THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 13, 2007
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
NEW: email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Wavin' My Heart Goodbye by The Flatlanders
Somewhere Between by Bill Hearne
Between Lust and Watching TV by Cal Smith
Jim, Jack and Rose by Johnny Bush & Justin Trevino
On a Monday by The Detroit Cobras
Thrown out of the Bar by Hank Williams III
Wreck on the Highway by The Waco Brothers
Girl Called Trouble by The Watzloves
The Deeper In by The Drive-By Truckers
Tonight I Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown by Mudhoney
Yellow Gal by Leadbelly

Suitcase in My Hand by Ry Cooder
Two Janes by Los Lobos
I Push Right Over by Rosie Flores
Baby I'm Drunk by The Rev. Horton Heat
Crow Holler by The Shiners
Honey Hush by Johnny Burnette & The Rock 'n' Roll Trio
Liquored Up by Southern Culture on the Skids
Hot Rod Race by Ramblin' Jimmie Dolan
Singin' the Blues by Dean Martin

Ruination Day Set
April the 14th Part 1 by Gillian Welch
The Great Dust Storm (Dust Storm Diaster) by Woody Guthrie
The Titantic by Bessie Jones, Hobart Smith & The Georgia Sea Island Singers
Booth Killed Lincoln by Bascom Lamar Lunsford
Lincoln and Liberty by Oscar Brand
Waltzing on the Titantic by Lonesome Bob
My Heart Will Go On (Theme from Titanic) by Los Straitjackets
Ruination Day Part 2 by Gillian Welch

I Discovered America by Graham Parker
Old Cape Cod by John Prine & Mac Wiseman
Cowboys are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other by Willie Nelson
The Wrong Direction Home by Dolly Parton
Justice for All by Dale Watson
The Wrong Kind of Girl by Roger Miller
Last Seen in Gainsville by Audrey Auld Mezera
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

UPCOMING MUSIC

I was very excited to learn just a few minutes ago that the headliner for this year's Quadstock at the College of Santa Fe is Dengue Fever -- a southern California world garage band led by a Cambodia-born singer.

About a year ago, I wrote in Tuneup:

This is one of the most amazing albums I’ve heard all year. It’s an Orange County, Calif., band fronted by Cambodian pop singer Ch'hom Nimol, who comes from a well-known Cambodian musical family. As the story goes, the band, led by brothers Zac and Ethan Holzman, discovered Nimol singing at a Long Beach joint called the Dragon House.The boys play a tasty garage/psychedelic/surf rock, with Ethan standing out on Farfisa organ and Nimol enchanting in her native tongue.

Quadstock will be held Saturday May 5th on the College of Santa Fe Quad 12 noon to 7 pm.

Tickets are $10 in advance -$15 at the Door- (Free for CSF students). Advance tickets are available at the CSF Greer Garson Box Office: 505-473-6511 Open Monday through Friday.

That's the day after the Drive-By Truckers/Alejandro Escovedo show at the Lensic. The Truckers (who unfortunately just parted ways with singer/guitarist Jason Isbelle) are doing an acoustic set. (They call it "The Dirt Underneath" -- CLICK HERE to find out more.)

Tickets are $21-$35 and are available at TheLensic.

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: STICK TO THE PLAN, GRAHAM

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 13, 2007

With a song called “Stick to The Plan” on his new album Don’t Tell Columbus, Graham Parker proves that mixing rock ’n’ roll and political commentary doesn’t have to result in heavy-handed screeds — and in fact can be good wicked fun.

Parker went into the amazingly strong latest stage of his 30-plus-year career when he began his association with Chicago’s Bloodshot Records in 2004. “Stick to the Plan,” while topical, is one of his strongest statements ever.

The just-under-six-minute song reminds me a lot of the cool blues-rock found on Dylan’s Modern Times. The lyrics also show the influence of prophet Bob — a little apocalyptic, a little tongue-in-cheek, outrage balanced with hipster humor. Starting out with the image of hurricanes “howling up the Florida coast,” the song, over the course of five verses, skewers the White House, the religious right, polluters, paranoia, and pigheadedness in general.

