THAT'S A LOT OF CINNAMON ROLLS!

Here's some genuine Campaign 2008 trivia:

Joe Monahan today notes that Steve Pearce was campaigning Sunday at one of my old student ghetto haunts, The Frontier Restaurant in Albuquerque.

Joe notes that despite being in "the heart of liberalism," The Frontier is own by Republicans.

That's true. But they're Republicans who, according to Open Secrets.org, are among Heather Wilson's top contributors. People who list The Frontier as their employer have kicked in $9,200 to Wilson's Senate campaign, making the restaurant one of her top five sources of campaign money.

XXXXXX

Here's a link to the Sunday story by Kate Nash and me, whuich tried to sum up the CD 3 and U.S. Senate races: CLICK HERE

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, June 1, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Webcasting!
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Human Being by The New York Dolls
Treat Her Right by Los Straitjackets with Mark Lindsay
I'm in With the Out Crowd by Sam the Sham & The Pharoahs
QB by The Fuzzy Set
Espanto del Futuro by Man or Astroman?
James Bond Theme by John Zorn
Double-O-Bum by Gas Huffer
Mi Sangre Prisonera by Los Tigres del Norte
What's Behind the Mask? by The Cramps
Viva Del Santo by Southern Culture on the Skids

Boss Dance by Jerry Cole & His Spacemen
Scalped by Dick Dale
Hey Sugarfoot by The Astronauts
Swamp Witch by Deadbolt
Bad Girl by Detroit Cobras
Dick Shake by Juke Joint Pimps
Shake Your Hips by Slim Harpo
Polka Chicana by Eddie Dimas

Thunderbird by The Casual-Aires
Johnny's Jive by Johnny Little John & Guitar
Hey Girl by John & Jackie
Cold Slaw by Tommy Smith Jr. Trio
Cave Man Love by Spaceman & The Rockets
Peter Gun Twist by The Jesters
Pretty Lord Sundance Part 1 by Lord Sundance
Topless A Go Go by The Rockets Combo
Take it Off by The Genteels
Kaput by Sam & The Saxtones
The Jungle by Diablito
Drunken Guitar by The Lushes

Clipped Wings by Dengue Fever
Biting Game by Sinn Sisamouth
Telephone Call from Istabul by The Red Elvises
Moonland by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Smooth Jazz by Evangelista
The Bunker by Beirut
I Just Want You to Hurt Like I Do by Randy Newman
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

KSFR: CHANGE YOUR CAR RADIO PRESETS

For the past several months KSFR has been simulcasting at both 90.7 FM and 101.1 FM. It looks like we'll be loosing 90.7 FM before the end of the month.

Here's the word from the Mgt at KSFR.

KSFR -- Santa Fe Public Radio's new permanent home is at 101.1 FM on the dial. In just a few weeks, you will no longer hear us on 90.7. We are now working to maximize the 101 signal before the change over, and hope to keep signal problems to a minimum at our new location. Change your car radio button now to 101.1. We want you to continue to enjoy YOUR Public Radio without interruption in the coming weeks.

PETE LUVS HEATHER

It's official. Sen. Pete Domenici endorsed Heather Wilson in the Republican Senate primary late Friday -- just two weeks after he said he wouldn't endorse anyone.

Wilson announced the endorsement at a televised debate Friday night. But the offical statemetn didn't come until almost an hour and a half after the debate.

It was the Club For Growth ads -- the ones that call Wilson a "liberal" -- that pushed him over. Domenici had raised the possibility that he might make an endorsement if one of the candidates did something "untoward."

Readers of my column (and this blog) might have suspected something was up last week when I asked a Domenici spokesman if the senator considered these ads "untoward" and I got a "No comment" in response.

The big question now" Is it too late to help Wilson, who is behind in the polls.

DOMENICI STATEMENT ON REPUBLICAN PRIMARY FOR NEW MEXICO'S U.S. SENATE SEAT

ALBUQUERQUE – U.S. Senator Pete Domenici today issued the following statement regarding the Republican primary race for the U.S. Senate seat he has held for almost 36 years:

"Heretofore I have been reserved in commenting on the Republican primary race for the U.S. Senate. However, I have become increasingly concerned that, even after I asked that the Club for Growth not be allowed to try to influence this election, they put at least $200,000 in television advertising in this race to try to do just that. I continue to believe that such outside influences should not be used to try to influence the voters of New Mexico.

"As I said today in Socorro when asked about tonight's debate, Heather Wilson is the brightest member of Congress I know and I hope she wins. I do want to tell all New Mexicans that today I cast my vote for Heather Wilson in the Senate race. Having brought her into politics, I have the utmost confidence in her abilities to serve New Mexicans and Americans..".

Here's one of those Club for Growth ads. I believe this is the one that stuck in Domenici's craw.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, May 30, 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
Road Hawg by Joe Ely
Space Hog by DM Bob & Country Jem
Hoy Hoy by The Collins Kids
The Man I Shot by The Drive-By Truckers
Freeway View by James McMurtry
Pairie Ronde by Mama Rosin
Down in the Bayou by The Watzloves
Uncle Bud by Boozoo Chavis
Lulu's Back in Town by The Dead Brothers

Deep Blue Sea by Otis Taylor with Alvin Youngblood Hart
Walk Right In by Otis Taylor with Corey Harris & Don Vappie
The Way It Goes by Otis Taylor with Keb Mo'
Ants on the Melon by The Gourds
Carve That Possum by Tom, Brad & Alice
Flight of The Bumblebee by Eugene Chadbourne
Trainwreck of Emotion by Del McCoury
Grizzly Bear by Eric Von Schmidt & Rolf Cahn
Cunla by The Chieftains with Colin James

UTAH PHILLIPS TRIBUTE
(All songs by Utah, unless otherwise noted)

Enola Gay
Daddy, What's a Train
The Green Rolling Hills by Kathy Mattea
The Miner's Lullaby by Kate Brislin & Jody Stetcher
The Great Turtle Race/Goodnight Loving Trail
I've Got to Know
Going Away by The Flatlanders
Lawrence/Bread and Roses by Utah Phillips & Ani DiFranco
Starlight on the Rails
The Moscow Hold
Rock Salt and Nails by Buddy & Julie Miller
Moose Turd Pie
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: GRUELING BANJOS

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
May 30, 2008

“You Just Can’t Play a Sad Song on a Banjo,” is the name of a song Willie Nelson covered a few years ago:

“Now bad news just won’t hang around the banjo/Old dismal gloom will have to disappear/A sad song can’t be played so please don’t be afraid/Cause you just can’t play a sad song on the banjo.”

Steve Martin, a banjo picker as well as a comedian, has made similar statements. Back in the ’70s (when he was funny), Martin had a routine that got a lot of laughs when he suggested Richard Nixon would have had a much better time had he only played the banjo.

Of course it’s not true that there’s no sad songs on the banjo. Classic bluegrass tunes like “Little Girl and the Dreadful Snake,” “Beautiful Blue Eyes” and various tales of murder, mining disasters, and crib death can hardly be classified as cheerful little ditties. And in recent years, Tom Waits and acolytes such as The Dead Brothers from Switzerland have used banjos to create spooky, atmospheric sounds.


And now Otis Taylor and a small army of his contemporary blues honchos completely blow that “happy banjo” theory to smithereens on Taylor’s latest album Recapturing the Banjo. There are sad songs, intense songs, and even a few that hint at “old dismal gloom” on this album.

Like on all Otis Taylor albums, the songs’ lyrics speak of slavery, poverty, death, and tragic love, and there are even some tales of black cowboys. To be sure, there are some cool upbeat tracks, too, like Gus Cannon’s jug-band stomper “Walk Right In” and the Haitian kiddie song “Les Oignons.”

So why does the banjo have to be “recaptured”?

In modern times when someone thinks of a banjo, it’s in terms of bluegrass or other “hillbilly” music. Or cornball Shakey’s Pizza nostalgia Americana — white-bread Americana. Or even worse, it conjures up racist imagery of black-face minstrels plunking the banjo and singing about eatin’ possum with the old folks back home.

