CLUB ALEGRIA TO CLOSE

I don't have any details yet, but I just learned that Club Alegria on Agua Fria is going to close. The big question of WHY so far isn't known.

Here's the e-mail from manager Zia Cross:

Hello everyone,
It is with great sadness that I am writing to inform you all that Alegría will be closing forever.
This news came suddenly to me so I am passing it along as quickly as I can to inform you of our final shows. I hope everyone can come out one last time (or 3…).
Thank you to all who have come out and showed your support. Also much thanks to the media and especially to all of the great musicians and DJ’s who have played and tried to help make Alegría a success. We are sad to say goodbye.
Thank you, I hope to see you all soon.
Zia

She goes on to list the final three shows scheduled:

*Tuesday: ''We Are The Village'' music and art benefit party for Modesto’s Huichol family’s community in Nayarit, Mexico. It is to raise money for adequate water and sanitation. Children have come down with cholera and many are sick and have open sores and lice. Performers include The Keven Zeornig Project, Ricardin, Andromeda Crash, Miquel y Thelma, Ben Joaquin, The Dixon All Star Band, The Revolutionary No Water Blues Band, Hickory Strongheart, and Bob and Jodie Arellanoand Chispa. DJ Vita

* Friday: A "Farewell party" featuring Xoe Fitgerald Time Travelling Transvestite (Joe West has something to do with that) and D-Numbers with DJ Feathericci.

* Friday, Dec. 8 Public Enemy. PUBLIC ENEMY???!!!! That's what it says, folks. Bring the noise!

I'm ashamed to say I haven't been to Alegria since Zia took it over a few months ago. I remember some great shows there in th '90s -- Mike Watt with The Geraldine Fibbers, Wilco (banc when they were a country band), Billy Joe (and Eddie) Shaver, Joe Ely, The Tragically Hip, etc. I'm sorry to see it close.

eMUSIC NOVEMBER

Here's my allotted 90 downloads from eMusic this month:


* Why I Hate Women by Pere Ubu. Yes, Ubu's back, but this time they've fooled everyone by recording an entire album of Dan Fogelberg covers. They even brought Debbie Boone out of retirement for lead vocals on "Leader of the Band."

Just kidding ... But to find out how I really feel about this album, you're going to have to wait until Friday.


*Bloodied But Unbowed: The Soundtrack . You should already know how I feel about the music here. eMusic and iTunes are the only places where you can find the music from this excellent Bloodshot DVD. This has three live songs from The Waco Brothers, plus a few more from Langford. But I think my perverse favorite here is Sally Timms and Jon Rauhouse doing the cocktail Latino standard "Perfidia."

* Retarder by Unband. I'd never heard of this group until Lexie Shabel sent me an advance DVD of her new movie, We Like to Drink, We Like to Play Rock ‘n’ Roll, which will be shown at this year's Santa Fe Film Festival. The film is a documentary of this band of loveable losers. Musically, the Unband owes a lot to The Replacements and dozens of punk and metal bar bands too numerous to mention. Lots of fun though. Lexie is going to join me on Terrell's Sound World Nov. 26 to talk about the film and the Unband.
* L.A.M.F. - The Lost '77 Tapes by Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers. Johnny we hardly knew ye. This is a cool little high-charged glimpse of stripped-down New York punk rock as performed by one of the founding fathers. I still don't know how the New York Dolls could have a "reunion" without Johnny Thunders.



* (14 songs from) Presidential Campaign Songs, 1789-1996 by Oscar Brand. This 1996 album has songs for nearly all the presidents between Washington and Clinton. (Hey! Where's Chester Arthur?) I mentioned this album in passing in a recent column. I didn't feel like spending nearly half of my 90 downloads this month on one album, (most the songs are less than two minutes) but I wanted a few for my pre-election Terrell's Sound World. I couldn't resist nabbing the songs for Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover ("If He's Good Enough for Lindy") and of course Tricky Dick.

* America's Most Colorful Hillbilly Band - Vol. 1 by The Maddox Brothers & Rose. I downloaded more than half tracks from this album at the end of last month. I immediately went and picked up the remaining ones when my downloads "refreshed." One word of caution here: The track marked "New Mule Skinner Blues" actually is "I Want to Live and Love" -- which also appears here as the last track. And at this writing, they still haven't fixed it despite my alerting eMusic to it. Wonderful song, but you don't need to download it twice. (Hey eMusic, you still owe me a track!)

