I'm not one for '80s nostalgia. And it's been decades since I actually sat down and watched anything on MTV. (I am aware that there's very little music on the Music Network anymore.)
But back in 1982 or '83, when I first got cable t.v., MTV was brand new and for awhile there I was addicted. I don't know how many hours I spent watching all those weird old videos with my daughter, who was just a toddler then. (The Greg Kihn video below used to scare the crap out of her!)
Most this music seems strange to me nowdays -- all those horrible synths and drum machines. Still, there's something blissfully dumb about that sound that brings back happy memories. I guess that is nostalgia.
I'm not sure what set me off on looking up all those old videos. Maybe it was hearing "White Wedding" on the radio a couple of nights ago. Maybe it was hearing The Floors do Kihn's "The Break Up Song" at Corazon Saturday night. Maybe I was blinded by science and didn't even know it.
Who knows, who cares? Here's my Top 10 Favorite MTV videos of the early '80s
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Monday, January 03, 2011
eMusic January
And, oh yeah, they played music -- basically a metal edged punk rock -- or punk-edged metal. Undoubtedly they were more impressive live -- with all their explosives and chainsaws and Wendy wearing nothing on her breasts but band-aids, etc.-- than in the studio.
Still, The Plasmatics are a lot of fun on record. I like "Monkey Suit," which reminds me a little of "The Electric Prunes' "Get Me to the World on Time" and "Black Leather Monster." And this album, which includes their 1980 album and a 1981 EP (Metal Priestess) includes several live tracks, including "Sex Junkie," "Squirm" and "Masterplan," which unfortunately isn't the Tomorrow Show version.
That one had 56 tracks. Hellraisers has 70, for a mere $5.99. Sure, I already had a handful of these, but still, what a bargain!
Some of my favorites here include "Switchblade Sam" by Jeff Daniels, which tells a tale tale involving Stagger Lee and Charlie Brown (The Coasters' hero not the Peanuts character. I assume); "Boppin' Wig Wam Willie" by Ray Scott (Are these cartoonish 1950s depictions of Native Americans actually racist or innocent fun. Talk amongst yourselves); "Move Over Buddy," a space travel novelty by Billy Jack Hale a no-wonder-you-never-hear-this-on-the-radio rocker, "Quicksand Love" by Macy Skipper, which features the immortal line, "I'm like an elevator, I'm goin' down all the time." YIKES!
There also are hree tunes by Mississippi rockabilly Andy Anderson, who lived a few years in New Mexico, including "Johnny Valentine," "Tough Tough, Tough," and "You Shake Me Up."
* The 31 tracks I didn't get last month from A Night On The Town With The Rat Pack. The sound quality's not great, but that's easily overlooked by pure entertainment quality
Back when I was a kid in the '60s, I considered music like this to be somewhat of a guilty pleasure. This was your parent's music. So here's a lesson for today's youth: Wipe your nose, junior. Your parents probably are a lot hipper than you thought.
Plus:
* Nine tracks from Cameo Parkway 1957-1967. I heard The Dovells' "You Can't Sit Down" for the first time in years in a supermarket a few days ago and I was shocked and ashamed that it wasn't in my collection. I looked it up on eMusic and found this four-disc treasure trove.
Cameo-Parkway was a Philadelphia label best known for hitmakers Bobby Rydell and Chubby Checker -- neither of whom I'm particularly wild about. But they also were home to Dee Dee Sharpe and The Orlons, two acts that twisted my head off as a youngster. In fact, in the early '60s, before Motown dominated the soul-pop market, Cameo-Parkway was the true "sound of young America." (And by the mid '60s, it also was the home to ? & The Mysterians -- though I already have all three of the songs on this collection.)The Orlons always created a musical party that sounded like a lot more fun than most parties I've ever been to. "So Much in Love" by The Tymes still is one of of the most soulful doo-wop songs I've ever heard. And Dee Dee's "Gravy on My Mashed Potatoes" sounds as if it's based on a double entendre that I still can't quite figure out.
Among the other tunes I picked up are selections by Screamin' Lord Sutch ("She's Fallen in Love With the Monster Man"), Johnny Maestro ("I'll Be True," apparently from that period between The Crests and The Brooklyn Bridge) and Don Covay ("The Popeye Waddle," apparently a dance craze that never quite caught on.) And there's a great R&B version of Hank Williams' "Hey Good Lookin'" by a group called Billy Abbott & The Jewels. I'll be coming back for more here.
* Three tracks from Soundway Records Presents The Sound of Siam : Leftfield Luk Thung, Jazz and Molam from Thailand 1964 - 1975. I'll write in detail about this next month when I pick up the rest of the tracks. Let's just say for now that this is a step or two beyond the wild and wonderful Thai Beat a Go-Go series, two volumes of which I downloaded on eMusic years ago. And, judging from what I've heard, it's worthy of Soundway's collections of African funk and psychedelia I've loved in recent years.
And for the holidaze ...
* "Christmas in Las Vegas" and "Jingle Bells" by Richard Cheese. (Both from Silent Nightclub) and "Christmas Lights" by Wild Billy Childish & The Musicians of the British Empire (from Christmas 1979 I'm slowly acquiring the whole album.)
Sunday, January 02, 2011
TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST
Sunday, January 2, 2011
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
I Would Die 4 You by The Rockin' Guys
I Ran With A Zombie by The Blue Giant Zeta Puppies
Ramblin' Rose by The MC5
Keep On Rubbing by Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band
Go Ahead and Burn by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Test Tube Babies by The Plasmatics
Let the Good Times Roll by The Sonics
Whistlebait Baby by LoveStruck
Shortnin' Bread by The Ready Men
Licking the Frog by Manby's Head
Scotch and Water and You by Monkeyshines
I Worn by Body For So Long by T-Model Ford & GravelRoad
You Can't Sit Down by The Dovells
Knabonga by Kilimanjaro Yak Attack
The People Hater by Jerry & Brad
TERRELL'S TUNEUP TOP 10 2010 SET
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE
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
I Would Die 4 You by The Rockin' Guys
I Ran With A Zombie by The Blue Giant Zeta Puppies
Ramblin' Rose by The MC5
Keep On Rubbing by Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band
Go Ahead and Burn by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Test Tube Babies by The Plasmatics
Let the Good Times Roll by The Sonics
Whistlebait Baby by LoveStruck
Shortnin' Bread by The Ready Men
Licking the Frog by Manby's Head
Scotch and Water and You by Monkeyshines
I Worn by Body For So Long by T-Model Ford & GravelRoad
You Can't Sit Down by The Dovells
Knabonga by Kilimanjaro Yak Attack
Just to Hold You by Mark Sultan
So Much In Love by TymesThe People Hater by Jerry & Brad
TERRELL'S TUNEUP TOP 10 2010 SET
Buried Alive/ Down To Earth by Pierced Arrows
Under The Marble Faun/Almost A God by Movie Star Junkies
Birthday Boy/Get Downtown by Drive By Truckers
Whoop and Holler/Every Day is the Day of the Dead by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Whoop and Holler/Every Day is the Day of the Dead by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Back in Hell/Dirty Dozen by Delaney Davidson
Me And The Devil/I'll Take Care Of You by Gil Scott-Heron
Thirty Days in the Workhouse by Peter Case
Worm Chaser by Grinderman
Hobos Are My Heroes/Night Ride by Legendary Shack Shakers
Baby You Crazy/Dream Girl by Nick Curran & The Lowlifes
Baby You Crazy/Dream Girl by Nick Curran & The Lowlifes
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE
Thursday, December 30, 2010
TERRELL'S TUNEUP: TOP ALBUMS OF 2010
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
December 31 , 2010
Here’s the 10 albums released in 2010 that I liked best.
* Reform School Girl by Nick Curran & The Lowlifes. Curran plays some of the roughest, rawest R & B/rockabilly being made today, with raspy voice, banging piano, wailing sax, and a guitar that sounds as if Chuck Berry used it in voodoo rituals. It should remind you of that era when crazed DJs unleashed their sinister communist plot of corrupting America’s youth by playing wild, primitive sounds oozing with sex and rebellion.
* Agri-dustrial by Legendary Shack Shakers. The title is a pretty apt description of the basic Shack Shakers sound. It’s rootsy but with a hard-rocking edge. Singer and frontman J.D. Wilkes plays a mean harmonica and occasional banjo and jew’s-harp, while co-conspirator Duane Denison, formerly of punk-noise patriarchs The Jesus Lizard, makes some crazy noise on his guitar. The rhythm section is grounded in metal as well as in cowpunk. This might be considered a concept album about the South. Or maybe it’s a collection of horror stories, with song titles like “Two Tickets to Hell,” “The Hills of Hell,” and “God Fearing People.”
* Grinderman 2 by Grinderman. The first album by Nick Cave’s Grinderman is an intense burst of bile, anxiety, rage, obscenity, and loud, sloppy rock ’n’ roll. This year’s follow-up, while slightly less ragged than the original, is almost as good. On “Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man, “ Cave howls like Howlin’ Wolf on “Smokestack Lightning.” You can hear echoes of Patti Smith’s “Gloria” and The Doors’ “When the Music’s Over,” as well as an intentional nod to blues belter Lucille Bogan’s “Shave ’Em Dry.” “Worm Tamer” — full of fun innuendo and double-entendre — rocks even harder, with a mutated Bo-Diddley-conquers-the-Martians beat. “Super Heathen Child” takes us right to a nightmare world. A girl is “sitting in the bathtub sucking her thumb,” though she’s fully armed as she waits for the Wolf Man.
* Wig! by Peter Case. Case is so good in his 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 for The Plimsouls and, before that, The Nerves. Now, 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. And it’s some of the toughest music he’s ever made.
* I’m New Here by Gil Scott-Heron. Produced by Richard Russell, this album, Scott-Heron’s first in 16 years, is harrowing. It’s mostly low-key and somber and almost like an encounter in a dark alley with a ghost. The album kicks off with a sweet memory of being raised by his grandmother. But at the end of the song, his granny dies “and I was scared and hurt and shocked,” Scott-Heron says. And then the music gets louder, the beat turns harsher, and suddenly the singer finds himself in an electronic mutation of one of Robert Johnson’s most frightening blues, “Me and the Devil.” Scott-Heron drifts from nightmare to revelry and back again. In “New York Is Killing Me,” he sings a blues melody over persistent hand claps and a clacking rhythm, punctuated by bass drum. A gospel choir comes in a couple of times but disappears like a dream figment. The album is less than 30 minutes long. But it’s one intense half hour.
* Self Decapitation by Delaney Davidson. Traces of Salvation Army marching bands and dark blues permeate this New Zealand native’s album. You can hear influences of American blues, early jazz, and Eastern European/Gypsy sounds. Davidson performs “In the Pines” as an industrial-edged blues tune with an acoustic guitar and altered vocals yielding to over-amped guitar and crazy-loud drums. But my favorite is the delightfully filthy “Dirty Dozen,” a foul-mouthed country-blues stomp that reminds me why I love music in the first place.
* A. Enlightenment, B. Endarkenment (Hint: There Is No C) by Ray Wylie Hubbard. As with other recent Hubbard efforts, this record features a minimalist bluesy sound. There are lots of slide guitar, fierce but simple drums, and lyrics concerning sin and salvation — but little else. Some songs have echoes of bluegrass, with mandolin, banjo, and fiddle occasionally emerging from the primordial blues bog.
* The Big To-Do by Drive-By Truckers. This is the DBT’s best album since 2004’s The Dirty South. It’s full of sex, crime, humor, strippers, circus acts, and girlfriends who say, “I’m too pretty to work and you’re uglying up my house.” All that and loud, loud guitars. Unfortunately, the only mediocre song on the album is one titled “Santa Fe.”
*A Poison Tree by Movie Star Junkies. Images of murder, torture, and betrayal color the lyrics of this album, which features dark but melodic tunes colored by with spaghetti-Western guitars over Farfisa organ and drums that evoke marching bands. The Junkies proudly cite The Birthday Party as an influence, and sure enough, you can hear echoes of early Nick Cave. The last song, a seven-minute epic called “All Winter Long,” ends in a dense instrumental with fuzzy guitar licks that bring back memories of The Electric Prunes.
* Descending Shadows by Pierced Arrows. Back with his previous band Dead Moon, singer Fred Cole bragged that he’s “been screaming at the top of my lungs since 1965.” That’s true — he was in a band called The Lollipop Shoppe that produced a garage-band classic “You Must Be a Witch.” The good news for Dead Moon fans is that Pierced Arrows sounds like a continuation of Moon’s basic guitar/bass/drums sound. Fred Cole and wife/bassist Toody Cole still sound wild and ferocious.
Honorable Mention:
* You Are Not Alone by Mavis Staples
* Wake Up the Snakes by Johnny Dowd
* $ by Mark Sultan
* The Wages by The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band
* Phosphene Dream by The Black Angels
December 31 , 2010
Here’s the 10 albums released in 2010 that I liked best.
* Reform School Girl by Nick Curran & The Lowlifes. Curran plays some of the roughest, rawest R & B/rockabilly being made today, with raspy voice, banging piano, wailing sax, and a guitar that sounds as if Chuck Berry used it in voodoo rituals. It should remind you of that era when crazed DJs unleashed their sinister communist plot of corrupting America’s youth by playing wild, primitive sounds oozing with sex and rebellion.
* Agri-dustrial by Legendary Shack Shakers. The title is a pretty apt description of the basic Shack Shakers sound. It’s rootsy but with a hard-rocking edge. Singer and frontman J.D. Wilkes plays a mean harmonica and occasional banjo and jew’s-harp, while co-conspirator Duane Denison, formerly of punk-noise patriarchs The Jesus Lizard, makes some crazy noise on his guitar. The rhythm section is grounded in metal as well as in cowpunk. This might be considered a concept album about the South. Or maybe it’s a collection of horror stories, with song titles like “Two Tickets to Hell,” “The Hills of Hell,” and “God Fearing People.”
* Grinderman 2 by Grinderman. The first album by Nick Cave’s Grinderman is an intense burst of bile, anxiety, rage, obscenity, and loud, sloppy rock ’n’ roll. This year’s follow-up, while slightly less ragged than the original, is almost as good. On “Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man, “ Cave howls like Howlin’ Wolf on “Smokestack Lightning.” You can hear echoes of Patti Smith’s “Gloria” and The Doors’ “When the Music’s Over,” as well as an intentional nod to blues belter Lucille Bogan’s “Shave ’Em Dry.” “Worm Tamer” — full of fun innuendo and double-entendre — rocks even harder, with a mutated Bo-Diddley-conquers-the-Martians beat. “Super Heathen Child” takes us right to a nightmare world. A girl is “sitting in the bathtub sucking her thumb,” though she’s fully armed as she waits for the Wolf Man.
* Wig! by Peter Case. Case is so good in his 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 for The Plimsouls and, before that, The Nerves. Now, 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. And it’s some of the toughest music he’s ever made.
* I’m New Here by Gil Scott-Heron. Produced by Richard Russell, this album, Scott-Heron’s first in 16 years, is harrowing. It’s mostly low-key and somber and almost like an encounter in a dark alley with a ghost. The album kicks off with a sweet memory of being raised by his grandmother. But at the end of the song, his granny dies “and I was scared and hurt and shocked,” Scott-Heron says. And then the music gets louder, the beat turns harsher, and suddenly the singer finds himself in an electronic mutation of one of Robert Johnson’s most frightening blues, “Me and the Devil.” Scott-Heron drifts from nightmare to revelry and back again. In “New York Is Killing Me,” he sings a blues melody over persistent hand claps and a clacking rhythm, punctuated by bass drum. A gospel choir comes in a couple of times but disappears like a dream figment. The album is less than 30 minutes long. But it’s one intense half hour.
* Self Decapitation by Delaney Davidson. Traces of Salvation Army marching bands and dark blues permeate this New Zealand native’s album. You can hear influences of American blues, early jazz, and Eastern European/Gypsy sounds. Davidson performs “In the Pines” as an industrial-edged blues tune with an acoustic guitar and altered vocals yielding to over-amped guitar and crazy-loud drums. But my favorite is the delightfully filthy “Dirty Dozen,” a foul-mouthed country-blues stomp that reminds me why I love music in the first place.
* A. Enlightenment, B. Endarkenment (Hint: There Is No C) by Ray Wylie Hubbard. As with other recent Hubbard efforts, this record features a minimalist bluesy sound. There are lots of slide guitar, fierce but simple drums, and lyrics concerning sin and salvation — but little else. Some songs have echoes of bluegrass, with mandolin, banjo, and fiddle occasionally emerging from the primordial blues bog.
* The Big To-Do by Drive-By Truckers. This is the DBT’s best album since 2004’s The Dirty South. It’s full of sex, crime, humor, strippers, circus acts, and girlfriends who say, “I’m too pretty to work and you’re uglying up my house.” All that and loud, loud guitars. Unfortunately, the only mediocre song on the album is one titled “Santa Fe.”
*A Poison Tree by Movie Star Junkies. Images of murder, torture, and betrayal color the lyrics of this album, which features dark but melodic tunes colored by with spaghetti-Western guitars over Farfisa organ and drums that evoke marching bands. The Junkies proudly cite The Birthday Party as an influence, and sure enough, you can hear echoes of early Nick Cave. The last song, a seven-minute epic called “All Winter Long,” ends in a dense instrumental with fuzzy guitar licks that bring back memories of The Electric Prunes.
* Descending Shadows by Pierced Arrows. Back with his previous band Dead Moon, singer Fred Cole bragged that he’s “been screaming at the top of my lungs since 1965.” That’s true — he was in a band called The Lollipop Shoppe that produced a garage-band classic “You Must Be a Witch.” The good news for Dead Moon fans is that Pierced Arrows sounds like a continuation of Moon’s basic guitar/bass/drums sound. Fred Cole and wife/bassist Toody Cole still sound wild and ferocious.
Honorable Mention:
* You Are Not Alone by Mavis Staples
* Wake Up the Snakes by Johnny Dowd
* $ by Mark Sultan
* The Wages by The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band
* Phosphene Dream by The Black Angels
Sunday, December 26, 2010
TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST
Sunday, December 26, 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
Waves of Fear by Lou Reed
Monkey Mess by Thee Vicars
Rosalyn by The Pretty Things
On the Move by Pierced Arrows
Music is the Magic by Kim Fowley
Pimples and Braces by Ric Gary
Corruption by The Plasmatics
Don't Blow Your Mind by The Spiders
People Look Away by Death
Are You For Real, Girl? by Mystic Five
What Kind of Fool Am I?by Sammy Davis, Jr.
Coming Back Alive by The Stomachmouths
Dope Fiend Boogie by The Cramps
Muck Muck by Yochanan
The Egyptian Thing by The Syndicate
Part of Your Plan by The Oblivions
Farmer John by Ross Johnston with Monsieur Jeffrey Evans
Quicksand Love by Macy Skipper
Honey Bop by Wanda Jackson
Boppin' Wigwam Willie by Ray Scott
Sugar Doll by Johnny Jay
Evil Hearted Me by Jody Reynolds
Old Black Joe by Jerry Lee Lewis
Betty Lou' s Got A New Tattoo by Creep
Love Bug Crawl by Jimmy Edwards
Switch Blade Sam by Jeff Daniels
Loaded Gun by The Rev. Horton Heat
(Mama) You Got To Love Your Negro Man by Dewey Cox
Shadow My Baby by Ray Condo & The Ricochets
Lick My Decals Off Baby by Captain Beefheart
Mencerminkan Mahkota Kotor by Arrington de Dionyso
Sports Car by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282
New York is Killing Me by Gil Scott-Heron
Withered and Died by Elvis Costello
Cast No Shadows by The Mekons
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
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
Waves of Fear by Lou Reed
Monkey Mess by Thee Vicars
Rosalyn by The Pretty Things
On the Move by Pierced Arrows
Music is the Magic by Kim Fowley
Pimples and Braces by Ric Gary
Corruption by The Plasmatics
Don't Blow Your Mind by The Spiders
People Look Away by Death
Are You For Real, Girl? by Mystic Five
What Kind of Fool Am I?by Sammy Davis, Jr.
Coming Back Alive by The Stomachmouths
Dope Fiend Boogie by The Cramps
Wig-Wag by Manby's Head
Battle Cry by Monkeyshines Muck Muck by Yochanan
The Egyptian Thing by The Syndicate
Part of Your Plan by The Oblivions
Farmer John by Ross Johnston with Monsieur Jeffrey Evans
Quicksand Love by Macy Skipper
Honey Bop by Wanda Jackson
Boppin' Wigwam Willie by Ray Scott
Sugar Doll by Johnny Jay
Evil Hearted Me by Jody Reynolds
Old Black Joe by Jerry Lee Lewis
Betty Lou' s Got A New Tattoo by Creep
Love Bug Crawl by Jimmy Edwards
Switch Blade Sam by Jeff Daniels
Loaded Gun by The Rev. Horton Heat
(Mama) You Got To Love Your Negro Man by Dewey Cox
Shadow My Baby by Ray Condo & The Ricochets
Lick My Decals Off Baby by Captain Beefheart
Mencerminkan Mahkota Kotor by Arrington de Dionyso
Sports Car by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282
New York is Killing Me by Gil Scott-Heron
Withered and Died by Elvis Costello
Cast No Shadows by The Mekons
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
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TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST
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