Sunday, July 15, 2018 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Repo Man by Those Darlins
Baby You Crazy by Nick Curran & The Lowlifes
One Bad Stud by The Blasters
Saddle Up a Buzz Buzz by the Cramps
I'm Out Nine by Dead Moon
Rama Lama Drama by Hollywood Sinners
The Man Whose Head Expanded by The Fall
Get Out of My Brain by Legendary Shack Shakers
Ain't Got No Sweet Thing by Ponty Bone
Slowly Losing My Mind by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
When the Levee Breaks by James Leg with Left Lane Cruiser
Sweet Loaf by Butthole Surfers
Saturday Midnight Bop by Jerry J. Nixon
Here It Comes by Phil Hayes & The Trees
The White Wolf is Back in Town by Reverend Beat-Man
Fuck the Bomb ... Stop the Drugs by Swamp Dogg
Heartbreak Hotel by Tony Joe White
Fat Angel by Jefferson Airplane
Jettisoned by Thee Oh Sees
Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely by Husker Du
Tunic (Song for Karen) by Sonic Youtha
Steve by Pere Ubu
Kung Fu by Frank Zappa
O'Malley's Bar by Nick Cave
A Few Good Years by Buddy Guy
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Seventy six years ago today, July 12, 1942, Jerry Williams, Jr. was born in Portsmouth, Virginia. He grew up to be a songwriter, record producer and recording artist. In fact, at the age of 12 in 1954, Williams recorded his first song, "HTD Blues (Hardsick Troublesome Downout Blues)", for a label called Mechanic Records. In 1966, under the name "Little Jerry Williams," he had an actual minor hit, "Baby You're My Everything."
But by 1970, Williams transformed into something weird and wonderful: Swamp Dogg. As the artist later explained.
I became Swamp Dogg in 1970 in order to have an alter-ego and someone to occupy the body while the search party was out looking for Jerry Williams, who was mentally missing in action due to certain pressures, mal-treatments and failure to get paid royalties on over fifty single records ... Commencing in 1970, I sung about sex, niggers, love, rednecks, war, peace, dead flies, home wreckers, Sly Stone, my daughters, politics, revolution and blood transfusions (just to name a few), and never got out of character. Recording in Alabama and sincerely singing/writing about items that interested me, gave birth to the name Swamp Dogg.
So happy birthday, Mr. Dogg. Here are some of my favorite Swamp Dogg tunes:
The first time I saw him perform live -- at a South by Southwest in the late 1990s, his best song was a heart-wrenching take on this John Prine tune.
The next time I saw him was at the Ponderosa Stomp in New Orleans in 2013. In the best tune of his set, Swamp Dogg proved you can even find soul in a Bee Gees song. As I wrote at the time:
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.
This one, "Born Blue" is from Swamp Dogg's first album, Total Destruction to Your Mind. Here he asks the important question, "Why wasn't I born with orange skin and green hair like the rest of the people in the world?"
And speaking of the Ponderosa Stomp, here are a couple of songs from Swamp Dogg's set, "Total Destruction To Your Mind" followed by "Synthetic World."
Swamp Dogg autographs my CD at the Ponderosa Stomp in New Orleans, October, 2013
Today for Wacky Wednesday, let's hear a few country acts covering punk songs. We'll start with the late Ralph Stanley doing a Velvet Underground classic.
Here's a Texas country-rock band called Two Tons of Steel covering The Ramones.
Sturgill Simpson sings Nirvana.
And finally, here's Dwight Yoakam playing one of The Clash's better-known songs. And that banjo you hear is by none other than Dr. Stanley. May the country/punk circle be unbroken!
Sunday, July 8, 2018 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Elephant Man by Meet Your Death
Fire Walk With Me by Archie & The Bunkers
Bum a Ride by Oblivians
Rock 'n' Roll by Lou Reed
Mighty Man by James Leg
Love by Country Joe & The Fish
Don't Think Twice by Mike Ness
Snakepit Breakdown by Lydia Lunch Retrovirus
Crazy Crazy Mama by Roky Erikson
Chunk of Steel by Hollywood Sinners
Out of time by Yamantaka Sonic Titan
No Good Town by Trixie & The Trainwrecks
Drunk by Mark Steiner & His Problems
Conception of the Blues by The Goon Mat & Lord Bernardo
Cool Town Woman by Tony Joe White
Don't Tell Jesus by The Devils
Be-Bop Tango (Of the Old Jazzmen's Church) / Cheepnis / The Idiot Bastard Son / Orgy Orgy by Frank Zappa & The Mothers (From The Roxy Performances)
Second Cousin by The Flamin' Groovies
Too Much Wine by Leo "Bud" Welch
Will It Go Round in Circles by Billy Preston
Little Red Rooster by Sam Cooke
That's Why They Call it Temptation by Robbie Fulks & Linda Gail Lewis
But I Love You by Reverend Beat-Man featuring Nicole Izobel Garcia
Answering Machine by The Replacements CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican July 6, 2018
Here’s a true treat for all the Frank-o-philes out there: A new box set called The Roxy Performances features seven action-packed compact discs that include six full concerts plus a bunch of studio tracks (recorded at Ike Turner’s Bolic Sound Studios), rehearsal takes and sound checks by Frank Zappa & The Mothers in those golden days of December, 1973.
