Long before cable television, back in the early to mid '60s, dozens of pop and rock stars were filming hundreds of music clips for what amounted to a proto-MTV.
It was centered around a contraption, manufactured in France, called the Scopitone 450, which basically was a jukebox hooked up to a 26-inch TV set that played 16mm film clips.
The technology had been around since at least the 1940s when "Soundies" -- black and white clips played on coin-operated machines -- were briefly the next big thing in show biz.
The Scopitone machine was a huge improvement over the old Soundies model, For one thing, a customer could chose among a wide array of film clips. The clips were in color.
And best of all, as the art form evolved, most the Scopitone clips were filled with scantily-clad go-go girls whose shimmying put Sister Kate to shame!
... the message in these videos is clear: T&A! The in-your-face sexiness of the images is a stark contrast to the rather unsexy, often downright lame songs. To see more explicit non-static imagery, one would have had to go to the trouble of attending a peep show or tracking down a stag film. The Scopitones' absurdly enthusiastic buxom women were chosen to attract the male gaze on a small screen across a smoky bar, with the promise of a peek at more skin...in the next video.
But let's start with one of the milder ones. Debbie Reynolds' production company was responsible for many of the Scopitones. But the bump and grinding is kept to a minimum here -- though wholesome Debbie sure could work her pretty pink petticoats in this Golden Throat take on "If I Had a Hammer."
But wait, it gets wilder. Check out the bikinis and beehives in this " Pussycat a Go-Go medley by Stacy Adams & The Rockabilly Boys (no, they ain't rockabilly)
Jody Miller was best know for "Queen of the House," and answer song to Roger Miller's "King og the Road." Here she sings a George Jones song. But I don't think Possum done it this way ...
Joi Lansing, one of the queens of the Scopitones, sings one of my favorite songs from a Matt Helm movie.
And here's one in which i actually like the music. It's a song I first heard by The Searchers done by a group called George & Teddy & The Condors. And oh, yeah, there are go-go girls ...
Something was always cooking at Scopitone
(Hat tip to my friend Deborah and our mutual friend Tim for sending me down the Scopitone path.)
'60s nostalgia has been an annoying cultural phenomenon for way too many years.
In fact I'm pretty sure it's been plaguing the national imagination since
sometime in the early 1970s.
But back in the late '60s, some major (and minor) rock and pop musicians were
busy perpetrating a nostalgia for music from even earlier eras.
Think of songs like "Winchester Cathedral" by one-hit wonders The New Vaudeville
band, or "When I'm 64" and "Honey Pie" by The Beatles.
The Rolling Stones did their part in 1967 on the last track of
Between the Buttons. Most folks think the lyrics of "Something Happened
to Me Yesterday" are about an LSD trip, though the additional of of the woozy
sax and trombone (played by Brian Jones) give the tune a whimsical British
Music Hall feel.
By the last 30 seconds of the song, the whole thing has morphed into a faux
dance band radio broadcast with Mick Jagger serving as the smarmy announcer,:
"So from all of us to all of you, not forgetting the boys in the band and our
producer Reg Thorpe, we'd like to say God bless. So if you're out tonight, don't
forget, if you're on your bike, wear white ..."
Jagger has been quoted saying, "The ending is something I remember hearing on
the BBC as the bombs dropped." Take a listen:
Speaking of late '60s songs framed as live radio broadcast, a singer named Guy
Marks had a minor hit in 1968 with this little treasure called "Loving You Has
Made Me Bananas" that sounded like a Bizarro World version of a depression-era
big band dance program. An announcer (Marks himself?) starts it off:
From the Hotel Sheets in downtown Plunketville, the Publican Broadcasting
Company presents the Music of Pete DeAngelis and his Loyal
Plunketvillevanians. Here in the beautiful gold, yella, copper, steel, iron
ballroom of the Hotel Sheets in downtown Plunketville, overlooking the
uptown section of downtown Pottstown!
Then it gets downright silly.
I'm not sure whether this song came before or after a similar recording by San
Francisco psychedelic heros Moby Grape. Their album WOW, released in
April 1968 had a strange song called "Just Like Gene Aurty, a Foxtrot." This was
a Skip Spence composition that featured a guest musician named Arthur Godfrey
(!) I'll let Graham Reid of the
Elsewhere
blog tell the story:
So just before "Just Like Gene Autry: A Foxtrot" on the 33 rpm album, a
voice came on and invited listeners to get up and change the speed of their
player to 78 (most players at the time had speeds of 33, 45 and 78, some --
like the one in my house -- even had 16rpm). And what you got was an orchestra lead by Wow
producer Lou Waxman and introduced by famous CBS radio and television
announcer Arthur Godfrey who also played banjo and ukulele on it. "Skippy bumped into Arthur at Columbia [Records]," said band member Jerry
Miller later. "The two of them were like Mutt and Jeff, cruising around
arm-in-arm. The funny thing was that Arthur Godfrey thought that Gene Autry
was the kind of music we did all the time."