In perhaps a sly reference to the first verse of Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited,” Parker sings,

“Well God said to the president listen to me/I will advise you on
the way it’s gonna be/So the president got to his knees and accepted his fate/It’s a done deal now if you got some objections too late/Meanwhile in the corner there’s a drunk on a stool/Slurpin’ up ketchup and acting the fool/Pretending to fight for the truth but he ain’t getting far/Because he’s working for the same team just from the other side of the bar.”

The song bounces along, with images of persecuted scientists, philandering preachers, and Arabs being tortured — punctuated by cheery choruses in which Parker and a female chorus sing, “Good things are coming if we stick to the plan ... Keep your finger on the trigger, stick to the plan.”

After what can only be described as a murderous kazoo solo, Parker slides into the last verse,
which concludes with,

“Inside the airport every worker wears a turban/At the check point they’re stripping a suburban/couple of all their clothes and smelling their feet/But the found out the odor of stupidity isn’t too sweet.”

Parker has other politically charged tunes that you’ll never find on George Bush’s iPod.
Just last year he released a digital-only single called “2000 Funerals,” a somber tune about Americans killed in Iraq. (The number, as the press release for Don’t Tell Columbus points out, is “sadly outdated” — though if you count Iraqi casualties, it was outdated long before it was written).

And on the new album there’s “The Other Side of the Reservoir,” a slow, seething song about the destruction of a community for the sake of a water project — which might just be Parker’s equivalent of John Prine’s “Paradise”: “What were they thinking when they dug that hole/and bulldozed that town down/wall by wall,” Parker spits.

No, Columbus is not a protest album. It’s not Parker’s Living With War. It has soulful love songs like the sweet “Somebody Saved Me” and the desperate “Love or Delusion,” a smoldering, understated rocker.

There’s the scathing “England’s Latest Clown,” which concerns the well-covered travails of drug-plagued British rocker Pete Doherty (who gets out of prison “looking handsome with a ton of pride/With muscles on his muscles and Kate Moss by his side.”)

And there’s “I Discovered America” (the album’s title comes from the chorus), a harmonica-and-organ-driven folk-rocker in which Parker recounts moving to this country from England while looking back at his career.

“There was smoke up to my eyeballs/Poison burned my throat/But I said I’d keep on going when everyone said don’t/With my bony-chested T-shirt/Some stolen guitar licks/navigating by dead reckoning in 1976.”

A quick Creedence Clearwater Revival riff cleverly answers the “stolen guitar lick” line. Indeed, Parker’s pilfered from some of the best. But like Johnny Cash in “One Piece at a Time,” he’s used his stolen parts to create a unique vehicle. Let’s hope he sticks to his own weird plan and keeps it going.

Also Recommended:
* Standard Songs for Average People by John Prine & Mac Wiseman. This has been a good year for good country cover albums. There was Last of the Breed by Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Ray Price, as well as Southern Culture on the Skids’ Countrypolitan Favorites. And now this Marvel Team-up of one-time “New Dylan” Prine and venerated octogenarian bluegrass sensei Mac Wiseman. It almost makes me suspect that something big might be gurgling below the surface of country music, but I’ll leave that line of thought to the mystics.

While I would have preferred some new Prine songs, this is an easygoing, friendly little album, with some fine takes on some good ol’ songs.

There’s a couple of Elvis Presley’s Sun Sessions classics (“I Forgot to Remember to Forget” and “I Love You Because”); a Bob Wills obscurity (“Don’t Be Ashamed of Your Age”); a Lefty Frizzell faux-folk tune (“Saginaw, Michigan”); an Ernest Tubb tune (“Blue Eyed Elaine”); a Patti Page pop hit (“Old Cape Cod”); some hymns (“The Old Rugged Cross,” “In the Garden”); and a couple of wonderful examples of ’70s country — Tom T. Hall’s “Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine” and Kris Kristofferson’s “Just The Other Side of Nowhere.”

Standard Songs won’t take a place in the upper pantheon of records by either artist. But when you hear these old guys trading verses on these songs they both obviously love, it’s hard not to love it back.

R.I.P. VONNEGUT

Sometime after The Hardy Boys and James Bond, I pretty much quit reading books for several years.

In my freshman year in Congress, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. brought me back. He made reading fun.

His writing was simple. It was playful. It was deeply cynical. And quite often it was right on target.

He's dead now.

If you haven't already, go read Breakfast of Champions or Slaughterhouse Five or Cat's Cradle.

