Sunday, Aug. 9, 2015 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 Here's the playlist
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Better Off by The Routes
Putty in Your Hands by The Detroit Cobras
Andres by L7
House on Fire by The Electric Mess
Rogue Planet by Thee Oh Sees
Man With Soul by Alex Maiorano & The Black Tales
I Wanna Be a Girl by King Khan & The Shrines
Dog Tired by Wiley & The Checkmates
Want More by J.C. Brooks & The Uptown Sound
Katy Didn't by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Little Girl by John & Jackie
Duende by Churchwood
Chupacabra Rock 'n' Roll by The Blood-Drained Cows
Little Electric Chair by Iggy & The Stooges
Heart Attack and Vine by Tom Waits
Shy Guy by Juke Joint Pimps
Diddy Wah Diddy by Ty Segall
Shout Bama Lama by The Detroit Cobras
Sucker Punch by New Bomb Turks
Drug Through the Mud by Joe "King" Carrasco
Snake Drive by R.L. Burnside
Wax Dummy by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Saved by Boss Hog
Fire on the Moon by The Bell-Rays
My Baby's Comin' Home by Big Clyde Allen & His Movin' Masters
Sugar on Top by The Dirtbombs
Doug the Thug by The 99ers
Funny by The Black Lips
The Other Side of This Life by Jefferson Airplane
Crazy West Virginia Mutant Water Woman Blues by The Slow Poisoner
Broken Bones & Pocket Change by St. Paul & The Broken Bones
Magic Touch by Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, August 8, 2015 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
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens
Maybelle by Jackie Cray
Out All Night by The Riptones
The Holygram's Song (Back From The Shadows Again) by The Firesign Theatre
A Day at a Time by Dale Watson
Maybe Little Baby by George Jones
I'll Be There if Ever You Want Me by The Rizdales
Rated X by Loretta Lynn
Cowboy in Flames by The Waco Brothers
Thank You Lord by James Hand
Ballad of Waterhole #3 by Roger Miller
Alone And Forsaken Social Distortion
Another Great Dream Of You by Eric Hisaw
Sleep With A Stranger by Nikki Lane
Choctaw Bingo by James McMurtry & The Heartless Bastards
One Road More by Butch Hancock & Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Big Fat Nuthin by The Bottle Rockets
I Want to Be a Cowgirl's Sweetheart by Lynn Anderson
This is one of those great songs that I used to assume was part of every American's DNA. I'm talking about tunes like "The Man on the Flying Trapeze," "I'll See You in My Dreams," "Shine on Harvest Moon" or "I'm in the Mood For Love."
Notice I said "used to assume." Maybe I'm getting old and cynical, but these days I wonder if many people under the age of, say, 40 would even recognize those songs.
Kids these days ...
But I didn't come here to grumble. I came to celebrate one of those great old songs, one that pops in and out of my skull when I least expect it:
"Moonlight Bay"
The song, originally published in 1912, features lyrics written by Edward Madden and music by Percy Wenrich.
So where is Moonlight Bay? I found a Moonlight Bay Resort & Campground in Minnesotta. And there is a Moonlight Bay Resort on Spider Lake in Traverse, Mich. Somehow I think these were named for the song, not the other way around. And why didn't anyone ever write, "We were sailing along on Spider Lake ..." ??
The lyrics to "Moonlight Bay" are below. You probably won't recognize the verse. I suspect most people who know the song are familiar only with the chorus.
Voices hum, crooning over Moonlight Bay Banjos strum, tuning while the moonbeams play
All alone, unknown they find me Memories like these remind me Of the girl I left behind me Down on Moonlight Bay Chorus We were sailing along On Moonlight Bay We could hear the voices ringing They seemed to say: "You have stolen her heart" "Now don't go 'way!" As we sang love's old sweet song On Moonlight Bay Candle lights gleaming on the silent shore Lonely nights, dreaming till we meet once more Far apart, her heart, is yearning With a sigh for my returning With the light of love still burning As in of days of yore
I'm not 100 percent sure this is the earliest version on record, but the American Quartet, featuring Billy Murray, a huge star in his day, recorded it in 1913.
Skip ahead a little more than 30 years, and we find Bing Crosby singing it with a vocal quartet called
The Charioteers -- a group that started out singing gospel but later branching out in to pop and jazz.
The Charioteers was the studio chorus from on der Bingle's Kraft Music Hall between 1942 and 1946. (A few years later Crosby recorded it with his son Gary in a faux Dixieland style.)
In the 1951 Doris Day vehicle called On Moonlight Bay, leading man Gordon MacRae, following a smug tirade against baseball, gives a harsh review of the song that gave the movie its title. My favorite line is when Bow-tie Daddy tells popcorn muching Doris, "That must have been written by a man with a glass of beer in one hand and a rhyming dictionary in the other."
Speaking of beer, often, epecially in cartoons, "Moonlight Bay" is associated with sentimental drunks. In this Porky Pig clip a bunch of drunken cats serenade. (UPDATE: The original video posted featured drunken fish. That one disappeared from YouTube.)
And in this early '60s British variety show, the comedy team of Morecambe & Wise team up with the Fab Moptops to sing ... you guessed it!
For more than 10 years, WFMU's Beware of the Bloghas served as a wellspring of the weird, the wild and the quirky. It didn't have to be Wednesday for Beware of the Blog to get wacky. It's part of the New Jersey-based independent public radio station WFMU's web of craziness, and many of the station's DJs have contributed blog posts though through the years. But during its time the blog has taken a life of its own.
But here's the bad news: On July 30, station manager Ken Freedman officially posted that the party is over.
You No Longer Need to Beware of the Blog After ten fun-filled years, we're packing up shop here at WFMU's Beware of the Blog. Many thanks to the dozens of volunteer authors who put in so much time and love into their posts and articles, and thanks to the commenters and trolls who almost feel like part of our dysfunctional family.
Damn! Another good thing has done gone on. Freedman doesn't really say why the station is ending the blog, though he mentions the thing hasn't had an administrator in several years.
Also, a recent post on WFMU's Facebook page said, "Social micro posts have killed blogs, more or less, but there is great reading and strange truth to be found on the blog archives. Also lots and lots of links to great audio."
So, thanks Twitter! Perhaps WFMU should start a new feed called "Beware the Tweet."
To commemorate the passing of Beware, I'm just going to post a few links to some of my favorite music posts.
* One of coolest was a post about "Country Fuzz"-- the use of fuzz-tone guitars in the 1960s and '70s. Some of the best-known country stars of that era -- Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, (who sounds outright grungy on this one), Wanda Jackson -- all went fuzzy for a while back then. Greg G, who posted this credits Nashville cat Grady Martin for inventing fuzztone -- with the help of a malfunctioning channel on the control board -- during a Marty Robbins recording session in 1960.
Here's one of the later examples of country fuzz featuring Webb Pierce:
* Speaking of country music, Greg G. also had a post about songs about them women's libbers burning their bras. I've played "Burn Your Bra, Baby" by Benny Johnson many times on the Santa Fe Opry. But there actually are TWO songs by that title, the other being the one by a ventriloquist named Alex Houston and his dummy, Elmer. It'll be worth your while to read the post, which unveils a woman's bizarre conspiracy claim that Alex Houston hypnotized her into becoming part of a government cocaine smuggling ring. It's not clear what role Elmer played in the conspiracy.
* Beware the Blog regular Bob Purse (a musician I wrote about in my very first Wacky Wednesday last year) is fond of "vanity records" -- self-financed recordings by amateur singers. This is a recent one by a guy named Scotty Scott. Purse posted both the A-side, "Chattanooga, Nashville, Battlecreek Trek" (my favorite) and the B-side "Antique Hunter's Craze." The first song includes some real poetry: "One man gets a job, then his brother gets one, too / Then his Uncle Bob, with or without a shoe."
* Back in 2008 Beware had an entire series of posts aboutFake Beatles bands. One of my favorites was the one about The Beagles, a short-lived Saturday morning cartoon about a group of rock 'n' roll canines.
Another post in the Fake Beatles series featured a bunch of advertising jingles for Hoagiefest -- a convenience store's big sale sale on hoagie sandwiches. So the bad news is that there will be no new posts -- no fake Beatles or weird vanity records or anti-feminist rants -- on Beware of the Blog.
But the good news is that Freedman promised: We will keep every single post up here for all of eternity, and someday, WFMU may resume online publishing. And you can still find plenty of crazy sounds over at WFMU's Rock & Soul Ichiban(which has its own 24-hour online stream for rockabilly, soul, R&B, garage, surf and hillbilly music.)
There is no Terrell's Tune-Up this week. But as a consolation prize, please enjoy this new video (actually it's only audio) by Dave & Phil Alvin from their upcoming album, Lost Time, scheduled for a mid September release.
The song is "Mister Kicks," which is one of my favorite old Oscar Brown, Jr. tunes.
And here's Oscar Brown, Jr. doing another one of best songs.
