THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

The Santa Fe Opry
Friday, October 21, 2004
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays MDT
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Ya'll Think She'd Be Good 2 Me by C.C. Adcock
Chere Bebe by BeauSoleil
Alons A Grand Coteu by Cyndi Lauper
Half a Boy Half a Man by Queen Ida
After the Mardi Gras by Big Al Anderson
Cajun Medley by Eugene Chadbourne
Blood of the Ram by The Gourds

If You Knew by Neko Case
I'm Gonna Take You Home and Make You Like Me by Robbie & Donna Fulks
Where's the Devil When You Need Him? by The Legendary Shack Shakers
Puttin' People On the Moon by Drive-By Truckers
Tell the King The Killer's Here by Ronny Elliott
New Fashioned Imperialist by Jason Ringenberg
I'd Have To Be Crazy by Willie Nelson
When That Helicopter Comes by The Handsome Family

Life, Love, Death and The Meter Man by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies
Turn That Chicken Down by Geraint Watkins
It Ain't Easy by Goshen
Squid Jiggin' Grounds by Peter Stampfel & The Bottlecaps
Blaze Foley's 113th Wet Dream by Blaze Foley
Strange Noises in the The Dark by The Austin Lounge Lizards
High on a Mountain Top by Loretta Lynn
Mike the Can Man by Joe West

Sad Mountain by Boris McCutcheon
Her by Richard Buckner
The Bum I Loathe is Dead and Gone by Desdemona Finch
This Old World by Buddy Miller
I Will Walk With You by John Fogerty
When You Sleep by Tres Chicas
Be My Love by NRBQ
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: CLASSY REUNIONS

As published in the Santa Fe New Mexican
October 22, 2004

There’s one rock ‘n’ roll truism that generally holds true. “Reunion” albums -- works by bands that had broken up years ago -- generally tend to disappoint.

However, a couple of new CDs by bands rooted in the world of 1980s indie rock are exceptions to that rule. Like Mission of Burma’s sturdy OnOffOn released earlier this year, Camper Van Beethoven’s New Roman Times and American Music Club’s Love Songs For Patriots are surprisingly good.

Not only are they reunion albums that don’t suck, but they sound like natural additions to each band’s discography. And there’s not much nostalgic about either effort. Both are psychologically in tune with the here and now. These are the records that CVB and AMC would have released in 2004 even if they hadn’t broken up 10 or 15 years ago.

First the Camper album..

This California band -- probably best known for the goofball anthem “Take the Skinheads Bowling,” -- broke up in 1989, shortly after releasing Key Lime Pie.
Since then, singer David Lowery enjoyed some success with his band Cracker, while other CVBers splintered off into less successful ensembles such as The Monks of Doom.

The new album features the original CVB lineup, including violinist Jonathan Segal, whose crazed fiddling stands out here. Like their best work, the music on New Roman Times has audible folk/country roots, a sense of adventure that leads to forays into Mexican music, disco, avant garde noise rock, a little proto-disco and often overtones of Baltic or gypsy sounds (thank you Mr. Segal), with a viewpoint that veers from hipster wise-guy to earnest working man.

New Roman Times is nothing short of a rock opera. Playing off the very real current culture-war divisions or Red State/Blue State America, the songs tell a story of a new civil war in this country. The once united states have disintegrated into feudal fiefdoms (“the Republic of California”) and cold corporations (TexSecurIntellicorp) warring with one another.

The songs tell the story of a disillusioned, drug-addicted ex-soldier who breaks with his corporate masters to rejoin a rebel California militia to fight for truth, justice and hippie chicks.

But despite the backdrop of this Mad Max future, much of the lyrics are thinly-disguised acidic commentaries on today’s news and politics.

This is especially true of the song “Might Makes Right,” a reggae/tango in which the protagonist soldier begins to have doubts about the war he’s fighting.

“They want us from their villages/They want us from their towns/Who can really blame them?/Shit blows up when we’re around/ We fly above their house with our Huey double props/We scare the crap out of their kids/their mothers/and their flocks.”

And on the home front, there’s “Civil Disobedience,” a song of Patriot Act-inspired paranoia in which John Ashcroft probably deserves co-writing credits.

The album ends on a harsh note. The song “Hey Brother,” in which a suicide bomber prepares for his big bang. It’s not clear whether this is the protagonist or some nameless enemy. But with the bittersweet sweet gospel-influenced melody with a piercing steel guitar and lyrics such as “When we smite them with our swords/In the name of our just lord/We do bring glory to his name,” you know the ending isn’t a happy one.

But Camper fans should be happy about New Roman Times.
The same can be said about the new American Music Club album.

AMC never even reached Camper Van Beethoven’s modest level of fame. Even so, the group made some of the most striking music of the late ’80s and early ’90s. The band broke up in 1994 after their second major-label album San Francisco.
Singer-songwriter Mark Eitzel, whose boozy, usually bleak, but incisive emotional rages were always the core of the Music Club's sound, went on to produce a steady stream of solo albums.