What a mighty time! Richard Nixon was preparing for his final Christmas in the White House. Gerald Ford was sworn in as vice president, replacing Spiro T. Agnew, who was convicted in a kickback scam earlier in the year. The spacecraft Pioneer 10 took the first close-up images of the planet Jupiter. The Exorcist debuted in movie theaters that month.
And Zappa played the Roxy, a Hollywood Club that had just opened less than three months before.
Arguably (and Zappa fans do love to argue) Daddy Frank was at the height of his creative powers during this area . And the Roxy-era Mothers were complete monsters. Keyboard man George Duke, the incredible Ruth Underwood on marimba, xylophone, vibraphone and percussion and singer/sax man Napoleon Murphy Brock are among Zappa’s most valuable players and their playing on these tracks only cement their positions. Duke and Brock had roots in jazz and funk while Underwood was classically trained. In this version of The Mothers, they helped create a complex musical backdrop complimenting Zappa’s wilder musical visions -- but not stepping on his trademark low-brow dirty jokes that helped draw in the masses.
By my count, this is the fourth Zappa product based on those ‘73 Roxy gigs. There was Zappa’s 1974 album Roxy and Elsewhere (which featured most live material from those shows (and other non-Roxy tracks), much of which over-dubbed and remixed by perfectionist Zappa. Then four years ago there was a single-disc compilation, Roxy by Proxy, culled from those shows. Then in 2015 the Zappa Family Trust released a DVD featuring video from the Roxy shows. This package included an audio disc full of Roxy recordings.
Despite the sheer size of The Roxy Performances, this is a reasonably priced box set. It’s about $43 on Amazon, which ain’t bad.
The new collection includes multiple versions of “Penguin in Bondage,” “Cheepnis” (I’m just a sucker for a tune that starts off “Ate a hotdog, tasted real good …”), “Village of the Sun,” “Don’t You Ever Wash That Thing,” and "Be-Bop Tango (Of the Old Jazzmen's Church)." And then there’s “Pygmy Twylyte” There are six versions ranging in length from four to 20 minutes. Also there are versions of various songs from other Zappa albums of the era, such as Overnight Sensation (“I’m the Slime,” “Montana”), Apostrophe (“Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow,” “Cosmic Debris”) and One Size Fits All (“Inca Roads.”)
And there are older songs too, such as “The Dog Breath Variations” from Uncle Meat and “The Idiot Bastard Son,” which first appeared on Zappa’s 1968 classic We’re Only in For the Money. (“His father’s a Nazi in Congress today / His mother’s a hooker somewhere in L.A.” …”)
The melody of this song reappears during a Roxy rehearsal but with new lyrics directed at the then commander-in-chief and leader of the free world. Zappa re-titled it “That Arrogant Dick Nixon.” This song isn’t nearly as powerful as the original “Idiot Bastard” -- which probably is why Zappa never put it on an album during his lifetime.
But it’s interesting hearing him play around with his old songs. And there’s a twisted, mutated take on “Louie Louie” called “Orgy Orgy” showing that despite Zappa’s advanced musical chops, he never drifted too far away from the garage.
My only quibble about The Roxy Performances is that in addition to all the fantastic music there is an overabundance of the musicians tuning up, noodling and screwing around. I can’t help think that even the most zealous Zappa completist wouldn’t object to just a little judicious editing to snip out the dead air, which mostly takes place at the outset of the four concerts. But I can live with this collection as is. Zappa was a giant -- a musical madman, a hilarious comic, an acid-tongued social commentator.
Come back Frank! America still needs you.
Also recommended: * Late Blossom Blues: The Journey of Leo “Bud” Welch. In 2014 a new gospel and blues star emerged. Leo “Bud” Welch of Bruce, Miss. released his very first album, Sabougla Voices, a collection of 10 stinging gospel songs. Welch was a mere lad of 81 at the time. He quickly followed that up with an almost as powerful blues record called I Don’t Prefer No Blues and began touring. (He played Taos Mesa Brewing in early 2015.)
Late Blossom Blues, released on DVD earlier this year, is a documentary directed by Wolfgang Almer and Stefan Wolner, telling the story of Welch’s short but satisfying musical career.
Welch’s devoted manager Vencie Varnado helps tell the story. Varnado recalled he was only 12 when he first heard Welch play -- at a gig for which “nobody showed up.” After Varnado got out of the Army, he rediscovered Welch, who by that point had stopped playing blues and had taken his music to the church.
He recorded some live footage of the old man and pitched Welch to Fat Possum Records, the company that introduced the world to Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside and T-Model Ford. Some record company flunky told him “Well we don’t do blues anymore …” Varnado, however insisted on emailing a video clip to the company. And, he says, only minutes after pressing “send,” Fat Possum honcho Bruce Watson called him and within days Welch was in the studio.
There is plenty of impressive performance footage from festivals as well as Mississippi juke joints and plenty of scenes of Welch being crotchety and loveable. And over the end credits there is a video of a much younger Welch in church with a gospel band singing a righteous version of “Praise His Name,” the first song on Sabougla Voices.
Welch died last December, after the documentary was already making the film festival circuit. He wasn’t able to take advantage of Late Blossom Blues. But hopefully the movie will lead more people to his music.
Video time:
Here's the trailer for The Roxy Performances:
Here's "Inca Roads"
Here's the trailer for the Leo Welch doc
And here's a live version of "Girl in the Holler."
