Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar

When I think of TV funnyman Arnold Stang I think good country music.

Actually this movie, Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar features the likes of Homer & Jethro, Little Jimmy Dickens, Minnie Pearl, Faron Young, Kitty Wells, Webb Pierce, Lefty Frizzell and Bill Monroe.

I just put it on my Netflix Queue.



(Thanks to Robert Nott for alerting me to this.)

AMIE STREET WILL BE CLOSED TO TRAFFIC

News flash: Big fish swallows a little one.

Amazon.com has purchased, for an undisclosed price, Amie Street, a music download service I've been known to use. As of Sept. 22 the Street will be blockaded and pages will be redirected to Amazon.

It's not clear whether Amazon will keep Amie's price structure -- in which tracks start out way cheap then go up to $1 depending on their popularity. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Here's some good news and bad news from Yahoo News:

Users that have an Amie Street account should download all their purchased music by September 22 and spend their remaining balance by that date, as it will not be transferred to Amazon.

Furthermore, Amie Street is giving its users a $5 promotional code that they can spend at Amazon's MP3 store.

This reminds me of iTunes' recent purchase of LaLa. What are the big fish going to eat when the small ones all are gone? (Answer: their customers!)

I first started using Amie Street a little more than a year ago when I was looking to alternatives to eMusic, which had just raised its prices. I found some good stuff over there -- I basically looted their Voodoo Rhythm catalogue -- but over time, Amie's catalog -- at least of the stuff I like and didn't already have -- failed to keep up. My purchases there became more and more infrequent.

Still, I hate to see it go. It was always nice to know that another good alternative for cheap and legal downloads was out there.

(Thanks to my friend Chuck for tipping me to this and sending me the email Amie Street sent him. For some reason Amie didn't email me. They must be talking to some of the New Mexico politicians who have decided to leave me off their lists.)

Arrington de Dionyso's Malaikat Dan Singa Live

Here's some music for your Labor Day, courtesy WFMU's Free Music Archive.

This is the current band of Arrington de Dionyso, formerly of Old Time Relijun, who I talked about in my latest monthly eMusic report. These songs are from his 2009 album, Malaikat Dan Singa and it features lyrics by William Blake (there's that guy again!) translated into Indonesian. The show was recorded in May.

And here's some good news for us here in New Mexico: de Dionyso and his band are coming to Albuquerque on October 12, venue to be announced.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, Sept. 5, 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
Surf Narcs by The Barbarellatones
You Can Have Her/Mean Woman Blues by Jerry Lee Lewis
Keep a Knockin' by Little Richard
A Poison Tree by Movie Star Junkies
Dog is Life/Jerusalem by The Fall
Tyger by Arrington de Dionyso and the Old Time Relijun

Hey Gyp by Eric Burdon & The Animals
A Luz Sobre Mim by Horror Deluxe
Lost Planet by The Thunderbolts
Shakin' All Over by The Gibson Bros. & Workdogs
Naked, Naked Naked by The Raunch Hands
Let Me Holler by King Khan & The Shrines
Ride Danny Ride by The Nekromantix
Girl of Matches by Thee Headcoats
Woodie on a Safari by The Silly Surfers

Wooden Heart by Brave Combo
Strip Joint is Closed by The Red Elvises
Rebellious Love by Gogol Bordello
Who Stole the Kiska by Frankie Yankovic
I Want Beer #2 by Kazik
The Happy Wanderer by The Polkaholics

Strange by Screamin' Jay Hawkins
King Kong/Whistle Bait by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Dizzy Miss Lizzy by Larry Williams
Jailbait by Andre Williams & Green Hornet
Pieces of the Past by Jon Langford with Andre Williams
Panic Holiday by The Country Teasers
Like a Wanderin' Star by Stan Ridgway
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

eMusic September

Besides my usual 50 credits, this month includes 15 additional ones eMusic gave me as "loyal member." eMusic caught a lot of flack last year when it changed their its pricing structure, but to their credit they've given us loyal members similar bonuses two or three times. So, thanks.

* Varieties of Religious Experience: 1993-2003 by Arrington de Dionyso and the Old Time Relijun. While writing my recent review of The Movie Star Junkies' A Poison Tree, I started Googling around looking for rock bands that had covered William Blake poems. There I discovered "Tyger" by this band. I'll stand by my description that it sounds like Roy Orbison on angel dust.

That was interesting enough for me to download the whole album. This is a fun little distillation of lots of classic avant, primitive rock. I hear Beefheart. I hear Ubu. I hear some Thinking Fellers. And there's a definite No-Wave influence here. Whoever's playing that sax owes James Chance some royalties.