However, Love Songs For Patriots is a perfect illustration of what Eitzel’s solo work lacked. His bandmates perfectly color the open wounds of Eitzel’s lyrics. With the band behind him, each bruise is a rainbow. An AMC realizes this from the first cut, “Ladies & Gentlemen” where a rumbling guitar crashes against a pounding piano and crashing drum in the first song,

Sometimes the accompaniment is pretty, like the gentle acoustic folky guitar-based sound of “Myopic Books” and “Song of the Rats Laving the Sinking Ship.” Sometimes they create what sounds like an atonal psychological thunderstorm like the last four minutes or so of the closing 7-minute tune “The Devil Needs You.” And some songs, like “Love Is,” have elements of aural beauty as well as dissonance.

And to be sure, Eitzel is still writing some powerful lyrics. The stand-out here is “Patriot’s Heart,” which has little to do with poliitcs, at least as most of us know it. It’s the story of a male stripper in a gay club.

At one point Eitzel shouts, like the dancer screaming at a patron: “Aw come on grandpa, remind me of what we’re celebrating/That your heart finally dried up?/Or it finally stopped working?” Drummer Tim Moody provides a harsh, near martial-beat while new member Vudi plays his piano like it’s a percussion instrument.

Not all is darkness here. The group sneaks in some subtle humor. In “Myopic Books,” Eitzel longs for a bookstore where they play Dinosaur Jr. and “the people who work there would be super skinny/and super unfriendly/That would make me happy.”

As is the case with their best material, American Music Club makes depression sound almost attractive.

Hear this stuff on the radio!: Hear 30 minutes of Camper Van Beethoven and 30 minutes of American Music Club and Mark Eitzel Sunday night on Terrell’s Sound World on KSFR, 90.7 FM (streaming live on www.ksfr.org) CVB will start just after 10:30 p.m. MDT, while AMC will begin right after the 11th hour.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: SENATE? HOUSE?

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Oct. 21, 2004

State Sen. Joe Carraro, R-Albuquerque, thought he had a safe glide to election day with no opponent in his re-election bid for his Senate District 23 seat.

Or so he thought.

This week Carraro found a political postcard in his mailbox that gave him a start.

It was from New Mexico Progressive Action, a liberal PAC, seeking votes for Democrat Janice Kando for Senate District 23.

“All these people kept calling me up saying, ‘Joe, you need any help in the campaign,’ “ Carraro said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “I kept telling them I was unopposed, but they said they thought I had an opponent.”

Carraro said after he got the postcard he called the state Bureau of Elections just to make sure.

In reality, Kando, a family physician with a Corrales address, is running for the seat in House District 23, against Republican incumbent Rep. Eric Youngberg.

Carraro said he’s not sure whether Kando or her supporters actually thought she was running against him.

Apparently that’s not the case. Though Kando couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday, her website makes it clear she’s running for the House. “NM House District 23” is even part of her campaign logo.

David Duhigg, treasurer of New Mexico Progressive Action, whose name appeared on the cards, couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday.

Easy races

Carraro said that while it’s good not to have to worry about campaigning he almost wishes he did have an opponent. “I’m going to win, but I’m not going to beat my record,” Carraro said. That record was in 2000 when Carraro won 83 percent of the vote against a Libertarian opponent in the general election.

Actually the state legislative races could use a lot more competition. This year 25 of the 42 Senate seats have only one candidate running. There are 13 unopposed Republican senators and 12 unopposed Democrats. And despite rumors to the contrary, not all of those are running for Senate president pro tem.

This is up from 19 races with only one name on the ballot in 2000.

It’s a similar picture on the House side where 43 of the 70 seats are uncontested this year. Twenty five of those are Democrats while 18 are Republicans.

Poll dancing

Because of an agreement with Mason-Dixon Polling and Research, MSNBC and Knight-Ridder newspapers, we can’t tell you the result of the latest New Mexican/KOB-TV poll on the presidential race until Friday’s paper.

But in the meantime, for the benefit of all you poll junkies out there, another statewide poll of New Mexico voters was released Wednesday.

American Research, Inc., an independent firm based in New Hampshire, shows Sen. John Kerry at 48 percent to President Bush’s 46 percent. Ralph Nader has one percent in this poll, while five percent are undecided.

Although Kerry has a slight edge, it is well within the 4 percent margin of error.

The bad news for Kerry is that he was up by five percent in the AMG New Mexico poll a month ago and ahead by seven points two months ago.

AMG polled 600 likely voters in the state. Interviews were conducted Saturday through Monday.

LIBERALS WALK AMONG US

A version of this story was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Oct. 20, 2004

When the Kerry campaign announced this week that their candidate would be appearing in Las Cruces, the state Bush campaign responded with an e-mail statement from spokesman Danny Diaz that began, "John Kerry's attempt to run from his liberal record is taking him to Las Cruces this weekend."

The prominent use of the word "liberal" is consistent with a tried-and-true Republican strategy. In the final debate between President Bush and Kerry last week, Bush repeatedly used the "L-word" to hammer Kerry.