Godfrey kicked off the proceedings: And now, emanating from the Secaucus Lounge of the fabulous Fandango Hotel
in Weehawken, New Jersey, we proudly present the celestial melodies of Lou
Waxman and his Orchestra, who ask the age old musical question...
And, with Spence crooning like Guy Lombardo on Thorazine, here's what
emanated:
So in conclusion, I'll let Frank Zappa have the final word:
Sunday, February 28, 2016 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(at)ksfr.org Here's the playlist
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Little Girl by The Syndicate of Sound
A plus by Figures of Light
Apartment Wrestling Rock 'n' Roll by Lightning Beat-Man
Welcome to the latest hillbilly episode of the Big Enchilada podcast, Hillbilly Hot Sauce. These hillbilly sounds are so hot they'll scorch your innards and make you squeal like a feral hog.
Friday, Febuary 26, 2016 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
Receiver by The Waco Brothers
Polk Salad Annie by Jason & The Scorchers
Bottle of Wine by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies
Let's Get Drunk by The Beaumonts
Gonna Love My Baby Now by T. Tex Edwards & The Swingin' Kornflake Killers
Whiskey Trip by Gary Stewart
Your Cousin's on Cops by The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
Dotted White Line by The Blues Against Youth
Lady Cop by Cousin Jody
Black Jack David by Loretta Lynn
Ain't a Goin' by James Hand
Too Late for Tequila by DM Bob & Country Jem
Tall Tall Trees by Roger Miller
I'm So Lonesome Without You by Hazeldine
Diddey Wah Boogie by Al Dexter
Ziggy Stardust by The Gourds
Poor White Trash by Rudy Preston
I Ain't Never by Webb Pierce
Worm by Reverse Cowgirls
Crow Jane by Oh Lazarus
All the Way Back Home by Dinosaur Truckers
Oh Susana by The Perch Creek Family Jugband
Back Street Affair by Brennen Leigh & Jesse Dayton
When the Helicopter Comes by The Handsome Family
Mermaids by Bobby Bare
Ain't Hurtin' Nobody by John Prine
Say It's Not You by George Jones & Keith Richards
Let the Jukebox Keep on Playing by Carl Perkins
Lost Highway by Willie Nelson, Ray Price & Merle Haggard
Runnin' from the Ghost of Your Past by Stevie Tombstone
Whiskey Girl by Gillian Welch
Ain't That Water Lucky by Paul Burch
Over the Next Hill (We'll Be Home) by Johnny Cash with Anita Carter
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican February 26, 2016
I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked “Where do you find this stuff?” by folks who read this column and/or listen to my radio shows and podcast. Mostly the question is asked by the sincerely curious, though sometimes the question is accompanied by a derisive smirk. My normal response is a half-joking, “I don’t find it. It finds me.” But in the case of the fantastic array of crazy, rocking, sometimes bizarre, and occasionally beautiful sounds I get from an obscure little German outfit called Off Label Records, I honestly don’t remember how I found it. All I know is that in the past four or five years, links to music-packed zip files just show up in my email and sometimes physical CDs appear in my mailbox (yes, shipped all the way from Europe). Off Label is a prolific little outfit, having released albums, EPs, and 7-inch singles by dozens of acts in the past few years, mostly from Europe, but also South America and Australia. Just recently I was happily surprised to find a new CD mailed by Off Label’s supreme commander, Johnny Hanke, in my box, a tasty little compilation called Off Label Werkschau 2009-2014 featuring most of my favorite Off Label artists. And better yet, nearly all of these are new songs (plus a few that saw very limited releases). So what kind of music is this? “Good music” is the short answer. But more specifically, Off Label specializes in the stuff I love the best. There is a healthy portion of wild, snotty garage-punk, represented here by, among others, The Vagoos, Jonah Gold & His Silver Apples, Lynx Lynx, Thee Verduns, and The Mokkers, an all-female German group that does a spirited cover of Thee Headcoatees’ “Wild Man.”
Pea & The Pees
Also, there’s a whole lot of warped country and folk. Louisiana expatriate DM Bob and his accomplice Speedy Jake do an inspired slop-bucket cover of Charlie Rich’s “Big Man,” while The Dad Horse Experience XL kick off the album with a banjo-led gospel romp, “Too Close to Heaven.” The Salty Pajamas’ “Rats in My Amp” is one of the more surreal selections here. The Dinosaur Truckers play a song called “All the Way Back Home” in their sweet ’n’ purdy German bluegrass style. And Pea & The Pees’ wacky hillbilly workout “Horse & Cows” would make Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs jealous.
