I'M NOT QUITE BACK TO WORK YET ...

But I will be Monday. Meanwhile, some politics has been creeping into my e-mail.

A couple of new Rasmussen polls deal with New Mexico.

In the Senate race, Democrat Tom Udall contrinues to have a wide lead over Republican Steve Pearce 59 percent to 34 percent. When “leaners” are included, Udall is ahead 61 percent to Pearce's 35 percent. ("Leaners," according to Rasmussen are people who don’t initially express a preference for one of the major candidates. But, when asked a follow-up question in the poll, they do. )

This is the fourth straight month Udall has come in at more than 50 percent in the Rasmussen poll and the third straight month Pearce has been below 40 percent.

In the presidential race, Barack Obama continues to lead John McCain in the battle for New Mexico's five electoral votes., 46 percent to 41 percent. When "leaners" are counted, it's Obama 49 percent to 43 percent.

Both candidates are viewed favorably by 57% of the state’s
voters. Obama gets negative reviews from 41%, McCain from 39%. Reflecting a pattern seen across the country, opinions are more strongly held about Obama. In New Mexico, 31% have a Very Favorable opinion of the Democratic hopeful while just 21% say the same about his Republican rival. Both are viewed Very Unfavorably by 24%. "

McCain has gained slightly since last month, Rasmussen says. In June, Obama was ahead here by eight percentage points.

Gov. Bill Richardson, according to Rasmussen's latest New Mexico poll, got a good or excellent rating from 51 percent of voters, which is up from 47 percent last month. Twenty-one percent of voters say Richardson is doing a poor job as governor, down from 24 percent a month ago.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, July 25, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
I'm a Ramblin' Man by Waylon Jennings
Number Nine Train by Dale Hawkins
Gunslinger (Return of Nobody) by Ruby Dee & The Snakehandlers
Rings by Jim Stringer & The AM Band
Here Rattler Here by The Pine Valley Cosmonauts
Good For Me by The Waco Brothers
Got U on My Mind by The Watzloves
Big Boy Waltz by Steve Riley & The Mamou Playboys
Johny Can't Dance by Mama Rosin
Someday My Prince Will Come by Skeeter Davis & NRBQ

Truly by Hundred Year Flood
Jockey Full of Bourbon by The Santa Fe All Stars
One Cut, One Kill by Bone Orchard
A Rebel With Good Intentions by Gary Gorence
The Wicked Things by Boris McCutcheon & The Saltlicks
Shoot Out the Stars by Nels Andrews
That Nightmare is Me by Mose McCormack
El Corrido de Emilio Naranjo by Angel Espinoza y su Grupo Eternidad

Touch of Evil by Tom Russell
The Outcast by Dave Van Ronk with Tom Russell
Mineral Wells by R.G. Stark
Nature of the Blues by Eric Hisaw
East Side Boys by Martin Zellar
License to Kill by Maria Muldaur
Flavor on the Tongue by The Gourds

Sadly Beautiful by Glen Campbell
El Paso City by Marty Robins
Lock, Stock and Teardrops by Roger Miller
Dark Hollow by The Grateful Dead
The Maker by Daniel Lanois
Pressing On by John Doe
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

HYF ON PLAZA -- OR AT LEAST HALF OF THEM

This wasn't your typical Hundred Year Flood show (not that there's anything wrong with a typical HYF show!) Less than an hour before taking the stage, during the opening band, Bone Orchard's set, HYF singer/guitarist Bill Palmer got a call informing him that bass player Kendra Lauman had just given birth to a baby boy.

I'd seen Kendra last week during The Gourds' show. She said her due date was near, but she was determined to make the Plaza gig. Well, she got close ... Actually she'd gone into labor Thursday morning, Bill said. Her husband Jim Palmer, HYF's drummer, had told Bill that he'd better find a substitute rhythm section.

He did. Bassist Susan Hyde Holmes (Santa Fe All Stars, Boris & The Saltlicks, etc.) and drummer David Waldrop filled in. Neither had ever done a Flood gig before, but both play with Bill & Felicia Ford's country band The Cherry Pickers, so there was already musical compatibility. Susan and David stepped up to the plate like pros.

So it was a special show for the band and their longtime fans, an emotional performance that will be talked about for a long time. Flood did a bunch of new songs from their upcoming album, as well as at least one Blue Mountain cover and a classic country song The Cherry Pickers perform, "Delta Dawn." (Though Tanya Tucker and Helen Reddy had hits with that song, my favorite version is the one by Waylon Jennings.


I also enjoyed seeing Bone Orchard, who I hadn't seen since a couple of Thirsty ear Festivals ago. They're a Taos band fronted by a couple, Daniel Pretends Eagle on guitar, banjo and vocals and Carol Morgan-Eagle on vocals.

The group had to struggle through a downpour -- and I confess, I skipped out on one song to buy a cheap pancho at the Five and Dime. But here in New Mexico, a little rain at an outdoor concert is considered a blessing, so it was still a good set.

Besides the songs I've heard on their two albums, Bone Orchard surprised me with a great cover of Cher's "Bang Bang."

WE'RE NUMBER THREE (WE DON'T TRY VERY HARD)

Thanks to the readers of The Santa Fe Reporter for naming this blog the third best in Santa Fe -- behind the The Santa Fe Library Blog and New Mexico Matters.

Hey, but wasn't I number two last year???????

HAD I ONLY STAYED IN OKLAHOMA ...

... and not moved to Santa Fe 40 years ago, I could have been covering political stories like this one:

Oklahoma County Commissioner Brent Rinehart, an obvious devotee to Chick Comics, created a nifty little comic book for his re-election campaign in which he takes a bold stand against "pedaphiles," anal sodomy and "liberal good old boys."

Read the Daily Oklahoman story HERE. I like the quote from the political scientist who says, "I've never seen a comic book with the phrase ‘anal sodomy' in it before."

And pay no attention to the fact that one of the targets in the comic, Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmundon, last year filed felony charges against Rinehart last year, accusing him of perjury, conspiracy, and money laundering, all related to the commissioner's 2004 election campaign finances.

Below is a report from CNN:

THE PITCHFORK FESTIVAL

( I meant to post this last night, but I was so fried that I barely was able to get my photos uploaded on FLICKR. But that just means I had a great time.)

My son and I went to the final day of The Pitchfork Festival in Chicago. Music festivals are such an endurance test for old farts like me -- standing out in the hot sun in a park with few seats for 10 or 12 hours -- I just wanted to do one day. I chose Sunday mainly because of King Kahn & The Shrines.

I knew he was bound to be one of the major highlights of the festival but Khan and band were even better than I'd imagined. Their brand of crazed rock 'n' soul music (9 or 10 guys in the band, plus a lovely go-go dancer), along with Khan's crazy lyrics and antics ignited the place. At one point he had people tearing up dollar bills. In one song he describes a surreal and hilarious sexual encounter in shameless detail.

And what a band! These players -- mainly European I'm assuming -- play like Stax/Volt all-stars on crystal meth. For all the weirdness and tomfoolery, The Shrines are extremely tight.

Khan's set was heavy on tunes from his recent "greatest hits" package The Supreme Genius of King Khan & The Shrines. "Welfare Bread," "I Wanna Be a Girl," "Torture," and an unbelievably intense "Shivers Down My Spine."

This reportedly is this band's first U.S. tour. I'm expecting it's far from the last.

I was so worn out out from the Khan spectacular, I couldn't deal with much music for the next couple of hours. I did catch a little bit of M. Ward, who has a cool roots-rock sound. I heard some Leo Kottke guitar riffs early in his set when Ward was playing solo.)

I was still pretty kooked out when Spiritualized took the stage. They actually were one of the only disappointments of the festival. The band had a couple of female vocalists with them to add some gospel-like touches. But the ultimate effect was just too churchy -- too many lyrics about souls on fire, shining lights, etc. And too much Dark Side of the Moon in the music, at least for the first half of the show. Spiritualize began rocking out about 30 minutes into their set.

But I was truly revived by Dinosaur Jr. I'd been looking forward to seeing them with the original line-up featuring Lou Barlow on bass. The only other time I saw them was back in 1993 when they played Lollapalooza. (I caught the Denver show.)

I expected to enjoy their Pitchfork set, but I didn't expect them to be that good. They roared! Mascis still rips into his guitar like a wild man forcing it to scream.

Dinosaur Jr. played tunes from their most recent album Beyond, (an actual reunion album that doesn't suck), plus some old favorites like "The Wagon," "I Know You're Out There," "Feel the Pain" and their anthem of old, "Freak Scene." J's hair might be gray, but these tunes are forever young.

Early in the day I caught The Dirty Projectors. Their album Rise Above -- radical reworkings of Black Flag's Wasted album -- made my Top 10 list last year. But I wondered how these songs would translate on a live stage.

Quite well, it turns out. Frontman/singer.guitarist Dave Longstreth deserves credit as the guiding light behind the Projectors, but the two women singers (Angel Deradoorian and Amber Coffman, if their MySpace page is to be trusted) also deserve recognition for the strange and intricate harmonies.

While Longstreth's guitar often sounds straight out of Africa, seeing the Projectors live also reminded of another style of World Music -- mainly the experimental tunes of Brazilian Tom Ze.

A band I enjoyed -- though I suspect a little of them goes a long way -- was HEALTH. This is a Los Angeles noise band that specializes in heavy percussion, feedback and screaming. They reminded me a little bit of The Boredoms, (though they could use a little of that band's zany humor.)

My son was excited when he learned they were playing Pitchfork. He'd just seen them the week before here in Santa Fe. It's funny -- the HEALTH album he just bought doesn't sound much at all like their live performance. The record is full of synthy keyboards and seems like run-of-the-mill techno. Their live show is harsher and more relentless, but ultimately more listenable.

UP IN CHICAGO I WAS KNOWN AS QUITE A BOY

I'm here in Chicago to see the last day of The Pitchfork Festival with my son. I'm most excited about seeing King Khan & The Shrines, but I'm also looking forward to The Dirty Projectors and Dinosaur Jr. I'll write a full report tomorrow.

I spent part of this afternoon checking out the old Chess Studios at 2120 South Michigan Avenue. It's now known as Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven.

When we went in, a man led us up a flight of stairs and into a room with rows of chairs in front of a TV set. He put on a video about the history of Chicago blues with some great footage of Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, James Cotton, etc.

It didn't hit me until I'd been there a few minutes that this was the actual studio where Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and even The Rolling Stones had recorded some of the seminal songs of the last 50 years.

"Johnny B. Goode" was recorded in that that room. It's nothing short of sacred ground!

Talking with our friendly tour guide, he said, "You're from Santa Fe? Do you know Sharon McConnell? Sure shootin', downstairs on a wall are dozens of Sharon's Lifecast collection of plaster facial masks of blues musicians.

Many of these graced the New Mexico state Capitol Rotunda a couple of years ago. It was almost like seeing a bunch of old friends. I've always said the Roundhouse lost some soul when they took that exhibit down.

Sharon, who now lives in Mississippi, is well liked at Blues Heaven. She apparently did some casting of blues faces there at the museum a few years ago. Some of the women working there even asked me how Sharon's dog Bella was doing.

I took a few snapshots at the museum. Check 'em HERE..

And yes, we went to the top of the Sears Tower...