Those of you who follow me on Facebook or Twitter might already know that I got a little steamed at the most recent episode
of HBO's Vinyl -- specifically in which record execs Richie
Finestra, and Zak Yankovich catch Elvis Presley in Las Vegas.
This, of course was in the mid '70s when the King was in decline and during the
scene Zak, played by Ray Romano, is disappointed and downright disgusted that
his rock 'n' roll hero of his youth has morphed into the watered-down white
jump-suited idol of un-hip old ladies.
But what really gets to Zak is the song Elvis (Shawn Klush) sings in the scene.
It's "Polk Salad Annie," a 1968 hit by Tony Joe White that Elvis picked up
on and made a staple of his live set.
“The king of rock ’n’ roll is singing about lettuce!” Zak says scornfully.
And that's why I got pissed. You can't argue that Elvis wasn't going downhill
artistically at this point (though he still had guitarist James Burton and his
back-up singers The Sweet Inspirations going for him.) But whatever Elvis'
problems were, "Polk Salad Annie" was not one of them.
There was no shortage of over-produced, overwrought, cornball middle-of-the-road
songs from the 1970s Elvis songbook the writers could have chosen to illustrate
how far he'd drifted from his 1950s rockabilly heyday.
"Polk Salad Annie," in fact is one of his better musical choices of the '70s.
Its lyrics contain a sexy swamp girl, her razor-totin' mama, wanton watermelon
theft, and of course granny-chompin' gators.
Mister, that is rock 'n' roll!
Here's a live version by Elvis to make my case:
There's no question, however that this is Tony Joe White's song. Here's one of
my favorite versions, Tony Joe with Johnny Cash on the Man In Black's old TV
show:
And more recently, Tony Joe sang a lower, slower rendition with Foo Fighters on
The Late Show With David Letterman. Pat Smear looks like he's having the
best time here.
Here is a Spotify playlist featuring the original Tony Joe version plus a whole
bunch of covers (including one by the late Clarence Reid, Blowfly's alter ego)
Play one, play some, play all.
And don't forget this song where Ray Wylie Hubbard explains how "Polk Salad
Annie" helped win the heart of a stripper girlfriend.
And, no, Zak, Elvis was not singing about lettuce. It's actually a toxic plant
called Phytolacca americana. Unless you cook it correctly,
polk salad (also known as poke salad or poke sallet or poke weed) can hurt
you.
Infants are especially sensitive and have died from eating only a few raw
berries. Although boiled young shoots have been eaten as greens and berries
cooked in pie, ingestion of any part of the plant cannot be recommended.
Adults have been poisoned, sometimes fatally, by eating improperly prepared
leaves and shoots, especially if part of the root is harvested with the
shoot, and by mistaking the root for an edible tuber. (The original cooking video I had here disappeared. And, so did the one I chose to replace it. So let's try this one)
Welcome to the Big Enchilada Podcast Health Care Convenience Center. This month we're offering some very healthy doses of high-poeered, crazy rock 'n' roll to cure whatever ails you. Take your medicine. It's good for you!
(Background Music: Late at Bailey's Pad by Warren Barker & The Warner Brothers Star Instrumentalists)
Run Rabbit Run by Bantam Rooster
Whispers by Sulphur City
My Life by Harlan T. Bobo
Feeling Grear Now She's Gone by Lynx Lynx
Git Back on the Truck by Hickoids
Tipsy #3 by The Chumps
Sunday, March 27, 2016 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
Peter Cottontail by The Bubbadinos
Karate Monkey by The Woggles
The Pot by The Monsters
Freezer Burn by Edison Rocket Train
Alligator River by Lothar
Lonely Planet Boy by New York Dolls
Ax Me by J.J. & The Real Jerks
Zombie Blocked by Left Lane Cruiser
Deathbed Side Manner by The New Bomb Turks
40 Miles of Bad Road by Dead Moon
Shangri Lah by The Night Beats
Venice with Girls by The Fall
Attitude by The Come N' Go
Miss Phenomenal by King Automatic
Born Bad by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Great Big Idol with the Golden Head by The Gories
Tears in Vain by Jonah Gold & His Silver Apples
Gilligan's Island by Manic Hispanic
Bad and Good by Javier Escovedo
New Kind of Kick by The Cramps
Meet Me at the Graveyard by Andre Williams
What Am I Gonna Do by John the Conquerer
Glow in the Dark by Lovestruck
Come Back, Bird by Manby's Head
Amazons and Coyotes by Simon Stokes
96 Tears by Aretha Franklin
What Kind of Girl Do You Think We Are / Bwana Dick / Latex Solar Beef by Frank Zappa & The Mothers
Stormy Monday by Bobby "Blue" Bland
Every Woman Needs a Working Man by Johnny Rawls
Opportunity by Timmy Thomas
I'll Take Care of You by Bobby Patterson
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, March 25, 2016 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FMEmail me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org Here's my playlist : OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens
Back in the Saddle Again by Gene Autry
Git Back in the Truck by Hickoids
If Looks Could Kill by T. Tex Edwards
Receiver by The Waco Brothers
Swamp Pig by Dash Rip Rock
That Truck by The Texas Rubies
Can't Get Away by Banditos
99 Years to Go by The Wray Brothers
Baby He's a Wolf by Werly Fairburn
Fist City by Loretta Lynn
Too Close to Heaven by Dad Horse Experience
Good Times by Oh Lazarus
Tied by The Yawpers
The Whiskey Lingers by The Bonnevilles
Georgia on a Fast Train by Billy Joe Shaver
Fruit of the Vine by Nancy Apple
The Darkest Day by Eilen Jewel
Mississippi Sue by Andre Williams
Big Fake Boobs by The Beaumonts
Bury Me Deep by Steve Train & His Bad Habits
Don't Bet Against Me by Hackensaw Boys
Evicted by Peter Case
Any Old Time by Maria Muldaur
Gunter Hotel Blues by Paul Burch
The Year We Tried to Kill the Pain by Bob Woodruff
Were You There When They Crucified My Lord? By Johnny Cash
Austin, Texas. Once again, the crowds were too big, the traffic was too crazy, and the hype is getting way too obnoxious. Yet here I was again back in Austin for another South by Southwest music festival. And here I was again enjoying some of my favorite bands and having a great time — despite the crowds, the traffic, the unrelenting hype.
I was there without actual festival credentials. (I don’t need no steenking badges!) So I didn’t go to very many “official” festival showcases. But, as veteran attendees know, there are more than enough unofficial shows to make up for that.
Here are some of the better ones I saw.
Thee Oh Sees
* Thee Oh Sees at Hotel Vegas. This is the third time I’ve seen John Dwyer and his merry band. But neither of the first two shows I saw was half as fierce, aggressive, or intense as the one I saw this year. They started off on full-blast warp speed and rarely eased up for the hour-plus they played. The latest version of Thee Oh Sees has two drummers, a bass player and, of course, leader John Dwyer on guitar, vocals, and occasional keyboards. The crowd was well-past fired up, immediately forming a frenzied mosh pit, which inspired a seemingly endless stream of stage divers/crowd surfers. It was as if the early’90s never ended. And yes, that can be off-putting to us older fans who don’t want to lose our dentures to some idiot slam dancer. Dwyer’s crazed otherworldly musical vision — the distorted falsetto vocals, the crazy sci-fi guitar bleeps and bloops — cuts to the bone.
Hickoids
* The Hickoids at The White Horse. This long-running Texas cow-punk goofball group has become one of my chief must-see bands every time I go to Austin. Having a Santa Fe crony, guitarist Tom Trusnovic, in the group helps, but I was already a casual Hickhead even before he joined several years ago. I was a little apprehensive about seeing the group this time because it would be the first Hickoids performance I would have seen since the death of original member, guitar slinger and cosmic cowboy Davy Jones. Earlier that evening, before The White Horse show, Jones was honored at the Austin Music Awards. Two years after The Hickoids were inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame, Jones was inducted as a “solo” artist. Head Hickoid honcho, Jeff Smith, was there to accept that award. He held it up onstage at The White Horse before the band started playing. Then the surviving Hickoids proceeded to live up to Jones’ memory, bashing through some of their greatest hits including “Git Back on the Truck,” “Cool Arrow,” “Working Man’s Friend” and the fabulously filthy “Stop It! You’re Killing Me.” By the end, we were all screaming for more. Davy would have been proud.
