Sunday, Nov. 12, 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
Dead Moon Night / Don't Burn the Fires by Dead Moon
Funk 49 by Pere Ubu
Funk #49 by The James Gang
Don't Be Afraid to Pogo by The Gears
Squatting in Heaven by Black Lips
She's Alright by Bo Diddley
It's Still You/Running Out Of Time by Fred & Toody Cole
A Decision is Made by The Yawpers
Then Comes Dudley by he Jesus Lizard
I'll Be Your Johnny on the Spot by Count Vaseline
Crazy to the Bone by Dead Moon
Do You Understand Me by The JuJus
She's Like Heroin to Me by The Gun Club
Lost in Music by The Fall
Pineapple Mama by King Salami & The Cumberland 3
A Message from Firmin Deslodge by Churchwood
I Hate the Blues by Dead Moon
Black Rat by Big Mama Thornton
What is Wrong With Your Mind by Mark "Porkchop" Holder
Hills on Fire by Pierced Arrows
Sin by Lollipop Shoppe
Daddy's in the Shadows by The Rats
Who'll Read the Will by The Weeds
Room 213 by Dead Moon
We Won't Break by Fred & Toody Cole
DeControl by Maiorano & The Black Tales
Here Come the Mushroom People by The Molting Vultures
Mop Mop by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
These Tears by The Howlin' Max Messer Show
Thrift Baby by JJ & The Real Jerks
Fools Gold Rush by Datura
In Oxford Mississippi by Jon Langford & Four Lost Souls
It's OK by Dead Moon CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, Nov. 10, 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
I Fought the Law by The Waco Brothers
Joy by Harry Nilsson
Coulda Shoulda Woulda by Peter Case
Run Mountain by Flathead
Don't Leave Poor Me by Eilen Jewell
Keeper of the Light by Joe West
Put Your Teeth Up on the Window Sill by Southern Culture on the Skids
Banded Clovis by Tyler Childers
New Johnny Get Your Gun by Peter Stampfel
Cocktails by Robbie Fulks
Corporate Man by Honky Tonk Hustlas
Silver City by Ugly Valley Boys
Down to the River by Rosie Flores
Second Fiddle by Rodney Crowell
Nobody to Blame by Chris Stapleton
Oh You Pretty Woman by Willie Nelson & Asleep at the Wheel
Lovesick Blues Boy by Paul Burch
The Losing Kind by The George Jonestown Massacre
Pay Gap by Margo Price
The Morning After by Ashley Monroe
I'm Over You by Tommy Miles & The Milestones
The Trouble With Angels by Bobby Bare
Mother's Chile by The War & Treaty
Yes I Have a Banana by NRBQ
Healin' Slow by Banditos
Love Me by Flat Duo Jets
Town by Dashboard Saviors
Come on Over My House by David Rawlings
Powder Blue by The Cactus Blossoms
House of the White Rose Bouquet by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Hippie Boy by Flying Burrito Brothers CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Like the Santa Fe Opry Facebook page Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican Nov. 10, 2017 Monkeys and clowns. They’ll bounce around. At least that’s what Pere Ubu’s David Thomas tells us on the first track of Ubu’s new album 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo. It must be an important message. In that song, “Monkey Bizness,” he repeats it over and over again, sometimes exclaiming, “Sex clowns! Bounce around!”
Nonsense? Probably.
But it’s inspired nonsense. And most important, it’s rocking nonsense. In fact, 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo, by my estimation, is the most outright rocking studio album Pere Ubu has unleashed in about a decade, maybe longer.
No, the band hasn’t forsaken its heritage of avant-garde, experimental, atmospheric sounds.
But they also haven’t forgotten how to make your feet move and head bang either. As Thomas himself explains in the official press release, “To my way of thinking, the new album is The James Gang teaming up with Tangerine Dream. Or something like that.”
For those who haven’t followed Ubu for all these decades (the 40th anniversary of the group’s first album, The Modern Dance, is coming up next year), this Cleveland band emerged during the punk and New Wave scare of the late ’70s, even though they’d been around several years before they made their first album. But they didn’t sound like your typical punk outfit. Their foundation was clearly garage and surf rock, but with their darkly bizarre lyrics, Thomas’ warbling vocals, and Plan 9 From Outer Space-esque synth noises, Ubu was a unique force.
Despite countless personnel changes, the band has remained true through all these years to its original vision. Thomas is the only original Ubu in the current line-up, though three members — bassist Michele Temple, synth man Robert Wheeler, and drummer Steve Mehlman — have been in the band since the mid-’90s.
Pere Ubu: David Thomas in his Big Sombrero
Photo by K. Boon
After that blast of joy and weirdness that is “Monkey Bizness” comes one that may explain Thomas’ reference to the James Gang.
For you youngsters who might not remember many Nixon-era bands, the James Gang was a popular power trio that was the pre-Eagles launching pad for Joe Walsh. Probably their best-known tune was one called “Funk #49,” which also is the title of one of the songs here.
But even though the opening guitar riff is kind of similar to the James Gang sound in a mutated, otherworldly way, it’s not the same song. I can’t imagine Walsh singing lyrics like “It’s a bird of prey/It hunts for blood/I let it hunt for blood. … It’s not a song you want to sing along to/You don’t want to get these thoughts inside your head.”
Nope, that’s a pure Pere Ubu sentiment.
