TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, August 28, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Guest co-host Stanley "Rosebud" Rosen

ANNUAL LABOR SHOW: SONGS FOR THE WORKING FOLK
OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Plenty Tough Union Made by The Waco Brothers
There is Power in the Union/We Shall Not Be Moved/Public Workers Stand Together by The Solidarity Singers
How can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live by The Del-Lords
If Jimmy Didn't Have to Go by Charlie King & Karen Brandow
Sad State of Affairs by The Descendents
Mr. President Have Pity on the Working Man by Randy Newman
Working Man's Blues by Merle Haggard
A Working Man Can't get Nowhere Today by Peter Case
Joe Hill by Paul Robeson
De Colores/We Were There by The Brooklyn Women's Chorus
The Rebel Girl by Hazel Dickens

Morning Dew by Bonnie Dobson
Kill for Peace by The Fugs
Waist Deep in the Big Muddy by Pete Seeger
Welcome to My Working Week by Elvis Costello
Babies in the Mill by Dorsey Dixon
Wreck of the Old '97 by Johnny Cash
Sweetheart on the Barricade by Richard Thompson & Danny Thompson
Laurence/Bread & Roses by Utah Phillips & Ani DiFranco
El Picket Sign by Tatro Compesino
La Lucha Continuara by Danny & Judy Rose Redwood
16 Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford
Talking Union/Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream by Pete Seeger
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, September 9, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Fiesta by The Pogues
Guacamole by The Texas Tornados
El Mosquito by Eddie Dimas
Una Mas Cerveza by Billy Bacon & The Forbidden Pigs
All You Ever Do is Bring me Down by The Mavericks
Volver Volver by Angel Espinosa
La Bamba by Los Lobos
Yo Soy Chicano by The Royal Jesters

Join the Club by The Waco Brothers
Cherry Lane by Ryan Adams
The Bloody Bucket by Grey DeLisle
Private Thoughts by Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez
To Ramona by The Flying Burrito Brothers
We Never Killed Each Other (But Didn't We Try) by Dallas Wayne
Sold American by Kinky Friedman & The Texas Jewboys
My Girl's Pussy by R. Crumb & The Cheap Suit Serenaders

Country Jones by Goshen
Politics of the Dead by Hundred Year Flood
The Combines Are Comin' by Joe West
Let's Waste Another Evening by Josh Lederman y Los Diablos
First There Was by Johnny Dowd with Maggie Brown
A-11 by Marti Brom
Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream by Johnny Cash
Crawdad Song by Clothesline Revival with Mrs. Vernon Allen

Joe Thibodeux by Jimmy Lee Hannaford
Can't You See I'm Soulful by Eleni Mandel
Responsibility by Steve Forbert
If I Told You by Mary Alice Wood
I Ain't Got No Home by Bruce Springsteen
I Wish I Was in New Orleans by Tom Waits
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

VIVA LA FIESTA!!!!

I was too exhausted last night to post about the burning of Zozobra, but I've got to say it was one of the best burnings I've ever seen. The fireworks easily were the most impressive I've ever seen, plus the pageantry just keeps getting better and better. (I was told that my buddy Al Faaet was one of the drummers during the burning. I thought I saw Al up there, but it was pretty far away ..)

A little personal perspective: I've only missed two Zozobra burnings since moving to Santa Fe in 1968. Once in 1973 when my college friends and I got too drunk and arrived late, and in 2003 when I had to cover a presidential debate in Albuquerque.


I first saw Zozobra as a toddler back in the '50s, back when people used to drive their cars into Fort Marcy Ballpark. It scared the living crap out of me, but I was fascinated at the fiery, moaning monster.

Here's a picture of my daughter Molly and me at the 1981 Zozobra. She was about 7 months old at the time. (Unfortunately no such pictures of my son Anton exist. By the time he was born, i'd gotten out of the habit of taking a camera to Zozobra.)

Looking forward to lunch on the Plaza. Pig Boy Willy is gone (no, Coventry, I'm not talking about the governor) but those fajitas from San Antonio make me happy.

Viva la Fiesta!

Here's The New Mexican's account of Zozobra.

And here's some funny old New Mexican coverage, going back to the '30s. (I wish I could write stories that had "Wild Eyed Monster" in the headline ...)

UPDATE (Friday afternoon): This is horrible! El Rey de Los Fajitas, the food booth from San Antonio that is home to the "Texas Tornadoe" (sic) chicken and beef fajita, is not on the Plaza this year! Known for the colorful fighting roosters painte on the booth, maybe all the anti-cockfighting activity here scared them off. Fiesta has lost both Pig Boy Willy and El Rey. What a revoltin' development ...

HELPING NEW ORLEANS MUSICIANS

Last Sunday during BeauSoleil's performance, band leader Micheal Doucet had festival staff pass around buckets to collect money for New Orleans musicians who were victims of Katrina.

I donated, as probably did most who were there, though I wasn't sure of what exactly the fund was. But I got an e-mail this morning that I think explains it. Apparently it has something to do with the New Orleans Musicians Clinic.

Last evening 150 New Orleans musicians came together at Grant Street, one of Lafayette's ( 2 1/2 hours sw of New Orleans in the heart of the Cajun country) famed music clubs.In a culture where even our funerals have dancing and music, silence is a bleak testiment to the loss of soul. The absence of instruments seemed to add a note of desperation as musicians tenatively walked into the unfamiliar club. Their solemn faces reflected uncertainty and despair.

Brittany Kite, the second generation proprieter of the club, had opened her heart to New Orleans displaced musicians and to the newly arrived staff of the New Orleans Musicians Clinic. It was a simple gesture of kindness, a heartfelt welcome. ...

Noted Cajun musicians Micheal Doucet (Beausoliel) and Zachary Richard gently moved through the crowd, hugging their comrades, promising their support. Doucet has volunteered to produce the (Healthcare For Musicians)fundraising street dance next week. Richard is helping to organize paid gigs for musicians in the schools and shelters.

For more information on helping musicians who were victims of Katrina, CLICK HERE

And here's a list of New Orleans musicians who are known to be safe after the hurricane. Yes, Irma Thomas and Alex Chilton are among them. CLICK HERE

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: RECENT ALT-COUNTRY (WHATEVER THAT IS)

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
September 9, 2005

No Depression magazine is celebrating its 10th anniversary, which means that the concept of "alternative country" has been around for more than a decade.

It never became the next big thing as some people predicted for about 10 minutes in the mid 90s, but there are still some fine alternative country artists out there. Here’s a round-up of some recent examples:

* Freedom and Weep by The Waco Brothers. Starting out as a side project for Mekon Jon Langford, the wonderful Wacos have been around for about as long as No Depression magazine.

In the mid ‘90s some of their songs were full of snide references to President Clinton. ("Dollar Bill the Cowboy" for instance.) But these days another president has won the Wacos’ hearts. In the liner notes of Freedom and Weep, Brother Dean Schlabowske’s thank-you list concludes with, "Most of all, thanks to W for all the material."

No, President Bush’s name isn’t mentioned once in the lyrics. There are some lines that could be interpreted as rage against the White House. "Loaves and fishes, drugs & guns -- One for all and all for one/Dumb boy the patriot -- one day, one day, you’ll run out of luck," Langford spits in "Chosen One."

Or there’s the election-night depression of "Rest of the World," where Schlabowske sings "The champagne’s still on ice/Might as well down it tonight/It ain’t gonna wait four more years/Nor will your rights."

But mostly its an atmosphere of political malaise that permeates the songs of Freedom and Weep. "If you’re think you’re getting screwed, join the club," sings steel guitarist Mark Durante on the closing song. "If you’re sick and tired of being used, join the club."

But while the words speak of a nation shrinking in liberty and prosperity, the music here is classic hard-charging, hard-chugging Waco Brothers. Truly this is music to dance on the ashes by.

*Cold Roses by Ryan Adams & The Cardinals. Some have said this double-disc set is Adams’ ode to The Grateful Dead -- at least the psychedelic-country Workingman’s Dead/ American Beauty -era Grateful Dead.

It’s true, there are some very Dead-like tunes here -- the opening cut "Magnolia Mountain" for instance -- that surely have Jerry Garcia grinning in the Great Beyond.

But to me this album isn’t so much a Dead tribute as it is a return to Whiskeytown. This is the closest Adams has come to that "damned country band" he started "because punk rock is too hard to sing."