O Lendário Chucrobillyman
Off Label is one of the world’s leading purveyors of loud, stripped-down, Bob Log-informed blues, and some of its major masters of this weird subgenre are present and accounted for on the compilation. My favorite is the Brazilian one-man sonic assault team O Lendário Chucrobillyman, who plays a song about a “Chicken Yodeling Woman.” Speaking of poultry, the Australian one-man band who calls himself Made for Chickens by Robots does a slow, clunky, and irresistible number called “Meatjuice Moustache,” while The Blues Against Youth, yes, another one-man guy, this one from Rome, shows off some hot licks on his song “Dotted White Line.” But there also selections on Werkschau that don’t fit neatly into any of these categories. For instance, Jenny & The Steady Go’s play straight-ahead rockabilly, while Reverse Cowgirls, a Dutch group, performing a tune called “Worm,” falls somewhere between country-rock and garage. The Coconut Kings, a Swiss band, sound a lot like the Squirrel Nut Zippers on “No Calypso Song.” And VulgarGrad, a band from Australia that specializes in Russian-style songs, sounds like an acoustic Gogol Bordello on the song “Ballroom,” though the singer sounds more like Popeye than Eugene Hütz. Chances are you’ve never heard of most — maybe not even any — of the musical acts on Werkschau. Don’t feel bad. I hadn’t either, before Hanke started sending me all this stuff a few years ago. Don’t let that stop you. You can find this compilation and all the other crazy Off Label music at their website, www.offlabelrecords.de, as well as the usual download sites. Here are some other recent releases from the company. And as fate would have it, all three of these acts have Bandcamp sites, so you can listen to their music and if you like it, do yourself and civilization a favor and buy it!
The Vagoos
* The Vagoos Love You. This is the second release by this German garage group, following their 2014 self-titled album. Love You is only six songs — and that’s my only complaint about it. If you like The Yardbirds and early Stones and songs like “(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone,” you’ll hear those influences immediately. And they even include a hopped-up surf instrumental called “Vendetta.” The Vagoos’ Bandcamp page is www.thevagoos.bandcamp.com. You’ll also find their first album there. * Good Times by Oh Lazarus. Here’s an Italian group that loves good old early 20th-century blues, country jug-band and hot jazz. This album has Euro-filtered covers of songs like “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate,” “St. James Infirmary,” “Single Girl Again,” Skip James’ “Crow Jane,” and Tom Waits’ “Come On Up to the House.” Its Bandcamp page is www.ohlazarus.bandcamp.com. * Uneasy Grounds by Dead Cat Stimpy. You like those raunchy lo-fi one-man blues bashers like O Lendário Chucrobillyman and the others I mentioned above? Then Dead Cat Stimpy is for you. He’s a Dutch fellow who’s undaunted by inviting comparisons to one of America’s greatest in his song “Possessed by Robert Johnson.” But my favorite here is the aggressively rocking “Twist Man.” Stimpy’s Bandcamp page is www.deadcatstimpy.bandcamp.com. You can even find a free download of a live album there. Enjoy some videos from some of these Off Label bands. Here is Jonah Gold & His Silver Apples
A dirty song, an alleged music biz ripoff in which one of America's most revered musicians was the victim. And possibly --- just possibly -- a mysterious link to a murder in a New Orleans whore house.
That's my kind of music!
I's the story of the little ditty called "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate," an oft-recorded novelty tune that would become one of the biggest hits of the jazz age nearly 100 years ago.
The lyrics of the song that became successful are about a girl -- or sometimes a boy -- who goes to a dance with his or her sister Kate who amazes and delights everyone there by her prowess in dancing the Shimmy -- a controversial dance craze that was leading the youth astray right before the 1920s began to roar.
Here's the chorus:
Oh, I wish I could I shimmy like my sister Kate; She shimmies like a jelly on a plate. My mama wanted to know last night, What makes the boys think Kate's so nice. Now all the boys in the neighborhood, They know that she can shimmy and it's understood; I know that I'm late, but I'll be up-to-date When I shimmy like my sister Kate.
Here's a 1922 recording by Leona Williams
So where did Kate learn to shimmy?
Even though a pair of New Orleans musician and pubisher Armand Piron is credited with the song -- sometimes sharing the glory with musician Clarence Williams, Louis Armstrong long claimed he knew Kate before she even shimmied.
Laurence Bergreen, in his biography, Louis Armstrong An Extravagant Life told Armstrong's story of "Sister Kate." Armstrong said that when Kid Ory hired him, he told the young coronet player he should "Work up a number so we can feature you once in a while," So he did,even creating a little dance to go with it. Bergreen writes:
Bergreen describes the song as 'an unashamedly filthy thing" which was titled "Keep Off Katie's Head" or, sometimes "Take Your Finger Out of Katie's Ass" The lyrics Bergreen quotes in the book though don't seem all that dirty:
Why don't you keep off Katie's head? Why don't you keep out of Katie's bed? It's a shame to say this very day
Kate Townsend
She's like a little child at play.
Bergreen also says "Katie's Head" is possibly inspired by the stabbing death of Kate Townsend, "a Storyville madam who'd been barbarously murdered years before."
Kate Townsend, who ran a high-class cat house on Basin Street, was killed in 1883 during a drunken quarrel by her longtime "fancy man" Troisville Sykes. A jury found him not guilty.
As much as a bordello murder adds some dark, romantic appeal to the song, I'm skeptical. Townsend was killed about 35 years before Armstrong started performing "Katie's Head." There's not much that even hints at any killing or violence of any kind in the lyrics of either the dirty or clean version of the song.
Except perhaps the line, "It's a shame how you're lying on her head /I thought sure you would kill her dead ..."