And the next night, I caught Trusnovic playing at The 04 Lounge with the latest version of his garage/punk group Monkeyshines, which he started years ago in Santa Fe. Monkeyshines still has that wild joyful noise.
Jean Cook and Jon Langford of The Waco Brothers
* The Waco Brothers at the Yard Dog Gallery. The Wacos’ performance at the annual Bloodshot
Records party has been a SXSW highlight for 20 years now. You always know it will be a fun show. But this year, Jon Langford, Dean Schlabowske, Tracey Dear, and the others seemed supercharged. The old songs — “See Willie Fly By,” “Plenty Tuff and Union Made,” “Do You Think about Me” — sounded more vital than that they have in years, and their new tunes from their recently released Going Down in History were all punches that landed.
* Timmy Thomas at Saxon Pub. Thomas is a Miami-based soul singer who had a hit in 1973 called “Why Can’t We Live Together.” That was his biggest success, though Thomas kept recording for another decade or so, routinely hitting the R & B charts. He basically dropped out of sight for a few decades. But then last year Drake sampled a little bit of “Why Can’t We Live Together” and that seemed to give Thomas a late-career second wind. Playing with a band complete with a couple of sax players, Thomas, whose vocals remind me a little bit of Swamp Dog, performed a funky set including old hits and material from an upcoming comeback record.
* Eve & The Exiles at The Continental Club. Eve Monsees, a local Austin favorite, is one amazing guitarist. She’s a longtime friend and former schoolmate of bluesman Gary Clark Jr.’s and a co-owner of Antone’s Record Shop. She’s been playing since she was a kid, and the fact that she loves it is obvious in every note she plays. The first time I saw her was a couple of years ago when she was performing with The Bluebonnets, ex-Go-Go Kathy Valentine’s group. On Wednesday she was fronting her own band, The Exiles, at a Continental Club event called Garage Fest Day Party. It’s a simple guitar/guitar/bass/drums quartet with Eve handling nearly all the vocals. Together they make a tasty bluesy, garagey, early Stonesy stew.
* The Woggles at Garage Fest Day Party. This veteran garage band from Georgia specializes in
unrelenting, raw-rocking, soul-informed good-time sounds. They’ve been around since the early ’90s. They definitely look their age, and they seem a little uncomfortable in their little matching red-and-black uniforms. But all this only adds to their crazy charm. They’ve got more energy than a hundred horny teenagers, and singer Mighty Manfred takes the role of a hyped up master of ceremonies of a party that might just last forever. Manfred announced that “Karate Monkey,” a Chubby Checker song The Woggles cover, is the best dance song in the world. I was skeptical at first. And then, The Woggles removed all doubt.
* Night Beats at The Mohawk. This Seattle-based psychedelic trio, which has roots in Texas, was playing all over Austin during South by Southwest, but I didn’t catch the group until late Saturday afternoon, near the end of the festival. They looked exhausted, but they managed to play an energetic set. Like many of the first-wave acid-rock groups, Night Beats fuse spacey guitar with hopped-up soul riffs. While their instrumentals hint at mind-expanding excursions, unlike your typical “jam bands,” they tend to keep their songs nice and short. The group has a new album, Who Sold My Generation, which I just ordered. Stay tuned.
Video Bonus
Here are Thee Oh Sees, same place I saw them but I think a couple of nights later.
This is from the Timmy Thomas set I saw at The Saxon
Here's "Karate Monkey" by The Woggles at the Continental Club last year
I wasn't at this show, Saturday night. But allegedly this performance got Jon Langford, playing with one of his bands, Bad Luck Jonathan, kicked out of The Saxon Pub. He's quite a lovely dancer.
Those of you who follow me on Facebook or Twitter might already know that I got a little steamed at the most recent episode
of HBO's Vinyl -- specifically in which record execs Richie
Finestra, and Zak Yankovich catch Elvis Presley in Las Vegas.