Thomas has a knack for appropriating titles of old rock, soul, and country songs. Back on Ubu’s second album, Dub Housing, they did a song called “Drinking Wine Spodyody,” which definitely was not the old R&B pounder. On 1991’s Worlds in Collision, they took the great notion to do a song called “Goodnite Irene,” which wasn’t anything like Leadbelly’s tune. They’ve also recorded songs called “Memphis,” “Woolie Bullie,” and “Blue Velvet” that are nothing like the originals. And here, besides “Funk 49,” they borrow a James Brown title, “Cold Sweat.” Ironically — or perhaps not — this song, which ends Missile Silo, is one of the slowest, prettiest ones on the album. It doesn’t sound much like the Godfather of Soul, but it’s got an odd soul of its own.
There are a few slower, less frantic moments on this record.“The Healer” is one. But the better one is the creepy “Walking Again,” which has subtly ominous lyrics like “C’mon, baby, that’s what I say/C’mon, baby, you’re gonna walk this way/We’re gonna see/We’re gonna say what’s on our mind/We’re gonna see/Gonna be a good time.” And that’s followed by the eerie “I Can Still See” (“I can still see/that picture of you and me/It’s carved in my head/with a knife that’s kept in my head”).
But my favorites are the rockers, like the fast-and-furious little number called “Toe to Toe.” Here Thomas not quite sings but shouts, “20 years of a living hell/At the bottom of a missile well/20 years a forgotten son/Staring at the border of the Kingdom Come/20 years toe to toe with Uncle Joe.” This might be some nightmarish remembrance of the Cold War — “Uncle Joe” being Stalin? I dunno.
The whole song lasts less than two minutes, which is the case of a couple of the other coolest rockers on Missile Silo, “Swampland” and “Red Eye Blues (“I’m snowblind in the hollering dark/I’m chasing time and I’m coming apart”). Though these guys aren’t strangers to epic tracks that last five or six minutes, many songs here are on the shorter end of the spectrum. And that serves them well.
I guess my problem is that I’ve let Pere Ubu’s thoughts into my head. I hope they stay around spreading their strange glory and rocking like maniacs for another 40 years.
Here's some videos.
I've always been a sucker for sinister pinball, so I love this one.
Here's another one from 20 Years in a Missile Silo
And just for the heck of it, here's a clip from David Sanborn's Night Music, circa 1989. Here Ubu does "Waiting for Mary" -- with Debbie Harry on backup vocals
On this day in 1975, the final voyage of the freighter called the Edmund Fitzgerald began.
It was a tragic trip in which a terrible storm pounded the Detroit-bound ship loaded with 26,116 long tons of taconite pellets, made of processed iron ore. On Nov. 10 the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, killing its entire crew of 29 men.
Some trivia, courtesy of the Shipwreck Museum in Whitefish Point, Mich.: The doomed ship was named for the president and chairman of the board of Northwestern Mutual, the company that owned it. It was launched June 8, 1958 at River Rouge, Michigan. At 729 feet and 13,632 gross tons the Fitzgerald for more than a decade was the largest ship on the Great Lakes.
But chances are, that's not why you remember it. If you're like most of us, you know it from the hit song by Gordon Lightfoot.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead When the skies of November turn gloomy With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty That good ship and crew was a bone to be chewed When the gales of November came early.
Lightfoot's haunting shanty was a big pop hit in 1976, only months after the actual shipwreck. It's a wonderful example of an instant folk song.
The singer spoke of his song on Reddit a few years ago
Topical songs, you know... are very difficult to come by. Every once in a while. And the Edmund Fitzgerald really seemed to go unnoticed at that time, anything I'd seen in the newspapers or magazines were very short, brief articles, and I felt I would like to expand upon the story of the sinking of the ship itself. And it was quite an undertaking to do that, I went and bought all of the old newspapers, got everything in chronological order, and went ahead and did it because I already had a melody in my mind, and it was from an old Irish dirge that I heard when I was about three and a half years old, I think it was one of the first pieces of music that registered to me as being a piece of music. That's where the melody comes from, from an old Irish folk song.
Lightfoot, while taking a few poetic liberties in the lyrics, tried to stay true to the actual story. But, as he explains in this article, he's updated it through the years as new facts about the wreck became known.
The original lyrics refer to a hatchway caving in shortly before the disaster. But in 2010, an investigation for the National Geographic Channel's TV show Dive Detectives suggested three rogue waves broke the ship in half. Lightfoot soon revised the lyric from: "At 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in, he said, 'Fellas, it's been good to know ya'" To "At 7 p.m., it grew dark, it was then he said, 'Fellas it's been good to know ya."" That brought relief to the mother and daughter of crew members in charge of manning the hatches. "With the mystery resolved, I made the women very happy. The new line takes the onus off the deckhands," Lightfoot told MLive and the Saginaw News ...
Here's Lightfoot performing the song live in Reno 2000
The best cover of Lightfoot's song was by another Canadian named Gordon -- Gord Downie, who sang it with his band, The Tragically Hip. (Downie died just last month at the of 53.)
Finally, here's an irreverent, goofball cover by NRBQ in Louisiville in 1982. Too soon? Watch at your own risk.
As previously threatened, friends of the late George Adelo have planned a musical memorial for the lawyer/guitar slinger.
The George Adelo Memorial Jam is scheduled to begin 7 pm Friday at Skylight Santa Fe.
From the event's Facebook page:
Please join us for an evening of music to celebrate the life of our dear friend George Adelo. The jam will be sign-up style. There will be a backline and house backing band: Mikey Baker-Guitar, Susan Hyde Holmes-Bass, Kirk Kadish-Keyboards, Baird Banner-Drums. Musicians please bring your instruments for plug and play set up (except drums and keys) and have 1-2 songs ready to go. We encourage collaborations, back up singing etc. Let's make a joyful noise for Georgie Angel!
Here's a video by Jim Terr of George and White Buffalo playing Santa Fe Bandstand in 2010
Sunday, Nov. 5, 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
Remember by John Lennon
Tunnel Time by Thee Oh Sees
She Was a Mau Mau by King Salami & The Cumberland 3
New Kind of Kick by The Cramps
New Thing by Skip Church
Sonic Boomerang by Bee Bee Sea
Get Straight by Lynx Lynx
Don't Play Cards with Satan by Daniel Johnston
Hail Hail, John Cale by Count Vaseline
Swamp Thing by The Meteors
96 Tears by Garland Jeffreys
Maybe Your Baby by The Dirtbombs
Foreign Body by Pussycat & The Dirty Johnsons
Crybabies Go Home by The Ghost Wolves
Turn My Head by The Molting Vultures
Boogie Tale by Laino & The Broken Seeds
Beaver Patrol by Wild Knights
Jonestown by Concrete Blonde
Rock 'n' Roll Murder by Chesterfield Kings
My Hardened Skin by The Routes
Freedom by Ty Segall
Signal by Boss Hog
Incubus by The Howlin' Max Messer Show
Skintrade by The Mekons
Exercise Man by The Dean Ween Group
Teach Me Tonight by Louis Prima & Keely Smith
Set My Soul on Fire by War & Treaty
Lips of a Loser by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
In Your Hands by Phil Hayes & The Trees
Demon in Profile by Afghan Whigs
I Can Still See by Pere Ubu CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, Nov. , 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
Look at that Moon by Carl Mann
Old Wolf by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Rolling River by Joe West
Keep Your Mouth Shut by Beth Lee & The Breakups
Beth Lee Live
Right Back
You Remind Me
Wouldya Wanna
Beautiful Losers
Drivin' by Beth Lee & The Breakups
Another Bender Might Break Me by Hellbound Glory
I Don't Give a Shit by Shinyribs
Just Like Geronimo by Marlee McLeod
Long Way to Hollywood by Steve Young
Legend of Kye LaFoone by Dan Whitaker & The Shinebenders
Delilah's Barber Shop by Jonny Barber & The Rhythm Razors
I Swear I Was Lyin' by Kim Lenz
Life, Love, Death and The Meter Man by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies
White Devil by Legendary Shack Shakers
Nothing in Rambling by Eilen Jewell
The Sound of Laughter by Joecephus & The George Jonestown Massacre
Sweet White Van by Two Tons of Steel
Lookin' for a Woman by Steve Earle
Low Down, Broke Down Fool by Paula Rhae McDonald
Sinkhole by Drive By Truckers
Chaos and Clothes by Jason Isbell
Whitehouse Road by Tyler Childers
Cocaine Cowboys by Margo Price
Time Heals by Gear Daddies
I Stole the Right to Live by Michael Hurley
Spring of '65 by Blue Mountain
Cold Black Sea by Peter Stampfel CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Like the Santa Fe Opry Facebook page Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list
Maybe someone who seemed to know what he or she was talking about told me and I believed it.
Maybe it came to me in a dream.
I don't know where I got this idea, but somewhere I heard that Frank Sinatra -- yes Frank Sinatra, dammit -- once said that the saddest song he ever heard was a strange old American song from 1895 called "The Band Played On."
Even with the magic of Google I can't verify if this is true. I can't even find any Sinatra covers of the song.
And damn, I want to believe it!
Most of the versions of this tune -- with lyrics by John F. Palmer and music by Charles B. Ward -- don't play it for the sadness. Often it's played for laughs.
But when you think about it -- it's there. While Palmer's lyrics allude to love and good times, there is tension just under the surface. Disaster is just around the corner.
The song is about this guy named Casey who's on the dance floor with a "strawberry blonde" -- "the girl he adored."
But things aren't going well for poor Casey. He's whacked out of his mind on booze or who knows what.
... his brain was so loaded it nearly exploded; The poor girl would shake with alarm.
He loves this woman but he's not sure what to do and he's only succeeding in terrifying her. But Casey is determined.
He'd ne'er leave the girl with the strawberry curls And the band played on.
Maybe she can escape his clutches after he falls on his face. Or maybe they're married and there's no way out for her
But it's obvious there will be no happy ending here for Casey or the blonde.
Of course I'm just talking about the chorus of the song. Most folks in the modern era who know the song are not familiar with the verses. But as far as I'm concerned, that's just as well. The song's power is in the image of Casey about to spin out of control as his partner hangs on, trying not to panic.
One of the first, if not the first, to record "The Band Played On" -- in 1895 -- was a singer named Dan W. Quinn (1859-1939), promoted in his day as "The King of Comic Singers" (though he could also be known as "The King of Racist Singers.")
Here's a 1941 version by a group called The Jesters
You know if the Hoosier Hot Shots covered something I'm writing about, I'm going to include it. Are you ready, Hezzie?