R.I.P. old man.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: SHAKE-UP AT NM MAG

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 12, 2007

There was one little island of state government that for at least the last 20 years or so was seemingly free of political meddling.

That was New Mexico Magazine, the official state tourism magazine. It’s had the same basic staff for a couple of decades now, producing a highly praised and self-supporting monthly publication through a variety of administrations.

There have been news dogs among the daily press who have fantasized about slipping the surly bonds of daily deadlines and moving over to New Mexico Magazine for an easier-going pace, a seemingly stable work environment and PERA retirement benefits.

That’s why recent news about a staff shake-up was ominous. Could it be that idea of the state magazine as an oasis was just a mirage?

Emily Drabanski, the magazine’s editor for 21 years — that means she’s worked there during the administrations of Toney Anaya, Garrey Carruthers, Bruce King, Gary Johnson and the first four years of Bill Richardson — is being shuffled to a kind of nebulous position: editing books published by the magazine, overseeing the state vacation guide and working in community outreach and public relations.

Her former position will become exempt from state personnel-system protections — which means the future editor will serve at the pleasure of the governor.

Arnold Vigil, who had been the book editor, has been moved to another position.

Full disclosure here: I consider Drabanski and Vigil and others on that staff personal friends, and I knew and worked with a few of them well before they went to work for the magazine.

Furthermore, I’ve written articles for New Mexico Magazine — on topics such as music CLICK HERE and scroll down), bolo ties and Blake’s Lotaburger — and, a few years ago, contributed a chapter to a book published by the magazine.

No, there’s no evidence of overt political meddling. And in fact, Tourism Secretary Michael Cerletti is on record saying Richardson has nothing to do with the changes.

But in an administration known for putting its own stamp — and its own people — at virtually every level of state government, you have to be suspicious.

And the official explanation for the changes smells kind of fishy.

Supposedly it’s an effort to “attract younger readers.” Consultants determined “the magazine is geared toward your uncle. You need to gear it toward your nephew,” said Cerletti — who has always reminded me of a kindly uncle.

So there’s going to be less on ghost towns, woodcarvers and Billy the Kid and more on video games, poetry slams and extreme sports?

I don’t think so. Look at the advertisers in the magazine: Resorts, high-end restaurants, racetracks, art galleries. These are places frequented by a lot more aunts and uncles than nieces and nephews.

It will be interesting to see who will fill the editor’s position. Will it be an administration-friendly journalist who hasn’t already been hired? Will it be a relative of some campaign contributor?

Maybe somebody’s nephew.

What’s best for New Mexico: Speaking of campaign contributors, a recent story by The Associated Press’ Barry Massey contained a statement from the Governor’s Office that has become almost like a mantra.

The story dealt with Forest City Covington, a land development company that loaned Richardson a corporate jet during his 2006 campaign, and which will benefit from taxpayer-subsidized bonds authorized in a bill the governor signed last week.

“The governor makes decisions based upon what is best for the state — period.” spokesman Jon Goldstein said.

Sound familiar? Here’s a quick collection of quotes that are variations on that theme:

* “The governor does not make any decisions or is not impacted by any contributions whether that’s a money contribution or event or whatever.”
— 2006 Richardson campaign manager Amanda Cooper in March 2007 regarding a highway interchange near Belen that will benefit Coast Range Investments, which donated to Richardson’s gubernatorial campaign and whose president, James Foster, contributed to Richardson’s campaign and loaned him a corporate jet.

* “The governor makes decisions based on what’s best for New Mexico and ensuring that taxpayers get the most for their money. It’s important to note that the DGA represents 22 governors and enjoys broad support from individuals and companies around the country.”
— Spokesman Pahl Shipley regarding tens of thousands in contributions to the Democratic Governors Association during Richardson’s tenure as chairman by racetrack owner Stanley Fulton, the GEO Corp. private prison company and U.S. Tobacco, which was pushing a controversial tax bill in the state.

* “To suggest or imply a connection between any travel of the Democratic Governors Association and the governor’s efforts to protect consumers is insulting and flat wrong.”
— Spokesman Gilbert Gallegos in April 2006, regarding a corporate jet belonging to a payday loan company used by the Democratic Governors Association during Richardson’s tenure as chairman.