.

Like Rev. Peyton’s album, this new effort by the Shack Shakers takes a look at rural living, though Agri-dustrial deals mainly with the South.
If there’s a concept here, it’s a horror story. That should be obvious by some of the song titles — “Two Tickets to Hell,” “The Hills of Hell,” and so on. And it’s apparent that the title character of “God Fearing Man” has plenty to fear. “The Hills of Hell” is especially unsettling when Wilkes, his voice electronically distorted, reads from Kentucky Book of the Dead, relating stories of crucifixions and bodies stashed in the corpses of horses.

Wilkes sings like a crazed prophet in the ominous “Greasy Creek”: “What was spoken light will be tested at night/Where the White Thing sings, the state bird bites/While you’re diggin’ up tiny extra rows of teeth/Behold the fascist Killmachine.”

The spookiest number is “The Lost Cause,” a jittery waltz featuring what sounds like a player piano from some dusty Old West saloon. Wilkes sings of a battalion of undead Confederate soldiers. But actually it’s not a ghost story; it’s a rebuking of the weird undercurrent of Confederate revisionism and glorification that’s surfaced lately with some Southern politicians.

“A company of skeletons in rags/March home under tattered white flags/Dusty Bibles and deep empty pockets/Dark dreams and deeper eye sockets/We ain’t right in the head and our women lay dead/We’re the losers who chose The Lost Cause.”

That’s what I love about the South.

Monday, May 31, 2010

FROGFEST 5

HUNDRED YEAR FLOOD at FROGFEST 5

It was fun and full of great music. As I Tweeted last night, the Hundred Year Flood "reunion" with Jim & Kendra was even better than I thought it would be. And the big surprise of the day was Anthony Leon & The Chain. Anthony recently moved here from Virginia. He does rockabilly and rocking honky tonk. And does it well.

I'm too fried to write much more. I'll let the photos do the talking. (Find more HERE.)




Anthony Leon & The Chain

P5310292

Stephanie Hatfield with Hundred Year Flood

Joe West with Nathan Moore

Freddy Lopez with The Strange

Sunday, May 30, 2010

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, May 27, 2010
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Rat Race by Bob Marley & The Wailers
Jackeee by Pinata Protest
Midnight Blues by The Detroit Cobras
People Who Died by The Jim Carrol Band
Evil Eye by Dead Moon
I Need Somebody by Manby's Head
Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell by Iggy & The Stooges
Hot Cake by The Fall
Fat Mama by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages

Shake it Wild by King Salami & the Cumberland 3
Babylon, Pa. by Johnny Dowd
Don't Try It by The Devil Dogs
Two Bottles of Wine by The Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band
Dixie Iron Fist by Tha Legendary Shack Shakers
Lipstick Frenzy by LoveStruck
Whatever Happened to My Love by Hipbone Slim & The Knee Tremblers
Fuzz Gun 2001 by Mudhoney

When Universes Collide by Gogol Bordello
Woman in Sin by Fishbowl Ensemble
Demon Stomp by The Things
That's All I Need by Andre Williams
Rosie Jones by Wild Billy Childish & The Musicians Of The British Empire
Stewball by Thee Headcoats
Melvin by Thee Headcoatees
Stuck in Thee Garage by The Dirtbombs
They Threw Me Out of Church by Wesley Willis

Picture in a Frame by Tom Waits
Samisen Boogie Woogie by Umekici
Up in Flames by Koko Taylor

R.I.P. Dennis Hopper
Mysteries of Love by Julee Cruise
Love Letters Straight From Your Heart by Kitty Lester
In Dreams by Roy Orbison
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

AND I STILL CAN SEE BLUE VELVET THROUGH MY TEARS

R.I.P. Dennis Hopper



Friday, May 28, 2010

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, May 27, 2010
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell


101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Rockin' and Knockin' by Gayle Griffith
Dixie Fried by Carl Perkins
Redbuds by The Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band
The Golden Triangle by The Austin Lounge Lizards
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 by Jessie Colter
Goatburger Boogie by Cousin Deems Sanders & His Goatherders with Walt McCoy
Fear Not Gear Rot by Jason & The Scorchers
Blue Moon of Kentucky by Sleepy La Beef
They Say It Is Sinful To Flirt by The Delmore Brothers

Too Many Parties and Too Many Pals by Hank Williams
Done Gone by Ray Condo & His Ricochets
Roamin' Around by The Supersuckers
The Mansion You Stole by Johnny Horton
Stranger in the City by Merle Haggard
Foothill Boogie by Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys
My Dumb Heart by Johnny Dilks
Caleb Meyer by Gillian Welch

FROGFEST SET
Big Frog
Don't Get Weird by Boris & The Saltlicks
Lets Fall In Love Again Tonight Hundred Year Flood
Oklahoma Bound by Joe West
Fish Boy by Stephanie Hatfield & Hot Mess
God Wanted to Be a Man by Goshen
Flying machine by The Strange
Close Up the Honky Tonks by Bill Hearne's Roadhouse Revue
Blue Angel by Hundred Year Flood

My Baby's Gone by Willie Nelson
Play Together Again Again by Buck Owens with Emmylou Harris
This Old Cowboy by Asleep at the Wheel
Aw, The Humanity by Reverend Horton Heat
Are You Washed In the Blood by Red Allen
Moonglow, Lamp Low by Eleni Mandell
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

Thursday, May 27, 2010

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: ANDRE SLOWING DOWN

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
May 28, 2010


Andre Williams is one bad mother (hush yo’ mouth!). And he’s not afraid to tell you so himself.

This underappreciated R & B geezer has been making records since the 1950s — his most famous song being “Shake a Tail Feather” (first recorded in 1963 by a band called The Five Du-Tones, but best known from the cover versions by Ike and Tina Turner and James & Bobby Purify).
ANDRE!
After years of hard drugs and even harder living, Williams began making a comeback in the late ’90s. And as recently as 2008, he showed he could still make a powerful album. Reviewing Can You Deal With It?, which he recorded with a band called The New Orleans Hellhounds, I wrote that Williams “gives dirty old men a good name.”

But on his new album, That’s All I Need, I hate to report that Williams is starting to show his age. It’s not a bad album — there are some pretty cool songs scattered over the 10 tracks, and even the filler isn’t terrible. But the sizzle Williams showed on Can You Deal With It? just isn’t here.

Williams recently published his first book, a collection of short stories called Sweets and Other Stories (Kicks Books, 2009). He reportedly wrote the book during a stay at a rehab center after a drug relapse. So perhaps this album catches him during a reflective period of his life.

That’s All I Need starts off slow and slinky with “My Time Will Come,” which features a snaky guitar lick from Dennis Coffey. It’s an understated tune, stark, but with an under- lying optimism.

The highlights of this record include “Tricks,” which features Williams speaking the lyrics almost like an invocation (“If you want to catch a woman, you use your brain. And I’m a scientist. ... If you want to catch a snake, you use a rabbit. And I’m a jack.”); “When Love Shoots You in the Foot”; and “Too Light to Fight” (Williams might not be that physically fit, but his trigger finger still works, he warns).

Some of the topical songs here are just too predictable. “There Ain’t No Such Thing as Good Dope” is an obligatory anti-drug song, while on “America” Williams assures us that he’s not unpatriotic “just because I sing and dance after midnight, just because I take a drink or two.” Huh?

“Amends,” the final song, features a slow groove and an acoustic guitar. It reminds me a little of Lou Reed’s “Coney Island Baby.”