Here's a swinging hepcat version by a guy named Frank D'Rone
And this is a fairly recent one by Richard Thompson from a 2013 compilation of "turn-of-the-century" songs called The Beautiful Old. I love Thompson and I love this version, even though he tacks on a sappy ending, undercutting the beautiful terror of Casey's drunken waltz.
Update 11-7-17:
Sean at KSFR did some fancy Googlin' and found a Frank Sinatra fan forum that shows Ol' Blues was at least familiar with this song and apparently had performed it a couple of times.
A guy named Larry posted in 2007:
Back in the 70s I caught Frank Sinatra several times at the Westchester Premier Theater. In one show he stunned the audience by turning down the lights except for maybe a single spot light, sat on a stool, and sang the oldie "Casey Would Waltz With the Strawberry Blond". Very little, if any, accompaniment as I recall. It is one of the memories I've treasured through the years. He may have sung another song along with it but I don't remember what it was.
Another guy, Bob, responded:
Last Sunday was the 78th 79th birthday of a musician who I believe has done more to keep folk music
alive, relevant and fun as much as anyone alive. I love practically every song I've heard him sing.
Happy late birthday, Peter Stampfel!
With his most famous band, the psychedelic-folk crusaders known as The Holy Modal Rounders, as well as the various groups that followed (The Du-Tells, The Bottle Caps, The Worm All-Stars, The Ether Frolic Mob ... and let's not forget a stint with The Fugs back in the Daze), Stampfel discovered an important secret about folk music:
It sounds so much better when it sounds a little crazy.
Here's a bunch of my favorite Stampfel songs. Listen, sing along and share with your friends
Let's start off with an appearance by The Rounders on -- you bet your sweet bippy -- Rowan & Martin's Laugh In. (Yes, Laugh-In was a lot hipper than many people gave it credit for. That probably was the first time I ever saw Stampfel. Laugh In was the first place I ever heard The Legendary Stardust Cowboy too.) Too bad The Rounders never took Ruth Buzzi on the road with them.
I'm not sure why this Rounders favorite "Spring of '65" -- based on an old folk tune about drunken craziness -- works so well with The Fabulous Fury Freak Brothers. But it does.
One of the greatest records that Stampfel had anything to do with was Have Moicy!, which he recorded as The Unholy Modal Rounders along with Michael Hurley and Jeffrey Frederick. We're a day late for Halloween, but I've always loved that album's "Hoodoo Bash."
Stampfel goes disco!
I played Stampfel's version of this Stephen Foster song a few months ago when my old dog Rocco died and cried like a baby, God dammit to Hell, the same thing happened when I played it a couple of days ago.
And speaking of death, here's Stampfell covering one of Lou Reed's greatest under-appreciated songs, a sweet little meditation on mortality called "Cold Black Sea"
Sunday, Oct. 29, 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
Satan's Bride by Gregg Turner (see video at bottom of page)
Frankenstein by New York Dolls
Walking on My Grave by Dead Moon
Idol With the Glowin' Eyes by Southern Culture on the Skids
The Ghost With the Most by The Almighty Defenders
Bandstand by Tandoori Knights
Be Righteous by Mark "Porkchop" Holder
Sin Palabras by Al Hurricane
Fats' Fingers by Hakim Be
I'm Gonna Be a Wheel Someday/ I Want to Walk You Home by Fats Domino
Can't Fool the Fat Man by Randy Newman
What a Party by Fats Domino
Living Dead Girl by Rob Zombie
Mind Playing Tricks on Me by The Geto Boys
Murder in the Graveyard by Screaming Lord Sutch
(This set consists of songs from Friday's Halloween Terrell's Tune-up)
Nature's Revenge by Skinny Puppy
Season of the Witch by Vanilla Fudge
The Ballad of Dwight Fry by Alice Cooper
Brand New Girl by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies
The Kindness of Strangers by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
D.O.A. by Bloodrock
... a Psychopath by Lisa Germano
Demon in My Head by Joe Buck Yourself
Plan from Frag 9 by Pere Ubu
Get it Boy by Travel in Space
Pretty Good for a Girl by Pussycat & The Dirty Johnsons
Digging My Grave by Wild Evel & The Trashbones
You Went Away by Phil Hayes & The Trees
Come On My Little Darlin' by The Masonics CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, Oct. 27, 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
(It's a) Monster's Holiday by Buck Owens (Ghost) Riders in the Sky by Marty Robbins
Frankenstein's Monster by Legendary Shack Shakers
I Flipped by Ray Condo & The Ricochets
Hot Dog That Made Him Mad by Carolyn Mark
Don't Say it by Margo Price
Delta Dawn by Hellbound Glory
Keep Your Mouth Shut by Beth Lee & The Breakups
You Gonna Miss Me by Eilen Jewell
Don't Mess with My Toot Toot by Fats Domino & Doug Kershaw
Harder Than Your Husband by Frank Zappa with Jimmy Carl Black
The End by The Imperial Rooster
The Tombstone Hymn by Rev. Tom Frost
Let it Roll by Dinosaur Truckers
Wrong Honky Tonk by Phoebe Legere
Honky Tonk Halloween by Captain Clegg & The Night Creatures
Eatin' Crow and Drinkin' Sand by Jesse Dayton
I Wish You Knew by Dale Watson & Ray Benson
Marie Laveau by Bobby Bare
Up to No Good Livin' by Chris Stapleton
Honky Tonk Flame by Tyler Childers
Let's Have a Party by Wayne Hancock
Back When We Was Young by Joe West
Sentimiento by Al Hurricane
Mi Madrecita by Baby Gaby
Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes by George Jones
Just Because I'm a Woman by Dolly Parton
Sweet Cruel World by Max Gomez
Lindsey Button by David Rawlings
You Don't Hear Me Crying by Modern Mal
Never Come Home by Robbie Fulks
The Pilgrim by Emmylou Harris & Kris Kristofferson CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Like the Santa Fe Opry Facebook page Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican Oct. 27, 2017
When people think of Halloween rock ’n’ roll songs, they normally think of whimsical novelty tunes dealing with the supernatural — ghosts, vampires, zombies, werewolves, witches, and Satan. But there are plenty of songs out there that are appropriate for Halloween because they are in themselves frightening and or at least deal with frightening — you might even say “monstrous” — topics like murder, insanity, blood, and gore. And while most of these don’t actually deal with spooks, many are spookier than the ones that do.
Here are some of my favorites:
* Too Dark Parkby Skinny Puppy. Let’s start with some music that actually terrified me one night. Back in the summer of 1991, I was driving alone and trying to get back home to New Mexico. I’d taken a wrong turn south of Reno and somehow crossed back into California, where some redneck kid at a gas station recommended a shortcut back to Nevada — a two-lane road with lots of little hills and no sign of civilization. I popped in a cassette tape of Skinny Puppy’s then most recent album, Too Dark Park, which made this stretch seem even more otherworldly.
This Canadian group made what was called “industrial” music, complete with jackhammer drum beats; growled, shouted, and incomprehensible vocals; samples of people screaming; and an occasional woman’s voice saying “Scared?” As I drove along that dark, lonesome road, there were no lights. No gas stations, no motels, no other cars. And most disturbingly, no road signs saying how far I was from anywhere. As Puppy pounded in my speakers, I kept thinking how this area was the kind of place Charlie Manson’s Family might choose to live. I started envisioning Charlie’s dune-buggies zipping along the desert alongside the road. And to add to my anxious state of mind, every few moments a rabbit would dart across the road, only to die under my wheels.
Finally, sometime after the end of the album, there was a junction and a road that led me back to Nevada. I don’t listen to much Skinny Puppy these days. Every time I hear them, I go right back to that never-ending road and all those suicidal rabbits.
* “Season of the Witch” by Vanilla Fudge. On their 1968 album Renaissance, the Fudge took Donovan’s mysterious little psychedelic folk-rock song, slowed it down, and turned it into an intense nine-minute saga. What creeps me out is the very end of the track, where the singer screams, “God. God, hey! / If you can’t help us, you better listen! Please!” Then he pauses, and as the organ plays its spookhouse noodles, in a frightened voice, just above a whisper, the singer says, “Momma, I’m cold.”
* “Ballad of Dwight Fry” by Alice Cooper. Not only is this track from 1971’s Love It to Death Alice’s greatest song, it’s also his funniest song — and his scariest. It’s about a tormented guy locked up in a mental hospital. Since the first time I heard it, my favorite line is when he talks about how much he wants to see his four-year-old daughter: “I’d give her back all of her playthings / Even the ones I stole.”
* “The Kindness of Strangers” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. One of many highlights on Cave’s 1996 album Murder Ballads, this song tells the sad story of an Arkansas girl who wanted to escape her podunk surroundings. The song begins, “They found Mary Bellows cuffed to the bed / With a rag in her mouth and a bullet in her head / O poor Mary Bellows.”
* “Brand New Girl” by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies. From the backwoods of New England, Angry Johnny is a master of hillbilly horror. This gruesome little tune, from his mid-’90s masterpiece Hankenstein, features a noirish sax and lyrics about an Ed Gein-like character who threatens his girlfriend: “I’m gonna skin you alive and make a suit out of your hide.”
* “A Psychopath” by Lisa Germano. Germano herself was stalked for years by an obsessed fan, and this tune expresses her fears during the ordeal. This song, from her Geek the Girl album is downright eerie, with Germano singing in a hushed, resigned voice, “I am alone, you win again / I’m paralyzed. ... I hear a scream, I see me scream / Is it from memory?” Adding to the terror is an actual police dispatch recording of a terrified woman calling the cops because the stalker is breaking into her house.
* “D.O.A.” by Bloodrock. This had to be the most popular radio hit on local radio the week I graduated from high school in the spring of 1971. It’s a tune so sludgy and so dreary that it makes Vanilla Fudge seem like Herman’s Hermits. With sirens blaring in the background, the singer tells the story of a survivor of an airplane crash. He’s bleeding, unable to move, and surrounded by dead passengers. Slowly, he realizes he’s dying as well.
* “Demon in My Head” by Joe Buck Yourself. Never before has a banjo sounded so evil. This is just a simple song from this Nashville maniac who’s also played with Hank Williams III and Legendary Shack Shakers. He sings of an inner struggle with his dark impulses, a battle he’s obviously losing. “There’s a demon in my head and he wants you dead. … Glory glory hallelujah.” That night in 1991, while I drove on that lonesome road listening to Skinny Puppy and killing daredevil rabbits, my biggest fear was that my car would break down and I’d come across some deranged redneck like the guy in this song.