Still, I think that's a stretch.
Getting back to Satchmo, Bergreen writes:
When Louis sang this to a packed house at Pete Lala's one, "Man, it was like a sporting event. All the guys crowded around an they like to carry me up on their shoulders." It wasn't just the song that got the crowd so excited, it was the little dance Louis did with it, his version of the Shimmy. which was just beginning to appear in cities around the country, scandalizing proper folks ... "One night, as I did this number I saw this cat writing it all down on music paper. He was quick man , he could write as fast as I could play and sing. When I had finished he asked me if I'd sell the number to him. He mentioned twenty five dollars. When you're only making a couple of bucks a night that's a lot of money. But what really put the deal over was that I had just seen a hard-hitting steel gray overcoat that I really wanted for those cold nights. So I said `Okay' and he handed me some forms to sign and I signed them. He said he'd be back with the cash, but he never did come back."
A young Louis Armstrong
The stranger was Clarence Williams, who Bergreen describes as "the first important black musician in New Orleans ..." Williams and Armand Piron, who started the first black-owned music publishing business in New Orleans, published Artmstrong's song in 1919.
"They changed the music slightly, gave it a faddish title -- "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate -- cleaned up the lyrics," Bergreen said.
The song became a hit.
So yes, young Louis, according to the story, sold the rights to what's been called "The first jazz hit of the 1920s" for an overcoat. And he never even got paid for it.
But did Armstrong actually write it? In his 1987 book I Remember Jazz: Six Decades Among the Great Jazzmen, Al Rose recalls a 1939 interview with an ailing Piron, who, in so many words, suggested Armstrong take his finger out of Katie's ass.
Asked about Armstrong's claim about "Sister Kate," Piron said, "that's not Louis' tune or mine or Pete's either. [Pete is New Oreans jazzman Peter Bocage, who was present at Rose's interview.] That tune is older than all of us. People always put different words to it. Some of them were too dirty to say in polite company."
Whoever wrote it, Sister Kate still shimmies among us. Enjoy a few versions of this classic song.
The Original Memphis Five had an early hit with this instrumental take.
WWII pin-up girl Betty Grable took a crack at this song -- including an introduction I'd never heard before.
The first version I ever heard, when I was in junior high, was by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on their 1967 debut album
The late David Bowie used to perform "Sister Kate" in the mid '70s as part of a medley with an old soul tune "Footstompin'" (Note the guitar riff he'd later use on "Fame.")
And just recently, this cool little band from Italy called Oh Lazarus recorded it for their album Good Times.
I'm a longtime Porter Wagnoner fan having discovered the Man from Missouri on his syndicated TV back in the '60s.
But as much as I loved Porter's music, the thing that originally drew me to the show when I was a kid was a bizarre looking dude known as Speck Rhodes,
Dolly Parton gave The Porter Wagoner Show some sex appeal. Speck Rhodes gave it some weirdness.
He portrayed the ultimate country bumpkin, He dressed like a living ventriloquist dummy -- an ever-present bowler hat, often in a loud color, a checkered jacket and a bow tie. His top front teeth were blackened. I assume they were blackened.
Speck was born born Gilbert Ray Rhodes in West Plains, Mo. (which also was Wagoner's home town) in 1915. On the Wagoner show, he seemed like a throwback,something from the days of vaudeville -- and indeed he and his brothers were a part of that world, performing on the RKO circuit as The Log Cabin Mountaineers.
Wagoner hired Rhodes for his TV show in 1960. Sometimes you'd see him playing stand-up bass with the Wagon Master Band. But Speck would come out, tell a few corny jokes then do some funny songs, a few of which you'll see below.
Rhodes died in 2000 at the age of 84. You don't see many like him anymore.
Here's a tune -- I assume it's an early one since its in black and white -- called "I'm Going Back To Where I Come From."
After bantering with Porter for a minute or so, Speck sings a song called " If I Could Just Go Back."
This video seems to be a live concert performance. The song is "When Its Long Handle Time In Tennessee."
I call this next one "Speck-a-palooza." There are three songs here: Speck proves he's a rocker at heart with "Hound Dog" (yes that "Hound Dog"); "I'm a Plain Old Country Boy" and Little Jimmy Dickens' "Sleepin' at the Foot of Bed."