I’m glad Williams is pulling his life back together. And you can’t begrudge someone in his mid-70s for slowing down. But newcomers to Andre Williams should start with some of the old stuff such as the Rib Tips and Pig Snoots: 1965-1971 compilation, the 2003 album Holland Shuffle!: Live At The World Famous Vera Club (with the Dutch band Green Hornet), or Can You Deal With It?

Recommended:

*Fourteen Blazin’ Bangers!! by King Salami and the Cumberland Three. This is a high-voltage British garage/punk band infused with R & B sensibilities. The group is still basically unknown in this great land of ours — I got this album from a German company, Soundflat, though it’s available on the British Dirty Water label) — but I’ve got the feeling that Salami and the boys will be expanding their empire onto these shores before long.

Blazin’ Bangers is the King’s first full-length album. It has versions of a couple of the group’s previously released singles like “Do the Wurst” and the frantic “Mojo Workout.” One of my favorites is a crazy sped-up Bo Diddley romp called “Ma JuJu Girl.” Also worthy are “I Smell a Rat” and “Chicken Back.”

Salami is apparently fond of faux American-Indian surfy instrumentals in the tradition of The Shadows’ “Apache.” One of his early tracks is called “Uprising.” He uses the same opening war whoop on this album, on the song “Pawnee Stomp.” It’s politically incorrect to be sure, but nonetheless irresistible.

* The Way of the World by Mose Allison. Like Solomon Burke and Bettye Lavette before him, this venerated Mississippi jazz/blues singer gets the full Joe Henry tent on this, his first new studio album in a dozen years or so.

Allison is even older than Andre Williams, but at the age of 82, he’s still in fine form — both on vocals and, as he proves handily on the instrumental “Crush,” on piano. He pokes fun at his advanced age on “My Brain,” based on Willie Dixon’s blues classic “My Babe” (“My brain is always workin’/Long as you keep that coffee perkin’. ... My brain is gettin’ pounded/Pretty soon I’ll be dumbfounded”).

Allison offers a twisted view of religion on “Modest Proposal,” suggesting that God deserves a vacation. If I weren’t already familiar with “I’m Alright,” an old Loudon Wainwright III tune about surviving a bad romance, I could have been convinced that Allison wrote it himself, he does such a great job of making it his own.

Producer Henry is nothing if not tasteful. He provides Allison with a suave, understated little combo — bass, drums, guitars, and sax — just like on Allison’s best recordings, with no attempts to modernize.

The album has a cool little treat, “This New Situation,” a duet between Mose and his daughter Amy Allison, an alternative country singer. It’s short, but indeed it’s sweet.

I never thought I’d be yakking about a great new Mose Allison album in the year 2010. But The Way of the World is a true pleasure.

NEW BIG ENCHILADA! HUMAN/ANIMAL HYBRIDS

THE BIG ENCHILADA


Visionary lawmakers in the great state of Arizona this year passed a law banning the production or even attempted production of human/animal hybrids. This was a courageous move, but was it too little, too late? Musicians for years have been warning us about these monsters. And now The Big Enchilada brings you the real story as told by Mississippi John Hurt, The Cramps, Alex Chilton, Tav Falco, John Schooley, Rex Allen and others. Plus wild bitchen sounds by Andre Williams, Barrence Whitfield & The Savages, Johnny Dowd, Batusis, King Salami, The Dirtbag Surfers and more.



DOWNLOAD | SUBSCRIBE


Here's the play list:

(Background Music: Teen Beast by Los Straitjackets)
Bury You Alive by Batusis
Tricks by Andre Williams
Why Do You Get So High, Shorty? by The Treniers
She's Kind of Evil by Thee Fine Lines

(Background Music: The Beast by Roky Erikson)
Trash Talkin' Woman by The Electric Mess
Stink Bug by The Dirtbag Surfers
Howlin' Wolf by Johnny Dowd

The Human-Animal Hybrid Set

(Background Music: Hornet's Heart by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282)
Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me by Mississippi John Hurt
Tiger Man by John Schooley & His One Man Band
Human Fly by The Cramps
Monkey Man by Baby Huey & The Baby Sitters
Chicken Head Man by T-Model Ford
Loan Shark by Guana Batz
Panther Man by Tav Falco
A Human Coyote Stole My Girl by Rex Allen
(Background Music: Wolfboy by Stephen W. Terrell)

Play it here:


Monday, May 24, 2010

DO THE BATUSI

I meant to include this with my most recent Terrell's Tuneup, in which I reviewed the EP by Batusis.