For all you Spotify users, here's a handy dandy playlist which includes all but one of the above songs:
Also, check out my 10th annual Big Enchilada Spooktacular, which is up and creeping around the internet. I gathered bones from all over the rock ’n’ roll graveyard to create a monster of a show. Listen to it below and enjoy all the Halloween shows HERE.
On Monday night, while editing one of my stories about the career of the late Al Hurricane, my editor Howard Houghton had a question about a reference to Fats Domino. Fats was in the story, of course, because Hurricane had toured with him briefly as a young man. Howard, a serious blues fan, asked whether we should identify Domino as an "early rock giant" as I had done in the piece, or an "early R&B giant." While either description is accurate, I argued that more people probably know him as a rock 'n' roll star.
"He's one of the last of the early rockers left," I said.
Like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and the other founding fathers, I remember loving Fats Domino's music before I even started grade school. Maybe, being a fat kid myself I had a certain affinity for The Fat Man. But it's deeper than that. Just hearing him sing and play piano made me feel happy deep inside.
More than a quarter century ago, before my son was born, I wanted to name him "Antoine" to honor Mr. Domino. My then-wife wasn't quite sold. She thought such a French-sounding name might sound too affected, So we compromised and named him "Anton." It would be nice if I could say my son became a huge Fats Domino fan. He's not -- but he has an open mind and a healthy curiosity about music, so maybe one day.
By the way, as soon as I learned about Fats' death I sent Howard a link to theNew Orleans Time Picayune obit. When I got to work, he threw this part of the story right into my face:
Mr. Domino was one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's first 10 inductees. But in a 1956 interview, Mr. Domino said, "What they call rock and roll is rhythm and blues, and I've been playing it for 15 years in New Orleans."
Lord keep you, Mr. Domino. Here are some of my favorite (and not overplayed) tunes from the late giant. Here's his first hit, "The Fat Man."
The Beatles always cited Fats Domino as a major influence. The first time I heard "Lady Madonna" in 1968 I thought it was an obvious tribute to the man from New Orleans -- and Paul McCartney has admitted as much. I guess Fats liked it too. Just a few months later he released his own version.
This is a fairly recent (2011) version of a fairly obscure Domino song from 1956.
In the mid 1980s, Domino teamed up with another Louisiana star, Doug Kershaw to cover "Don't Mess With My Toot Tooty," a song that not long before had been a hit for zydeco singer Rockin' Sidney. (Check out the guest appearances by David Carradine and Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards in this video.
Finally, here's a sweet tribute to The Fat Man from Albuquerque poet Hakim Bellamy, which he released Wednesday after Mr. Domino died.
This one I can't believe. Just one day after Al Hurricane ...
George Adelo died yesterday. He was a friend of mine. At this point I don't know the exact cause of death, but apparently he'd been very ill for at least several days.
A Pecos resident, George had a local band called White Buffalo. I saw them many times, once, a few years ago, backing rock 'n' roll sax giant Bobby Keys at Buffalo Thunder casino. Sometimes he played under the name of Georgie Angel.
Late last month White Buffalo lost its drummer, Jimmy Varela who died at the end of a performance in Pecos.
He also had been a member of Junior Brown's road band. (Like George and me, Junior went to high school in Santa Fe in the late '60s and early '70s.)
But, believe it or not, my first dealings with him -- except for a few times we might have crossed at parties during our high school and college years -- was not related to his work as a musician, but to his legal practice.
I was covering a story about 3 Northern New Mexico kids who broke into a bar and used the money to go to California where two of of them eventually were convicted for the murder of a woman on Zuma Beach. George was representing the kid who wasn't charged. That was back in the days when newspapers had travel budgets, so they sent me to California to cover the trial of the other defendants.
I called George for comment and said, "Hey George, I'm calling from LA ..."
Before I could go on, he said, "You son of a bitch!"
I had a feeling we'd be friends from then on.
A funny Adelo story that popped in my head this morning while trying process George's death: One night several years ago he called me at KSFR when I was doing The Santa Fe Opry. "Hey Steve, cold you play a real romantic song for me. I'm with this beautiful woman ..."
One of the songs I had cued up was the Frank Zappa/Jimmy Carl Black song "Harder Than Your Husband." I couldn't resist. Before playing it, I said "Here's a romantic song for my friend George ..."
He called up immediate yelling "What the hell are you doing to me?!?!?!"
I loved George.
He was a sweet, funny, caring man who loved music, loved New Mexico, loved his family and friends ... So much more I want to say.
George, you son of a bitch!
George Adelo talking with Boris McCutcheon at the 2006 New Mexico Music
showcase at South by Southwest
Boo! Welcome, my fiends, to the 10th annual BIG ENCHILADA SPOOKTACULAR!!!!
We're gathering bones from all over the rock 'n' roll graveyard to create a monster of a show.
I was on the air doing my radio show last night when I learned of the death of Alberto Sanchez, better known as Al Hurricane. He died from prostate cancer, He was 81. Anyone know of any gatherings, tributes, memorials for Al? Let me know. E mail me at sterrell(at)sfnewmexican.com thanks Al was the undisputed king of New Mexico music. I've been a fan for about 40 years but I didn't get to meet him until 1998 when I interviewed him for the New Mexican. At that point he still was going strong as a musician. Here's a copy of that interview
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican June 7, 1998
It's star time New Mexico style.
The band is pumping a Norteno beat and the audience is warmed up. Literally. It's an outdoor show on a hot afternoon, but nobody seems to mind the sweat and the sun.
"Are you ready for the star of the show?'' the man behind the keyboards asks. The crowd roars in approval.
"Well, sorry. We're not bringing him out yet.'' But the bandleader's smile gives away his little joke. "No, I'm just kidding. Here he is, ladies and gentleman, the star of the show, the Godfather of New Mexico music, and my father, Mr. Al Hurricane!''
The Godfather emerges from his tour bus parked to the left of the stage as all eyes turn to him. He cuts a dashing figure white suit, white shoes, a mop of black curly hair and a face marked by a black eye patch a grim souvenir of a life as a traveling musician turned into a celebratory trademark of a man and his music.
"Orale!" Hurricane shouts, waving his hand in greeting and grinning. Some shout back. Others just clap and cheer louder. By now it's a standing ovation and he hasn't even started.
He basks in the moment. This more than the money, he says is what propels Alberto Nelson Sanchez, the man behind the Hurricane.
For about 40 years Sanchez/Hurricane has been making a living with his music. He owns his own record company, Hurricane Records, which still thrives in the age of the compact disc. In past years his family also owned its own recording studio and nightclub in Albuquerque.
And while the entertainment business is full of stories of careers destroying family relationships, the musician's road seems to have had an opposite effect on the Sanchez clan.
Hurricane has shared the stage with his younger brothers "Tiny Morrie" and "Baby Gaby," who was part of a recent show at Camel Rock Casino. He has seen his son, Al Jr., grow up to become his bandleader, and his nieces and nephews find musical careers of their own. He currently is working with his youngest daughters on what he hopes will turn into a recording project.
But the road has had its share of pain and loss for Hurricane as well.
He lost an eye in an automobile wreck on the way to a gig in Colorado in November 1969.
Both of his marriages ended in divorce, the second one with extremely tragic consequences.
In 1986, soon after his second divorce, his ex-wife's boyfriend killed his 2-year-old daughter. The boyfriend, Ruben Lopez, and Hurricane's ex-wife each were convicted of charges of child abuse resulting in death. Both served time in prison. Hurricane had a heart attack soon after the killing.
But his family, his music and his fans all helped him heal and go on.
The Godfather! ("Don't call me `El Padrino'," he later cautions a reporter. "There's a singer down in Texas who goes by El Padrino.") As the crowd outside of Camel Rock Casino cheers, it's easy to see that the man called Hurricane has won a big spot in their hearts. And you can tell he feels that love. Maybe that's why he doesn't immediately take the stage, but goes right for the center of the crowd.
Holding a wireless microphone, Hurricane sings his first several tunes right there among the people. Between songs he shakes hands with his fans, tells jokes with the men and flirts with the ladies. (Nothing raunchy, mind you. Not far away in the audience is Bennie Sanchez Hurricane's mother). During one song, he dances with a little girl who has come to the show with her parents.
Indeed, it's an all-ages show. As Hurricane finally joins his band on stage and more couples start dancing, you can see many generations. Men and women who look old enough to be the parents of the 61-year-old Hurricane dance next to couples in their teens not to mention small children who scamper about the concert area.
It's an inter-generational gathering on stage also. Hurricane's son, Al Jr., 38, leads the band and is a recording artist in his own right. At the recent Camel Rock gig, two daughters, Erika, 20 and 13-year-old Danielle the twin sister of the girl who was killed sang a few songs. Other sons and daughters have played with him in the past.
Hurricane has been playing music in public since he was younger than Danielle.
He was born in Dixon in 1936, but spent most of his early years in Ojo Sarco. His mother gave him the nickname "Hurricane'' as a child.
"I couldn't reach across the table without spilling a bunch of things and knocking everything over," he said in a recent interview at one of his favorite Mexican restaurants in Albuquerque.
The Sanchez family moved to Albuquerque when Al was 9 years old. At first he found himself picked on because of his light complexion and natural blonde hair. (His jet black toupee is one of the worst-kept secrets in New Mexico entertainment circles).
But his music helped him win acceptance. Both his mother and his father, Margarito, who died in 1979, encouraged him in this direction, he said.
As a youngster he worked as a strolling troubadour at restaurants in Albuquerque's Old Town. As a student at Albuquerque High School he formed his own band.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Bennie Sanchez began a career of promoting rock shows at the old Civic Auditorium in Albuquerque. Among those who performed were James Brown, Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley. Hurricane said he played with Chubby Checker in Santa Fe at a show his mother produced.
The young Hurricane's group was frequently chosen to open the show for touring national acts and sometimes was hired as a ``pickup'' band for famous singers coming through town without their own backup groups.
This is how Hurricane hooked up with Fats Domino. For a short time he traveled with Domino, though he said he turned down a chance to tour Europe as a part of Domino's band in the early 1960s because he did not want to leave his wife and young children.
Hurricane had married his high school sweetheart Nettie. The couple had four children Al Jr., Darlene, Sandra and Jerry.
Hurricane said he also played some concerts as a guest guitarist with Marvin Gaye's band in the mid-1960s.
While he loved rock and soul music, by the late 1960s he realized "people here were hungry for Latino music."
The Godfather-to-be cut his first album Mi Saxophone in 1967 for a small independent record company. Soon after that, he and his family started Hurricane Records, which produced albums for Hurricane, Tiny Morrie and Baby Gaby, and later Al Jr.
More than 40 albums would be released on vinyl during the next couple of decades. Like other record companies in recent years, Hurricane now only deals in CDs and tapes. Hurricane said he has six of his own albums currently available on CD.
Meantime, brother Morrie and his mother set up a family recording studio on San Mateo Boulevard, purchasing recording gear from Norman Petty Studios in Clovis. "Norman Petty offered us a deal on his Buddy Holley equipment," Hurricane said.
And noticing that there was no venue in Albuquerque for Chicano music, the family bought the Far West nightclub on west Central Avenue.
Thus the Sanchezes became a mini-music industry of their own recording music at their own studio, distributing it on their own label and playing live at their own nightclub.
The family toured quite a bit in those days, mainly through the Western states with cities that had sizable Hispanic communities.
It was on the way to one of those out-of-state gigs that Hurricane lost his right eye.
"It was November First, 1969, in Walsenberg, Colorado,'' Hurricane recalled. "We were in our way up to a show in Denver. I was in a car, there were six of us, band members, you know. We were pulling a trailer with our equipment. Tiny, Gabe and my mom were behind us about two or three hours.''
The car hit an icy bridge and started to slide, Hurricane said. ``It turned over five times and I came out of the driver's side.''
There was a shard of glass stuck in his eye.
Hurricane's wife and children came to the hospital, he said. They got off the elevator as nurses wheeled him by in a gurney, "I heard my wife tell my son, `Look at that poor man. I hope your dad is not in that bad of shape.' My face was so swollen up my own wife didn't recognize me.''
The accident and the new eye patch didn't stop the music. But his first marriage soon came to an end. Hurricane remarried in 1971.
With his new wife, Hurricane had four more children Nelson, Erika and the twins Danielle and Lynnea.
By the early 1980s, Hurricane decided to sell the nightclub and the recording studio.
Tiny Morrie and his family moved to Mexico, where his son Lorenzo Antonio became something of a teen idol. Morrie's daughters would form a Spanish-language pop group called Sparx a few years down the road.
Baby Gaby by this point had decided to quit the music business. He became a postal worker but still performs occasionally.
The mid-1980s became the most horrible time in Hurricane's life the second divorce, the killing of Lynnea, the heart attack, which he says came about due to the stress of losing his little girl.
Lynnea Sanchez was pronounced dead on arrival at University of New Mexico Hospital on Nov. 5, 1986. An autopsy later showed that she died of blunt trauma to the back or the abdomen.
Hurricane's wife, Angela Sanchez, then 34, and her boyfriend Ruben J. Lopez, then 44, were arrested. In September 1987 a jury convicted both of child abuse leading to death.
Lopez was sentenced to nine years in prison. He was released in 1992 and is still on parole. Angela Sanchez was sentenced to six years and served about half her term.
Hurricane said he had no choice but to go on and be strong. "She went to prison and suddenly I had to be the mother and the father of my children, '' Hurricane said. "You know it really touched me. Last Mother's Day my son Nelson called me and said `Happy Mother's Day, Dad. You were my father and mother.' ''
These days Al Hurricane has slowed down. Not nearly as much touring, just a couple of gigs a week. He says he's working on a new album but doesn't want to say when to expect it. "Whenever I say, it would be later,'' he said.
But he still loves the music, still loves the applause, still loves it when a fan interrupts an interview to get an autograph and a kiss.
And the Godfather loves passing his music on to a younger generation. He recalled a recent show at a school in Las Vegas, N.M. The students he said were just as enthusiastic, if not more, than his regular audiences. "They were grabbing me, caressing me, '' he said. "I told the vice principal later that I felt like Elvis Presley. He told me, `You are our Elvis Presley.' "
Here are some videos, starting with one that was produced by Natalie Guillen for The New Mexican two years ago:
Sunday, Oct. 22, 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
Norma by NRBQ
Spookmaster by The Ghastly Ones
Between Me and You, Kid/ Six Two One by Mudhoney
Swampland by Pere Ubu
Skippy is a Sissy by Roy Gaines
Ride With Me by Sulfur City
Jettisoned by Thee Oh Sees
Two Headed Demon by Urban Junior
Dispatch from Mar-A-Lago by L7 R.I.P. Al Hurricane
Mi Saxophone
Filomeno
La Mucura
El Burro Norteno
Bikini Girls with Machine Guns by The Cramps
Ghost Rider by The Gories
Bela Lugosi's Star by Nekromantix
It's the Law by Bob Log III
Red Wine by Juke Joint Pimps
Walk Out by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
I'm Insane by T-Model Ford
Coffin Lid by Mark "Porkchop" Holder
Somebody's Child by The Routes
Marcia Funebre by Los Eskeletos
Thank You, Mr. K by Ty Segall
Teen Angel by Dirty Fences
What Can I Do? by Howlin' Max Messer
Cruel Cruel World by Jackie Shane
Chicken Pussy by Bongwater
The House at Pooneil Corners by Jefferson Airplane
Bad Attitude by Lisa Germano
In Germany Before the War by Marianne Faithfull
I'm Still Here by Tom Waits CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