Sunday, February 21, 2016 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(at)ksfr.org Here's the playlist
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Leave the Capitol by The Fall
Hey You by Simon Stokes & The Heathen Angels
Sexy Boots by Hollywood Sinners
Wild Man by The Mokkers
Big Blue Chevy 72 by Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
Bitch Slap Attack by Lovestruck
Not Like You by The Vagoos
Murky Water by Big John Bates
Wang Dang Doodle by Jerry J. Nixon
Tiger in a Cage by Johnny Rawls
One Cup of Coffee by Dead Cat Stimpy
Magical Colors by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Scratch That Itch by The Go-Wows
Tokyo Storm Warning by Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Bold Marauder by Drywall
She's Got Balls by The Cramps
John Lawman by Roky Erikson & Okkervil River
Abba by Captain Beefheart
How High by BBQ
Tuned Out by JJ & The Real Jerks
Of Walking Abortion by The Manic Street Preachers
Get Me Out of The Country by The Electric Mess
Nobody Spoil My Fun by The Seeds
Man of Considerable Taste by Billy Boy Arnold
Rebecca Rodifer by The Gaunga Dyns
Just Like All the Rest by Javier Escovedo
Fear Loves This Place by Julian Cope
Oh It's Such a Shame by Jay Reatard
Please Please Girl by The Flamin' Groovies
Which End is Up by Miriam
Ballroom by Vulgargrad
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, Febuary 19, 2016 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
Old Dan Tucker by Bruce Springsteen
Wine, Wine, Wine by Dale Watson
Get a Little Goner by Marti Brom
San Antonio Romero by Cathy Faber's Swingin' Country Band
Honky Tonk Hangover by Miss Leslie
The Devil's at Red's by Anthony Leon & The Chain
Wolverton Mountain by Southern Culture on the Skids
My Baby is a Tramp by Brennen Leigh
Big Man by DM Bob & Speedy Jake
Samson/ Jacob's Ladder by Greg Brown
Down on the Corner of Love by Buck Owens'
Too Close to Heaven by The Dad Horse Experience
Girl at the End of the Bar by The Waco Brothers
Where Does Love Go by Uncle Dave & The Waco Brothers
Big Fat Nuthin' by The Bottle Rockets
I'll See You in My Dreams by Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks
My Walking Stick by Leon Redbone
Hard Hearted Hannah by Ukulele Ike
Good Times by Oh Lazarus
Jonestown Blues by Cannon's Jug Stompers
Rats in my Amp by Salty Pajamas
Get What's Coming by The Defibulators
Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight by Mississippi John Hurt
The legislators went on past midnight and I've got to get back to the Capitol soon this morning, so I don't have anything fancy for this blog on Throwback Thursday.
So I'll just share this song that my grandfather, who was born in Kentucky, used to love. It's "Old Dan Tucker," performed here by Gid Tanner & The Skillet Lickers.
Enjoy. I've got to wash my face in a frying pan and get back to work.
Here are a few twisted rock 'n' roll takes on some of your favorite television theme songs.
Let's start with a reliable old psychobilly group, Elvis Hitler, who brought Hendrix to Hooterville with this 1980s mash-up, "Green Haze.".
Iggy Pop paid tribute to songwriter Neil Hefti and Adam West in his glorious live cover of "Batman."
I was too old to appreciate The Banana Splits Saturday morning kiddie show in the '70s. But I'll never be too old for The Dickies' version of the theme song.
When I hear Husker Du's version of Sonny Curtis' "Love Is All Around," the theme to the Mary Tyler Moore Show, I truly believe I'm going to make it after all.
The Chicano punk band Manic Hispanic brought took Gilligan's Island to the barrio. (It's from a 1997 compilation called Show & Tell: A Stormy Remembrance Of TV Theme Songs a fun collection of rock 'n' roll TV theme covers.)
And speaking of Gilligan's Island, here's a version that sparked a vicious lawsuit filed by led Zeppelin's lawyers that resulted in a court order requiring the band Little Roger & The Goosebumps to destroy all copies of the record.
Ironically, Robert Plant in a 2004 interview on NPR's Fresh Airsaid this was his favorite parody of "Stairway to Heaven." (He talks about that right around the 15 minute mark.)
To which "Little" Roger Clark replied in a 2007 interview, "Thanks for nothing, Bob. Well, I met him. He said, `Oh, I’ve always liked this record.' It was Jimmy Page and the manager that hated it. But that’s just like any business situation. `I love you, babe, but my partner’s got a problem.' "
Some copies of the original are still floating around. And Little Roger & The Goosebumps released a legal version 16 years ago,
Sunday, February 14, 2016 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(at)ksfr.org Here's the playlist
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Papa Satan Sang Louie by The Cramps
Trash by New York Dolls
Clouds of Dawn by Dead Moon
You Don't Love Me Yet by Roky Erickson
500 lb Bad Ass by Chief Fuzzer
War Dancers by King Mud
Licking the Frog by Manby's Head
Mixed Biz'ness by Beck
Valentine by Concrete Blonde
Stumbling' Man by TAD
Death Party by Gun Club
Mama Get the Hammer by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Sharpen Up Time by New Bomb Turks
Goons of Hazzard by Dead Kennedys
High on Drugs by The Fleshtones
Why Do You Get So High, Shorty? By The Treniers
Hoodie Saperticker by Barbara & The Boys
Designed to Kill by James Chance
Been to Kansas City in A Minor by Frank Zappa
Sweet Georgia Brown by Captain Beefheart
Pretty Lord Sundance Part 1 by Lord Sundance
Teenage Head by The Flamin' Groovies
Who Do You Love by Bo Diddley
Manny's Bones by Los Lobos
Sewer Fire by Thee Oh Sees
Don't Be Taken In by Miriam
Frogman by King Kahn & The Shrines
It's Money that Matters by Randy Newman
Some Enchanted Evening by Bob Dylan
Nothing Lasts Forever by The Kinks with Maryanne Price
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, February 12, 2016 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
World's in Bad Condition by Dave & Phil Alvin
I Want to Huga Ya, Kiss Ya, Squeeze Ya by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs
Ramblin' Man by Dick Dale
Amarillo Highway by Terry Allen
Baby He's a Wolf by Werly Fairburn
New Deal of Love by Hank Thompson
The Girl I Sawed in Half by Paul Burch
Drinkin' Bout You by Alex Culbreth & The Dead Country Stars
Ya'll Motherfuckers Need Jesus by The Goddamn Gallows
Alabama at Night by Robbie Fulks
Rollin' on Rubber Wheels by Louie Setzer
Set Up Two Glasses Joe by Ernest Tubb
Hotel San Jose by Jimmy & The Mustangs
The Love-in by Ben Colder
Every Night About This Time by Rachel Brooke
Family Tree by Wheeler Walker, Jr.
