Friday, November 27, 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
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican November 12, 2015
America: home of the brave, land of the fearful. And crown thy good with paranoid contradictions … Them foreigners, if they aren’t bringing terrorism, they’re bringing Ebola. Their gun-toting mass murderers are coming to take away the jobs of decent American gun-toting mass murderers ...
Recent events in the news — along with some new albums from around the world I’ve been listening to lately — got me thinking about a certain punk-rock band I discovered online earlier this year. It’s called Mazhott, and starting about 2007, the group rocked the casbah from Damascus, Syria. Yes, that Syria.
Mazhott live!
In a 2009 interview in Taqwacore Journal, the band’s guitarist Rashwan said, “We sing about stuff that matters to young people, in general, and social [issues]. [For example], the high school diploma, here, is unbelievably difficult, so, we wrote about that. We wrote about fathers forcing their young daughters to marry older men, about our generation that is frustrated and lost and don’t know [what] to do with their lives, about less separating of boys and girls, and about how we need more attention and freedom.”
Of course, I couldn’t understand any of the lyrics because they’re in Arabic. But the music rocks, so I bought the digital version of Mazhott’s EP from its Bandcamp page. With my modest payment, I wrote a note wishing the musicians well and hoping they were all safe from the troubles over there.
I got a nice email back from Rashwan, who said, “All of us at Mazhott are safe and sound, but unfortunately each in a different country.” I guess that would make them refugees, but if I’m not reading too much into it, “safe and sound” implies some level of stability.
And I just heard from Rashwan last week for the first time in months. He sent me an MP3 of a new Mazhott song — their first recording in years. I'll play that on Terrell's Sound World, on KSFR-101.1 FM and www.ksfr.org, at 10 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 29.
Did I say something about some music from around the world?
Damn the fear-mongering! Let these new albums cross your borders and immigrate into your ears!
* Bailazo by Rolando Bruno. Once upon a time, there was a Peruvian garage-punk band called Los Peyotes. (I’ve reviewed their work in this column and played their songs on my radio shows and podcast.)
Guitarist Bruno, who I believe is Argentine, was a member of this hopped-up, snot-rock combo. Now he’s been reborn as a cumbia king. Or as his new record company Voodoo Rhythm describes his new sound, “Full Blast Psychedelic Latino Cumbia Garage with a very Cheesy Touch of a ’70s Supermarket!!!”
His cumbia obsession started out as a side project while Los Peyotes was still happening. He’d upload old cumbia songs onto his computer and mutate them into rocking Latin dance numbers filtered through his own punk-rock perspective. For Bailazo, he composed original songs and hired actual musicians to create this crazy sound.
Bruno brings an international perspective to his already wild musical vision. He throws in Middle-Eastern sounds on “Falafel King.” (Is that an oud, dude?) And there’s also what sounds like a bagpipe. This tune would make the British world music band 3 Mustaphas 3 jealous.
And he’s turning Siamese on “Thai Cumbia,” which could almost be a kung fu movie soundtrack waiting to happen. This track starts off and ends relatively slow. But the sped-up middle section sounds like some frenzied Carlos Santana guitar attack.
Cankisou in action
* Supay by Cankisou. This band from the Czech Republic never ceases to amaze me. It’s a seven-piece group that mixes musical influences from who knows how many cultures into a unique blend of rock ’n’ roll.
You’ll hear strands of Middle-Eastern music; rhythmic Afro-beat sounding sounds; jazz excursions and sonic allusions to Balkan music; and a touch of metal here and there. (And Breaking Bad fans’ ears will perk up at the opening notes of the song “Korobori,” which sounds just like the soundtrack to that late, great show’s opening sequence. “Korobori” turns into what sounds like a salute to the band Morphine — except there’s a brief bluegrass section in there, too.)
I can’t write about Cankisou without quoting from its own origin myth on its website:
“Cankisou music is based on an old legend about one-legged Canki people, and the band also learnt their language, which is understandable all over the world.”
For a one-legged people, these guys sure kick butt. If you like Gogol Bordello or 3 Mustaphas 3 (them again!) or, to get a little more obscure, Polish rocker Kazik Staszewski and his band Kult, do yourself a favor and listen to some Cankisou.
Live at the old Santa Fe Brewing Company a few years ago
* Live in Paris, Oukis N’Asuf by Tinariwen. This live album is the latest by this musical collective made up of nomadic Tuareg tribesmen from northwestern Africa. They have played New Mexico several times in recent years.
Many of the original members of the band were living in Libya when they were forced into military service by the late and not-so-great dictator Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi. Some of Tinariwen also fought as Tuareg rebels against the government of Mali.
So truly, this music is what Joe Strummer would have called “rebel rock.” Actually it’s trancy guitar music with powerful Saharan percussion provided by a conga-like instrument called a darbuka. And no, I don’t understand the lyrics, sung in a Berber language, Tamasheq. But I understand the words have gotten the group banned on the radio in Mali and Algeria, so they must be subversive.
Even cooler, Tinariwen leader Ibrahim Ag Alhabib has said in interviews that some of his earliest influences were the singing cowboys of American Westerns. I don’t hear any Gene Autry in this album, but I’ll keep listening.
Happy Thanksgiving, dear friends and loyal readers.
On this holiday -- which somehow always seems to coincide with Throwback Thursday -- I'm just going to give you a few songs of gratitude.
Here's a New Orleans singer named Allen Matthews, also known as "Fat Man Matthews" and listed on this 1953 single as "Fats Matthews." The song is written by none other than Dave Bartholomew, the venerated band leader, songwriter, talent scout and A&R man who is responsible for the rise of another Fats, Antoine Domino.
Here's the Last of the Red Hot Mamas herself, Sophie Tucker who recorded this in 1934. (I'm thankful to B.C. for playing this on his pre-Thanksgiving episode of Blue Monday on KSFR this week.
Finally, I just stumbled across this song, recorded by one Charles Hackett in 1912, while messing around on the 78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings section of Archives.org.
If at times his dramatic fires burned on low flame, he was nonetheless appreciated by many connoisseurs for his finesse and unfailingly musical performances.
Enjoy a little Thanksgiving finesse below
Have a safe and humane Thanksgiving. Don't accept any turkeys with drugs or razor blades.
I can't believe I've done an entire year of Wacky Wednesdays and not done a feature on song-poems,
"What is a song-poem?" you may ask. Well, let me quote from myself from a 2001 Terrell's Tune-up where I wrote about a crazy compilation called I'm Just the Other Woman, which I'd just purchased.
You've seen those ads in the back of supermarket tabloids, detective mags, movie rags and girlie books: “Song Poems Wanted. Your poems turned into songs by professional musicians. Send immediately for FREE evaluation ...
Of course, its a scam. It's been going on for years — a century by some reports.
You send in your poem and the company sends you back a glowing evaluation. Your song has true hit potential. Now all you need to do is send in $100 (or whatever the going rate is these days) and your poem will be put to music and recorded in an actual recording studio by some of the nations top session musicians.
They don't mention that these overworked and under-appreciated musicians crank out as many as a dozen songs an hour and sometimes the melody used on your song has been and will be used for others.
Theres always the implication that this recording will be sent around to the top A&R people at major record companies. And of course youll get a few copies of the record to show your friends; in fact some song-poem companies actually have put out compilations.
And wouldn't you know it, this sleazy little corner of the music industry has attracted a subculture of fans who collect and groove on the strangest and most unintentionally funny song-poems they can unearth.
You can learn a lot more about this strange phenomenon at the American Song-Poem Archives, where I first learned about "I'm Just the Other Woman." (Caution though, a lot of those links are dead and it looks like they haven't updated the "news" section in more than 10 years.)
Below is one of my favorite tunes from that movie. It was written by a gent named Caglar Juan Singletary.
Another one from the movie is one of the most infamous song-poems out there: "Blind Man's Penis" by John Trubee. Unlike Singletary and most other song-poem poets, Trubee purposely wrote strange and outrageous lyrics as a weird prank. Sung by Ramsey Kearney, the prank became an oughta-be country classic. (I played it on The Santa Fe Opry last week.)
Here is the title song of that song-poem compilation I reviewed in 2001. This is the original versionsung in falsetto by song-poem superstar Rodd Keith. This version, which has obvious mixing mistakes was rejected by lyrics writer Mary Clignett and was remixed with the backwards track gone.
Gene Marshall, who recorded under the name John Muir, delivered this anti-drug message.
This one's a sad story of a decent American cuckolded by an Argentine cowboy.
(From my 2001 column) E. Grange's “Palace Roses" is downright surreal. The music is raw honky tonk with a sweet, weeping steel guitar. Singer Todd Andrews drawls a verse about dancing roses before the speaking part: "I am the father of the palace roses/I sponsor many ceremony dances at my beautiful pink roses palace/the roses palace is attended by all the roses then there is dining after the dancing/and fun is had by all."
Here's another Rodd Keith classic. The lyrics were by a lady named Mildred Shankland.
On this latest Big Enchilada Podcast episode we're going to make all the android babies boogie. But don't worry, androids of all ages -- and humans too -- are free to boogie as well. After a warm-up set of good old fashioned garage-punk sounds (mostly new material) we're going Around the World in a Daze with crazy sounds from around the globe.And then this show turns Seedy, finishing it off with a set of Seeds/Sky Saxon covers in honor of the bitchen new documentary, The Seeds: Pushin' Too Hard.