Old Time Relijun is a creature of K Records up in Olympia, Washington. So I'm probably hearing a little Twin Peaks mushroom madness in there too.

* Fuck Me Stupid by The Raunch Hands. Yes, Eric Davidson's We Never Learn still is inspiring me to catch up on some of superstars of Gunk Punk that I somehow overlooked in their glory days.

The Raunch Hands were a rootsy little outfit, playing hard-charging whacked out punk blues back in the '80s before many people were doing that.

This 1995 release was the Raunch Hand's last album for Crypt Records. They were getting close to breaking up, but the group sounds like they were having the time of their lives recording it.

My favorites here are "Baby Don't You Tear My Clothes," a hilarious rewrite of "Baby Let Me Follow You Down." "What's the Matter Now" is a soul workout with touches of crazed gospel energy. This might be what the Almighty Defenders were aiming at on their Punk gospel" album.

*The Ding-Dongs. (My comments on this and the next album might look hauntingly familiar to loyal readers. I wrote about these a few weeks ago in my Terrell's Tuneup column.)

Mark Sultan, aka BBQ, meets Bloodshot Bill for a rollicking half-hour of Canadian trash rockabilly. This is unabashed bashing fun. The sound is closer to what you’d hear on a Bloodshot Bill album than to King Khan & BBQ. It’s less scatological and more traditional rockabilly sounding.

My one complaint is that Sultan’s amazing voice isn’t at full force here. He does channel Buddy Holly on the tune “Worried Man.” and does a respectable job on the countryish “Until I Die.” But nowhere does his voice really soar.


* $ by Mark Sultan So if you want more Sultan, check out $, his latest solo album, which was released earlier this year. Not only will you hear more Sultan, you’ll get a greater diversity of sound.

Compared with his previous solo album, The Sutanic Verses, $ is far more experimental. For instance the kick-off cut, “Icicles” is a 6-plus minute opus with a lengthy instrumental section marked by layers of fuzz guitars and faux Mideastern sounds . Is BBQ going prog rock? Naw, the album retains an admirable home-made, blues-slop appeal.

Plus

* 10 Tracks from Red Hot Rockabilly (the ones I didn't already have) I was listening to an old episode of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour the other day -- and came across a rockabilly song I hadn't noticed before: "Okie's in the Pokie" by Jimmy Patton. I had to have it! Doing a quick search on eMusic I found it on this collection of (mostly) obscurities. Also included here are Buck Owens' original version of "Hot Dog" (under the name "Corky Jones") and a bluesy shuffle called "Grits" by a wildcat named Harmonica Ray.


* The 64 remaining tracks from Hillbilly Classics. This collection has to be my eMusic find of the year. It's a 73-song collection of mostly obscure country tunes from the '40s and '50s and it costs only 12 credits. I picked up nine songs last month, so these 64 tracks only cost me three credits.

Several tunes on my latest podcast Hillbilly Pig Out -- "Give it To Me Daddy" by Hartman's Heartbreakers, "Nothin; Clickin' Chicken" by The Down Homers and "Who Puts the Cat Out When Papa's Out of Town" by Sam Nichols came from this collection. And I've been playing lots of it on The Santa Fe Opry in the past few weeks.

There are a few well-known artists here. There's pre-Nashville Sound Chet Atkins (doing "Boogie Man Boogie"), The Carter Family, Spade Cooley and Tennessee Ernie Ford. But for every Delmore Brothers or Grandpa Jones, there's five or six like Roy Hogsed or Smoky Wood & The Woodchips. This almost is a secret history of country music. Truly, this is the music Nashville would like you to forget.

* "Navajo" and "Wild Texas" by Los Peyotes. These are the two tracks I didn't already have on the Psychotic Reaction EP by South America's Los Peyotes. "Navajo" is an instrumental "surf" rocker in the tradition of "Apache," except it's got a flamenco (!) finale. "Wild Texas" is a cool fuzz 'n' Farfisa rocker Los Peyotes do so well. The band has a new album called Garaje o Muerte coming out at the end of the month.

* "Ducken" by Hasil Adkins from 1950s Rock 'n' Roll and Rockabilly Rare Masters. Here's another cool bargain collection from eMusic -- 56 tracks for 12 credit. I had only one credit left, so I made a "down payment." I hope the rest of it's as fun as this Hasil track. He does a pretty good impersonation of a police siren here.