Over the river and through the woods to The Big Enchilada we go! Here's a Thanksgiving feast of crazy rock 'n' roll that can help you overcome your tryptophan daze. I hope you count The Big Enchilada and Radio Mutation among your many blessings.
(This is the first Thanksgiving podcast I've done since 2011. Enjoy that masterpiece, titled "Jive Turkeys", HERE)
And remember, The Big Enchilada is officially listed in the iTunes store. So go subscribe, if you haven't already (and gimme a good rating and review if you're so inclined.) Thanks.
The clocks have caught up with me, folks, it’s really time to go. This is my last Terrell’s Tune-up. After more than 32 years at The New Mexican, I’m officially retiring as of Nov. 22.
No, this column isn’t going to be a self-congratulatory walk down Memory Lane, recounting more than 30 years of writing this golden column.
Besides, I don’t want to write a tearful “farewell” column when I’ll probably resume writing music commentary in some form for Pasatiempo in a few months, and I don’t want to have to write a “How Can You Miss Me When I Won’t Go Away” column in the near future. (Those who like my weird tastes in music can still listen to Terrell’s Sound World, 10 p.m. Sundays on KSFR and my monthly Big Enchilada podcast at bigenchiladapodcast.com.)
But I’ve got some unfinished business here. I’m not going to be around at the end of the year, so I won’t be around to do my annual Top 10 album list. Even knowing I was retiring, I’d compulsively been compiling my favorite albums of this year. I hadn’t quite finished, so here are my Top 8 albums of (most of) 2019.
* Deserted by The Mekons (Bloodshot). This is the best album by this 40-plus-year-old band in more than a decade. It’s wild, somewhat cryptic, beautiful in spots — and it rocks like folks their age (or my age) aren’t supposed to rock. The first song, “Lawrence of California,” sounds like a lunatic’s call to arms, conjuring a last-gasp proclamation by a ragtag army of fanatics about to be mowed down. I’m also enthralled by the sweet, melodic, and pretty “How Many Stars?” which has deep roots in British folk music. The story is ancient, but the melody could haunt you forever.
* I Used to Be Pretty by The Flesh Eaters (Yep Roc). This band rose up during the pioneer days of the great Los Angeles punk rock explosion of the early 1980s. It’s a revolving door supergroup that in some incarnations included a who’s who of southern California punk and roots rock. The band that recorded this includes frontman Chris Desjardins, some vocals from his ex-wife and longtime Flesh Eater Julie Christensen, as well as various members of The Blasters, X, and Los Lobos. Desjardins also lends some vocals here. His voice sounds as if he’s just woken up from a nightmare — and his cronies capture the spirit of the unique bluesy, noirish sounds they were making back at the dawn of the Reagan years. The band still is powerful and a little bit frightening.
* Human Question by The Yawpers (Bloodshot). This trio of Colorado roots rockers, whose album Boy in the Well became a serious obsession of mine a few years ago, continue their raw, blues-infused rock. This record grabbed me and refused to let go in the opening seconds of the locomotive onslaught of “Child of Mercy,” which deals with the putrid pangs of romantic collapse. And the next song, an even more brutal romp called “Dancing on My Knees,” sealed the deal. While I mostly like their rowdier tunes, the soul-soaked “Carry Me,” the type of song you could imagine being covered by Solomon Burke, hits just as hard.
Country Squire by Tyler Childers (Hickman Holler). Childers plays country music, basic fiddle-and-steel country music, singing honest tales of life with a little sob in his voice and, I imagine, a little bourbon on his breath. Many of the themes in Childers’ lyrics traverse along well-trodden country themes. Yet when Childers sings, it never sounds corny.
* 3 by Nots (Goner Records). This is an all-woman punk, or maybe post-punk, band from Memphis that I discovered back in 2016 with their second album Cosmetic. Though the new album didn’t take me by surprise like their last one, the sound is no less urgent, painting a bleak, paranoid picture of 21st-century life.
* Too Much Tension! by The Mystery Lights (Wick). A budtender in Durango and fellow public-radio DJ first alerted me to this wailing, psychedelia-touched, garage-fueled band. The Lights are fronted by singer Mike Brandon and guitarist Luis Alfonso Solano, who, inspired by the first-wave garage-rock madness of the old Nuggets compilations, as well as groups like The Velvet Underground and Suicide, started playing together as teenagers. This album is just as good if not better than the group’s self-titled debut.
* Gypsy by Eilen Jewell (Signature Sounds). In recent years, this former St. John’s College student has become one of my favorite lady roots rockers. This, her latest album, is packed with many fine songs, from the swampy rocker “Crawl” to hardcore honky-tonkers like “You Cared Enough to Lie” and “These Blues,” as well as lovely acoustic numbers like “Miles to Go” (which reminds me of Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic”) and even a funny protest song, “79 Cents (The Meow Song),” which deals with sexism and economic disparity and has a catty reference to the current commander in chief.
* Gastwerk Saboteurs by Imperial Wax (Saustex). After Mark E. Smith — founder, frontman, and frothing prophet of The Fall — died last year, surviving members of his band decided to go on together. I was prepared to be cynical about this project, but I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if someone had played me these songs without mentioning anything about The Fall, I still would have liked them. It’s just good, aggressive, guitar-driven, punk-painted rock.