Evangeline by Emmylou Harris & The Band
The Shiek of Araby by Jim Kweskin Jug Band
Dan Hicks Memorial Set (All songs by Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks except where noted)
I Feel Like Singing
Ragtime Cowboy Joe
O'Reilly at the Bar by Maryanne Price & Floyd Domino
That Ain't Right (with Gibby Haynes)
Hummin' to Myself (with Maria Muldaur)
The Diplomat by Maria Muldaur
Mama I'm an Outlaw by Dan Hicks
Hell I'd Go by Dan Hicks & The Accoustic Warriors
The Buzzard Was His Friend
Beedle Um Bum (with Jim Kweskin)
See You in My Dreams
Weakness in a Man by Waylon Jennings
The Bloody Bucket by Grey DeIsle
Hop Old Rabbit by Elizabeth LaPrelle 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
The recent death of Dan Hicks got me thinking of one of Hicks' big influences, Jim Kweskin.
I was in junior high the first timeThe Jonathan Winters Show, which I never missed. This was about the same time I'd become a devotee of Dr. West's Medicine Show & Junk Band and the early Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, so discovering Kweskin was a huge revelation. I don't even remember the songs Kweskin played on Winters that night. I just remember their joyful noise -- and how sexy singer Maria D'Amato was.
I ever saw the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. It was on
The music of Kweskin and his band -- which included Maria's then husband Geoff Muldaur, Fritz Richmond, Bill Keith and harmonica blower/cult leader Mel Lyman -- was a personal gateway to all sorts of old blues, jazz, hillbilly, Tin Pan Alley and, yes, jug band sounds. They showed that music that even predated my grandparents could still be wild, mysterious, and a lot of fun.
I've already done entire features on some Kweskin favorites such as Beedle Um Bum and Sheik of Araby. But here are some other original, or at least earlier versions of songs from the Kweskin song bag.
Let's start off with a jug-band tune from The Dixieland Jug Blowers, with a song Kweskin would use as a title song for his 1967 album, Garden of Joy.
This 1920s favorite by a lady named Vaughn De Leath is another Kweskin classic
Here's a version of "Never Swat a Fly" recorded by Abe Lyman's California Ambassador Hotel Orchestra more than 30 years before Kweskin and crew.
Another exotic tune, "Borneo," performed by the Frank Trumbauer Orchestra with Scrappy Lambert on vocals.
I heard "Blues in the Bottle done by The Lovin' Spoonful before I heard Kweskin's version. But Prince Albert Hunt's Texas Ramblers did it before either of them. (And Hunt was from Terrell, Texas!)
One hundred twenty-three years ago today Jimmy Durante, the gravel-voiced star of Vaudeville, radio and television and movies, was born in New York City.
This son of talian immigrants was known as a comedian whose trademarks were his beat-up hat and his huge bulbous nose (which he called "the Schnozzola").
But before his career as a comic and an actor, Durante was a musician. According to his bio on the Red Hot Jazz site:
Before Jimmy Durante became one of the most famous and lovable entertainers of the Twentieth Century, he was a hot piano player and bandleader, Durante was greatly influenced by Scott Joplin and had his first success in show business as a Ragtime piano player starting around 1911. He was billed as "Ragtime Jimmy" and played in New York City and Coney Island.
Playing ragtime piano on Coney Island n 1911. Even if I knew nothing else about him, that alone would make me love Jimmy Durante.
He died in 1980, but his ghost still haunts strange corners of YouTube, So let's honor Jimmy on this Wacky Wednesday with some of his wackier tunes.
In 1934, appearing in the movie Palooka, Durante first performed what would become his signature song, "Inka Dinka Doo"
Three decades later, Durante would perform the song on TV with a strange novelty artist of the mid '60s called Mrs. Miller.
Also in the '60s Durante weighed in on the flying saucer phenomenon
He dabbled in patriotic children's music
And he dueted with Louis Armstrong
So goodnight, Mrs. Calabash, and happy birthday, Ragtime Jimmy, wherever you are."
