Sunday, February 3, 2008 KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M. Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres Dropkick Me, Jesus by Bobby Bare Raw Power by Iggy Pop Faster Pussycat by The Cramps Naked by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Kicked Out by Pussy Galore Bible, Candle and Skull by Th' Legendary Shack Shakers Are You For Real by Question Mark & The Mysterians It's Me by Dinosaur Jr. My Wife's Best Friend by Kevin Coyne
Wild About You Baby by Hound Dog Taylor Mixed Bizness by Beck The Snake by Johnny Rivers Sweet Little Pussycat by Andre Williams Kukumunga Boogaloo by King Khan & His Shrines The Girl Can't Dance by Bunker Hill Love Train by The Yahoos My Man is a Mean Man by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
CAMBODIAN ROCK SET Seeing Hands by Dengue Fever I'm All Skinny by Sinn Sisamouth Rather Die Under the Woman's Sword by Yol Aularong Rebel Guitars with Strange Dialects (from Radio Phom Penh) Sober Driver by Dengue Fever Oops ... He's Mute by Pan Ron Dance Soul Soul by Liev Tuk & Rom Sue Sue Oceans of Venus by Dengue Fever
Black Sheep by Dewey Cox Anay Yo (Otebi) by Cankisou Let's Get Killed by David Holmes Field Commander Cohen by Leonard Cohen Fare Thee Well Sweet Malley by Robin Williamson CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Thanks to Laurell for subbing for me on the SF Opry last night so I could go cover the Barack Obama speech. The speech was at Santa Fe Community College, where KSFR also is located. So when Laurell drove out to do the show, she wasn't able to go into the campus, which was the scene of a huge traffic jam caused by people leaving the Obama event. SHe had to park way out on Richards Avenue. So I appreciate her doing the show even more than usual.
Friday, February 1, 2008 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time Substitute Host: Laurell Reynolds
Kris Kristofferson-Don't Let the Bastards Get You Down Neil young-Lookin' For a Leader Johnny Cash-Heart of Gold Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan-Carolina Sundown Red /High on You Dan Hicks-I Feel Like Singin' Santa Fe All Stars-Jockey Full of Bourbon Wille Nelson-Bubbles in My Beer Johnny Rodrieguez-Ridin' My Thumb to Mexico Trailer Bride-Wildness /Porch Song Billy Bragg & Wilco-Hot Rod Hotel Neko Case & her Boyfriends-Somebody Led Me Away Jeannie C Riley-Words, Names, Faces Buck Owens-Act Naturally Hank Williams Honky tonk Man Harry Johnson-It's Nothin' To Me Holy Modal Rounders-Hot Corn Cold Corn Flying Burrito Brothers-If You Gotta Go, Go Now Gene Vincent-Pistol Packin' Mama Jeannie Sealy-Don't Touch Me Tammy Wynette-I Don't Wanna Play House Carl Perkins-The Outside Lookin' In George Jones-You're Still On My Mind Johnny Cash-In the Sweet By & By Patsy Cline-Sweet Dreams Fred Neil-A Little Bit of Rain Rosalee Sorrels-I Am a Union Woman Townes Van Zandt-Our Mother the Mountain Iris DeMent-Our Town / Sweet Is the Melody Santa Fe All Stars-Walker Bob Dylan-All I Really Want to Do Daniel Johnston-Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Your Grievances Julia Scaddon & Sarah Anne Tuck-The Prickety Bush
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican February 1, 2008
The Southern California pyschedelic/garage/lounge/worldbeat band Dengue Fever, which just released its third album, Venus on Earth, isn’t just a fun band with a unique sound, retro and innovative at the same time.
Nope. Dengue Fever, fronted by Cambodia-born singer Chhom Nimol, represents a sweet, symbolic triumph of freedom over totalitarianism; of rock ’n’ roll over the killing fields; of sex, joy, fast cars, and loud guitars over the forces of gloom and repression. (And I’ll take this opportunity to chide and deride local readers for missing Dengue Fever when it played a poorly attended show at the College of Santa Fe last year.)
Consider the band’s origins. The members got together in 2001, when keyboardist (the group’s Farfisa organist) Ethan Holtzman returned to Long Beach after a trip to Cambodia. There he’d been inspired by hissy old cassette tapes of Cambodian rock from the late ’60s and early ’70s.
A sweet, urgent, sometimes shamelessly cheesy brand of rock flourished in Cambodia during its years of civil war — music greatly influenced by American and British rock and soul of the time but sung in the Khmer language.
You can hear samples of it on the 2005 album Radio Phnom Penh. “This is an album The Clash would have understood,” I said in this column, a couple of years ago, “a spiritual cousin of Sandinista! and even Jimmy Cliff’s The Harder They Come.”
The sad thing is, this music was mercilessly wiped out by the brutal Khmer Rouge, which took over in 1975. These commies were twice as evil as Cold War red-baiters said commies were supposed to be. Cambodian pop stars like Ros Sereysothea, Sinn Sisamouth, Pen Ron, Houy Meas, and Touche Teng disappeared during the Khmer Rouge years and have long been presumed dead. (All these singers have MySpace pages where you can listen to their music; hear more samples of Cambodian rock HERE and HERE.)
Could something like that happen here? Imagine if our country was overtaken by extreme factions of the religious right or, less likely, ultra-PC leftist idiots. Imagine Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Sonic Youth, Prince, Harry Connick Jr., Aretha Franklin, “Weird Al” Yankovic, the Drive-By Truckers, New Mexico Music Commissioner Tony Orlando, Britney Spears, and all the rest either executed for subversive thinking and sinful, decadent lifestyles or forced into labor camps.
Imagine all their master tapes destroyed, radio stations taken over by the government, record stores burned, and the computer servers at iTunes beaten into scrap. You’ll take my iPod when you pry it from my cold, dead hand!
Bang!
It can’t happen here. Keep telling yourself that. It can’t happen here.
Back to the present: So Ethan Holtzman got together with his brother, guitarist Zac Holtzman, and other local Southern California musicians to re-create and update the Cambodian rock sound (mixed with other influences like Ethiopian jazz, The Ventures, Funkadelic, and the Swingin’ ’60s Brazilian band Os Mutantes).
Searching for a singer fluent in Khmer, they came upon Dragon House, a nightclub in Long Beach’s Little Phnom Penh where Nimolo, a member of a musical family famous in her native land, had a steady gig. Nimol, who was born about the same time the Khmer Rouge was toppled by the invading Vietnamese, had only moved to the U.S. about a year before.
Dengue Fever made a big splash with its excellent second album, Escape From Dragon House, and in 2005 became the first rock band from the West to play in Cambodia since the rule of the Khmer Rouge. That trip is the subject of Sleepwalking Through the Mekong, a documentary just starting to hit the festival circuit. Spin magazine called it “dancing on Pol Pot’s grave.” Wouldn’t it be cool if the Cambodian kids who heard these crazy sounds went off and started their own rock ’n roll bands?
Venus on Earth continues the magic of Escape From the Dragon House, though the new album is noticeably more mellow. Starting off with the slow, plodding, Farfisa-heavy “Seeing Hands,” the band transports listeners to an international zone of sound. The slow groove continues with a mysterioso tune called “Clipped Wings.”
Then a surprise. In the bouncy “Tiger Phone Card,” Nimol duets in English with Zac Holtzman: “You live in Phnom Penh/You live in New York City.” Later, there’s “Sober Driver,” another English-language duet that is almost as irresistible. Some have complained that Nimol singing in English strips away some of the mystery of Dengue Fever. Maybe it’s a conscious move to attract more listeners. I don’t care, I like it, though I’m not so fond of “Tooth and Nail,” a soft, mushy ballad that Nimol sings in English. But I bet I would have liked it more had David Ralicke played his usual sax instead of flute on it.
One of my favorites is “Oceans of Venus,” an instrumental that has roots in spy-movie soundtracks. Sax/brassman Ralicke, who has played with Ozomatli and Beck, really shines here. And they save one of their best for last, with the cool rocking “Mr. Orange,” which sports a mod à go-go beat and some fuzzy guitar.
Just by being what they are, Dengue Fever represents hope in a brutal world. But in the end, what they are is just a good, fun, imaginative band.
Catch Dengue Fever and other Cambodian rock on Terrell’s Sound World, Sunday night on KSFR-FM 101.1. The show begins at 10 p.m., and the Dengue Fever section starts at 11 p.m. And don’t forget the good old Santa Fe Opry, 10 p.m. Fridays on KSFR (though the lovely Laurell Reynolds is subbing for me this week on the Opry).
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican January 31, 2008
Although neither the governor nor lawmakers seem to be fired up about ethics legislation this session, according to a national study released this week, there are deep misgivings about ethics in state governments all over the country — by state employees themselves.
The Washington, D.C.-based Ethics Resource Center, “a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to the study and promotion of ethical behavior in organizations worldwide,” released its annual National Government Ethics Survey. The results weren’t pretty. Fifty-seven percent of state workers surveyed reported observing at least one kind of misconduct over the past year. More than 80 percent of those reported seeing multiple instances of misconduct.
Only 7 percent of state workers reported a “strong ethical culture” in their workplaces. And yes, gentle readers, it’s not just New Mexico.
“There is a strong risk of losing the public trust that is essential for any government to maintain,” ERC President Patricia Harned said in a news release accompanying the report. “Voters must believe that elected officials, political appointees and career government employees act in their best interest. Eroded trust hinders government’s effectiveness.”
The study doesn’t have a state-by-state breakdown, so it’s impossible to see if New Mexico ranks higher or lower than the national average.
The most common form of misconduct reported was conflicts of interest. Nearly one-third of state employees said they’d observed this, though none of the conflicts were specified. This was followed by lying to employees (28 percent) and abusive behavior (26 percent).
“A quarter of state government employees work in environments conducive to misconduct,” the report says. “In environments conducive to misconduct, employees are introduced to situations directly inviting misconduct, and/or they feel pressured to cut corners to do their jobs. Further, employees may feel that work values conflict with personal values.”
“Top management may be unaware of the misconduct problem,” the report said. Twenty-nine percent of state employees who observed misconduct did not report it.
“Because government sets many rules to assure ethical practices in business, it is vital that government set a high standard of its own,” Harned said. “A world where almost one-third of local government workers don’t report ethics violations when they see them does not set a high standard.”
Most disturbing is the finding that 18 percent of state government employees who reported their observations of misconduct have experienced retaliation. More than a third who observed misconduct chose not to report it fearing retaliation from management, while 30 percent didn’t report misconduct because they feared retaliation from co-workers.
State government has a bigger “ethics risk” factor than federal or local governments, the study says. This is because of the high rate of observing misconduct coupled with the low rate of reporting it.
For the study, 3,452 randomly selected state employees were interviewed between June 25 and Aug. 15 last year. Again, we don’t know how many, if any, were from New Mexico.
Memorialize this: In past legislative sessions, I’ve jokingly called for a study on Legislature-mandated studies. Other Roundhouse wags have suggested a task force on task forces. In that spirit, an Albuquerque Republican lawmaker said Wednesday that later this week she’s introducing a resolution on memorials and resolutions.
Rep. Justine Fox-Young is proposing the House change its rules that would restrict memorials to “an official expression of condolence or acknowledgment of achievement for public officials past or present or those who ‘made extraordinary contributions’ to the state.”
Her resolution would restrict resolutions to proposed state constitutional amendments, ratifying amendments to the U.S. Constitution, petitioning Congress under Congressional rules, “expressing the approval of the Legislature where legislative approval is required by statute or (the state constitution)” or adopting new or repealing or amending rules of the House.
As used now, there are memorials and resolutions for every which thing. There are memorials or joint memorials declaring it Cowboy Day, Farm Workers Day, Stealth Fighter Day, FFA & 4H Day, New Mexico Mesa Day, School Nutrition Day and UNM vs. NMSU Football Rivalry Week. There are memorials calling for new studies and task forces.
Perhaps coincidentally, Fox-Young showed her resolution to reporters on the same day that Gov. Bill Richardson told reporters at a news conference, “I’m sick of studies! I’m sick of task forces!” (He was discussing his health care legislation.)
“I really hate memorials,” Fox-Young said. “I never introduce them.”
Someone is bound to suggest a task force to study her resolution.
Sunday, January 27, 2008 KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M. Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell Now Simulcasting 90.7 FM, and our new, stronger signal, 101.1 FM email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org
OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres Chatterbox by The New York Dolls No Feelings by The Sex Pistols Get Over You by The Undertones Period by Mission of Burma Teenage Head by The Flamin' Groovies Caught in a Dream by Alice Cooper Bigger Hole to Fill by The Hives Do You Know What I Idi Amin by Chuck E. Weiss with Tom Waits Twinkle Toes by The Neanderthals
Girls For Single Men by Sausage Ride Away by The Fall Brand New Special and Unique by Stan Ridgway Gimme Dat Harp, Boy by Captain Beefheart She's Not There by The Zombies Love Me With Your Mind by The Shams Sportin' Life Blues by Champion Jack Dupree
Tiger Phone Card by Dengue Fever Chet Boghassa by Tinariwen Professor Jay from Delhi by Anandji Shah & Katyanji Shah Frankie and Johnny by Kazik Staszewski Hit the Road Jack by Cat I Would Never Wanna Be Young Again by Gogol Bordello Sezegerely Soul Stew by 3 Mustaphas 3 Aijo by Varttina
Hello Sunshine by Bettye LaVette with Hank Ballard Jon E. Edwards is in Love by Jon E. Edwards & The Internationals Boilin' Water by Tony Bowens & The Soul Choppers Search For Delicious by Panda Bear Unsolved Mysteries by Animal Collective Long Way Home by Tom Waits CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, January 25, 2008 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell
Now Simulcasting 90.7 FM, and our new, stronger signal, 101.1 FM email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org
OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos Cowboy in Flames by The Waco Brothers Georgia on a Fast Train by Billy Joe Shaver Man Overboard by Libby Bosworth & Toni Price Farewell Jack by Donna Jean & The Tricksters Lisa's Birthday by Drive-By Truckers The Great Medical Menagerist by Harmonica Frank Floyd Scoodle Um Skoo by Papa Charlie Jackson Let's Duet by John C. Reilly & Angela Correa Rancho Grande by Carolina Cotton
I Paint a Design by Michael Hurley If She Wasn't on Blocks by The New Duncan Imperials You Don't Know Me by Say Zuzu I'm Not a Communist by Grandpa Jones Big Swamp Land by Johnny Paycheck St. Petersberg Jail by Ronny Elliott Who Do You Love by Ronnie Hawkins & The Band Pistol Pete and The Ringo Kid by Acie Cargill That's the Way Love Goes by The Harmony Sisters
Rotweiller Blues by Warren Zevon The Collector by The Everly Brothers Kingdom of Cold by Hundred Year Flood El Presidente by Goshen Old Friends by Roger Miller, Willie Nelson & Ray Price I'm Feelin' Sorry by Jerry Lee Lewis Dirty Business by New Riders of the Purple Sage
You Must Unload by Larry Groce The Train Carrying Jimmie Rodgers Home by Iris DeMent Wave by Calexico Beautiful Mistake by Grey DeLisle Say It's Not You by George Jones with Keith Richards CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican January 25, 2008
Donna Jean & the Trickstersis a decent but not a great album. It won’t be on anyone’s top 10 at the end of the year — except maybe Relix magazine’s. To be honest, I probably won’t play it all that much on my radio shows. It’s above-average Grateful Dead-influenced jam-band fare with a hearty blues edge.
But I’m glad this record is around — it’s like getting a handwritten letter from an old friend. It’s good to hear from Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay, whose voice graced the albums of the Grateful Dead for most of the 1970s. Ever since she and her late husband, keyboardist Keith Godchaux, were asked to leave the Dead in 1979, Donna Jean basically has been missing in action. She’s done an occasional solo record, and every now and then you hear about her singing a couple of songs at a show with Bob Weir’s Ratdog or some other Dead offshoot. But largely she’s unjustly been forgotten, except by scholarly Deadheads — or by fans with long memories.
Donna Jean was a striking figure when she was in the band. She was the hippie earth-mama goddess surrounded by a bunch of hairy weirded beardos. She looked sweet with her flowing brown locks, and she provided the band with a little female energy. But she was a belter — not as over-the-top as Janis Joplin or as searing as Grace Slick, but she infused the cosmic California sound of the Grateful Dead with some down-to-earth Southern soul.
Had she never even been with the Dead, Donna Jean still would have a respectable musical résumé. She’s an Alabama girl who cut her musical teeth as a teenager at Muscle Shoals studios. Singing with a female group called Southern Comfort, Donna Jean provided background vocals on some true American classics — including “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge and “Suspicious Minds” by Elvis Presley.
The story of how the Godchaux couple got to be in the Grateful Dead is a testament to Donna Jean’s audacity — as well to the less-formal, human-scale nature of rock in the pre-corporate days.
In a 1998 radio interview in Philadelphia, Donna Jean told Dead chronicler David Gans how she and Keith approached the group about joining — neither of them knew anyone in the Dead. (She had moved from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to the Bay area, where she hooked up with Keith.) They made their move at a Jerry Garcia/Merle Saunders concert at the Keystone Korner club in San Francisco. Actually Donna Jean made the move. She approached Garcia during a break.
“I said, ‘My husband and I have something we need to talk to you about,’” she told Gans. “Jerry said, ‘OK, well, come on backstage.’ And Keith and I were too scared. We didn’t know what to do, and we didn’t go backstage. This is when they took a break.
“A few minutes later, Garcia came out in the audience and sat down next to us. And at that angle, Keith couldn’t see Jerry; he was on the other side of him. And I said, ‘Um, Keith, I think Garcia’s hinting that he wants to talk to us. He’s sitting right next to you.’ Keith just put his head down on the table, and he turned around to Garcia and he goes, ‘You’ll have to talk to my wife. I can’t talk to you right now.’
“So I said, ‘Jerry, now —.’ Gosh, if I had known that everybody doesthis to him, I would have never had the nerve. And I said, ‘Uh, Keith is — I just know he’s your new piano player. ... So, we’re gonna need your telephone number so that we can call you.’ ... So Jerry gave us his home phone number!”
The couple didn’t know it then, but the Dead’s original keyboardist, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, was dying, and the band was auditioning replacements. In a matter of days, Keith Godchaux was in the band. Donna Jean didn’t officially join until later. But her voice started popping up on Dead albums like Europe ’72 and on side projects like Weir’s first solo album, Ace.
This was an incredibly fertile and creative period for the Dead. Two of my favorite Dead albums — From the Mars Hotel and Blues for Allah — came out of the “Keith and Donna” era. Donna Jean’s contribution was mainly her background vocals, especially on the studio albums.
But if you think it was an all-American hippie fairy tale to walk up to Jerry Garcia in a nightclub one day and become a member of the Grateful Dead by the end of the week, think again. As the Me Decade drew to a close, the dream was becoming a nightmare. In his 2002 book, A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead, former Dead publicist Dennis McNally describes the end of the Godchaux era. Keith was basically was a junkie. Donna Jean, as she admitted to McNally, was a raging alcoholic. It sounds as if she was second only to Keith Moon as a destroyer of hotel rooms, and she once even put her husband’s arm in a sling. Finally, in 1979, it came to an end. The couple was asked to leave the Dead, but according to Donna Jean, she and Keith had decided to leave before that.
Within a year, Keith would be killed in a car wreck. Donna Jean would find religion, remarry (to David MacKay, formerly of the San Francisco band the Tazmanian Devils), and drift so far out of the limelight that some younger Deadheads barely know who she is.
Now, nearly 30 years after leaving the Dead, Donna Jean’s brown hair has turned to silver. Her voice has mellowed; it’s more restrained than in the old days.
She sings lead on just a handful of songs on the new album. The best of these is a gospelish workout called “No Better Way,” with overtones of Eat a Peach-era Allman Brothers.
But, like her work with the Dead, Elvis, and Percy Sledge, her background vocals are a delight, her work on the upbeat country-rocker “A Prisoner Says His Piece,” being a standout. Audio appearances can be deceiving, but she sounds happy.
All I know is that it’s good to hear from Donna Jean.
Seeing Hands by Dengue Fever