But what the heck. It's never too late for Jill St. John and Adam West.

Do the Batusi!

Sunday, May 23, 2010

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, May 23, 2010
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

Webcasting!
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
The Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion by The Grateful Dead
Big Blond Baby by King Salami & The Cumberland 3
Let Loose the Kracken by The Bald Guys
Whistle Bait by Barrence Whitfield & the Savages
Doojiman by Iggy & The Stooges
Bad News Travels Fast by The Fuzztones
Swamp Woman by Johnny Dowd
I'll Make You Happy by The Kontikis
Inside the World of The Blues Explosion by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
She Brought Life Back to the Dead by Sonny Boy Williamson
Crazy People by The Boswell Sisters

Pala Tute by Gogol Bordello
Cantina by Pinata Protest
Captain Kelly's Kitchen by The Dropkick Murphys
Time by The Rockin' Guys
Jesus Loves a Jezebel by Goshen
Tobacco Road by The Blues Magoos
I'm Not a Sissy by The Fleshtones

My Time Will Come by Andre Williams
Big Green and Yeller by Seasick Steve
Spinning Ceiling by Mark Sultan
Moody Liz by Captain Beefheart
Jump, Jive & Harmonize by The Plimsouls
Punk Slime by The Black Lips
San Quentin Bait by Charlie "Boogie Woogie" Davis
Little Miss Contrary by Wild Billy Childish & The Musicians Of The British Empire

Dog Leg by Hipbone Slim & The Knee Tremblers
Tripped Out by Pierced Arrows
I Fought the Law by The Clash
Mr. Operator by Thee Vicars
Monkey Trousers by Groovy Uncle
Big Cat Stomp by Batusis
Chestnut Trees & Bumblebees by Satan's Pilgrims
Waves of Fear by Lou Reed
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Friday, May 21, 2010

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, May 21, 2010
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
A Picture From Life's Other Side by Hank Williams
Hey Joe by Carl Smith
Footstompin' Friday Night by The Stumbleweeds
If You Don't Change Your Mind by The Waco Brothers
The Working Man's Friend by The Hickoids
Wrecking Ball by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies
Busy Body Boogie by The Carlisles
Move It by T. Tex Edwards And The Saddletramps
I've Had It by Cornell Hurd

Rita(hhhhhh) by Vincent Craig
Lonesome Road Blues by W. Lee O'Daniel & His Hillbilly Boys
Penny in the Fountain by Halden Wofford & The Hi Beams
Rabbits Don't Ever Get Married by Hank Penny
Highway 54 by Wayne Hancock
Blacktop Scholar by Michael O'Neill
Cocaine by Dick Justice
Stuck On A Hat-Check Girl by Al Duvall

Come On by Hundred Year Flood
Hold On by The Strange
Bella Donna by Goshen
Fort Wayne Zoo by The Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band
Bumper Car by Bob Log III
Voice of the Lobster by Clothesline Revival
The Hills of Hell by Tha Legendary Shack Shakers

Tomorrow by Eric Hisaw
The Road to My Heart by Merle Haggard
Headin' Down the Wrong Highway by Hank Thompson
Second Fiddle to an Old Guitar by Jean Shepard
Third Rate Romance by The Amazing Rhythm Aces
The Green Green Grass of Home by Porter Wagoner
Black Wings by Tom Waits
Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down by Willie Nelson
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, October , 2024 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM, 101.1 FM  Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell E...