WILCO!

Just some stray thoughts about the Wilco concert I saw in Albuquerque last night.

I hadn't seen Jeff Tweedy and the boys in 10 years -- they came to Santa Fe's tiny Club Alegria in May 1995, soon after releasing AM. (Besides stuff from their first album, I remember them playing a great cover of The Texas Tornados' "Who Were You Thinking Of" and a botched, aborted stab at Neil Young's "Albuquerque.")

They were supposed to come to the Lensic in Santa Fe last year but cancelled due to Jeff Tweedy's rehab stint. "I was indisposed," Tweedy said from the stage last night.

I don't know if it was "worth the wait," but Wilco certainly didn't disappoint last night.

Though they started off slowly last night, opening with a questionable choice -- a slow,delicate "Muzzle of Bees" -- things soon picked up. By the third or fourth song, "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," the spell was cast.

Nels Cline is a great addition to the band. From some stray reports I'd heard I was afraid he'd dominate, but that's not the case. The two keyboardists also fill out the sound. (Anyone know their names? Post 'em on the comments section here.) Sometimes they suggested The Band, sometimes Brian Wilson.

Most the songs, unsurprisingly were from A Ghost is Born -- which is far from my favorite Wilco album, though I appreciate some of the songs better after hearing them live -- and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. They also reached back for at several songs from Summerteeth ("A Shot in the Arm" and "Candy Floss" stood out),at least one from Being There ("Kingpin") and several quasi-acoustic tunes from the Mermaid Avenue records including a beautiful (how could it be otherwise) "Remember the Mountain Bed," "Another Man's Done Gone" and "California Stars."

For me the transcendental highlight was when the cacophony at the end of "Poor Places" melted into a lethal version of "Spider (Kidsmoke)"

It also was good seeing The Handsome Family. Unlike other times when I've seen them, they had a full band including Brett's brother Darrell on banjo and bass (switching off with Rennie) and Eric Johnson on drums (Both are from the Albuquerque group The Rivet Gang.) Rennie's raps about the various Wal-Marts in Albuquerque are getting even more funny.

The whole show made me happy.

By the way, at this writing it looks like nobody's posted the set list from last night's show on WilcoBase yet. If anyone was taking notes last night (not me -- I'm off work this week!) please share with the world.

Speaking of fine shows I had a great time Saturday night at Al Faaet's Martini Prophecies at the High Mayhem Studio. It was an evening of true New-Year's-Eve-in-the-nut-house music. The type of show that the devil inside of me fantasizes about seeing on The Plaza frightening unsuspecting tourists ...

(Full disclosure time, Al's a good buddy of mine and is in fact the drummer of my long dormant CHARRED REMAINS. The show included my baby brother Jack too. And for the record, deep in my heart, I do believe that J.A. Deane actually is the 14-year-old Perfect Master. Other than that, I'm completely unbiased.)

And as much as the music, I appreciated the sense of true community created by High Mayhem master Max Friedenberg and his sinister cohorts. It's a friendly, welcoming little scene and I hope it thrives.

I picked up a copy of the High Mayhem Festival 2003 CD and it's a great sampler of this kind of experimental, improvisational music. (I haven't had a chance yet to fool around with the CD-ROM, which includes complete performances of the artists on the CD.)

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, April 24, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Gimme Danger by The Stooges
Baby Please Don't Go by Them
The Kingdom of My Mind by The Mistaken
Holy Roller Novocaine by The Kings of Leon
From Blown Speakers by The New Pornographers
You Got the Silver by The Rolling Stones
Taitschi Tarot by Nina Hagen
Young Widow Polka by Bacova's Ceska Kapela

Buried the Pope by Stan Ridgway
Tangled Up in Plaid by Queens of the Stone Age
Mannish Boy by The Electrik Mudkats with Chuck D & Common
Hende Baba by Thomas Mapfumo
To You Kasiunia by Warsaw Village Band
Crackhouse Mayday Suicide by Stuubaard Bakkebaard
Game of Pricks by Guided by Voices

High Mayhem Festival 2003 Track 1 by My Country of Illusion
High Mayhem Festival 2003 Track 2 by Zimbabwe NKenya's Contrabass Quartet
Forbidden Fruits, New Mexico by Lisa Gill
Lost Boys and Pirates by Out of Context
Feet of Stone by Bing
High Mayhem Festival 2003 Track 18 by Invisible Plane

Hell is Chrome by Wilco
Murder's Crossed My Mind by Desdemona Finch
Little Floater by NRBQ
Song Against Sex by Neutral Milk Hotel
In Awe of a Painting by Ana da Silva
Now I Lay Me Down by Howe Gelb
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

KSFR WINS AWARDS

Santa Fe Public Radio, KSFR won 13 awards, including news station of the year from New Mexico's Associated Press Broadcasters.

One of those was a first place award for the station's coverage of last year's political conventions in Boston and New York. I'm proud to have been part of that team, which also included John Calef, Bradley Meacham and Zellie Pollon. I phoned in some reports from the conventions, which I was covering for The Santa Fe New Mexican.

News director Bill Dupuy deserves most the credit for these awards though.

