Sunday, January 5, 2025 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM, 101.1 FM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell
Email me! terrell(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Happy New Year by Spike Jones & His City Slickers
Banned from the Internet by Reverend Beat-Man
Banned in Boston by Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs
The Egyptian Thing by The Syndicate
I'm OK by The Minks
Coffin Nails by Mark Sultan
Wetsuit by The Vaccines
Ballad of a Useless Man by Paul Revere & The Raiders
Demons by Gregg Turner
I Want You To Be My Baby (我要你的愛) by Grace Chang
Sally Was a Good Old Girl by Buck Owens
The Ballad of Sally by The Mekons
About a Plan About a Planet by City of My Death
Midnight Shift by Los Lobos
Let's Go Running by The Frontier Circus
It Ain't Nice to Talk Like That by Skeeter Davis & NRBQ
So here are songs from those named above plus others whose deaths moved me
last year -- but didn't move me nearly as much as their music has moved me for
who knows how many years. Each one has a link to an actual obituary with more info on these remarkable people.
It's certainly not an exhaustive list, so if I missed your favorite ... WRITE YOUR OWN DAMN BLOG!
So hnere goes:
Let's start with my fellow Okie and rockabilly guitar whizLarry Collins. He started his musical career, with his older sister Lorri Collins in a
wild duo called The Collins Kids. When I first saw this video, I used to tease
my son -- who was about as old as Larry is here -- that The Collins kids
looked like him and his then teenage cousin, Lauren. And it was true!
Cajun rocker Jo-El Sonier was a mighty mighty man. He died in January right after a show in Texas. In addition to his classic Cajun material, the accordion ace probably was best known for his cover of Richard Thompson's "Tear Stained Letter." He also did a dandy version of The Blasters' "So Long Baby, Goodbye, as you'll see below:
Then there was sweet
Mary Weiss,who I loved even before I saw The Shangri-Las in Oklahoma City back in ntheir
mid '60s heyday. "Leader of the Pack" was their most famous song. But "I Can
Never Go Home Anymore" (were these gals
Thomas Wolfe
fans?) has always been my favorite:
Wayne Kramer,
guitarist for The MC5 early in his career, also arose as a solo artist. I got
to see him at South by Southwest one year (late '90s I think). He didn't play
this old tune when I saw him, but I bet Rev. Gary Davis and Dave Van Ronk
would approve:
And then wildmanMojo Nixondied during this year's Outlaw Country Cruise. I always wanted to go on one
of those to see him and other musicians I loved. Now it doesn't seem that
appealing:
Dex Romweber's death hit me hard. His sister Sara, the drummer for the Dex Romweber Duo
-- yes, I had a long-distance crush on her -- preceded him in death just a few
years ago. I was a latecomer to The Flat Duo Jets, the two-man band that
introduced the world to Dex. But his latter-day DMD records always were
fantastic:
Chicago's
Steve Albini
was known mostly as a producer -- working for bands like Pixies, Nirvana, Jon Spencer, The Breeders and Jesus Lizard, but also alt country artists like Will Oldham and Robbie Fulks. But he was himself in a few bands, my
favorite of which was Big Black. Here's my favorite song from their best album
Songs About Fucking:
Jerry Miller
was one of three guitarists for the great Summer of Love band that should have
gotten much bigger, Moby Grape. He also was a songwriter for the group. This
is one of my favorites he wrote:
Goddamn it, how could we have lost
Kinky Friedman and Mojo in the same year? I had the pleasure of opening for Kinky at two Albuquerque shows in the early 1990s. Below is a live performance of one of his greatest songs:
Because of his success in television comedy -- I still love watching the late '70s local TV talk show parody Fernwood 2 Night on Youtube -- Martin Mull usually is thought of more as an actor or comedian in recent decades. But I knew him first as a singer. A singer of hilarious songs to be sure, but a singer. I was completely unaware of him until I saw him open for The Pointer Sisters at Popejoy Hall in the mid '70s. I became an instant fan. A year or so later, I saw him at another Popejoy show, opening, I think, for Leo Kottke. So let's not forget Martin's musical career. Here's one of my favorite Mull tunes, with Melissa Manchester singing backup:
Jeanie McLerie wasn't as well known as most the others on this list but she was an impressive folk musician. She wasn't a Cajun and wasn't born in Louisiana, though she lived there several years before moving to New Mexico. She and her husband, Ken Keppeler for the past few decades made up the core of the folk band Bayou Seco. I knew Jeanie and Ken when they lived in Santa Fe for a few years in the early '80s. I have a wonderful memory of the two playing in my living room. Seeing my daughter Molly, then an infant, watching, I thought of how lucky my baby was being able to witness such fine music, even if she wouldn't have any specific memories of it when she grew up. Jeanie and Ken later moved to Albuquerque for a few years, then down to Silver City, where they lived for the last few decades. Here's a live video of Bayou Seco:
Kris Kristofferson. This guy was just a behemoth of a songwriter. Probably a dumb comparison, but I consider him the Leonard Cohen of country music. Here's one of my favorite songs of his:
Barbara Dane was an amazing singer. She was known in folk music circles as a civil rights activist and singer of protest songs. (She also was married for awhile to my old friend, the late folk singer Rolf Cahn.) She also became a jazz singer, performing with the likes of Louis Armstrong and Gene Krupa and blues greats like Muddy Waters, Memphis Slim and Willie Dixon. Here she is with The Chambers Brothers:
Clarence "Frogman" Henry could sing like a girl and he could sing like a frog. He died in April at the age of 87. Here's his signature song:
Phil Lesh, the bassist and (very) occasional singer for The Grateful Dead left us in late October. Here's his greatest song:
Dickey Betts, a guitarist for The Allman Brothers Band, didn't sing as much as Gregg Allman. But he sang lead on their biggest hit, "Rambling Man," as well as this sweet tune:
I don't really believe in Heaven -- except Dog and Cat Heaven -- but for the sake of all these wonderous musicians, I hope there is a Rock 'n' Roll Heaven! Rest in Music, all!
Sax maniac James Chance, who was was one of the true guiding lights of the No-Wave scene in New York in the late '70s and early '80s, his compatriots being Suicide, Lydia Lunch, and others. Born James Siegfried, he became "James Chance" fronting his band The Contortions. They played a wild, discordant brew of punky, funky, artsy sometimes fartsy jazz noise. At one point in the '80s Chance took a chance and changed the name of his act to James White & The Blacks for a wild album called Off White.
Here's Chance with a latter-day version of The Contortions from Chance's final album The Flesh Is Weak (2016). Let's just say I don't think Frank done it this way!
Sunday, December 29, 2024 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM, 101.1 FM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell
Email me! terrell(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Head Empty Blues by Ekko Astral
Pigs by Amyl & The Sniffers
I Could Drive You Crazy by Sierra Ferrell
Dream Dollar by Kim Gordon
Easter by Slim Cessna's Auto Club
Needlessly Wild by Sleater Kinney
A Beast, A Priest by Kid Congo & The Pink Monkeybirds
Big Black X by X
Ugly Man's Wife by Swamp Dogg
The King is Gone by Frontier Circus
Fancy Pants by Jon Spencer
Reservation Dogs by The Ghost Wolves
Empty Sky by The Fleshtones
Sacramento & Polk by Alejandro Escovedo
Automatic Response by The Mystery Lights
Kick Out the Jams by Wayne Kramer
Cry About the Radio by Mary Weiss
Columbian Necktie by Big Black
Murder in My Heart for the Judge by Moby Grape
UFOs Big Rigs and BBQ by Mojo Nixon & The World Famous Blue Jays
The Silver Tongued Devil and I by Kris Kristofferson
Highway Cafe by Kinky Friedman
Design to Kill by The Contortions
Louisiana Mudbug by Jo-el Sonnier
Ain't Got No Home by Clarence "Frogman" Henry
Sweet Til the Bitter End by X
Tiny Bikini by Amyl & The Sniffers
Sticks and Stones by Ekko Astral
Dollar Bill Bar by Sierra Ferrell
To the Other Woman by Swamp Dogg with Margo Price
Boucher by Slim Cessna's Auto Club
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
One of the lamest rock-critic clinches is declaring a year as "The
Year of the Woman." This is rock 'n' roll's equivalent of n"Infrastructure
Week."
But looking over my best-of 2024 albums list, more than half of my Top 10
feature feature female vocalists or bands with lady singers. In fact my first
four here fall into that category.
Maybe it was a reaction in my soul to the recent rise in popularity and power
by the current version of the He-Man Woman-Haters Club
-- or in general the growing threats to women's rights in this country.
Or maybe it's just because these swingin' chicks just happened to make some of
the finest music I heard during the last 12 months.
I still refuse to call it "The Year of the Woman."
And yet ...
These are my selections for the best albums of the year. The album names have
links to their respective Bandcamp pages where applicable (and, apropo to nothing,
HERE'S MINE !!!) You can listen to the entire albums and you can buy any or all the
songs you like.
Enjoy.
1. Pink Balloons
by Ekko Astral. It seems somehow appropriate in a year in which
transphobia became a dark and ugly force in a presidential election that a
trans-fronted band would release a rocking, riveting record that’s fun,
sometimes frightening, and full of surprises. But that’s just what Ekko
Astral did.
But don’t think for a second that politics or sexuality had anything to do
with my selection of Pink Balloons as my album of the year. I don’t
care if singer Jael Holzman is a woman, a man or a kangaroo. I knew from the
first time I heard the album that it would be among my favorites of 2024.
This is rock ‘n’ roll like I love it: loud, sometimes discordant, sometimes
funny, and poignant without being preachy.
As Holzman told
The Washington Postearlier this year, “… I want some kid in Oklahoma who’s in college
and just likes loud rock music to suddenly find that his favorite band in
the world is fronted by a trans woman, and he didn’t even know it.”
I’m no kid, but I’m from Oklahoma and I love Ekko Astral. They quickly
joined my favorite new bands I've been turned onto in recent years.
I might be a little biased here because Holzman is a journalist -- an
investigative climate and energy reporter. And in fact, she's a former colleague of
a former colleague of mine. But it's the music and only the music that
matters here. So Pink Balloons is number one this year.
The opening song "Head Empty Blues starts out with ooky spooky spoken word
set on repeat ("I can see you shifting in your seat...") backed by gong-like
cymbals and a slow rising feedback crescendo. Then a bass-led riff with Jael
coming in like an avenging banshee. She sing -- or recites in a sing-song
manner:
Bubblegum vodka / I will carry a knife, it’s my right, won’t cost ya
/LOL Kafka / I will bury my life in a Lite-Brite charter ...
Then the crazed guitars move in.
But by the end of the tune the lyrics shift from urgent confidence to gnawing terror:
I’ve got stalkers outside, not going out tonight / Gonna sit and take
pics in my underwear / My brain’s bust like Molly Shannon / Just shoot
me out a cannon / And as I hit open my head / Can you see it? nothing’s
there!
And yet, she's retained a good measure of humor. Not only the Molly Shannon
reference but the sassy wink in her voice in the line about taking pictures
in her underwear.
And mind you this is only the first song on the album.
By the way, theabove-quoted Washington Post is
Ekko Astral’s hometown paper. Yes, they’re from D.C., home of The Bad
Brains, Fugazi and Henry Rollins. If Holzman and crew keep making music like
this, they’ll deserve to be in the same splendid pantheon.
Here’s one of my favorites from Pink Balloons, “On Brand” :
2. Cartoon Darkness by Amyl & The Sniffers. Coming in at a very close
second place in my top is this album by perhaps the most exciting, the most
dangerous sounding band to come out of Australia since Nick Cave & The
Bad Seeds.
But before I actually get into this record, allow me to digress
Back in 1994 when The Pretenders released their album
Last of the Independents,
their record company’s promo material for the work included
a sheet of advice from Chrissie Hynde
to female rockers.
The most memorable line was “Don’t think that sticking your boobs out and
trying to look fuckable will help. Remember you’re in a rock and roll band.
It’s not `fuck me,’ it’s `fuck you’!”
Amy Taylor, singer of Amyl & The Sniffers, ain’t exactly shy about
sticking her boobs out. In fact on the cover of
Cartoon Darkness she’s actually lifting her shirt and
flashing them (though someone, maybe her record company – digitally censored
her mammary glands). And one of the songs here has Amy declaring her love
for "Tiny Bikinis."
But in her music, Amy’s crazy energy sounds more like a rabid wildcat
than a purring sex kitten.