And of course the word "liberal" is used quite liberally in Republican political commercials, which have been bombarding New Mexico and other swing states this year. (The recently released report of the Nielsen Monitor-Plus and The University of Wisconsin Advertising Project shows Albuquerque to be the number two market in the United States for campaign ads, second only to Miami, Fla. during the period of September 24 - October 7.)

References such as "John Kerry and the liberals in Congress" are aired constantly here in an attempt to persuade voters to reject Kerry.

Syndicated columnist Robert Sheer recently wrote a piece that said, "I like liberals. They gave us the five-day workweek; ended child labor; invented unemployment insurance, Social Security and Medicare; and led us, despite fierce opposition from 'America First' pseudo-patriots on the political right, to victory over fascism in World War II. Liberals also ended racial segregation and gave women the vote."

However, a new poll for The New Mexican and KOB-TV illustrate why Kerry and other Democrats don't try to reclaim the word liberal as something positive. The poll shows that the "liberal" label hurts far more than it helps.

Mason-Dixon Polling and Research of Washington, D.C. asked 625 likely voters statewide last week, "If a candidate describes themselves as "liberal", does that make you more likely to vote for them, less likely to vote for them, or do such labels have no real effect on your vote?"

Twenty eight percent said they would be less likely to vote for a self-described liberal. Only seven percent said they would be more likely to vote for an admitted liberal. Of the remaining voters, 62 percent said there would be no effect, while 3 percent said they were unsure.

The results were predictable among supporters of Bush and Kerry. Of the Bush supporters, 53 percent said the liberal label would make them less likely to vote for a candidate while none said it would make them more likely. Of the Kerry supporters, 17 percent said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate calling himself "liberal," while only one percent said less likely."

Undecided voters - who are the target audience for all the campaign ads - tend not to like the description of liberal. None said they'd be more likely to vote for a self-described liberal, while 22 percent said it would make them less likely to vote for such a candidate.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that "liberal" in the past 35 years or so, has become a "radioactive" word.

"I believe it's a reaction to the excesses of the '60s," Sabato said. "It was the era of riots, assassinations, Vietnam, overspending. It's a reaction against the attitude that if we throw enough money at a problem we'll solve it."

Sabato said the word has been poison since about 1968.

New Mexico pollster Brian Sanderoff, in an interview Tuesday, said that 1968 might be the last time any presidential used the word in a positive way.

Sanderoff, who operates Research and Polling Inc. of Albuquerque, said that Hubert Humphrey, running for president that year against Richard Nixon, had a commercial that had a man-in-the-street saying Humphrey was "a good liberal man."

Sanderoff said when Republicans repeatedly use the word "liberal" to tarnish an opponent, they are playing directly to conservative-to-moderate Democrats and independents.

"New Mexico has 32 percent Republicans and 51 percent Democrats," he said. To win, Republican candidates must appeal to "Anglo moderate to conservative Democrats. That's who really decides elections in this state."

Albuquerque consultant Doug Turner - who has worked for several Republican campaigns including that of former Gov. Gary Johnson - said Tuesday that Republican candidates label their opponents as "liberals" to appeal to a more conservative base.

"Republicans have spent a lot of energy drawing negative associations to that word," Turner said. "People have to put their views and perspectives into 30-second spots and drive it over again and again and again."

Turner is not currently working for any campaigns. His business now concentrates on corporate public relations.

Turner, Sanderoff and Sabato agreed that Democrats haven't been successful at making "conservative" a charged word.

"Many Hispanics, who always vote Democrat describe themselves as 'conservative,' Sanderoff said. "And they are on many social issues."

However some Democrat ads use the description "right-wing" to describe their conservative opponents. " 'Right-wing' means 'extreme,' out of the mainstream," Sabato said.

"Democrats will point out that their Republican opponents 'always vote with the Republican leadership,' "

Sanderoff said. "That's an appeal to those conservative-to-moderate Democrats. It's telling them, 'You don't want someone who votes with the Republican leadership all the time.' "

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAY LIST

Sunday, Oct. 17, 2004
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays MDT
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
I'm in Love Again by Fats Domino
Get Ready For Love by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Starry Eyes by Roky Erikson with Luanne Barton
More of You by The Fleshtones
Where Were You by The Mekons
Puddin' Truck by NRBQ
You're My Girl by Neil Young
Mr. Soul by Buffalo Springfield

My Name is Mud by Primus
One Reporter's Opinion by The Minutemen
That Gum You Like Is Back in Style by Camper Van Beethoven
A Love Supreme by The Twilight Singers
Drugs (Electricity) by The Talking Heads
Sentimental Marching Song by Sally Timms
All in a Day by Joe Strummer
Hornet's Heart by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282

Waitin' For Waits by Richie Cole
Don't Go Into That Barn by Tom Waits
Murder in the Red Barn by John Hammond
Heart Attack and Vine by Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Way Down in the Hole by The Blind Boys of Alabama
Dead and Lovely by Tom Waits

Patriot's Heart by American Music Club
Demons and Fiends by Robyn Hitchcock
Step Into the Light by Mavis Staples
Not Alone Anymore by The Traveling Wilburys
Wind Chimes by Brian Wilson
Carrickfergus by Van Morrison & The Chieftains
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis