TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, August 7, 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(at)ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
The Ways of a Man by Guitar Shorty
I Feel Guilty by The Juke Joint Pimps
He Sure Could Hypnotize by The A-Bones
Talkin' Bout You by The Animals
Shades by Pierced Arrows
Swing The Big Eyed Rabbit by The Cramps
Baby Doll by The Del Moroccos
Underdog by The Dirtbombs
Kickboxer Girl by Black Smokers
Ride by The Gun Club
Nightmare by Big Mama Thornton

Tricky Dick (Was A Rock-n-Rolla) by The Dick Nixons
City of Angels by Glambilly
Drug Train by Joe Buck Yourself
Bang Your Thing at the Ball by Bob Log III
Junk by T-Model Ford
Barefoot Susie by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant With My Two Headed Love Child by Mojo Nixon
Calling All Cows by The Blues Rockers

Suicide in a Bottle by The Evil Idols
Fire on the Moon by The Bell Rays
You Can’t Judge A Book by Bo Diddley
Screwdriver by The Bell Rays
Up Side by ? & The Mysterions
Naked Party by Ross Johnson with the Gibson Bros.
Come Back Lord by Rev. Beat-Man
Seething Psychosexual Conflict Blues by Figures Of Light
Shakin' it Up by The Obsidians
Shombolar by Sheriff & The Ravens

Scene Unseen by Piñata Protest
Symbol of Heaven by Little Julian Herrera
Don't Step on the Grass, Sam by Steppenwolf
Uku by Dengue Fever
Me And The Devil by Gil Scott-Heron
Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill by The Bostweeds
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, August 5, 2011
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
They Called Me Country by DM Bob & The Deficits
Manhattan Hotel by Joe Buck
Four Letter Word by Lucas Nelson
Is Zat You Myrtle? by The Carlisles
Get What's Coming by The Defibulators
Texas Rose by Possessed by Paul James
I Remember Darling by Dex Romweber Duo
Wolf Call by Elvis Presley
She Said by Hasil Adkins

Free Mexican Airforce by Peter Rowan
Cuttin' Up Onions by Stew Moss
I Like the Way by The Imperial Rooster
54 Ways by Poor Boy's Soul
Mahatma Ghandi & Sitting Bull by Bob Livingston
Hepcat Baby by Eddy Arnold
I Am a Pilgrim by Coco Robicheaux

Vengeance Gonna Be My Name by Slackeye Slim
The Ominous Antropophagous Slackeye Slim by The Misery Jackals
Leo and Leona by Joe Ely
Down to My Last Dime by Johnny Paycheck
Some Rowdy Women by Shooter Jennings
Meanest Jukebox In Town by Whitey Morgan
Shombolar by Peter Stampfel & The Worm All-Stars
Ding Dong Mama From Tennessee by Jimmy Myers
Shoot My Baby by Tracy Nelson
Gary, Indiana 1959 by Dave Alvin
Old Moon by Bloodshot Bill
Three Bloodhounds Two Shepherds One Fila Brasileiro by Slim Cessna's Auto Club
Outfit by Drive-By Truckers
Burnin' Flame by Stevie Tombstone
Your Old Gearbox by Michael Hurley
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

Pinata Protest in Espanola

I’ve called Piñata Protest: the Chicano Pogues and San Antonio’s answer to Gogol Bordello.

Call 'em what you want, they're coming to Española tomorrow (Saturday, Aug. 6) for a free show on the Plaza (706 Bond St.).

I understand Amarillo bluesman Stew Moss is playing also. And I know Espanola's beloved Imperial Rooster opens.

The show starts at 7 p.m.

Here's a review I wrote of Pinata's album Plethora last year. CLICK HERE.

And below is a bitchen video

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: Dark & Savage plus Fun & Goofy

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
August 5, 2011


Holy Red Headed Stranger, Batman! It’s a cosmic concept album set in the Old West.

And just like Willie Nelson’s classic musical parable, El Santo Grial: La Pistola Piadosa, the new album by Joe Frankland, who goes by the name of Slackeye Slim, is a low-key, minimally produced work that tells a story of a loner whose religious faith is tested and remolded by his gun.

You can easily imagine Slackeye’s Drake Savage, “the Chosen One,” crying like a baby and screaming like a panther — like the Preacher in Red Headed Stranger.

Both anti-heroes chalk up notable body counts. But unlike Nelson’s Stranger, Slackeye’s Chosen One never seems to find his Denver, never quite gets his hand on the wheel. Pistola is a much darker story.

“Come one! Come all! And listen to a tale of a gun that came from heaven.” This invitation comes early in Slackeye’s story. It sounds like a pitch from a medicine-show huckster. It’s obvious that the gun from heaven is going to send a bunch of people to hell.