And she has the “fuck you” part of Hynde’s equation completely nailed. The
very first words you hear on the album (in the song “Jerkin’,”) are:
You're a dumb cunt/ You're an asshole / Every time you talk you mumble,
grumble / Need to wipe your mouth after you speak 'cause it's an asshole
…
Oh, Amy. I bet you say that to all the boys!
Most the songs here are rock-'em, sock-'em stompers -- or POUNDERS!,
as my podcasting hero
Michael Kaiser of Radioblivion would say -- with Amy's voice out front. But there also are some
slower-paced numbers on which Amyl sings, the best one being "Big Dreams,"
which concerns the need to get out of the house, get out of your
doubt-filled head and do something, even if you're broke.:
You got them big dreams, you wanna get out of here / You're sick of
being stuck in the apartment /Ya strapped for cash and well, you don’t
know where to start / It isn't easy with the price of living ... Just
take a breath and get out of this place / I know you can just get
yourself together
Back to Chrissie Hynde's advice to girl rockers, her last – and less-quoted
-- piece of wisdom was “Don’t take advice from people like me. Do your
own thing always.”
Amy Taylor has nailed that one too.
Here’s another great one from Cartoon Darkness, “U Should Not Be
Doing That”:
3. Trail of Flowers by Sierra Ferrell. Sierra Ferrell -- the West Virginia former
busker whose music is even more enchanting than her unabashedly weird sense
of fashion, released the best country album last year, the bet by a country
mile.
I knew that I’d love Trail of Flowers after hearing "Fox Hunt," which
was released as a single a few months.It's a rompin' Cajun-style fiddle tune
with thunderous drums that suggests a fox-hunting army coming over the hill.
As Sierra wails, it grabs you by the throat and shakes you into submission
like a captured fox. This song was one of the major highlights of her
excellent show at Santa Fe Brewing Company last summer.
But I think I love another track, "Dollar Bill Bar" -- even more.
It's a strange tune that starts off as a tale of a woman seeming to mock all
her would-be paramours down at her favorite drinking establishment, one of
those joints with a tradition of pinning signed dollar bills to the walls.
(Here's a real
Dollar Bill Bar. in Oatman, Arizona.)
"Guys like you are a dozen, you should count your lucky stars," she sings at
the start of each refrain. But then she scoffs at "every single cowboy's
heart" she's broken adding if she had a buck for each one, "Well, honey, I
could break a hundred down at the Dollar Bill Bar."
But before you start thinking she's just bragging about all the horny
cowboys she's thwarted, we learn that the cowboys aren't the only ones with
broken hearts. The last verse turns sad, bordering non self-loathing:
So if I ask you for a dollar bill down at the Dollar Bill Bar / Just
think twice before you pony up / Take me for a twirl on that floor / And
if I tell you that I love you / And I tell you that I wanna take you
home / Just turn around here and leave here / 'Cause I'm telling you
you're better off alone
Sierra explores similar territory in the more light-hearted fiddle tune "I
Could Drive You Crazy," which is another outstanding track on
Trail of Flowers.
I found that the more I listen to the album, the more all the songs
start to shine.
There's the Caribbean-influenced "Why Haven't You Loved Me Yet";
there's "Chitlin' Cookin' Time in Cheatum Country," whose melody sounds
hauntingly familiar to "St. James Infirmary"; and the sweet affirmation "Lighthouse," which at first I considered
lightweight, until the pure happy spirit opened my eyes and lit my soul.
(Weird distraction: For a completely different song called "Lighthouse"
released this year, check out the dark and startlingly powerful
Stevie Nicks tune, which I believe is her best effort since "Edge of 17.")
Trail of Flowers is bursting with musical gems, virtually every song
full of secret treasures. Take it for a twirl on that floor.
The video for "Foxhunt" probably should win video of the year. Dig below:
4.
The Collectiveby Kim Gordon. And now for the easy listening portion of our program
...
My major take on this record -- a solo album from Sonic Youth co-founder
Gordon -- is that No-Wave lives.
With producer Justin Raisen providing crazy, explosive electro beats
and noisy, sometimes grating background sludge, Gordon's punk-girl spoken-
word sounds like a logical progression for the No-Wave music and art scene
in late 70s-early 80s New York. Out of that world came the likes of Suicide,
James Chance, Lydia Lunch ... and Sonic Youth
On
Bandcamp she explained what prompted her latest record:
“On this record, I wanted to express the absolute craziness I feel around
me right now,” says Gordon. “This is a moment when nobody really knows
what truth is, when facts don’t necessarily sway people, when everyone has
their own side, creating a general sense of paranoia. To soothe, to dream,
escape with drugs, TV shows, shopping, the internet, everything is easy,
smooth, convenient, branded. It made me want to disrupt, to follow
something unknown, maybe even to fail.”