Sunday, February 7, 2016 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(at)ksfr.org Here's the playlist
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Shake Your Hips by Billy Boy Arnold
Clear Night for Love by The Rockin' Guys
He Looks Like a Psycho by The Electric Mess
Hey Little Girl by The Dead Boys
All by Myself by Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers
Your Haunted Head by Concrete Blonde
Outrun the Law by The Thingz
Heathen Child by Grinderman
Bowie Medley by The Cherry Drops
It Ain't Easy by Javier Escovedo
I Want Answers by The Fleshtones
New Orleans by The Plimsouls with The Fleshtones
Laredo (A Small Dark Something) by Jon Dee Graham
He's Doin' It by The Gories
Poor Poor Pitiful Me by Warren Zevon
Advance Romance by Frank Zappa
Pablo Picasso by Jonathan Richman
Mama Guitar by The Oblivians
I Can Only Give You Everything by King Mud
Mammer Jammer by Don & Dewy
Disease by Dead Cat Stimpy
Matamoros by Afghan Whigs
Sand by OP8
Deep Dark Vanishing Train by Mark Lanegan Band
Don't Call Me Mark Chapman by Julian Cope
It's Not My Time to Go by Dan Hick & The Hot Licks
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, February 5, 2016 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
Worried Man Blues by George Jones
Artificial Flowers by Cornell Hurd Band
Step Right This Way (Baby I'm You Man) by DM Bob & The Deficits
Let's Waste Another Evening by Josh Lederman y Los Diablos
Where's the Dress by Moe Bandy & Joe Stampley
Little Ramona Gone Hillbilly Nuts by BR5-49
We Always Fight When We Drink Gin by Austin Lounge Lizards
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican February 5, 2016
It’s been so long since The Waco Brothers released an album of new material I was beginning to wonder whether the standard-bearers of Bloodshot Records’ “insurgent country” were going the way of the Branch Davidians — without the spectacular finale.
After all, since 2005’s Freedom and Weep, the only albums the group has released are a live record (Waco Express: Live & Kickin’ at Schuba’s Tavern, Chicago) in 2008 and a collaboration with alternative country singer Paul Burch (The Great Chicago Fire) in 2012.
But now the good folks at Bloodshot have given us a double shot of Wacomania. In December came a limited-edition live album called Cabaret Showtime, and set for release later this month is Going Down in History, that long-awaited album of all-new material.
For the uninitiated, The Waco Brothers came to be in the early ’90s, forming in Chicago, where Jon Langford of The Mekons had settled. Most of his current bandmates — including fellow Brits Tracy Dear and Alan “Sprockets” Doughty plus Wisconsin native Dean Schlabowske (aka Deano Waco) — have been in the Waco Brothers since the beginning.
At first they were basically a Langford side project, gigging in Chicago and covering lots of classic country songs (“for free beer,” or so the legend goes).
Langford’s love for country music is sincere. As a Mekon, he helped facilitate the shotgun wedding of punk rock and country music with albums such as Fear and Whiskey and Honky Tonkin’, back in the 1980s.
With The Wacos, he rocked the country far harder than The Mekons ever did while somehow remaining truer to the source material. And then Langford, Schlabowske, and the others started writing all these great songs especially for The Waco Brothers. (Their original tunes are officially credited to the band, so it’s hard to determine who actually wrote what.) And when Chicago’s Bloodshot Records was born in 1994, The Wacos were a natural match. They rightfully remain the label’s flagship band.
The first thing I noticed about Going Down in History is that the band is continuing the path of its last few studio albums, jettisoning many of its overt country touches. Steel guitarist Mark Durante has been gone for years now (and that’s a loss). And to be honest, unlike their earliest albums — To the Last Dead Cowboy and, especially, Cowboy in Flames, which whomped me over the head right off the bat, — it took a few listens for the new one to grow on me. But grow it did. The raw, muscular-but-melodic, roots-informed rock in the end is just hard to resist.
The opening cut, “DIYBYOB,” sung by Schlabowske, contains a clever twist on an old sea dog adage: “Sailors take warning, red eyes in the morning/You can’t kill us, we’re already dead.” There’s a vague reference to national politics, which Deano instantly backs away from (“Move along, there’s nothing here to see”), while the refrain seems to speak of a failed relationship (“DIYBYOB, there’s nothing left ’tween you and me”).
But by the last verse of the song, the singer proudly clings to the punk-rock ethos that still propels him: “On the day after the music died/Can’t take all the credit, but we tried/You can’t cut the power, you can’t turn out the lights/We’ll keep the party goin’ through the night.”
“We Know It” starts off with some foreboding, bluesy noodling but quickly turns into a hard-charging, almost paranoid rant by Langford: “We know it when we see it/We know it when it calls/We know it can’t be good for us/We know we want it all.”
One of the chief delights by Langford here is “Building Our Own Prison,” which takes a souped-up Bo Diddley beat and makes it more chaotic, while Langford sings about “big boxes” ringing the town, donating his shopping list to science, and nailing “my body to the temple door.”
The Wacos do two cover songs on Going Down in History. One is The Small Faces’ “All or Nothing,” which sounds as close to a soul ballad as you’re ever likely to hear from the band. (They dedicate this to Faces’ keyboard man Ian McLagan, a friend of the band, who died in 2014.)
And they end the album with a rocking version of Jon Dee Graham’s “The Orphan’s Song.” At the end of the song they playfully alter the refrain, turning “I will be your brother for the night” into “I’ll be your Waco Brother for tonight.”
Sounds like a deal.
As for Cabaret Showtime, this is a lighter-hearted affair on which The Wacos romp through some of the great country tunes that inspired the group all those years ago: Buck Owens’ “Tiger by the Tail,” Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” and “Wanted Man” (which was actually written by Bob Dylan), and Gram Parsons’ “Ooh Las Vegas” are all here. There’s even a country version of bluesman Jimmy Reed’s “Baby What You Want Me to Do” (which is called “You Got Me Running” here).
My personal favorite on this album is a fairly obscure George Jones song, “Girl at the End of the Bar.” Langford practically spits the lyrics (“She had so many hard knocks/She don’t play the jukebox/She’s lived all those sad songs firsthand”) just before he plays probably the prettiest guitar solos I’ve ever heard him play.
But it’s not all hillbilly hijinks on Cabaret. There are not one but two Waco-ized T. Rex covers (“Debora” and a garagey “20th Century Boy”). And — believe it or not — The Waco Brothers play Pink Floyd! It’s an instrumental called “Interstellar Overdrive,” which appeared on Floyd’s 1967 debut The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
So no, this album isn’t for country purists. But purists have never been The Wacos’ top demographic target.
Yvonne DeCarlo live in San Pedro
(in her wild, sexy pre-Lily Munster days)
named Mary Ingraham in a response to a request by President Franklin Roosevelt for a program to provide moral support and entertainment for armed services members. (The U.S. would not get directly involved in World War II for another 10 months, but the distant drums of war were getting louder.)
Although the organization was -- and still is -- involved in many activities to help the folks who serve in the military, it's most famous for its Camp Shows -- sending singers, dancers and comedians to entertain the troops at domestic military facilities as well as in war zones.
So today we salute the USO with some videos of some of those performances.
Here's a singer named Frances Lanford (no relation to The Mekons' Jon Langford) singing "I'll Be Seeing You" on the Solomon Islands in 1944. That's Bob Hope introducing her.
Speaking of Bob Hope, in this clip he introduces four singers -- Dick Powell, Yvonne DeCarlo (yikes! She doesn't look monstrous at all here), Dale Evans (without Roy Rogers) and Danny Kaye. They're playing for sailors wose aircraft carrier is being repaired at the San Pedro shipyards during WWII.
This video features footage of the great Al Jolson performing at USO. The audio however is a radio performance of a song called "There'll Never Be Another War." The video begins with Jolson pitching war stamps. He starts singing about a minute and 20 seconds in.
I guess Jolson was wrong about there never being another war.
Jumping ahead to Viet Nam, here's Bob Hope introducing a "canary" named Jan Daley in Long Binh, Viet Nam. (This would have had to have been 1970 or later because she's singing the theme from Love Story.) Here Ms. Daley mercilessly teases some poor soldier (who doesn't seem to be complaining)
One hundred and three years ago today, the states of Delaware, Wyoming and my beloved New Mexico voted to ratify the 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the one that gives the federal government authority to impose a personal income tax on its citizens.
Delaware is recognized as the 36th state to ratify -- the one that put it it over the top. I don't know whether Delaware did it before us due to their earlier time zone or whether our state Senate got preoccupied introducing guests in the gallery or the House got detoured by some memorial honoring the city of Pie Town.
Whatever the reason, Delaware got the credit. Or blame if you really hate taxes.
Here are a few songs by American artists honoring the 16th Amendment.
We'll start with bluesman Robert Cray's "1040 Blues'.
Next up is The Man in Black with "After Taxes."
Johnny Paycheck sings about his friends at the Internal Revenue Service.
Here's an assault on taxes from the left -- and a funky one at that -- by Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
But here's a different kind of message about taxes. In 1942, as the U.S. was fighting World War II, the IRS commissioned Irving Berlin to write a little reminder that paying taxes is patriotic. Here in his song "I Paid My Income Tax Today," comedian Danny Kaye sings lyrics like:
See those bombers in the sky? Rockefeller helped to build ’em, so did I I paid my income tax today
Sunday, January 31, 2016 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(at)ksfr.org Here's the playlist
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Puzzlin' Evidence by Talking Heads
Oblivion by Mudhoney
Slow Death by Flamin' Groovies
Sea of Blasphemy by Black Lips
Get Sick by Scratch Buffalo
Violent Shiver by Benjamin Booker
Down the Road by Dead Moon
Heartbreak Hotel by Roky Erikson
Take it Easy, Greasy by Bobby Charles
Hollywood Harlot For Miniature Golf by John Trubee & The Ugly Janitors Of America
Highway 666 by Left Wing Fascists
Uranium Rock by The Cramps
That's Your Problem by Mal Thursday & The Cheetahs