In recent decades, black musicians have shunned the banjo to an overwhelming extent. In an interview earlier this year in No Depression, jazz-banjo master Don Vappie, who plays four-string tenor banjo on Taylor’s album, said, “The banjo has many stereotypes to overcome. A lot of black people hate the banjo, because it has come to stand for a very oppressive time.”

The banjo, or at least an early version of it, was brought to America by slaves. It originated as an instrument used by griots, the traditional bards of West Africa. As Vappie explained, “Here’s an instrument that was part of a culture — part of a people — who were taken from where they are and brought somewhere else. And over time, those people had learned to hate something that was part of them, part of their past.”

Vappie has made a career of the banjo — which had an important place in the music of early New Orleans jazz bands. Taylor — who didn’t begin his career as a solo bluesman until the mid-1990s, when he was in his 40s — also has been a proponent of the instrument going back to his late ’90s album Blue-Eyed Monster.

In some ways Recapturing the Banjo is almost like a mini Otis Taylor retrospective. It features new versions of old Taylor songs such as “Bow-Legged Charlie” and “Five-hundred Roses” (both from his album When Negroes Walked the Earth); the garage-band standard/Jimi Hendrix classic “Hey Joe,” which was on Blue-Eyed Monster; and “Ten Million Slaves.” (I have to admit, I prefer the original version of “Ten Million Slaves,” which was on his 2001 album Respect the Dead. The original had a banjo, but it also had a cool fuzzy guitar by Otis’ former lead ax-man Eddie Turner.)

And in some ways, Banjo is almost like a modern blues summit, featuring collaborations with the likes of Alvin Youngblood Hart, Corey Harris, Guy Davis, and Keb’ Mo’. All play banjo and contribute vocals. Taylor magnanimously lets his guests take center stage on some tunes. And the whole affair comes off more like an organic jam among friends than a tacky marketing ploy, which is a huge problem with many guest-heavy albums.

Hart contributes an original song, “Prophets’ Mission,” but his best moment here is his singing of the traditional tune “Deep Blue Sea,” which features percussion reminiscent of Otha Turner’s Mississippi fife-and-drum music.

And even though just a few weeks ago I wrote in these pages that I wasn’t the biggest fan of Keb’ Mo’, his song “The Way It Goes,” which ends this album, is a true delight. It’s just Keb’ — his banjo, his voice — singing about the need to slow down in life.

Still, the real champ on this record is a new original Taylor song; “Absinthe” makes my heart grow fonder. Not only are there dueling banjos but also a dreamlike coronet by Ron Miles and ghostly background vocals by Taylor’s daughter Cassie all over second-line drumming.

While Taylor and friends want to “recapture” the banjo, this album never comes off as some historic-preservation project. It’s just good American music.

Also recommended
*Boogie the House Down Juke Joint Style by The Juke Joint Pimps. This is good stinky blues from Cologne, Germany. This duo, singer/guitarist T-Man and drummer/harmonica-man Mighty Mike play it nice and primitive like a Teutonic version of T-Model Ford and his drummer, Spam.

The song selection isn’t terribly original — Elmore James’ signature “Dust My Broom” and Muddy Waters chestnuts like “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” and “I Can’t Be Satisfied” among the tracks here).

But I’ll give them points for their take-off on Slim Harpo’s “Hip Shake,” the delightful "Dick Shake."

This isn’t authentic, and purists undoubtedly will turn up their snoots. But these Krauts have spirit.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: JUST ANSWER THE QUESTIONS

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
May 29, 2008

We can't accuse the two Republican Senate candidates of trying to dodge The New Mexican.

Both Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce took time out of their busy schedules for interviews with me. And I appreciate that.

But for reasons that still baffle me, both GOP candidates refused to answer a questionnaire consisting of 10 simple yes-or-no questions on a variety of issues. (I didn't submit one to Tom Udall because he's running unopposed in the Democratic Senate primary.)

Just a couple of weeks before, their counterparts in the 3rd Congressional District primary — both Republicans and all six Democrats — answered a similar questionnaire for us.

