TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, October 1, 2006
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away by Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah
Don't Leave Me by Roy & The Devil's Motorcycle
Watch Out for Me Ronnie by Yo La Tengo
Making Believe by Social Distortion
40 Miles of Bad Road by Dead Moon
Cold Night for Alligators by Roky Erikson
Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind by NRBQ with John Sebastian

Powder Burns by The Twilight Singers
Peace Attack by Sonic Youth
Swingin' Party by The Replacements
Seasons in the Sun by Too Much Joy
Painting Box by Incredible String Band
The 3B by The Sadies

Pirates of the Caribbean Theme
Fire Down Below by Nick Cave
Hog Eyed Man by Martin Carthy
The Gay Pirate Dance Song by Ray Stevens
Mingulay Bay by Richard Thompson
Hanging Johnny by Stan Ridgway
The Port of Amsterdam by Dave Van Ronk
Bully in the Alley by Morrigan
Leave Her Johnny by Lou Reed

The Banana Boat Song by George Clinton
Like a Monkey in the Zoo by Vic Chesnutt
Two Dogs and a Bone by Los Lobos
Tears Tears Tears and More Tears by Elvis Costello & Allen Tossaint
Viola Lee Blues by Ry Cooder
The One I Love by Brian Wilson
Except for Ghosts by Lisa Germano
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

CHRISTIAN RADIO TO NAB KBAC?

OK, granted that Clear Channel is Satan. However Santa Fe's local Clear Channel station may soon be in the hands of the opposite team. The proverbial Rev. Billy Bob might soon be preaching over KBAC's signal.

The New Mexican's Natalie Storey apparently came upon this revolting development before everyone got their press releases together.

From the article:

An employee at KBAC, who did not want to be named, said a sale of the station and a sister station, KSFQ-Smooth Jazz 101.1, is in the works. The employee said there was a meeting at the station Friday to discuss the situation. That employee said Clear Channel was trying to keep the negotiations quiet until the potential buyer sealed the deal. The employee said the potential buyer was expected to visit the station in coming weeks to make sure everything was in order.

Well, let's give 'em a big ol' Santa Fe greeting when they come to town ...

Anyone halfway familiar with the workings of radio realizes this was bound to happen to KBAC some day. I always figured they'd turn it into a "classic rock" station like they tried a few years ago.

I'm a public radio partisan, of course, so I really don't have a rooster in this cockfight. But I always liked the folks over at KBAC. I'm wishing them all well during the transition, whatever that might entail.

I notice there's no response to Natalie's article on the KBAC Web site. Stay tuned.

SUNDAE, BLOODY SUNDAE

I don't mind some light-hearted features with my news. God knows I've written my share of those.

But something I just heard on NPR's Sunday Edition pissed me off to the point that I have to blog for the sake of my blood pressure.

There was a substitute host, one Andrea Seabrook, whose voice and demeanor is far better suited for MTV than NPR. But on one feature, she was completely over the top.

It was a feature about some restaurant in New York City that has an ice cream sundae on the menu with a list price of $1,000.

Now I'm not a complete proponent for class warfare and I'm no sackcloth-and-ashes kind of fellow. But it's outright offensive that in a country where people die because they can't afford proper healthcare there are spoiled, elitist pricks who can and do shell out a thousand bucks for dessert.

But apparently Ms. Seabrook doesn't share my bad attitude. She sounded like a giddy teenager during this segment. And when the restaurant guy started describing the ingedients of his Golden Opulence Sundae, (Edible gold! Truffles! Dessert caviar!) she sounded like Meg Ryan in that infamous scene in When Harry Met Sally.

No, I don't want what she's having.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, September 29, 2006
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Payday Blues by Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks
Right or Wrong by Kelly Hogan
Gonna Be Flyin' Tonight by Wayne Hancock
Run to the Sea by Michael O'Neill with Nancy Apple

NANCY APPLE LIVE SET
You Said Goodbye by the San Juan River
Sun Will Always Shine
My Boyfriend
Truck Driver's Woman (from High on the Hog CD)
Chariot Wheels
Cathead Biscuits & Gravy
Queen of Country Music

I'd Do It All Over Again by Susie Salley
The Old Account by Rob McNurlin
39 and Holding by Jerry Lee Lewis
Pay the Devil by Van Morrison
I Will Stay With You by Emily Kaitz with Ray Wylie Hubbard
Johnny Cash Train by Cordell Jackson
Rollin' and Tumblin' by Bob Dylan
The Good Ship Venus by Loudon Wainwright III

Dollar Bill the Cowboy by The Waco Brothers
Wine, Women and Loud Happy Songs by Ringo Starr
Pale Imperfect Diamond by Jack Clift & John Carter Cash
Knapsack by Amy Rigby
This Old Town by Chip Taylor
Weakness in a Man by Waylon Jennings
Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor by Irma Thomas
Time's a Looking Glass by Jim Lauderdale
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: DUO, NOT SO DYNAMIC

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
September 29, 2006

Jeff Feuerzeig’s disturbing but strangely heartwarming documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston was finally made available on DVD last week. Even if you saw it when it played in Santa Fe in May, you have to check out the DVD version, if only for the filmed reunion of Johnston and his longtime muse/unrequited love Laurie Allen. I figured she probably had a dozen restraining orders against Johnston, but I guess I was wrong.