Kim has said The Collective was inspired, at least in part, by
Jennifer Egan's novel
The Candy House, which features a social-media tycoon who invents a device called "Own Your
Unconscious," which lets people upload their memories to a "cloud" called
"the Collective" in order visit their past memories -- as well as the
memories of others.
"I won't join the collective," Kim sings -- yes, actually sings. It's a
plain-stated rejection of giving up her soul to become part of a dystopian
nightmare techno world. But that line is followed by "but I want to see
you," showing the narrator's longing for human connection, perhaps mourning
someone who she lost to that world.
One of the most ear-catching tracks on The Collective is "I'm a Man," which
concerns what I referred to earlier as "The He-Man Woman-Haters Club," that
seems to be growing uglier all the time. Some of them might recognize
themselves in the lyrics:
Dropped out of college, don't have a degree / And I can't get a date /
It's not my fault I'm not bringing home the juice / I'm not bringing
home the bacon / It's good enough for Nancy ... / So what if I
like the big truck? /Giddy up, giddy up / Don't call me toxic / Just
'cause I like your butt.
I don't think Muddy Waters done it that a way!
I read somewhere that "Nancy" is a reference to Nancy Reagan. But I think
Nancy Mace
works just as well.
Here's the video of that song:
5.
Kinnery of Lupercalia: Buell Legion
by Slim Cessna's Auto Club. Not only did the Auto Club make one
of the very best albums of the year, they, along with headliners Kid Congo
& The Pink Monkeybirds (more on them later in this post) this Colorado
group also performed the best live show I saw in Santa Fe all year.
This is the Auto Club's first release in eight years. It's part 2 of a
trilogy of "Kinnery of Lupercalia" albums, which began with
Undelivered Legion by Munly & The Lupercalians, a "spin-off" band
that includes many of the same members of the Auto Club, including Slim
Cessa. The final album in the trilogy will be done by another Cessna
spin-off, Denver Broncos UK (DBUK), which also includes basically members of
the Auto Club, including frontmen Cessna and Jay Munly.
Please don't ask me to explain that band name. And please don't ask me to
explain the whole Lupercalia mythos. I was relieved when I read this quote
from Munly
in an interview with Supercorrupter last May While saying it's cool if people want to connect all the themes and
characters in the trilogy (and plugs his lyrics book,
Chants, Calls and Hollers from Lupercalia, which he says will help with that), he adds:
Conversely, if a person wants to simply go to a show and have a nice
time and not have to ‘study’ beforehand to enjoy themselves then
hopefully the music and melodies and the band’s delivery can stand on
their own.
That's about where I am. For me, all Cessna and Cessna-associated albums, as
well as well as the live show reminds me of a crazed backwoods revival, full
of religious imagery, songs of salvation, shame and an underbelly of sin and
violence, twanging banjos, sweet and sour steel guitar, chants, calls,
hollers.
It's a heady mix that defies categorization. And there's also a bitchen song
about rabbits:
6.Little Ropeby Sleater-Kinney. I was so disappointed with Sleater-Kinney a
few years ago when they
effectively forced out drummer Janet Weiss
right after they released their St. Vincent-produced album The Center Won't Hold.
So Little Rope, to my ears, represents a redemption. And their
performance in Albuquerque last March sealed that deal. Despite that bump in
the road, Sleater-Kinney still is a major band in my ears. (And
listening to Center all these years later, it's not as
wretched as I remember, but it still sounds watered-down to me.)
The origins of Little Rope began when singer Corin Tucker received a
call from the U.S. Embassy in Italy. (Years before, bandmate Carrie
Brownstein had listed Corin as her emergency contact on a passport form, but
Brownstein had changed her number.)
The embassy was trying to contact Carrie to inform her that her mom and
stepfather had been killed in a car wreck. According to the
promo for the album on Bandcamp:
"In the months that followed, Brownstein took solace in an act that felt
deeply familiar – playing guitar. “I don’t think I’ve played guitar that
much since my teens or early twenties,” she says. “Literally moving my
fingers across the fretboard for hours on end to remind myself I was still
capable of basic motor skills, of movement, of existing.”
