OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos Land of the Free by Jason & The Scorchers Maverick by Laurie Lewis & Kathy Kallick Sugar Baby by The Legendary Shack Shakers Hello Walls by The Rev. Horton Heat with Willie Nelson Turn It On, Turn It On, Turn It On by Tom T. Hall Big Love by Carrie Rodriguez Little Bells by Rosie Flores and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts In the Jailhouse by The Grevious Angels That's the Way Love Goes by The Harmony Sisters
Jack O Diamonds by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs Sam Hall by Johnny Cash Blood on the Saddle by Tex Ritter Walking Cane by Catherine Irwin & The Sadies I Want To Live And Love by The Maddox Brothers and Rose I Got Wine on My Mind by Cornell Hurd Country Hixes by T.Tex Edwards & Out On Parole I've Got Blood in My Eyes for You by The Mississippi Sheiks
Ruination Day Set April the 14th part 1 by Gillian Welch The Titantic by Bessie Jones, Hobart Smith & The Georgia Sea Island Singers The Great Dust Storm by Woody Guthrie Boothe Killed Lincoln by Bascom Lamar Lunsford Ruination Day by Gillian Welch Legend of the U.S.S. Titantic by Jaime Brokett My Heart Will Go On (Love Theme From Titantic) by Los Straightjackets
Your Cheatin' Heart by Gene Autry Hookie Junk by The Gourds Someday My Prince Will Come by Skeeter Davis & NRBQ California Stars by Wilco & Billy Bragg CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican April 16, 2010
Former Billy Childish protégé Holly Golightly Smith continues her funky backwoods explorations on Medicine County, the third and latest album credited to Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs. The other half of this band is her longtime collaborator, Texas-born “Lawyer Dave” Drake.
Golightly, for the benefit of newcomers, was an original member of Thee Headcoatees, a garage-rock girl group that sprang from Childish’s band of the moment, Thee Headcoats, in the early 1990s. She has operated as a solo act since the mid-1990s, and she’s sung on tunes by The White Stripes, Rocket From the Crypt, Hipbone Slim & The Knee Tremblers, and others. She also did a tune in Jim Jarmusch’s 2005 movie, Broken Flowers.
Though she was born in England, Golightly now lives on a farm outside Athens, Georgia, with Lawyer Dave. This undoubtedly contributes to the rural vibe of her recent work.
This is The Brokeoffs’ third album, following Dirt Don’t Hurt (2008) and You Can’t Buy a Gun When You’re Crying (2007). It has a slightly more diverse sound than those previous records. It starts off with a twangy, exotic tune called “Forget It” that features a piercing organ. It’s not hard imagining the Cambodian/American psychedelic surf band Dengue Fever performing this one. It’s jarring but alluring.
But Holly and Dave are back on more familiar ground on the next song, “Two Left Feet.” No, it’s not the Richard Thompson song of the same name. This is a lazy, loping stomper featuring a nasty slide-guitar lick.
The next couple of tunes — the title song and “I Can’t Lose” — are fine hoedown numbers. The latter in particular is tasty. The screechy fiddle sounds as if it’s straight out of The Holy Modal Rounders. This leads to “Murder in My Mind,” a song written by British New Waver Wreckless Eric. It has a “Louie Louie”-type chord pattern that can be seen as a nod to Golightly’s garage roots. She and Lawyer Dave trade off on verses with lyrics like “One day they’ll find you hangin’ from a tree/or lyin’ in an alley with a knife stickin’ out of your spleen.”
Speaking of blood and guts, these two apparently have been listening to old Tex Ritter records. Ritter’s signature tune, “Blood on the Saddle,” appears here as a loopy waltz with Oregon singer Tom Heinl providing the frog-throated spoken-word section at the end of the tune.
The Brokeoffs also cover “Jack O’ Diamonds” (which Ritter recorded as “Rye Whiskey”). Holly and Dave do it as a sinister-sounding minor-key tune with fiddle and banjos.
While most of the tunes here are originals or traditional songs, Heinl wrote one of the most fun songs here, “Escalator.” It’s a clunky little tune about a guy, perhaps a child, who fears escalators. “Escalator, you won’t eat me/With your big rubber tongue and your shiny teeth,” Lawyer Dave sings. The narrator gets so riled up and fearful that he ends up hiding in a rack of nightgowns.
The prettiest song on Medicine County is “Dearly Departed.” The opening guitar strums remind me of the beginning of Waylon Jennings’ “Dreaming My Dreams With You.” Golightly sings it soft and somber. Somebody’s playing a church organ in the background, which gives the song an otherworldly feel.
Meanwhile, the song “Don’t Fail Me Now,” with its feedback and tortured electric guitar, sounds like it’s champing at the bit to break out into a crazy rocker. They keep it restrained, but the tension adds some dimension.
Also recommended:
* Under Construction by The Del-Lords. After 20 years or so, the mighty Del-Lords are back, with a way-too-short but very tantalizing EP.
In case you missed its original run (circa 1984-1991), this New York band was led by Scott “Top Ten” Kempner, formerly of The Dictators, and Eric “Roscoe” Ambel, an original member of Joan Jett & the Blackhearts. (In more recent years, Ambel has played guitar in Steve Earle’s band and in his own group, The Yayhoos.
Although urban, the Del-Lords did credible covers of “Folsom Prison Blues” and the best version ever of Blind Alfred Reed’s “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?”)
The boys still sound in fine form on the five songs here, from the opening rocker, “When the Drugs Kick In” — “I was right in the middle of a big idea (when the drugs kicked, when the drugs kicked in)/I forgot everything right there and then (when the drugs kicked, when the drugs kicked in) — to the last track, a pretty Kempner ballad called “All of My Life.”
My favorite here is “Me & the Lord Blues,” sung by Ambel and featuring a crazy, raunchy guitar hook. This might be seen as a modern rewrite of the Blind Alfred tune the Del-Lords did so well: “I woke up this morning, and I says to God/‘I know you’re gonna hit me if you’re gonna hit me/but do you have to hit so hard?’/No food upon my table, too much on my plate ... please tell me, Lord, it’s all a mistake.”
These songs are just enough to make a Del-Lords fan hope for a new full-fledged album.
Under Construction is available only at the Del-Lords’ Web site, www.del-lords.com.
Sunday, April 11, 2010 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 Love Taco by Pinata Protest Get Off the Road by The Cramps Ride on Angel by Simon Stokes Daddy Rolling Stone by The Blasters Colourfast Girl by The Laundronauts Take My Hand by The Organs Grease Box by TAD Would Yo Go All the Way by Frank Zappa Little School Girl by Larry Williams
Be and Bring Me Home by Roky Erikson with Okerville River Bury You Alive by Batusis When the Drugs Kick In by The Del-Lords Wig Wag by Manby's Head Tiger Phone Card by Dengue Fever Weeping Blues by Roscoe Gordon Wooly Bully by Hasil Adkins
She Ain't a Child No More by Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings (It's a) Sunny Day by The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker I Don't Want No Funky Chicken by Wiley And The Checkmates Me and Mr. Jones by Amy Winehouse Miss Beehive by Howard Tate Goin' to Jump and Shout by Barrence Whitfield Big Booty Woman by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears I Am Trying to Break Your Heart by J.C. Brooks & The Uptown Sound
I Still Want to be Your Baby (Take Me as I Am) by Bettye Lavette Tricks by Andre Williams The Trip by Donovan The Ballad of Dwight Fry/Sun Arise by Alice Cooper CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, April 9, 2010 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 Honky Tonk Heroes by Billy Joe Shaver Lonesome, Onery and Mean by Waylon Jennings Hillbilly Blues by Ronnie Dawson White Sands (Home of the Radar Men) by Cornell Hurd Viva Sequin / Do Re Mi by Ry Cooder with Flaco Jimenez Hot Dog That Made Him Mad by Wanda Jackson His Rockin' Little Angel by Rosie Flores with Wanda Jackson She Started Comin' Round Again by The Ex-Husbands Try and Try Again by Billy Joe Shaver
Duck For The Oyster by Malcolm McLaren I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive by Jerry Lee Lewis Dr. Demon & The Robot Girl by Capt. Clegg & The Night Creatures Look at That Moon by Carl Mann Lawd I'm Just a Country Boy in This Great Big Freaky City by The Bottle Rockets Real Cool Ride by The Hillbilly Hellcats Hard Luck 'n' Old Dogs by Nancy Apple Honky Tonk Hardwood Floor by Jess Willard My Blackbirds Are Bluebirds Now by Sleepy Jeffers & The Jeffers Twins
Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other by Willie Nelson Cowboy Song by Dan Reeder Fire Down Below by The Waco Brothers It's Just That Song by The Cramps Up Above My Head by Maria Muldaur & Tracy Nelson When I Move to The Sky by Sister Rosetta Tharpe In the Pines by Delaney Davidson Dearly Departed by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs
The Fourth Night of My Drinking by The Drive-By Truckers Drinkin' Wine by Gene Simmons Aw the Humanity by Rev. Horton Heat Sweet Rosie Jones by Jim Lauderdale Wheels by The Coal Porters It's Been So Long by Webb Pearce The Petrified Forest by The Handsome Family CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican April 9, 2010
The Teenage Awards Music International Show might sound like a tacky Nickelodeon special in which some Hannah Montana wannabe gets green Jell-O poured on her head. But it wasn’t. The T.A.M.I. Show, as it was known, is nothing short of one of the lost treasures of rock ’n’ roll, a live concert film that has been missing in action for nearly 45 years. Until now.
The Shout Factory has released a “Collector’s Edition” of The T.A.M.I. Show in all its black-and-white glory. And all the stars are there. Lesley Gore! Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas! And best of all ... Gerry & The Pacemakers!
And also a few others like James Brown, The Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, and The Supremes.
It was filmed live in Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in October 1964 — with Shindig/Hullabaloo-style go-go dancers and a house band featuring top L.A. studio cats, including Leon Russell and Glen Campbell — and was in theaters across the land two weeks later.
I saw this movie in a theater in late 1964 or early 1965, when it first came out. I was in sixth grade, and to cut to the chase, James Brown’s crazed performance of “Please, Please, Please” — the now famous routine in which he falls to his knees screaming like a man possessed and an aide puts a cape around his shoulders, helps him up, and tries to lead him offstage — made an imprint on my psyche that still burns.
I’ve complained for years that The T.A.M.I. Show was unavailable. Until now, it never made it to DVD — heck, it never made it to VHS — at least, not legally. According to the liner notes, the holdup apparently was the fault of The Beach Boys, who sued to get their four songs removed from copies of the film, for reasons that aren’t clear. Some performances have popped up on YouTube here and there — usually removed by the secret masters of the music industry. But not since the 1960s has T.A.M.I. been available in its entirety.
It’s almost as good as I remember it.
Even though several of the acts seem dated (Billy J. who?), it was a pretty good cross section of rock ’n’ roll in 1964. There are British Invasion groups, Motown, Southern soul, old masters, teen pop (love the hair, Lesley), California surf (though no Dick Dale-style instrumental music, which we now know as “surf”) — even a representative of what would later be called “garage music” with The Barbarians.
Music writer Don Waller makes a sociological observation in his liner notes: “At a time when — after weathering a 57-day filibuster — the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had just put an end to legal segregation, it’s worth noting that almost half the stars of The T.A.M.I. Show were then what would be politely referred to as ‘Negroes.’”
The songs by James Brown & His Famous Flames seem even stronger than they did when I was a wide-eyed kid in the movie theater. A lot of fine soul groups are on this bill. Smokey, Marvin (backed by female trio The Blossoms, including the great Darlene Love), and The Supremes all give superb performances that have held up well with the passage of time. Still, compared with Brown, the Motown acts seem so tame. I don’t think any record label made Brown go to charm school.
And The Rolling Stones, introduced by emcees Jan & Dean as “those five fellas from England,” weren’t half bad either. They’re all so fresh-faced, even Keith Richards. Mick Jagger was already strutting, and Brian Jones, playing an oval-shaped guitar, mugged shamelessly for the cameras.
Speaking of The Stones, the theme song of The T.A.M.I. Show (co-written by P.F. Sloan, whose best-known tune was “Eve of Destruction”), contains a factual error. Listing many of the performers on the show, Jan & Dean cluelessly sing, “Those bad-lookin’ guys with the moppy long hair/The Rolling Stones from Liverpool have gotta be there.”
But there were certainly some artistic problems with this show. And I’m not just talking about Jan & Dean’s corny shtick between some of the performances.
To put it bluntly, Chuck Berry, who opens the , was cheated.
After an abbreviated version of “Johnny B. Goode,” he starts in on “Maybellene,” finishing the first verse before the song is hijacked by Gerry & The Pacemakers. This clean-cut British Invasion act performs a couple of tunes until Chuck is allowed to come back with “Sweet Little Sixteen.” For the next few songs, he alternates with Gerry & The Pacemakers.
Whose brilliant idea was this?
This band wasn’t worthy of cleaning the two-way mirrors in Chuck Berry’s mansion, much less being put on equal footing with the master.
But there are unexpected gems here too. One is The Barbarians, who would later have a dumb hit with “Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?” and a cult classic with “Moulty,” a spoken song by their drummer Victor Moulton, who talks about losing his hand. The band was allowed only one song here (come on, they could have cut a couple of songs by Billy J. Kramer or Lesley Gore), and it’s not one of their best-known songs. But “Hey Little Bird” is a fine rocker. And hook or not, Moulty really was a fine drummer.
After seeing The T.A.M.I. Show again after all these years, I felt I needed to have someone put a cape around my shoulders and lead me away.