So long, gentle readers. And watch out for flying chairs!
Updated Nov. 30, 2019 AD
Here's a Spotify playlist with selections from all these albums:
Norman Greenbaum, composer and performer of the classic psychedelic Jesus boogie known as "Spirit in the Sky" turns 77 years old today.
Happy birthday, Norman!
Greenbaum nearly went to that spirit in the sky in 2015 when he was critically injured in an auto accident in Santa Rosa, Calif. But he survived and has performed since then
As I've written here before, most people who remember Greenbaum, know him for his 1969 hit, which decades later was used in movies like Apollo 13, Wayne's World 2 and Sunshine Cleaning, tv shows including Law & Order, House and Big Love and even commercials for Gatorade, Nike, American Express and HBO.
Ramhorn City's finest
But a few years before "Spirit" he had a novelty hit called "The Eggplant That Ate Chicago" with his neo-jug band, Dr. West's Medicine Show & Junk Band.
I was in junior high in Oklahoma City at the time. My favorite radio station, WKY had a contest to draw the invasive eggplant, and I was one of the winners. My prize was the Dr. West album. This album inspired my brother and me to form our first band, The Ramhorn City Go-Go Squad & Uptight Washtub Band.
We covered several Dr. West songs, including "Eggplant," though we never quite nailed that one.
Here are a few of the Dr. West songs we loved so well. (and you can find more HERE)
This first one, "Patent Medicine," inspired me to write a forgotten Ramhorn City classic called "Tizzic Cream."
To appreciate Dr. West's Medicine Show & Junk Band. you had to be at least little weird
What can you say about the modern-day fish?
As a special birthday treat here's Norman's biggest hit performed in the mid '80s by the British New Wave group Fuzzbox
Sunday, November 17, 2019 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
Where Evil Grows by Gore Gore Girls
Murdered Out by Kim Gordon
Break Your Mind by The Darts
What a Way to Die by The Pleasure Seekers
Mustang Ranch by Black Joe Lewis & The Honey Bears
Gone Deep Underground by Stan Ridgway
I Don't Want to Wash Off Last Night by The Gaunga Dyns
Space X-Ploration by The Scaners
Uncontrollable Urge by Devo
The Beat Goes on by The Pretty Things
Robotic Centipede by Mean Motor Scooter
I'm On the Dish But I Ain't No Rag by The Toy Trucks
The Crawler by Ty Segall
I Won't by The Replacements
Spectacle by Dead Moon
Girl from '62 by Thee Headcoats Shaving Cream by Uncle Floyd Vivino & Oogle
Big Iron by Mike Ness
I Am a Big Town by Jon Langford Mule Skinner Blues by Van Morrison & Lonnie Donegan
Get Behind the Mule by Tom Waits
Two Women by Jimmy "Duck" Holmes
Shake 'til You Get Enough by Bobby Rush
Oh Catherine by Pere Ubu
From the Estate of John Denver by DBUK
Creeker by Tyler Childers
After the Rain by The Mekons
My Special Angel by Doc Watson CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
I've been listening to a podcast about Dolly Parton and, the other day while driving around I heard a segment about one of Dolly's greatest early hits, "Muleskinner Blues."
As you'll see here, and probably already know, Dolly wasn't the first to record this song, which was written by country music pioneer Jimmie Rodgers with George Vaughan. It's been recorded by Roy Acuff, Woody Guthrie, Merle Haggard, The Maddox Brothers & Rose, skiffle master Lonnie Donegan and countless others.But some argue Dolly did it best, which is true -- at least until The Cramps.
Here she is on the Porter Wagoner Show in 1970:
Jimmie Rodgers' was the first version of the song to involve mules, but two years before "Blue Yodel #8," a bluesman named Tom Dickson released the strikingly similar "Labor Blues."
While "Muleskinner Blues" is about a guy applying for a job, Dickson's song is about a laborer who's quitting his job because the "captain" isn't great about paying him on time for his hard work.
Like the more famous song, "Labor Blues starts out "Good morning captain / Good morning shine ..." basically a dialogue between boss and worker. It has to be noted that "shine" is a racial slur against African Americans (which Dickson was." Some of the "Muleskinner" versions that followed kept the word "shine" thought some, such as Dolly's changed it to "son" or "sir."
Here's the Singing Brakeman, who wanted to skin some mules. Actually, as Fred Sanders explained on his excellent article about the song a few years ago: “Muleskinner” is just a funny name for a muleteer or mule-driver; a person who specializes in keeping the mules moving. “I can pop my initials on a mule’s behind” is a comical boast about proficiency with a whip. The mule gave a song full of aural hooks the lyrical hook it needed to catch on.
Bill Monroe turned the song into a bluegrass standard
Dolly Parton was not the first woman to skin this mule. That would be Odetta, who drove the mule back to its black roots
The Fendermen, a rockabilly duo from Wisconsin made it rock
The Cramps, obviously inspired by The Fendermen, took it to Voodoo Island