This film, in short, is one of the most moving musician documentaries I’ve ever seen (compared with this, the Townes Van Zandt bio-doc Be Here to Love Me is a virtual laugh riot). And even though Johnston is still too dang weird to ever become a “star,” the movie is bound to attract more interest in his music, and a lot of people will inevitably be led to the latest CD involving Johnston.

That would be The Electric Ghosts by Daniel Johnston and Jack Medicine. But, gentle readers, unless you’re already a Johnston fanatic, heed my words and don’t start here.

The CD cover art — a pretty cool cartoon of Daniel as a fat Batman and Medicine as Robin — isn’t an original Johnston drawing and lacks the strange monsters, frogs, or naked female torsos that grace nearly all of his other releases. (There is a Johnston rendition of Casper the Friendly Ghost on the back, though.)

Like other Johnston studio albums in recent years, this one is a radical departure from the lo-fi, hiss-addled cassette tapes of the 1980s that made us love Johnston in the first place.

To be fair, that has to be the hardest part of producing a Johnston album these days. His infamous “basement tapes,” which he used to dub himself and give away on the streets of Austin, are unlistenable to the average Joe. But when you try to make his music more audience-friendly, you take the chance of marring the very spirit that made those recordings such a raw joy to those with ears to hear. Most of the cuts on Electric Ghosts seem slicker and ultimately more colorless than his other albums from the last 10 years.

According to the liner notes, Mr. Medicine (real name Don Goede) was Johnston’s tour manager for three years. These notes, written by Goede, are so self-serving they put Bill Richardson’s press releases to shame.

“You see, Dan loved my music,” he writes in the second paragraph. Later, referring to The Devil and Daniel Johnston, Goede says, “I am proud to say I helped Jeff Feuerzeig the director out a lot with that movie preparing shots for him while Dan and I were touring.” He concludes by thanking Johnston for being “my biggest fan,” and correctly, for “letting me ride his coat tails.”

There you have it.

But don’t get the idea that there’s nothing worthwhile on The Electric Ghosts. The opening cut, “Sweetheart (Frito Lay),” a ’50s-ish melody with echoes of doo-wop, reminds me of the bizarre Mountain Dew jingle (heard in the documentary) that Johnston recorded in a mental hospital.

Johnston’s “cover” of David Bowie’s “Scary Monsters” is almost worth the price of the CD. Let’s just say he takes some liberties with the original, but, after watching The Devil and Daniel Johnston, the idea of the singer being tormented by monsters isn’t just metaphorical.

And, in fairness, one of my favorite songs here is “Blue Skies Will Haunt You From Now On,” which Johnston wrote, but Goede sings. It’s bluesy and spooky to the point of Satanism.

But as I said, new Johnston fans should start the proper way, with those old tapes (some are available on CD) on which Johnston’s cracking voice rises above the tape hiss and cheapo chord organ as he sings his guileless songs of pain and love that will never be. You can find most of them at www.hihowareyou.com. (One good place to begin your journey might be Discovered Covered: The Late Great Daniel Johnston, a 2004 “tribute album” that has one disc of acts like Beck, Tom Waits, and The Flaming Lips covering classic Johnston songs and a second disc of the original Johnston versions.)

Recommended:


Echoes of the Past by Dead Moon. This garage/punk/psychedelic/trash-rock trio from Portland, Ore., is one of the great unsung bands of the last 15 years or so, though I’m a recent convert myself. Fans of The Cramps, Roky Erikson, The Fleshtones, and the Nuggets compilations will welcome this collection of singles dating to the late ’80s.

Even though Dead Moon goes back that far, its beginning is only about the halfway point of singer Fred Cole’s career. He’s been around as long as Roky and is not kidding when he sings, in “Poor Born”: “I’ve been screaming at the top of my lungs since 1965.” He was a member of The Lollipop Shoppe, a ridiculously named band whose mid-’60s single “You Must Be a Witch” can be found in the first Nuggets box set.

Cole’s quasi-falsetto screaming graces most of the 49 songs on this two-disc set, though his wife, Toody Cole, the band’s bass player, steps out front for girl-punk vocals on songs like “Johnny’s Got a Gun” and sings Exene Cervenka/John Doe-style harmonies with the hubby on songs like “Jane.”

One of my favorite moments is Fred’s guitar intro in “Over the Edge,” which reminds me of Robbie Krieger in The Doors’ “The End.”

Dead Moon’s music, though simple, is dark and a little mysterious. Some of these songs could be from the soundtracks of movies about serial killers. Visions of dark alleys and lonesome graveyards will dance in your head.