TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, November 23, 2008
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@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Momia Twist by Wau y Los Arrrghs!!!
Acton by Los Peyotes
Miniskirt Blues by The Cramps with Iggy Pop
Boomerang by The Black Lips
I'm Hurtin' by Thee Headcoats
Ward 81 by The Fuzztones
Exploder by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Mean and Evil by The Juke Joint Pimps
Granny's Little Chicken by The Dirtbombs
Do the Watusi by Cat

November/Weapon by The Rockin' Guys
Hurt Me by Lightning Beat Man
Mr. Link Wray by The Happy Happy Jihads
Rawhide by Link Wray
Monkey Run by Johnny Dowd
Hit the Road by Scott H. Birham
Make You Say Wow by Bob Log III
Warmth of the Sun by The Beach Boys

Mad Mike/Las Vegas Grind set
A La Carte by James "Red" Hollway
Mama Ubangi Bangi by The Four Sounds
The Whip by The Creeps
Snacky Poo by The Del-Mars
Surfin' in the China Sea by The Hong Kongs
For the Birds by The Charts
Rigor Mortis by The Gravestone Four
Strollie Bun by The Blonde Bomber
Little Girl by John & Jackie
Mysterious Teenage by The Vels
Cherry Juice by Marino Choice
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff by The Rhythm Kings

The Kukamong a Boogaloo by King Khan & The Shrines
Ain't It Hard by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Praise the Lord Everyone by Dante Harmon
Slinky by The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker
Waiting at the River by The Blind Boys of Mississippi
A Night at the House of Prayer by The Rev. Lonnie Farris
Don't You Ever Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down by Linda Tillery & The Cultural Heritage Choir featuring Wilson Pickett & Eric Bibb
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

LAZY SUNDAY MORNING

What better time to think about that amazing meeting between two powerful forces in American entertainment: Jack Benny and The Blues Magoos. (From the Kraft Music Hall, Nov. 1, 1967, assuming the Youtube information is correct.)

Hide your ears, Jack!

RICHARDSON TO COMMERCE

So it looks as if Gov. Bill Richardson might soon be leaving the greatest job he;s ever had and going t work as Commerce secretary in the Obama administration.

Here's the stroeis that Miss Nash and I were working on Friday afternoon.

CLICK HERE and HERE and HERE.

It's just starting to sink in to me that this job is not going to be anywhere near the same if Richardson really is leaving the state.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, November 21, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Change in the Weather by John Fogerty
Sweet Sweet Girl by Warren Smith
I'll Sail My Ship Alone by Cornell Hurd with Tommy Alverson
Wake Up and Smell the Whiskey by Dean Miller
Cajun Stripper by Doug Kershaw
The Story of Mama Rosin by Mama Rosin
Girl Called Trouble by The Watzloves
That's My Rabbit, My Dog Caught It by The Walter Family

Long Hauls and Close Calls by Hank Williams III
Five Brothers by Marty Robbins
Goodbye Earle by The Dixie Chicks
The Taker by Waylon Jennings
Friday Night on a Dollar Bill by Huelyn Duvall
Black Cat by Tommy Collins
Dig Myself a Hole by Charlie Feathers
Things are Gettin' Rough All Over by Hank Penny
Squaws Along the Yukon by Hank Thompson
Don't Come Home a Drinkin' by Loretta Lynn

Everybody Wants a Cowboy by Skeeter Davis & NRBQ
Life Begins at 4 OClock by The Starline Rhythm Boys
Blue Sunshine by The Meteors
Thunder by Yuichi & The Hilltone Boys
Cowboy No. 77 by Charlie Pickett
Shout Out Loud by Eric Hisaw
Single Bar Love Song by Mike Neal
Waitin' Where She Hides by Dave Insley
Strangeness in Me by The Cramps

Lee Harvey by The Asylum Street Spankers
Whiskey Willie by Michael Hurley
I'll Be Fine When I Get Home to You by Gann Brewer
Bad Music (Is Better than No Music at All) by John Hartford
Neck of the Woods by Hundred Year Flood with Shannon McNally
Last Days of Tampa Red by Ronny Elliott
He Was a Friend of Mine by The Byrds
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: MONSTERS ON THE LOOSE

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 21, 2008


Writers, DJs, and hyperactive fans who champion music that’s obscure and out of the mainstream often have the desire to lift the wild geniuses and inspired outcasts they so love out of the shadows and give them at least a modest bit of the attention and acclaim they so richly deserve.

That wasn’t the case with “Mad” Mike Metrovich, a Pittsburgh disc jockey who became a broadcast institution on WZUM (AM, of course) in the mid-’60s. Mad Mike was infamous for going to dusty, old, out-of-the-way warehouses, buying thousands of 45s for pennies on the dollar, finding the craziest R & B, the greasiest doo-wop, and the most delinquency-inducing rock ’n’ roll for his radio show and the local teen dances he played — and for scraping off the labels so other DJs and fans weren’t able to find out what he was playing.

Lucky for us that Norton Records didn’t hide the artist and song-title information on Mad Mike Monsters: A Tribute to Mad Mike Metrovich, a three-disc collection (you have to buy the CDs separately) filled with dozens of the mad one’s favorites.

Not that anyone will recognize many — or perhaps any — of the names here. Except for Johnny Otis, who has a couple of 10-second radio plugs included in this compilation, the only group I recognize is The Sonics, whose garage hit “Psycho” is the first song on Volume 1.

Otherwise, the roster of artists reflects an alternate universe — Wild Child Gipson, the Grand Prees, Baby Huey & The Babysitters, Calvin Cool, Big Danny Oliver, Big Syl Barnes, and Little Ike. And no, the Marquis Chimps weren’t the actual apes who used to appear on television back in the ’60s, and Mad Mike & The Maniacs wasn’t led by Metrovich.

Just like radio listeners in Pittsburgh in 1965, you can enjoy the yackety saxes, the Reefer Madness-style piano, the piercing guitars, and the screaming Little Richard wannabes over dozens of tasty tracks with a certain sense of wonder. Who are these anonymous maniacs producing such intense sounds? Where did this stuff come from?

Some of the song titles in the collection sound familiar. “Goo Goo Muck” by Ronnie Cook & The Gaylads is a bizarre little ditty that was later covered by The Cramps. But “Camel Walk” by The Saxons, though similar to the one done by Southern Culture on the Skids, isn’t the same tune. And “The Hunch” by Mad Mike & The Maniacs has nothing to do with Hasil Adkins.

The songs are all from the days well before political sensitivity, so there’s some ethnic stereotyping not for the easily offended — like that in “Mama Ubangi Bangi” by The Four Sounds, complete with physical descriptions of a “Watusi Lucy” and jungle animal sounds, or “Chop Suey Rock” by The Instrumentals, a saxed-out, surfy instrumental introduced by a phony saying from Confucius. There’s a similar track called “Surfin’ in the China Sea” by The Hong Kongs. Then there are “Geronimo” by The Renegades, which includes sound effects of rifle fire and Indian war cries, and “Firewater” by The Premieres, another instrumental, which has someone trying to imitate a Native American.

There are songs that will bring to mind better-known tunes. “Uncle John” by Wild Child Gipson is basically an “answer song” to Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally.” James “Red” Holloway’s “A La Carte,” with its shouts of “fried elephant lips,” “spider giblets,” and “baboon eyeballs,” sounds like a rewrite of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “Feast of the Mau Mau” and “Alligator Wine” — although I can’t say for certain whether Holloway’s song came before or after Screamin’ Jay’s.

And some songs just sound dirty. There’s “Strollie Bun” by Blonde Bomber, for instance (“Where did you get that strut?” asks the singer, who sure doesn’t sound like a blonde). Even though “Cherry Juice” by Marino Choice doesn’t contain any overt obscenities, it sounds as if it could be from a lost “party” album by Jackie Wilson. Similarly, “Snacky Poo” by The Del Mars is even more suggestive (“Some people like it, some people don’t/Some people do it, some people won’t”). This sounds like the song Otis Day & The Knights would have been playing in the juke joint in Animal House right before the guys from Delta House walked in.

Mad Mike died on Oct. 31, 2000, just hours after doing his annual Halloween show. If not for Norton Records, most of this music probably would have died along with him. Listen and be amazed.

Grind it!: For those wanting to dig deeper beneath the underbelly of rock ’n’ roll: Mad Mike’s Monsters reminds me of another collection of crazy, obscure R & B and rock. That’s the Las Vegas Grind series, which came out in the mid-’90s on the tiny Crypt label. (Faithful readers of my blog might recall that I patriotically spent part of my $600 federal income-tax rebate check on a couple of volumes of Las Vegas Grind. I’ve since bought the other two CDs.)

It’s the same type of music you’ll find on the Mad Mike CDs. (In fact, one song is in both collections — Holloway’s “A La Carte.”) Supposedly, the music in the Grind series is what live bands used to play in Las Vegas strip joints in the late ’50s and early ’60s. There’s no evidence that any of the acts on the albums actually played Vegas or at topless bars anywhere. But it sounds like they should have. Most of these tunes could serve as the soundtrack for a yet-to-be-made movie version of James Ellroy’s American Tabloid.

I found my copies, which by the way, have some of the greatest cover art in the history of recorded music, on Amazon. (Hint: there are only four CDs, parts 1, 2, 3, and ... 6! Although there apparently were LPs of parts 4 and 5, the fourth CD is Part 6. Let the mystery be.)

You know I love playing stuff like this on the radio: tune into Terrell’s Sound World, free-form weirdo radio, starting at 10 p.m. on Sunday on KSFR-FM 101.1. And don’t forget The Santa Fe Opry, the country music Nashville does not want you to hear, same time, same channel on Friday.