The sound of Cold Roses is more country than anything he’s done since his first solo album Heartbreaker. On a song called "Cherry Lane," Adams even sounds he’s attempting a Hank Williams yodel.

Much of the credit for the country feel here should go to his band, especially steel guitarist Cindy Cashdollar, an Austin veteran who has played with Asleep at the Wheel among others.

Some songs are practically begging for some mainstream country star to turn into schlock, such as the gorgeous "When Will You Come Back Home." Of course these are balanced by songs like "Beautiful Sorta," which rocks with a rockabilly swagger.

* Red Dog Tracks by Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez. Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris set the standard for male/female country duets. I’m not saying that Chip and Carrie reach that pinnacle, but if anyone deserves the Gram & Emmylou Award this year, it has to be this duo.

Taylor is a grizzled veteran of the music world. His biggest contribution to western civilization is the ‘60s garage-band classic "Wild Thing," (Yes, someone actually wrote "Wild Thing." It didn‘t just burst forth from the Forbidden Cavern as you might have assumed.) He also wrote "Angel of the Morning," a sexual-guilt hit full for both Marilee Rush and Juice Newton.

Rodriguez doesn’t have that history, but she’s sure got the talent. Her voice is a sultry, sexy drawl, comparable in some ways to Lucinda Williams, but sweeter. She’s also a fine fiddler, showing off that talent in the bluegrassy instrumental "Elzick's Farewell."

The strongest songs here are the slow, longing, dreamy ones that show off not only the irresistible vocal harmonies but guest picker Bill Frisell’s guitar as well These include "Private Thoughts," "Once Again, One Day … Will You Be Mine." and "Big Moon Shinin’," which has one of the best country metaphors I’ve heard in awhile: "I am a 12-year-old Macallan scotch -- on the third shelf of the bar/ waitin’ for you to just … drink me up."

A couple of Hank Williams songs here ("My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It" and "I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love With You)" are well and good, but seem like filler. If Taylor’s still writing this impressively all these years after "Wild Thing" there’s surely a couple of spare originals that would have been better.

* Iron Flowers by Grey DeLisle. Someday historians will surely debate which was worse -- "Stairway to Heaven" by Dolly Parton or "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Grey DeLisle.

But despite that weird misstep, which kicks off the album, DeLisle has released another album of aural delight.

Her last effort, The Graceful Ghost lived up to its name in spookiness and ethereality. There are hints of that spirit here, most obviously on quite songs like the title number "Sweet Little Bluebird."

But on Iron Flowers she’s backed on most songs by a full band and sounds much tougher. In fact, on some songs like the rockabilly gospel of "God’s Got It," and the fierce acoustic romp called "The Bloody Bucket," she even shows evidence of a Wanda Jackson growl. And on "Blueheart," backed by a fuzz tone-loving band called The Amazements, she sounds outright grungy.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: SOME WILL FEAST, SOME WILL FREEZE

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
September 8, 2005

Sen. Joe Carraro, R-Albuquerque made some news with his recent proposal to temporarily suspend the 17-cents-a-gallon state tax on gasoline — an idea also taken up by Santa Fe City Councilor David Pfeffer and poo-pooed by Gov. Bill Richardson.

But another Carraro energy proposal, made in the same news release as his tax holiday proposal last week, has gotten virtually no attention.

Carraro is calling for an investigation of Public Service Company of New Mexico for giving huge bonuses to its executives while increasing the cost of natural gas to its customers.

“Carraro said his constituents are complaining that PNM said natural gas bills could increase 60 percent this winter over last winter,” the release said. “They are asking the senator how the regulated company can be allowed to give its executives such huge bonuses at a time the consumer is hurting?

The release quotes Carraro: “I say, the PNM officials could earn their bonuses by lowering monthly bills for New Mexicans not because the bills are skyrocketing. Their company is making a lot of money because of the high price of natural gas, not because of any clever efforts by the PNM officials.”

An April Associated Press story said that bonus and salary compensation for PNM's top five executives totaled $3.1 million in 2004, up from $2.6 million the previous year. PNM chairman, president and CEO Jeff Sterba's salary rose 15 percent to $687,886, while his bonus increased by 84 percent to $910,000 for a total of $1,597,886, the wire service reported.