So it seems appropriate that the albums opener, titled "Hell," deals with
the emotional anguish of the sudden loss of loved one, though in the case of
the song is about losing loved ones to gun violence. Here Corin sings:
Hell needs no invitation / Hell don't make no fuss / Hell is
desperation / And a young man with a gun.
After which Corin lets loose with her trademark wail, which perhaps is the
greatest among living rockers. And, as usual, that wail is soul-cleansing,
even though a little frightening.
Later in tbe album, Carrie seems to directly address her loss in the rocking
"Hunt You Down" singing
... I've been down so long, I pay rent to the floor / I'm
reelin', out of sorts, I'm unsteady / Been crawlin' 'round here for days
in hopes the walls open up And give way, call me home
Then, in what I'm assuming to be a message to her late parents, she adds
probably the most heartbreaking lines of Little Rope:
I forgive you, I wish I'd told you so / Nowhere for the words to go,
with what's left of me / I'll send your ashes my love
The themes of loss, grief and anger stay with Little Rope all the way
to the end.
Posting on Instagram
in January, Sleater-Kinney said that album's closer, "Untidy Creature" was
written before they even knew they were working on a new album and they were
suspicious about it because it came too easy. However,
... as the year wore on, and our choices and bodily autonomy shrank,
our feeling about the song changed. It became a gift, somewhere to put
our darkest fears, and our deepest hopes. We sometimes feel trapped or
angry, and yet still we breathe.
Keep breathing, lCarrie and Corin. You're still making some world-class rock
'n' roll.
Here's the video for "Hell":
7.
That Delicious Vice
by Kid Congo & The Pink Monkeybirds. As I previously
mentioned, I got to see Kid Congo Powers and his pals in October with Slim
Cessna's Auto Club, in what was the best concert I saw all
year. I'd seen Kid Congo and those Monkeybirds a couple of times
before in New York and Austin. But it felt good to see him here in Santa Fe.
Vice is a strong album full of great riffs and often funny lyrics.
Kid Congo doesn't sing, he recites, as if he were a knowing, sometimes
sarcastic narrator for his musical visions. In that regard, it's not hard
imaging him doing a duet with Kim Gordon.
But speaking of duets, here Kid Congo performs with fellow L.A. Chicano
rocker Alice Bag, formerly of The Bags, on "Wicked World," which deals with
a streetwalker.
What do they think whеn they see a girl / Looking for saints looking
for whores /This is a wicked, wicked world /And you shouldn't be here
anymore ...
Kid Congo puts his Hispanic heritage on full display on the (sort-of) title
song, "Esse Vicio Delicioso," where his blazing guitar is backed by a cool
Latin beat. And with "Never Said," he waves at the "souldies" -- aka Chicano
soul or lowrider music -- sound, exemplified by artists like Trish Toledo
(who did a fantastic show in Albuquerque this year), Bobby Oroza and Joey
Quinones.
Kid Congo (real name Brian Tristan) has a well-known history as a guitarist
for three bands I love -- Gun Club, The Cramps and Nick Cave & The Bad
Seeds. He's not above reminding people about that history. At his Santa Fe
show he did some covers of Gun Club and The Cramps.
But it's high time he was known first and foremost as the leader of The Pink
Monkeybirds. They're in a class of their own.
Here's "Wicked World":
8.
Blackgrass
by Swamp Dogg. When this record was first released last May,
some critics and I'd bet many fans, suspected that this might be the crafty
old Dogg trying to cash in on all the publicity of another Black singer
"going country."
I'm talking of course about Beyonce's Cowboy Carter, which was
heavily influenced by country and featured guest appearances by the likes of
Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Rhiannon Giddens.
Black people doing country music? How bizarre! How quaint! Plus,
I'm an idiot who's never heard of Al Green nor Joe Tex or Solomon
Burke or RAY FUCKING CHARLES...
Back to reality, Swamp Dogg has had country connections at least since 1971,
when Johnny Paycheck recorded his hit "She's All I Got," which was
co-written by Swamp (under his real name, Jerry Williams, Jr.) and his then
writing partner, 60s hitmaker Gary U.S. Bonds.
Swamp also had a longtime friendship with John Prine. In fact Prine's last
recordings can be found on Swamp Dogg's 2020 album,
Sorry You Couldn't Make It. Prine and Dogg performed sweet soulful
duets on the songs "Memories" and "Please Let Me Go Round Again." Prine died
about a month after that album was released.
This new one is on Prine's Oh Boy label. But Swamp's best Prine connection
is his performance of Prine's "Sam Stone," recorded in 1972. Swamp Dogg
turns this mournful tune about about a Vietnam vet who becomes a heroin
addict into a concert showstopper. (And this year I got to see him sing it
live again a few months ago at Americanafest in Nashville.
Blackgrass goes deeper into country and bluegrass than Swamp ever has
before. His backup musicians include the likes of dobro man Jerry Douglas,
Sierra Hull on mandolin, Noam Pikelny on banjo, fiddler Billy Contreras
and two of Marty Stuart's Fabulous Superlatives -- guitarist Kenny Vaughan
and bassist Chris Scruggs. And guitarist Vernon Reid (of Living Colour) adds
some crazed electric guitar to the stomping hoedown "Rise Up."
And there are impressive guest singers, Jenny Lewis on "Count the Days" and
-- especially Margo Price, who sings the hell out of "To the Other Woman," a
tune Swamp and Gary Bonds wrote for soul singer Doris Duke in the '70s.
There are so many great tunes here. There's "Mess Under That Dress," an
upbeat bluegrass ode to a sweetheart's not-so-secret charms; "Ugly Man's
Wife," which is a distant country cousin of calypso singer Roaring Lion's
1934
"Ugly Woman"; a sweet, slow, almost jazzy cover of Floyd Tillman's "Gotta Have My Baby
Back"; and a few mellow but passionate tunes such as "Have a Good Time,"
"Songs to Sing," and "This is My Dream," which hit that magic sweet spot
between soul and country.
The album ends and an insane, spoken-word "Murder Ballad," which includes
lyrics like:
I choked that old heifer out in her room and she died smellin' of
Bengay /See they used to make me wear mama's clothes / and all her cheap
hair / so for my final trick / I'll go back downstairs and take care of
my old man / dirty son of a bitch ...
So Blackgrass comes in like a horny Earl Scruggs and goes out like
Norman Bates. What's not to love?
Here's "Mess Under That Dress":
9.Smoke & Fictionby X. On the second song on the latest album by this pivotal Los Angeles punk band issue what could be seen as a mission statement for this record:
Let's go round the bend / Get in trouble again / Make a commotion / Drink a love potion
However, this might be described as just a sweet invitation to a last hurrah, as X, which has been around nearly 50 years, has announced that this will be its final album.
And the name of the song quoted above is "Sweet Til the Bitter End."
Who knows whether this declaration is actually true. In a YouTube interview with music journalist Lyndsey Parker, John Doe and Exene Cervenka say the band isn't exactly breaking up and that there might be some one-off gigs and maybe even some new songs recorded for "a benefit records or something-or-other," as Doe said.
But the group realized after starting work on Smoke & Fiction that this probably would be their last album. "It's just too hard," Exene said of the record-making process in the interview.
Smoke & Fiction is a strong follow to their previous album, the excellent Alphabetland, (released in 2020, helping many of us X fans to survive the damned pandemic). That album was their first studio effort in nearly three decades.
I suspect that most who are fans of 2020s X are those of us old enough to love and cherish X in its heyday. But it's possible that there's a new generation of baby X fans. (If that applies to you, you'll just have to go back, if you haven't already, and listen to Los Angeles, Wild Gift, Under the Big Black Sun, etc. You'll be glad you did.)
On one song here, titled "Big Black X," the band reminisces about those golden days of the L.A. punk scene that spawned them:
Hollywood letters fallin' down / Errol Flynn's abandoned mansion / Scary Hillside guy / Angel dust low-ridin' by / We swam into the Pacific / and Windward intersection / Viet Nam vet I met and cannot forget / Bikers on the 101 and / 77 Sunset Strip / Old cars and new scars ... Stay awake and don't get taken / We knew the gutter / Also the future ...
As a proud retiree -- who loved his job but would rather walk barefoot a mile of broken glass than going back to work -- I sympathize. And X's members are about my age. So if they've got to have a "last album," at least this one shows the band going out at something fairly close to peak strength.
Here's the video for "Big Black X":
10. Back in Townby The Frontier Circus. Before Singer Rachel Nagy died in 2022, The Detroit Cobras probably were considered the coolest covers band in the known universe. But now there's another band that's a contender for that title: The Frontier Circus of Conway, Arkansas.
Just don't call them "The Conway Cobras."
The ringmaster of this crazy circus is one Frontier Dan aka Danny Grace, a professor emeritus in theater arts and dance at Hendrix College.
He also sometimes assumes the identity of Rockin' Dan, leader of The Frontier Circus' predecessor in crazy punked-up cover-band sounds, The Rockin' Guys. That group fronted the early '90s (or was it the late '80s?) that still occasionally convenes.
The Frontier Circus initially was touted as country version of The Rockin' Guys, although these days the Circus covers rock and pop classics along with the hillbilly tunes. On Back in Town, the band takes on old favorites you first heard by The Sonics, Neil Young, Jonathan Richman, Donovan, George Jones and more.
Most these songs are at least fairly well-known -- I mean, if you're unfamiliar with "Wooly Bully" or "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" you should lose your American citizenship. But the Circus also included a couple of songs here that even forced a wizened old know-it-all like me to look up.
I'm talking about "Sylvia Plath," an ode to the dead poet which was written by the late Peter Laughner, a founding member of two massive Ohio bands, Rocket from the Tombs and Pere Ubu -- though he left Ubu after their first two singles and died not long afterwards. (Grace also recorded "Sylvia Plath" with The Rockin' Guys).
Even better though -- and way more obscure -- is "Let's Go Running," which was written and performed by Jim Mize, a singer-songwriter also from Conway, Arkansas, who died in 2022. Though he recorded three albums for Fat Possum, I was totally unfamiliar.
The Frontier Circus do both these songs far more straightforward -- barely any traces of wackadoodle vocals, no crazy theremin -- and far more reverent than the other songs. And they sound real nice!
But the crazy ones are cool too. Frontier Dan is never L7 ...
I was lucky enough to see six of the artists listed above in concert
in 2024. Below is a collage of some of my
snapshots of Kid Congo Powers, Sierra Ferrell, Slim Cessna's Auto Club, Swamp Dogg, Sleater-Kinney and Alejandro Escovedo:
And I've seen four others live, just not this year: (Clockwise) X, The Ghost Wolves, Jon Spencer (with The Blues Explosion) and Kim Gordon (with Sonic Youth)
For all my annual "Top 10" album lists, goin back to early in this
century,
CLICK HERE
For a compilation of my annual Top 10 album lists from 1988 (!) through
2003CLICK HERE
And below is a Spotify playlist of selected songs from all these
albums, more than two hours of rocking glory. I suggest you listen to it
on "shuffle" play:
Sunday, December 22, 2024 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM, 101.1 FM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell
Email me! terrell(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Must Be Santa by Brave Combo
Peggy Sue by Lou Reed
The 4-Winds Bar by The Gregg Turner Group
Six Bullets for Christmas by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies
Winding Up the Time by X
Hooray for Santa Claus by The Fleshtones
Abominable Snowman in the Market by Jonathan Richman
Even Squeaky Fromme Loves Christmas by Rev. Glen Armstrong
Pee Wee RIP by Ghost Wolves
Pee Wee Where Have You Gone? by Ukulele Man
Little Drummer Boy by Joan Jett
Eggnog by The Rockin' Guys
Sylvia Plath by The Frontier Circus
Ain't It Fun by Rocket from the Tombs
Drinking Up Christmas by Dwarves
Tamale Christmas by Joe "King" Carrasco
Carburetor for Christmas by Dave Del Monte & The Cross Country Boys
A Christmas Duel by The Hives & Cyndi Lauper
Going Somewhere by Amyl & The Sniffers
Back Door Santa by Clarence Carter
Shake Hands With Santa Claus by Louis Prima
Aloha from Hell by The 69 Eyes
The Woo Woo Train by The Valentines
Santa Claus Has Got the AIDS This Year by Tiny Tim
Saint Nick's Farm by The Gay Sportscasters
Baby It's Cold Outside by Ray Charles & Betty Carter