* John Fahey I had five tracks left over, so I decided to go for some good loooong tracks. eMusic has a good selection of Fahey, so I spent the last of my November allotment on "Voice of the Turtle" and "Mark 1:15," (both from America, plus "The Transcendental Waterfall" "What the Sun Said" and "I Saw the Light Shining 'Round and 'Round." I'd already downloaded a 13-minute "Fahey Sampler" years ago, so this will make a nice full CD.

I have deep emotional connections with Fahey. America was released about the time I started college and I remembering listening to these long, mysterious guitar excursions played frequently during the wee hours on KUNM. About this time my brother was getting serious about learning guitar, so everytime I'd go back to Santa Fe, he'd be intensely recreating hypnotic Fahey works. These indeed are immortal sounds.

* Tom Waits' "Road to Peace" and "Long Way Home." eMusic has dribbled out songs from the upcoming waits compilation Orphans, a 56-song, 3-disc affair due for release next week. (I picked up two free ones last month -- "Bottom of the World" and "You Can Never Hold Back Spring.")

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, November 17, 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
Wildwood Flower by Mike Ness
Muleskinner Blues by The Cramps
Medley: Ghost Riders in the Sky/Rawhide/The Ballad of Palladin by Chuck Maultsby & His Old Band
The Ballad of Thunder Road by Robert Mitchum
Wreck of the Old 97 by Johnny Cash
Over the Cliff by Jon Langford
Rockin' in the Congo by Hank Thompson
Las Vegas by The Texas Sapphires
One Meatball by Dave Van Ronk

Tomorrow is Forever by Solomon Burke with Dolly Parton
Green Green Grass of Home by Ted Hawkins
Little Old Wine Drinker Me by Miss Leslie & Her Juke Jointers
Cold, Cold World by Blaze Foley
Almost Thanksgiving Day by Graham Parker
Rambunctious Boy by John Fogerty
The Only Trouble With Me by Merle Haggard
11 Months and 29 Days by Johnny Paycheck

I Love the Way You Do It by Zeno Tornado
A Little More Cocaine Please by Splitlip Rayfield
Get Your Biscuits in the Oven by Kevin Fowler
The Pony to Bet On by The Legendary Shack Shakers
Kung Foo Cowboy by Alan Vega
Boxwine Ruth E by Ramsay Midwood
Raining in Port Arthur by The Gourds
Mean and Wicked Boogie by Maddox Brothers & Rose

I Ain't Marching Anymore by Richard Thompson
Salt Truck by Eleni Mandell
Be My Love by NRBQ
Better Word For Love by Big Al Anderson
Things Change by Lonesome Bob with Allison Mohrer
The Pilgrim Chapter 33 by Kris Kristofferson
You Should Have Wrote a Book by Dan Reeder
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

JERRY LAWSON IS STILL PERSUASIVE

I just got an e-mail yesterday from Jerry Lawson, longtime leader of The Persuasions, that great a cappella band of yore.

Jerry moved to Arizona a few years ago after splitting from The Persuasions. That makes us neighbors. Kind of.

Luckily, it didn't take him long to hook up with another band, Talk of the Town.

An album is in the works and judging from the tracks on his My Space site, it's gonna be a good one. I especially like "River of Dreams." Check it out.

PILLOW TO GIVE BIRTH IN SANTA FE

A few months ago I posted about New Mexican Web editor Stefan Dill doing the soundtrack for an Indian art film, Birth of a Pillow which, according to a press release, is -- "a film with no dialogue portraying personal responses to sexuality in present-day India. At the juncture of external stimulus, sociocultural conditioning, and personal drive lies the deepest human cores of fear, guilt, loneliness, power, weakness, pain, and denial."

Yikes!

HERE is the orginal link for information on that film. Check it out. it's got a bunch of good links I'm too lazy to re-post here.

But here's the news. The film is coming to Santa Fe as part of the Santa Fe Film Festival.

Birth of a Pillow will be screened Sunday, Dec 3, 2:00 p.m. at the Santa Fe Film Center, 1616 St. Michael's Drive in the St. Michael's Village West Mall.