Slackeye, who lives in rural Wisconsin and is pursuing a degree in engineering, recorded this album in some unusual locales — a junkyard, a cabin, an abandoned radio station, a fine-arts museum, and an old mansion — in Montana. Singer Graham Lindsey, like Slackeye, a Farmageddon recording artist, collaborated on some of the tunes on Pistola. The album is Slackeye’s second.

In an online interview last month on the It Burns When I Pee podcast, Slackeye explained, “It’s basically about this guy whose family is really really religious, and they push it on him really really hard, and that obviously will push him away from it. So he turns his back on God and people in general and hates the world and does all this evil shit.”

Finding the “Pistola Piadosa,” young Drake realizes he must carry out Judgment Day.

I won’t give away the whole plot here, but by the lovely dirge “Tomorrow Morning’s Gonna Come,” Savage finds his way to his boyhood home, where he says, “I’ve forgotten all the nightmares here/ I remember all the dreams.” And in the next song, “The Chosen One (Part III),” he repeatedly growls, “I’ve got some killin’ to do” during the last half of the song.

Musically, there’s a definite mariachi/spaghetti-Western feel on much of Pistola. I’ve already noted in this column that the song “Introducing Drake Savage” (which is part of the free Southern Independent XXX, Vol. 1 compilation I reviewed here a couple of weeks ago) reminds me a lot of Calexico. That’s true of several songs on the album, such as “Vengeance Gonna Be My Name,” in which I keep expecting Mexican trumpets to come in. They don’t, but there’s a tasty overheated guitar solo toward the end.

I also hear a lot of Nick Cave in this album, especially in the moody minor-key numbers. Slackeye’s voice is deep, as is Cave’s, but it’s more scratchy and not quite as rich. It’s perfectly suited for a surreal song cycle about God’s gunslinger.

El Santo Grial: La Pistola is available as a download at Slackeye's website. A CD version allegedly is in the works.

Also recommended:


* A Sure Sign of Something by Peter Stampfel & The WORM All-Stars. It must be Wisconsin week here at “Terrell’s Tune-Up.” Although I normally associate Stampfel with New York bohemia, I realized after I started writing this that he was born in the Dairy State. This album is as goofy as Slackeye’s is grim.

So, on Wisconsin!

A Sure Sign of Something sounds like Stampfel and a group of friends fooling around and having fun with a bunch of weird songs, both familiar and unknown — which, I believe, is the true definition of “folk music,” despite the uptight, self-absorbed connotations that the concept of folk music has unfortunately taken on.

For the uninitiated, Stampfel, 72, is best known as founder and perpetrator of The Holy Modal Rounders, a group that played folk music through a psychedelic filter. He and fellow Rounder Steve Weber were also members of The Fugs. I don’t remember the name of the critic who described Stampfel’s voice as resembling that of a chicken who just won the lottery, but he or she was spot on.

This isn’t an essential Stampfel album by any means, but it’s full of strange joys. It was recorded with several musicians from the WORM art collective Stampfel met in Rotterdam a few years ago.

The album starts off with a joyful little tune, "Fucking Sailors in China Town," written by Stampfel’s ex-wife Antonia, This first-person story of a prostitute who doesn’t charge sailors has been in Stampfel's repertoire for years. Critic Robert Christgau once wrote that this song would never be recorded. He was wrong.

Stampfel and his WORM pals romp through standards like “Peg and Awl,” The Stanley Brothers’ “How Mountain Girls Can Love,” the old fiddle tune “Wake Up Jacob,” and an irreverent version of “Because, Just Because.” I first heard this song on Elvis Presley’s Sun Sessions. Stampfel writes in the liner notes he first heard it played by a Milwaukee polka band in the ’40s.

And there’s an insane cover of a crazy doo-wop song called “Shombolar,” recorded in the ’50s by a group called Sheriff & The Ravens, though Stampfel said it was written by Aki Leong and is based on an African work song.

Stampfel’s knack for rediscovering and reinterpreting gems like this is a major reason we all should love him.

eMusic August

* Blind James Campbell And His Nashville Street Band. Here's another fine Arhoolie recording. Just like the title implies, Campbell and his cohorts played in the streets of Nashville. Much like Howard Armstrong's bands, (I downloaded Louie Bluie, the soundtrack to the wonderful documentary about Armstrong, a few months ago), Campbell played a wide range of music -- blues, country, gospel, jazz, old folk songs).

Campbell, who was left blind after an accident at a fertilizer plant, started the band in 1936. Arhoolie's Chris Strachwitz recorded them in 1962 and '63.

On most songs Campbell, who played guitar, mandolin and percussion, is accompanied by Beauford Clay and Bell Ray on guitar. Some songs feature a two-man horn section (George Bell on trumpet and Ralph Robinson on tuba).

Campbell doesn't have the strong personality of Howard Armstrong, but still, I can't think of a street corner in America that wouldn't be improved by having a band like this.playing on it.

But here's some bad news. It looks like I nabbed this one just in the nick of time. Sometime after I downloaded this a few weeks ago, it disappeared from eMusic. And it's not even available on Amazon. I'm not sure what the story is here.

* Feed the Family by Possessed by Paul James. I'm not sure how I missed this album when it was released last year, but I'm glad I found it now. I first became a fan of this one man band (that one man's real name being being Konrad Wert) three years ago when his album, Cold and Blind came out on Voodoo Rhythm.

Wert was born and raised in an Amish-Mennonite family in Immokalee, Florida. “Paul James” is a combination of his father’s and grandfather’s names. He plays plays guitar, banjo, fiddle and percussion. And as I said in my review of that previous album, he "sounds as if he’s emerged from some primordial swamp where every shadow might be a demon. As he shouts and yelps ... you can imagine him as some sinner in the hands of an angry God."

Feed the Family probably is more accessible to a newcomer than his previous work. It's more melodic. There's some downright pretty country songs like "Shoulda Known Better" and "Texas Rose." And then there's, "The Color of My Bloody Nose,"  a nasty little break-up song that shares a special kinship with Harry Nilsson's "You're Breaking My Heart."

Still, my favorites are the stompers, the ones with the most fire and brimstone -- the opening track "Four Men from the Row," which sounds like a banjo apocalypse and the fiddle-driven title song.


For a cool interview with Konrad Wert on Outlaw Radio Chicago CLICK HERE.

Plus

* The 90 (!) or so tracks I didn't get last month from Fats Domino & The Rhythm & Blues Friends. As I noted before, this is a strange compilation featuring a bunch of Domino live tracks plus scores of great old R&B and blues tunes that have no apparent relation with Domino.

The sound quality isn't great on a few tracks here. But for less than a dime a track (if you download the whole collection), this is a true bargain-basement treasure.

There's songs from people you'll recognize -- Wynonie Harris, Big Joe Turner, Louis Kordan, Big Maybelle, Lightnin' Hopkins, Rufus Thomas, Lowell Fulson, Big Mama Thorton.

And there's some I'd never heard of -- Hop Dixon, Elmo Nixon, H-Bomb Ferguson, The Arabians.

Some standouts here include "Chitlin' Ball" a west-coast jump blues by King Porter; "Everything is Cool" an early rock 'n' roll obscurity by a guy simply known as "Pork Chop"; "My Rough and Ready Man," featuring some sexy scat from Annie Laurie; and "Sad Head Blues" by some sad sack  who went by the name "Mr. Sad Head."

This album provided a couple of selections for my most recent Big Enchilada podcast: "But Officer" by Sonny Knight and "Wine O Wine" by a band called The Gators.

*Six songs from Girl Happy by Elvis Presley. Girl Happy for years has been my favorite guilty-pleasure Elvis movie. But there's nothing to feel guilty about in loving this soundtrack.

A few of these songs -- "Puppet on a String," "Do the Clam" and the title tune --  I already had from the compilation Command Performances, The Essential Sixties Masters. But this is the first time I've had digital copies of under-rated, overlooked songs like "Spring Fever," "Wolf Call" and the dangerously tacky "The Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce." You know a song that starts out "Girls on the beach, they commit a sin/They don't show yards and yards of skin" is going to be a kick. The Cramps did a great version of "Do the Clam," but I'd have loved to have heard Lux Interior croon "Ft. Lauderdale."

I had the LP as a kid in the mid- 60s. Loved it then. Love it now.


* Two songs from The Early Years, 1930-1934, Volume 1 by Cab Calloway. "Happy Feet" and "Aw You Dawg" to be exact (which is a version of another song on this collection, "You Dog," which I downloaded a few years ago.) I've been gnawing away at this 3-disc collection for years. Sometimes when I have just a few tracks to get before the end of a month, I'll snach a few from this. I never get tired of Cab.

* "Psychopath of Love" by The Dusty Chaps. A fiend recently requested I play something by The Dusty Chaps on the Santa Fe Opry a few weekes ago. I found this on eMusic on a compilation called Boppin' in Canada. Turns out it was the wrong group. My friend wanted a band from Tucson from the '70s. These are Canadians  from a few decades later. Oh well, it's a cool little Cannuck-a-billy tune. These Chaps aren't as wil as Bloodshot Bill or Ray Condo, but it's a snazzy little tune.