Read about it HERE

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 22, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Better Everyday by The Waco Brothers
I've Always Been Crazy by Carlene Carter
I Must Be High by Wilco
Interstate City by Dave Alvin
Arizona Siritual by Terry Allen
Johnnie Armstrong by Michael Martin Murphey
El Corrido de Emilio Naranjo by Angel Espinoza

John Paul the Peacemaker by Acie Cargill
Po' Boy by Bob Dylan
Tallacatcha by Alvin Youngblood Hart
Grapevine by Tom Russell
Sweet Rosie Jones by Jim Lauderdale
Mental Cruelty by Buck Owens & Rose Maddox
Rita by Vincent Craig
Incident in Juarez (Los Rubboardistas)by Cornell Hurd

Silver Dollar by Bone Orchard
How Lew Sin Ate by Dr. West's Medicine Show & Junk Band
Beer Ticket Rag by Devil in the Woodpile
No Swallerin' Place by June Carter
Monkey on a String by Charlie Pool
The Prune Waltz by Adoph Hofner
Old Rattler by Grandpa Jones
Drivin' Nails in My Coffin by Larry Welborn
Mike the Can Man by Joe West

Chili Fields by Lenny Roybal
Love is No Excuse by Justin Trevino with Miss Norma Jean
Billy Joe by Audrey Auld Mezera
Street Walking Woman by Shaver
Linda on My Mind by Conway Twitty
So Round So Firm by Eddie Pennington
Church on Fire by Kev Russell
Give My Love to Rose by Johnny Cash
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: RISING TO THE DIGITAL AGE

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 22, 2005

Zimbabwe maestro Thomas Mapfumo has battled the old apartheid-style government of Rhodesia. He has openly attacked the corrupt dictatorship of Robert Mugabe -- a move that forced him into exile from his native land.

And now he’s challenging the music industry itself by releasing his latest album -- plus a previously unreleased live album -- exclusively on the Internet in the form of MP3 downloads.

Mapfumo’s new Rise Up! and his 1991 Afropop Worldwide Presents Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited, Live in New York are available at www.CalabashMusic.com, an extremely cool world music site known for their “fair trade” policy.

That means the recording artists get 50 percent of what you pay for downloading their songs.

Despite the Recording Industry Association of America’s hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing in claiming that illegal downloading rips off the poor artist, the big companies that make up the RIAA don’t pay anywhere near 50 percent. (And in fact countless performers and songwriters long ago lost their rights to their own music -- see my "Jazzmen" post below -- so don’t let the suits guilt trip you.)

Calabash charges 99 cents a track, so the complete Rise Up! will cost you just under $11, while the complete live album will cost less than $12 -- but this is for nearly two hours of music.

Both these albums of part of what Calabash is calling The Mapfumo Files -- 15 albums going back to the ‘80s that you can download as a set for $99.

The way of the future?

Releasing albums exclusively on the Internet reminds me of an old line by The Firesign Theatre: “If you asked for this record in the stores, they’d think you were crazy!”

Mapfumo, according to his publicists, is the first “world music” artist to release an album exclusively in MP3 form. The world’s a big place, so it’s nearly impossible to tell if that’s entirely true -- though it’s safe to say that he’s the first major world-beat star to do so.

He’s not the first name artist to do it though. That honor belongs to They Might Be Giants, who in 1999 released Long Tall Weekend exclusively on eMusic.

Despite the success of music downloading services like iTunes, I’m not sure lucrative a proposition it is to release entire albums exclusively as downloads. It’s hard to name any notable artists besides Mapfumo and TMBG who have done it.

In fact, some editors and critics in the world music realm reportedly balked at Mapfumo’s move, some saying that some of their writers are so computer-challenged they can‘t handle it, others saying that downloading is too much of a hassle.

“I am quite dismayed by this turn of events and the future it presages,” one editor whined. “Please consider the dinosaurs still left roaming the earth.”

While the technophobic implications here seem overblown, there are some points to consider. While more and more people do have computers these days, there are still many fans and potential fans who don’t. For these folks, download-only albums are more than a “hassle.”

And even for some with computers there are glitches. Unless you have a high-speed connection, downloading an album takes forever. (I usually start downloading right before I go to bed.)

And a few of the Mapfumo downloads I had to do over because the ends of the tracks somehow got clipped off by the time they reached my computer. Fortunately, Calabash doesn’t charge for re-downloading.

I’m of two minds on the issue of download-only albums. On one hand I like the idea of musicians bypassing the record companies, having more control of their products and taking a bigger cut of the profits. I also like the convenience of being able to click on a song and have it in my computer ready to burn instantly. (OK, with dial-up, it’s not really instant, but you get the point.)

On the other hand, doing away with finished manufactured products -- hard copies, cover art, liner notes, etc. -- is another nail in the coffin of old-fashioned record stores.

I love browsing through a great record store, gazing at all the colorful covers, trying to read as much information as CD packages allow, checking out the new releases, the used section, the bargain bins, listening to what the clerks are playing …

But maybe I’m being nostalgic here. Even before downloading music became a big issue, the reality of the locally-owned, independent record stores was grinding to a halt. Santa Fe hasn’t had a great one for years, since Rare Bear folded.

So maybe Web-exclusive albums are the way of the future. I just hope artists like Mapfumo and not the corporations benefit.

Mapfumo’s albums

No matter how it got to my ears, Mapfumo’s Chimurenga music is a joy. With out-front guitar and mbiras -- the plinking Zimbabwean instrument in which more than 20 metal keys are mounted to a hardwood soundboard -- and Mapfumo’s call-and-response with his female vocalists


No, I don’t speak Shona, Mapfumo’s language, so I don’t really know what he’s singing about. But even without the benefit of lyrics it’s obvious that Rise Up! has a somber tone. Maybe I’m reading too much into the fact that he’s been living in this country (Eugene, Ore. To be exact) for five years. But there seems to be a sadness permeating the sweet grooves of this album.

Live in New York on the other hand is far more energetic. It was recorded with Mapfumo’s band Blacks Unlimited, several of whom have since died.

The set starts off slow with “Nyamaropa,” a mbira song, but picks up quickly. My favorite here probably is “Jo Jo,” which starts off with a blast of the horn section and eventually melts into a glorious 10-minute jam.