The deal was to answer all questions "yes" or "no" — just as if they were voting on a bill. Those who wanted to explain their answers could do so with the promise that some of their explanations might be quoted in the profiles we were writing and that their complete answers would be posted verbatim on The New Mexican's Web site.

The questions dealt with issues such as Congress investigating possible war profiteering in Iraq, ethanol subsidies, "net neutrality," medical marijuana and whether Immigration officials should give special consideration to undocumented immigrants who have children who are U.S. citizens.

There were no trick questions. And most of the topics were those both Wilson and Pearce have addressed in speeches and debates.

A spokeswoman for Wilson said her candidate didn't like the yes-or-no format. Some of the congressional candidates also expressed misgivings about that, though all agreed to submit.

A spokesman for Pearce contacted my Capitol bureau colleague, Kate Nash, asking about our deadline. But we never received his answers.

After this long and bitter campaign, I guess it's nice Pearce and Wilson found something they could agree on: ignoring The New Mexican questionnaire.

The swift boats are coming! Rule of thumb: Just about any time a Democrat gets criticized these days, it's not just an "attack." It's swiftboating.

The term originated four years ago when a Republican-funded group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ran ads questioning the truthfulness of John Kerry's military record.

Last week, when CD 3 candidate Don Wiviott began his attack-ad campaign against fellow Democrat Ben Ray Luján, Luján's campaign reacted with an e-mail: "Don Wiviott knows his only chance to win is with a Republican Swift Boat-style smear campaign."

But poor Tom Udall. The general election hasn't started and already he's been "swiftboated" twice.

When an out-of-state social conservative group, Common Sense Issues, began conducting a "push poll" here for the benefit of Republican senatorial candidate Steve Pearce, Udall's campaign responded with a fundraising e-mail saying, "The GOP Swift Boat attacks on Tom Udall have begun here in New Mexico." It turned out the push-poll was aimed more at Heather Wilson. Only the homes of registered Republicans were called, the leader of CSI said — though some negative things were said about Udall in the automated calls as well.

On Tuesday, the Udall campaign sent another fundraising e-mail, this one dealing with President Bush's visit to help CD 1 candidate Darren White.

The Udall letter said the visit was "to raise money from big donors to fund their dirty 'Swift Boat' attacks. You can bet this money will directly fund their efforts to distort Tom's record of integrity and standing up for the people of New Mexico."

According to the White campaign, the $317,000 raised at the Bush event will be split between the White campaign and the state GOP.

A state Republican spokesman said the party is expected to get only 20 or 30 percent of the money raised at the event. That money, he said, will go to set up a volunteer get-out-the-vote effort, not campaign ads.

There is one candidate who could make a case about swiftboating.

One of the top contributors to the anti-tax group Club for Growth — which has spent nearly $400,000 in ads calling Wilson a "liberal" — is Houston home builder Bob Perry. Perry has donated big-time to New Mexico Republicans in past elections. And in 2004, he was a major funder of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Wilson hasn't been shy about blasting Club For Growth. But she's yet to say anything about swift boats.

Political prosecutions: An interesting part of one of Udall's recent campaign ads occurs when he says, "As attorney general, when I prosecuted corrupt elected officials, it didn't matter to me if they were in my party."

Udall prosecuted one Democratic official — former state Rep. Ron Olguin of Albuquerque, who was convicted in 1992 for accepting a bribe, soliciting a bribe, attempting to commit a bribe and conspiracy to solicit a bribe. Eventually his convictions for accepting the bribe and conspiracy were overturned on appeal. Olguin was sentenced to a year in prison. As a result of the trial, he was formally censured by the state House of Representatives, making him the first — and so far only — sitting legislator in New Mexico history to be censured.

But I wonder if the talk about prosecuting members of his own party might be a subtle jab at a potential Republican opponent. Wilson has been criticized for a phone call to then U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. Iglesias says he considered that call pressure from Wilson to hurry up with the prosecution of former state Sen. Manny Aragon, a Democrat, before the 2006 election. Wilson denies that was the purpose of her call.

If Wilson survives the primary, be ready for some not so subtle jabs concerning Iglesias.