“All I know is that it causes problems when folks who are struggling because of the high prices of gas see other folks making so much money because of these uncalled for raises,” Carraro said.

He suggested that “outraged New Mexicans” call the state Public Regulation Commission for an explanation and called upon the PRC to investigate.

When the levee breaks: On Wednesday, Andy Lenderman and I had a story concerning U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici’s role as chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, which over the last few years, has slashed the budget for Army Corps of Engineers flood projects in Louisiana —- though not slashing it as much as the White House has recoomended.

News organizations, most notably the New Orleans Times-Picayune have noted the dramatic decrease in flood project funding, which began about the same time as the government geared up for the war in Iraq.

Domenci’s office responded to the story, saying that even if three major hurricane and flood-control projects in Louisiana had been completed, New Orleans still would have flooded.

A Domenici spokesman pointed to a recent statement by Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, Commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, during a media conference call on September 1.

“In fact, the levee failures we saw were in areas of the projects that were at their full project design... So that part of the project was in place, and had this project been fully complete ... (West Bank, Southeast Louisiana, and Lake Ponchartrain) it’s my opinion, based on the intensity of this storm, that the flooding of the Central Business District and the French Quarter would still have occurred. So I do not see that the level of funding is really a contributing factor in this case.”

Strock’s comments raised some eyebrows in Congress.

“What that, in essence, says is that you’re not going to worry about the biggest disasters that could occur, you’re only going to worry about the smaller ones,” Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee told The Washington Post this week.

A TREE FALLS IN HATTIESBURG

Filmmaker Robert Mugge e-mailed this photo of bluesman Vasti "Vast Eye" Jackson standing beside a huge tree that smashed his storage shed at his Hattiesburg, Miss. home during the hurricane last week.

Fortunately, Vasti -- and his guitar -- survived. Here's a photo, taken by Kathi Lee Jackson, used with permission. (And here's another Vasti link)

CHARMAINE'S NIGHTMARE

My friend and former neighbor Jimmie Lee Hannaford drew my attention to the harrowing account of singer Charmaine Neville, (yes, part of the famous New Orleans musical family), who helped rescue people stranded in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. (I took the liberty of breaking the transcript up into paragraphs to make it easier to read ... if not easier to take.)

"I was in my house when everything first started. ... When the hurricane came, it blew all of the left side of my house off, and the water was coming in my house in torrents. I had my neighbor, an elderly man, and myself, in the house with our dogs and cats, and we were trying to stay out of the water. But the water was coming in too fast. So we ended up having to leave the house.

We left the house and we went up on the roof of a school. I took a crowbar and I burst the door open on the roof of the school to help people on the roof. Later on we found a flat boat, and we went around the neighborhood in a flat boat getting people out of their houses and bringing them to the school. We found all the food that we could and we cooked and we fed people.

But then, things started getting really bad. By the second day, the people that were there, that we were feeding and everything, we had no more food and no water. We had nothing, and other people were coming into our neighborhood. We were watching the helicopters going across the bridge and airlift other people out, but they would hover over us and tell us "Hi!" and that would be all. They wouldn't drop us any food or any water, or nothing.

Alligators were eating people. They had all kinds of stuff in the water. They had babies floating in the water. We had to walk over hundreds of bodies of dead people. People that we tried to save from the hospices, from the hospitals and from the old-folks homes.

I tried to get the police to help us, but I realized, we rescued a lot of police officers in the flat boat from the 5th district police station. The guy who was driving the boat, he rescued a lot of them and brought them to different places so they could be saved.

We understood that the police couldn't help us, but we couldn't understand why the National Guard and them couldn't help us, because we kept seeing them but they never would stop and help us.

Finally it got to be too much, I just took all of the people that I could. I had two old women in wheelchairs with no legs that I rowed them from down there in that Ninth Ward to the French Quarters, and I went back and got more people.

There were groups of us, there were about 24 of us, and we kept going back and forth and rescuing whoever we could get and bringing them to the French Quarters 'cause we heard that there was phones in the French Quarters, and that there wasn't any water. And they were right, there was phones but we couldn't get through.

I found some police officers. I told them that a lot of us women had been raped down there by guys who had come from the neighborhood where we were, that were helping us to save people. But other men, and they came and they started raping women [unintelligible] and they started killing, and I don't know who these people were. I'm not gonna tell you I know, because I don't.

But what I want people to understand is that, if we hadn't been left down there like the animals that they were treating us like, all of those things wouldn't have happened. People are trying to say that we stayed in that city because we wanted to be rioting and we wanted to do this and, we didn't have resources to get out, we had no way to leave. When they gave the evacuation order, if we coulda left, we would have left.

There are still thousands and thousands of people trapped in their homes in the downtown area. When we finally did get to, in the 9th ward, and not just in my neighborhood, but in other neighborhoods in the 9th wards, there are a lot of people still trapped down there... old people, young people, babies, pregnant women. I mean, nobody's helping them.

And I want people to realize that we did not stay in the city so we could steal and loot and commit crimes. A lot of those young men lost their minds because the helicopters would fly over us and they wouldn't stop. WE would do SOS on the flashlights, we'd do everything, and it came to a point.

It really did come to a point, where these young men were so frustrated that they did start shooting. They weren't trying to hit the helicopters, they figured maybe they weren't seeing. Maybe if they hear this gunfire they will stop then. But that didn’t help us. Nothing like that helped us.

Finally, I got to Canal St. with all of my people I had saved from back then. I, I don't want them arresting nobody else. I broke the window in an RTA bus. I never learned how to drive a bus in my life. I got in that bus. I loaded all of those people in wheelchairs and in everything else into that bus, and we drove and we drove and we drove and millions of people was trying to get me to help them to get on the bus. But..."

{At this point she breaks down and is consoled by the priest.}

Here's a link to a video of this interview CLICK HERE

IN THE GHETTO

Being a critic with a fondness for music that falls into the big-umbrella category known as "alternative country" ("Whatever that is," No Depression magazine used to ask) one of the most irritating, over-used rockcrit cliches that drives me nuts is the term "the alt-country ghetto."

It had been a couple of years since I'd stumbled across this in print. Then yesterday I got the press bio on The Old 97s new live CD, written by 97s singer Rhett Miller himself.

"I'd only recently been exiled to the ghetto of alt-country (for some stupid reason, I'd thought that what we were doing was classic American rock and roll."

I swear to God, the only musicians quicker to shun a label are New Age musicians.

I did a Google search this morning for "alt-country ghetto" and got 116 hits. Here's some examples:

" ... Fulks' subsequent attempts to break out of the alt-country ghetto in his career ..."
Baltimore City Paper 2001

"While this may sound like typical rhetoric from upstarts trying to avoid being cast into the alt-country ghetto ..."
All Music Guide review of Tennessee by Lucero, 2002

"... and the music was eclectic enough to break him out of the alt-country ghetto ..."
All Music Guide review of Rock N Roll by Ryan Adams 2003

" ... gave Tweedy the musical muscle to make the leap from the alt-country ghetto to a richer pop universe ..."
The Portland Phoenix 2004

"Laura Veirs might be the bridge between the alt-country ghetto and the Sheryl Crow-revering mainstream."
Attributed to Mojo magazine in a 2005 press release for Laura Viers

"... (Tift Merrit) trades in bedtime tunes for stay-out-all-night rockers, busting out of the alt. country ghetto with a self-described "rock-soul throw down."
Austin Live Wire 2005

Others to rise from the Alt-Country Ghetto include Fred Eaglesmith, Dave Alvin, The Jayhawks, Jim Lauderdale, The Geraldine Fibbers and The Willard Grant Conspiracy.

In fact, I bet if you looked hard enough you could find that anyone I've ever played on The Santa Fe Opry, nay, anyone ever associated with alternative country has broken out of the Alt. Country Ghetto.

COWGIRL HURRICANE BENEFIT

Here's the line-up so far for the benefit performance for the Gulf Coast flood victims, at the Cowgirl BBQ, 319 S. Guadalupe Street, 8 p.m. Saturday.

Chris McCarty & Friends
Busy McCarroll & Baird Banner
Toho Dimitrov & the Blues Machine
Jon Gagan & Friends
Sapphire
Pat Malone
Matthew Andre
Round Mountain
Star Anaya
The Motor Kings
and more Special Guests

The cover charge of $10 will be donated directly to the American Red Cross.Musicians to perform (partial listing):

Musicians wanting to donate their talents for a few numbers, contact the Cowgirl, 982-2565