GREETINGS FROM BOSTON

I've been lax on the blog for the past few days, I know. Teetering on exhaustion yesterday. Apparently lost a company camera. But I'm still alive.

The New Mexican published my main story today, but not the "notebook" sidebar. I'll run that below. I'll post Wednesday's in a few hours:

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
July 27, 2004


BOSTON -- The New Mexico delegation is headquartered at the Boston Sheraton downtown. The hotel is exploding with convention activity. Besides all the people milling about - many of them New Mexico political folk - the first thing you see when entering the lobby is a vending table. There's a whole array of $22 T-shirts -- among them one featuring John Kerry in a Paul Revere hat with the caption "The New Boston 'D' Party."

There's also a galaxy of buttons -- standard Kerry-Edwards pins at the table by the front door. But one floor up, where most of the people walking around are there for the Democratic convention, the buttons sold at another vending table take on an edgier anti-Bush tone. Some of the buttons have slogans such as "Read My Lips, No New Texans." One refers to the controversy surrounding Bush's National Guard service, "Where was George Bush May 1972 - April 1973." Another declares, "Somewhere in Texas There's a Village Missing Its Idiot."

There are Kerry-Edwards golf balls, Kerry-Edwards coffee mugs, Kerry-Edwards shot glasses and Kerry-Edwards polo shirts selling for $50.

Going to the Chapel

Lt. Gov. Diane Denish jokingly told a reporter Monday that she will soon be resigning to take up a singing career. The night before, at a party for the New Mexico delegation sponsored by Southern Pacific Railroad, a five-man doo-wop group called North Shore Acappella performed an after-dinner set. At one point the group called six women in the audience, including Denish, to perform the old Dixie Cups hit "Chapel of Love."

"My husband Herb has a beautiful tenor voice," the lieutenant governor said. "When he found out I was singing in public, he was rather disheartened."

Meanwhile, at a breakfast for the state delegation, Denish advised fellow delegates not to be disheartened by transportation problems in traffic-choked Boston.

"We're going to be waiting for several hours to get in and out of the (convention) center," she said. "It's not going to get any shorter if your string gets short."

Embedded Delegate

Normally reporters don't interview other reporters, but one new CNN reporters also happens to be a delegate from New Mexico.

Frances Williams of Las Cruces, a delegate for Wesley Clark, is one of four delegates "deputized" by CNN to give daily reports. The network issued Williams and the other three video cameras to record interviews and convention events from a delegate's perspective.

"It's like a reality show about delegates," Williams said Sunday.

Williams said CNN isn't paying her, but she's loving her new gig.

She was excited about one of her first interviews -- the celebrated sleaze/talk show ringmaster Jerry Springer, who has been cited at various convention-related events.

RAFTING WITH BUTCH

Suzanne was asking about the Butch Hancock rafting photo in the review of The Flatlanders CD below.

I Googled around and learned that my July 1995 New Mexican article about rafting with Butch is still on the web. CHECK IT OUT

SANTA FE OPRY PLAY LIST

The Santa Fe Opry
Friday, July 23, 2004
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting:
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays MDT
Host: Steve Terrell
Guest Co-host: Thom "Ciskoe" Pike

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Eggs of Your Chickens/The Stars in Your Life by The Flatlanders
Lighting A Torch by Billy Joe Shaver
Where the Devil Don't Stay by The Drive-By Truckers
Guitar Man by Junior Brown
Worried Man Blues by George Jones
Red or Green by Lenny Roybal

Your Mind is on Vacation by Mose Allison
Mose Allison Played Here by Greg Brown
The Whiskey Makes You Sweeter by Amy Allison
Long Gone Dream by Greg Trooper
Hong Kong Boy by Tom Russell
The Eyes of Roberto Duran by Chris Gafney
Stepside by Eric Ambel
Exquisite Dead Guy by They Might Be Giants


Willie We Have Missed You by Grey DeLisle
Old Black Joe by Van Morrison & Linda Gail Lewis
American Hotel by Tom Russell
Nelly Was A Lady by Alvin Youngblood Hart
Ghost of Stephen Foster by Squirrel Nut Zippers
Old Kentucky Home by Randy Newman
Oh Susanna by Ronny Elliott
Don't Bet Money on the Shanghai by BR5-49

Snake Oil by Steve Earle
Propiniquity by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Red Dress by James McMurtry
I Don't Feel That Way by Jon Dee Graham
Can I Be Your June by Mary Alice Woods
The Man in the Bed by Dave Alvin
Love Make a Fool of Me by Big Al Anderson
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: WATERGATE-ERA FLATLANDERS

A version of this was s published in The Santa Fe New Mexican, 
July 23, 2004


To play on an old Flatlanders album title, back in 1972 Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock were more a band than a legend.

On June 8 of that year -- that’s nine days before the Watergate break-in for you history buffs -- the boys from Lubbock performed an acoustic set before a small crowd at an Austin bar called The One Knite. There were 15-20 people there to hear the music, which was considered a pretty good crowd for The Flatlanders back then.

(Historical irony: More than 20 years later, the building at 801 Red River St. that housed the One Knite would be reborn as Stubb’s Bar-B-Q, named for the rib joint operated by the late C.B. Stubblefield that for years was the spiritual center of the Lubbock music scene that spawned The Flatlanders.)

Little did the band know that the owner of the joint was recording them. In fact, according to the liner notes of the CD Live ‘72, the guys in the band didn’t realize such a tape existed until last year.

So now Santa Feans can hear the Nixon-era Flatlanders and see the Bush-era Flatlanders live when they play The Lensic Tuesday night.

Live ‘72 is a sweet joy for longtime fans of Gilmore, Ely and Hancock. Newcomers, however should start off with More a Legend Than a Band -- their early ‘70s album originally released only as an 8-track tape, or their recent CDs, Now Again and Wheels of Fortune (not to mention the plethora of Gilmore, Ely and Hancock solo from the late ‘70s on).

What we hear on Live ‘72 is a band that didn’t realize its members would mature into some of the finest singer-songwriters and roots-music performers of their generation.

They were already unique in one respect. The Flatlanders were one of the only bands of the day to include a musical saw, which, as one friend of mine has observed, gave a Plan 9 From Outer Space tinge to their West Texas sound. (Though Flatlanders sawyer Steve Wesson has made cameos on the band’s recent recordings, he hasn’t played with them the last couple of times I’ve seen them.)

But at that point The Flatlanders was a band not quite sure of itself, not quite ready to enter the same stratosphere as Willie and Waylon and the boys from Austin who were about to rearrange the atomic structure of country music.

Gilmore, who back then handled most of the vocals, was only starting to show hints that he indeed is a strange deity from the deep cosmos. Ely, who sang a few of the songs that night, showed little indication of the dynamic and charismatic performer he was destined to become.

By 1972 Hancock, the best songwriter of the bunch, probably was the most advanced in his craft. But only a couple of tunes of his -- “You‘ve Never Seen Me Cry,” and “The Stars in My Life” -- are on this album. And Hancock didn’t sing any leads that night.

Only three songs from the group’s 8-track appear on this CD -- Hancock’s numbers and “Jole Blonde,(aka “ the “Cajun national anthem.”) The rest are traditional folk and blues tunes (including Jesse Fuller’s “San Francisco Bay Blues,” which was practically mandatory for folkies of that era) plus songs by Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Townes Van Zandt, their longtime pal Al Strehli and even Sam Cooke.

While that might seem amazing, you have to remember that The Flatlanders’ album -- now considered a classic in alternative country, Texas music or whatever -- received little notice or distribution. (8-track tapes were well on their way out by 1972.)

What you hear on this recording is a bunch of guys clearly in love with the timeless music they play. You hear it in the Everly-like harmonies on the old country song “Long Time Gone.” You hear it in Gilmore’s loving delivery of “Bring It On Home to Me,” which makes you realize that Sam Cooke and Hank Williams are probably pals in Heaven.

I bet this CD sounds a lot like Gilmore, Ely and Hancock did picking and jamming and singing around Lubbock living rooms. They’re more professional now, a little more polished, but that same free spirit marks their music still.

The Flatlanders will play at the Lensic Theater, 211 West San Francisco St., 8 p.m. Tuesday, Jul 27 2004. Ticket prices range from $24 to $34. For more information call 988-1234 or check the Fan Man Productions website.

My review of The Flatlanders' Wheels of Fortune can be found HERE

And what the heck, I haven't run my Butch Hancock rafting photo in four months or so.


Also Recommended:

Live in Aught-Three by James McMurty & The Heartless Bastards. My favorite moment on this album is the spoken introduction of “Out Here in the Middle,” where McMurtry, in his laconic, deadpan drawl says, “Here’s another song off the last album which we have for sale up by the door for $15. I forgot to mention that last night and nobody bought a damn one of ‘em. I guess they already had ‘em, huh?” If that doesn’t sum up the struggles of a traveling recording artist who doesn’t sell zillions of CDs at the malls, I don’t know what does.

Live in Aught-Three is great for old McMurtry fans as well as newcomers to the cult. It’s got crisp, power-packed versions of my favorite McMurtry songs, “Too Long in the Wasteland,” “60 Acres,” and “Choctaw Bingo,“ McMurtry’s 8-minute-plus ode to the “north Texas/southern Oklahoma crystal methamphetamine industry.”

McMurtry and his Bastards are a rootsy power trio, sounding often like a less glitzy and more literate Z.Z. Top though there are some slow pretty tunes like “Out Here in the Middle” and McMurtry’s solo acoustic “Lights of Cheyenne.”

It’s definitely worth the $15 by the door.

BLOG ROLLING

I got mentioned in Joe Monahan's New Mexico Politics Blog yesterday, along with other New Mexico press dogs going to Boston for the Democratic convention. Check his July 21 entry.

At least Joe said "grumbling" instead of "openly weeping" about missing the governor's clambake and lobster broil ...