eMusic July

* Pissing Out The Poison: Singles and Other Swill by New Bomb Turks. I'm a relative newcomer to the NBTs. I decided to download this in anticipation of NBT frontman Eric Davidson's new book We Never Learn: The Gunk Punk Undergut, 1988-2001. a history of below-the-radar proudly uncommercial, untrendy bands like The Dwarves, The Cynics, The Mummies, Thee Headcoats, Dead Moon, The Devil Dogs, The Gories, and, yes, New Bomb Turks among others. (The book arrived and I'm reading and enjoying it now. You should too.)

This album is a compilation of singles, rarities, even a Christmas song. It's all high-charged, furious, crazy guitar rock -- what Davidson calls "Gunk Punk."

There's a handful of covers, including The New York Dolls' "Bad Girl" and a Rolling Stones obscurity called "Summer Romance." And there's strong alternative versions of Turk classics like "Crying in the Beer of a Drunk Man," "Let's Dress Up the Naked Truth," "Sucker Punch" and "Taller Crush."

* I Know You Be Houserockin' by The Gories. Before he started The Dirtbombs, Detroit's Mick Collins was in another amazing band -- The Gories.

This was a trio featuring two guitars (Collins and Dan Kroha) and drums (Peggy O'Neill). No bass, no frills, just raw punk blues.

This compilations contains the Alex Chilton produced I Know You Fine But How You Doin' plus almost all of The Gories' first album, Houserockin' (missing only "Let Me Ear the Choir Sin.")

Hey, while fooling around on YouTube, I found an actual live video of The Gories doing one of my favorite songs from this album, "Thunderbird ESQ." Peggy looks pretty sexy chewing her gum. Check it out:




*Party Favorites by Ray Condo and his Hardrock Goners. This Canuckabilly was perhaps the finest rockabilly revivalists of the 90s and early 00s. The only one who comes close was Big Sandy, but the late Condo, who died in 2004, had a crazier edge. The title of his 1997 album Door to Door Maniac (which was an alternate title for a very obscure 1961 Johnny Cash movie)

I first came to know Condo's music when he was living in Vancouver and playing with his band The Ricochets. This album is from his days in Montreal, when he was playing with The Hardrock Goners (named in honor of hillbilly boogie monster Sidney "Hardrock" Gunter) This outfit, which had a fine fiddle player (not sure of the name) and perhaps was a bit more country sounding than The Ricochets.

There's a cool "St. James Infirmary" here as well as a version of "Her Love Rubbed Off," one of Carl Perkins' more crazed compositions, also covered by The Cramps.

But my favorite tune here is "Barroom Crazy," which contains the verse, "I broke both of my arms/I fell down on the floor/I started to dance but I lost my pants/So they tossed me out the door."

I hate when that happens.

PLUS

* Seven songs from The Very Best Of by Hoosier Hot Shots. True story. When I was a little kid and my grandmother was taking me somewhere, she'd say, "Are you ready, Hezzie?" She'd just laugh when I'd ask who the hell was Hezzie. A few years ago when I discovered The Hoosier Hot Shots it all became clear to me. Maybe I got my habit of making obscure cultural references from my grandmother.

When I did discover the Hotshots it made me appreciate how hip Nana actually was. (After all, she took me when I saw Cab Calloway as a kid.) These guys basically were a country string band (well they had a clarinet too) with the soul of Spike Jones.

I only had enough to get seven tracks this month, but I'll pick up the rest when my account refreshes. (This is a good one for eMusic bargain hunters. 40 track for the price of 12!)

And, by the way, Hezzie was Paul "Hezzie" Triesch, who played washboard, bells and whistles.

* "Cucaracha Taco" by Joe "King" Carrasco. I got this for my latest podcast of The Big Enchilada. I already had most of the other songs from this collection, called Yabba Ding Ding. But it looks like a great introduction to the master of Nuevo Wavo.

* "Bandy the Rodeo Clown" by Moe Bandy. I just love this song. Bandy is one of the few stars of the early '80s Urban Cowboy era of country music I can stand. I got this tune especially for my recent Rodeo de Santa Fe set on The Santa Fe Opry

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, July 4, 2010
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Opening Montage to Big Enchilada 11
An American is a Very Lucky Man by Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians
The Outcast by Tom Russell featuring Dave Van Ronk
Fourth of July by X
American Music by The Blasters
This Land is Your Land by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
U.S. Blues by The Harshed Mellows
The Body of an American by The Pogues
The Star Spangled Banner by Tiny Tim

Your Fat Friend by The Raunch Hands
Slut by New Bomb Turks
Hey Amigo by Havana 3 a.m.
Do the Climb by King Salami & the Cumberland 3
Clap Your Hands by The Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band
House Rent Jump by Peter Case

The Clown Of The Town by Reverend Beat-Man
I Slept Late by Delaney Davidson
Transcontinental Hustle by Gogol Bordello
Patches Rides the Rail by Deadbolt
Coconut Heart Thee Butchers' Orchestra
Mexico Wax Solvent by The Fall
Skinny Ginny by Dossie (Thunderbird) Terry

Pink Berets by Tin Huey
Twilight's Last Gleamings by William S. Burroughs
Two Left Feet by Mark Sultan
Tight Sweater by The Marathons
Big American Problem by Drywall
America The Beautiful by Ray Charles
Coda by Little Jack Horton
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: GET WIGGY!

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
July 2, 2010

Peter Case, who is playing a free show in Los Alamos Friday, sounds like he’s having more fun on a record than he’s had in years with his new album, Wig!

For more than 20 years, Case has built a respected (if not overly lucrative) career as a singer-songwriter/neo-folkie, whatever you want to call it. He’s done some wonderful albums in this vein, the best being The Man With the Blue Post Modern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist Guitar (1989) and Torn Again (1995). I could also mention 2000’s Flying Saucer Blues, but Case’s old record company actually paid me to write some propaganda to send out to potential reviewers and radio stations for that record, so my opinion of that one is compromised.

Case is so good in the acoustic troubadour role that many of his listeners might not even realize that he’s also an accomplished rocker. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, he was the frontman in The Plimsouls and, before that, The Nerves.

Case recently reimmersed himself in the music of his early bands. While recovering from cardiac surgery, he assisted in remastering a Nerves reissue (One Way Ticket) and concert album (Live at Pirate’s Cove) as well as a live Plimsouls album (Live! Beg, Borrow & Steal, which I reviewed here earlier this year). Remastering these old live recordings woke up the rocker inside.

Aided by guitarist Ron Franklin and D.J. Bonebrake, the drummer for X, Case recorded a bunch of blues-soaked, swampy rockers for this album, which was released just days ago. In short, it’s some of the toughest music he’s ever made.

The seeds of Wig! were first sown a quarter-century ago. The song “‘New’ Old Blue Car,” which starts out with some fine caveman drumming from Bonebrake, is a slightly rewritten version of “Old Blue Car” from Case’s first solo album (Peter Case, 1986), a tune written with his then-wife Victoria Williams. While the original, produced by T-Bone Burnett and Mitchell Froom, has slight hints of that 1980s studio sheen, it was bursting with the blues-raunch abandon that guides the new album.

Wig! starts out with a Case story-song called “Banks of the River.” It’s about a couple of brothers, Frank and Tony, who run away from home and eventually get in trouble with the law. The story could have come from one of Case’s ’90s albums, but the pounding piano, grating harmonica, and smoldering guitar are harbingers of what awaits you on this album.

The jittery “I Dig What You’re Puttin’ Down” sounds like an inspired melding of Blonde on Blonde with Canned Heat. There’s a slight digression into Heat’s “Catfish Blues,” but even cooler is when Case apes Elvis — ”I want you, I need you I-iiiiiii love you!” What’s impressive is how seamlessly he pulls it off.

This is just one example in which Case has fun throwing in some obvious references to rock ’n’ roll standards. “Ain’t Got No Dough” starts out with the pounding piano riff from Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want),” a song covered by the Beatles, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others. “The Words in Red” features a jangle-guitar riff straight out of The Byrds’ “So You Want to Be a Rock ’n’ Roll Star.”

The title of the rocking “House Rent Jump” recalls John Lee Hooker’s “House Rent Boogie,” as does the basic theme of the song (the singer doesn’t have enough cash to pay the rent). But Case and the band sound more like Hound Dog Taylor here.

On “Thirty Days in the Workhouse,” a Leadbelly song, Case plays an acoustic 12-string guitar, and Bonebrake keeps it stompin’. Things slow down for a while in “My Kind of Trouble,” a piano-driven blues on which Case wails like he’s leading an after-hours jam in some dangerous skid-row dive. “She got an hourglass figure and a glass eyeball,” Case sings. “Somebody Told the Truth” sounds like it came right out of the swamp with its tremolo guitar and conga drum. It’s easy to imagine Tom Waits doing this song.

After “Colors of Night,” another rough blues romp, Case goes back to worrying about the rent in “House Rent Party,” the album closer. Surprisingly, this sounds like less of a party than anything else on the album. The singer rages against his poverty, pins his hopes on the lottery, and vows to start a brand new band: “We’ll play anywhere but here.” It’s another 12-string acoustic song; in fact it’s just Case without the band.

Perhaps it’s a signal that Case isn’t turning his back on this side of his music. He’s still a dang fine acoustic troubadour. But it’s the wild and rowdy tunes that carry this record. I hope Case keeps rocking.

* See for yourself: Peter Case is playing at 7 p.m. Friday, July 2 at the Pajarito Ski Area in Los Alamos. The show, part of Russ Gordon’s Los Alamos County Summer Concert series, is free. Tiho Dimitrov opens.

REV. BEAT-MAN RETURNS TO SANTA FE!

I just got the word that the Supreme Commander and President for Life of Voodoo Rhythm Records will be doing a show at Little Wing on St. Michael's Drive on July 15.

As was the case last year, Delaney Davidson will be with him. I just reviewed Delaney's album Self Decapitation a couple of weeks ago.

Here's my review of Beat-Man's show last year. CLICK HERE

Be there on July 15!

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, June 27, 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
Inside Job by Mudhoney
Sally Sensation by The Molting Vultures
Nobody But Me by The Lyres
Modern Man by The Shrunken Heads
Get Off the Phone by Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers
Gizzard Boogie by The Divetones
Combination of the Two by Big Brother & The Holding Company

Let's Dress Up the Naked Truth by New Bomb Turks
Down The Road Apiece by The Shades
The Future is Now (andIt Stinks) by J.J. & The Real Jerks
Blow Job by The Fleshtones
Blue Green Olga by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Pornography Part 1 by Mike Edison
Bend Over I'll Drive by The Cramps

Colors of Night by Peter Case
Hush Hush by The Plimsouls
Old Blue Car by Peter Case
Hanging On The Telephone The Nerves

Cry in the Night by Q 65
She's Wicked by The Fuzztones
Edith by Buick MacKane
Do the Milkshake by The Oblivions

900 Million People Daily by The Seeds
Space Ship by Sky Saxon
Lonely Boy by The King Khan & BBQ Show
Death Blues by The Dead Brothers
Little Red Rooster by Sam Cooke
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis