THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, Oct. 11, 2013 
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
Drinkin' Wine Spo Dee O'Dee by Jerry Lee Lewis

Don't Wanna Wash Off Last Night by The Gaunga Dyns

Bloody Mary Morning by Willie Nelson & Wynonna Judd

Meanest Jukebox in Town by Whitey Morgan & The 78s

Cool Arrow by Hickoids

Country Hixes by T. Tex Edwards & Out on Parole

Cajun Joe (Bully of the Bayou) by Doug & Rusty Kershaw

New River Train by Jackie Powers

Your Sugar is All I Want by Pat Todd & The Rank Outsiders

Hobos Are My Heroes by Legendary Shack Shakers

Slaughterville iWreck by Family Lotus

Hometown Shit Beer by Joe West

Wish You Would Kiss Me by James Hand

Sweet Georgia Brown by Johnny Gimble with Merle Haggard

She's My Five Foot Five by Joel Savoy

Mississippi Showboat by Powder Mill 

There Stands the Glass by Webb Pierce

Firewater Seeks Its Own Level by Butch Hancock & Jimmie Dale Gilmore 

But Not Now by Augie Meyers

Boney Fingers by Hoyt Axton

Beans and Make Believe by Mose McCormack

Liquor Store by. The Meat Purveyors

Out There Aways by The Waco Brothers

Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends by Joan Osborne

Wildwood Boogie by Charley Gracie

Wine, Women and Loud Happy Songs by Ringo Starr

Guitar Man by Junior Brown

Long I Ride by Robbie Fulks

This Ain't a Good Time by Big Sandy & The Fly-Rite Boys

Carlene by Robert Earl Reed

Alberta #3 by Bob Dylan 

Last Date by David Bromberg

Don't the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time by Mickey Gilley

Maverick by George Thorogood

CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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TERRELL'S TUNEUP: One Last Look at Ponderosa Stomp 2013

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Oct. 11, 2013

"Dr. Ike" Padnos, founder of Ponderosa Stomp with
The Gaunga Dyns 

A few months ago, when I decided I wanted to go to the Ponderosa Stomp, a music festival in New Orleans (named for a song by Louisiana bluesman Lazy Lester) I didn’t consciously realize that I was giving myself a slightly belated birthday gift — and it was a very appropriate gift, too.

I just turned 60, which could make a guy start to feel old. However, at the Stomp, the vast majority of the headline performers were well into their 60s, some even beyond that. And nearly all of them were full of energy and crazy grace. And some of them rocked like madmen. Suddenly 60 didn’t feel so old.

(What followed in this column, published today in The Santa Fe New Mexican were thumbnail reviews of my favorite performances, based on what I wrote last week in this very blog HERE and HERE. You can read the entire Tuneup column at The New Mexican's Pasatiempo site.

Blog Bonus

Here's some Youtubes from The Ponderosa Stomp. First, The Sonics.


The fabulous Gaunga Dyns covering Roky:


Chris Montez performs his first hit:


His first time on stage for decades, Richard Caiton

Family Lotus Reunites for Joe West Psychedelic Folk & Bluegrass Festival

Back in late August, 1971, the week I moved to Albuquerque to attend the University of New Mexico, I saw a poster, very similar to the one above, advertising the "Second Annual King Kong Memorial Stomp" starring Bo Diddley and a Santa Fe band called Family Lotus at the Student Union Building Ballroom. I went to the show to see Bo, and, of course, he was fantastic. (He was living down in Los Lunas, N.M. at the time.)

Some version of Family Lotus with Pete Seeger at
Paolo Soleri amphitheater, date unknown

But that night I became a fan of Family Lotus. They looked like a bunch of Cerrillos hippies -- and there was good reason for that. They had a happy aura of hillbilly anarchy about them onstage. But they actually could play and sing. And they did mostly, if not all, original songs. Their banjo player Jim Bowie at one point performed what he called a "banjo raga." I was hooked. I tried to catch them every time they played Albuquerque during the next few years.

Years later, when I became a freelance music writer for The Santa Fe Reporter, the other music freelancer there was none other than Lotus-man Jerry Faires. I always felt honored to be sharing a stage with him -- even though that "stage" was a newspaper.

Faires, Bowie and other members of the Family Lotus family are reuniting for an appearance this Saturday at Joe West's Psychedelic Folk & Bluegrass Festival in Madrid this Saturday. The show, which will be in a tent outside the Mineshaft Tavern starts at noon. Here's the schedule:

NOON Joe's Opening speech (Will he announce that he's running for governor?)
12:05 Will and the Won'ts
12:45 The Rio Grande Family Band
1:30 Pa Coal and The Clinkers
2:15 Sage and Jared's Happy Gland Band
2:45 Todd And The Fox
3:30 Janice Mohr-Nelson The Kentucky Humdinger
4:00 Joe West and the Santa Fe Revue (with guest Laurainne Fiorentino and Archie West)
4:45 Hillstompers
5:15 Hot Honey
5:45 FAMILY LOTUS (THE SECOND COMING)
7:00 Hillstompers (The Exit Procession)
8pm Broomdust Caravan (In the Tavern)

Tickets are $10 in advance (available at The Mineshaft and The Candyman) and $15 on the day of the show.

Joe says parking is atrocious in Madrid. "Best to park out above the old ball park and walk into town."

PONDEROSA STOMP: The Finale

Tom McLoughlin of The Sloths preaches the Gospel of Garage

After Friday night's crazy performance at the Rock 'n' Bowl in New Orleans by The Sonics, I had this nagging fear yesterday that the second night of The Ponderosa Stomp might be something of a letdown. How could anyone match that level intensity and wild abandon?

Well, here's the deal. It's still obvious that the best show of this festival was The Sonics.

But Saturday night's lineup, especially The Standells and The Sloths -- the latter band being joined for a couple of tunes by the mysterious Ty Wagner -- was nothing short of amazing.


The Standells impressed me last night even more than they did when they first twisted my head off when I was in 7th grade. Of all the 2013 Ponderosa Stomp lineup they were the most commercially successful (except maybe Chris Montez. More on him later.) Is there anyone around my age who doesn't remember "Dirty Water" or, my favorite, "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White" ?

They played these hits as well as others from that era -- "Riot on Sunset Strip" (the title song of a teen exploitation movie from the mid 60s. Standells singer Larry Tamblyn said at a panel discussion a couple of days ago that he truly enjoys that film. The same way he enjoys Plan 9 From Outer Space) -- and some of my favorites from the Dirty Water album like "Rari" and "Medication."

Cyril Jordan (center) with The Standells

Late in the set they were joined onstage by Johnny Echols, a former member of Love (The Standells' John Fleckenstein also was a Love man in that group's early days), and Cyril Jordan of The Flamin' Groovies. They played some Love songs, including a fiery "Seven and Seven Is," "Little Red Book" and "Hey Joe," which both Love and The Standells covered (as did about 98 percent of all American bands in the mid '60s)

All too often when you hear old bands play their old songs from decades past, it's sad and cheesey. But these Standells aren't ready for the casino circuit, and hopefully they never will be. They play like they could start a real riot on Sunset Strip.

And the reconstituted Sloths were no slobs either. Unlike The Standells, they never had a massive "Dirty Water"-level hit, but their song "Makin' Love," featured on one of the Back from the Grave compilations a few years ago is one of the finest examples of snarling minimalist, primitive angst-rock you'll ever hear.

Waving the flag

They're fronted these days by singer Tom McLoughlin, who was with a '60s L.A. garage band called The May Wines with some members of The Sloths (I can't keep up with this cross-pollination) He's got more of a "rock star" aura than most the other garage-band performers I saw this weekend.

He also has a weird knack for silly props. During The Sloth's rendition of "Hey Joe" (I told you, all the bands back then did this song) he held up a hand-written hitchhiker sign that said "Mexico" as he sang "I'm goin' way down south to Mexico ..." Then he whipped out a Mexican flag, which he wore as a cape. In one song he tried to blow up a cheap plastic sex doll, but ran out of time before he had to start singing the next verse.

After their own raucous set, The Sloths were joined onstage by Ty Wagner, another L.A. garage-rocker whose most famous song is "I'm a No Count." He sang that one as well as one by his rock 'n' roll hero Eddie Cochran, "Come On everybody." My only complaint about Wagner is that I wish he's have done more. He's got a moody intensity about him and sings every word as if his life depended on it.

Other music of note Saturday night was The Gaunga Dyns, a New Orleans garage group who had a local hit in the late '60s with "Rebecca Rodifer," a sad tale about a girl who died from an illegal abortion. This group recently reformed and are a tight outfit with hints of folk-rock, featuring three guitarists. My only gripe about them is that they opened with not one, not two, but three songs of The Animals. Each one sounded good, especially "I'M Cryin'," but for a while I thought it was an Eric Burdon cover band. On the other hand, their version of Paul Revere & The Raiders' "Just Like Me" was a complete delight.


Charley Gracie, a rockabilly from Philly, was a complete delight. Backed by a band that included guitarist Deke Dickerson, Gracie really shined in his cover of "Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody."

Dickerson and company also backed Chris Montez. Though Montez is best known for late '60s pop hits like "Call Me" and "The More I See You," he wisely concentrated on music from his early, Ritchie Valens-influenced days. "Let's Dance" with its spot-on Farfisa organ, can't help but make you smile.

I wish I would have stayed for R&B shouter Eddie Daniels. But after Ty Wagner and The Sloths, I was afraid I was going to end up like this guy below.

All Stomped Out

But it was a fantastic festival.

Stomp on!







More Ponderosa Stomp Coverage:

* First Report: CLICK HERE
* Second Report: CLICK HERE

Photos (of the Stomp and other New Orleans craziness) CLICK HERE

PONDEROSA STOMP: SECOND REPORT

I always liked The Sonics and thought they were pretty cool. But after seeing them tonight in New Orleans I'm a complete zealot. I'm actually embarrassed that I'm going to have to explain just who these guys from Tacoma, Washington are to so many of you gentle readers. Fact is, The Sonics -- who played at the Midtown Rock 'n' Bowl in New Orleans on the first concert of The 2013 Ponderosa Stomp -- are woefully under-recognized and under-appreciated by the masses.

So here's the nutshell history of The Sonics starting back in the mid-'60s: They were teenagers in Tacoma who worshiped another influential local band The Wailers. They recorded two albums -- Here Are The Sonics and Boom -- on the tiny Etiquette label (both produced by Wailers bassist Buck Ormsby). In those two albums were some of the rawest, wildest rock ever heard. Little Richard was the main inspiration, one of the band members said at a panel discussion Friday. It showed. On top of that, Gerry Roslie's voice lived up to the title of one of the group's signature songs: "Psycho." He sang as if he was being burned alive.

Larry Parypa

Much of The Sonic's material was fairly typical for garage bands of the day. "Money," "Do You Love Me," "Roll Over Beethoven," Good Golly Miss Molly," and, like all those other Pacific Northwest groups like the Kingsmen and Paul Revere & The Raiders, "Louie Louie."

But it was The Sonics' original songs that set them apart. "Psycho,"  "The Witch," and "He's Waitin'" (which is about Satan!) all show a gleefully twisted, sardonic sense of humor. And had The Sonics ever become as famous as they deserved to be, the federal government would have produced overwrought public service announcements warning America's youth about the dangers of drinking strychnine, was the topic of one of their finest songs.

It's probably for the best that The Sonics never got to be that famous. They never had the temptation to do anything as embarrassing as Paul Revere & The Raiders' teen idol period. They never went artsy during the flower-power era. Basically, they broke up, did other things in their lives and reunited decades later when they were old enough not to care about show-biz career pressures.

Gerry Roslie

The 21st Century Sonics include three members from their glory days -- Roslie (who plays keyboards as well as handling about half the vocals), guitarist Larry Parypa and sax man Rob Lind. They're rounded out these days by singer/bassist Freddie Dennis and drummer Dusty Watson.

I shouldn't even have to say this, but just because Roslie, Parypa and Lind are in their late 60s doesn't mean they don't rock like crazy. They blazed through their tunes like "Boss Hoss," "Have Love Will Travel," and those others I mentioned above with crazed intensity. It seemed that everyone I encountered after The Sonics' set had wide eyes and dazed grins. Frankly I can't see how anyone on the Ponderosa bill tonight is going to top that.

While The Sonics were by far the highlight of Friday's show, there was lots of other great music at the Rock 'n' Bowl. 

Trouble ahead, Swamp Dogg in red

Swamp Dogg, wearing a bright red suit, didn't disappoint. The iconoclastic soulman performed a set populated mostly by his best-known songs like "Total Destruction of Your Mind," "Synthetic World," and his wondrous, emotional cover of John Prine's "Sam Stone."

His grand finale also was a cover, The Bee Gee's "I've Just Got to Get a Message to You." At the end of the song, he stepped off the stage and walked out into the audience shaking hands while repeatedly singing the refrain, "I've just got to get a message to you / Hold on, hold on ..." Sometimes he'd complete the chorus, "One more hour and my life will be through ..." After several minutes of this I almost started to believe that he was going to take that whole hour.

Long, tall Chris Clark, the first white singer on the Motown label (reportedly she was known as "The White Negress"), said she had a cold, sounded fine. Any hoarseness just added to the  charm of her husky voice. She reminded me of Dusty Springfield and Jackie DeShannon.

Richard Caiton throws out the Mardi Gras beads

And I was happy to see that the sets of Charles Brimmer and Richard Caiton got an enthusiastic reception from the crowd. This was the first time on stage for decades for both these New Orleans soul singers. I heard them on a panel discussion Thursday and both seemed anxious about their respective performances. Both men can be proud. (I just wish I'd gotten a decent photo of Brimmer's cool golden alligator boots.)

I hate to admit that after The Sonics I had to go outside, so I missed James Alexander's set. And my brain was still so scrambled after the boys from Tacoma, I just couldn't into zydeco man Lynn August. I hope to catch him again when I'm not on Sonics sensory-overload.

Tonight ... The Standells (with Love's Johnny Echols), The Sloths (with Ty Wagner), Charlie Gracie and more ... Stay tuned.

Check out my Ponderosa Stomp/New Orleans snapshots HERE