PAOLO SHOW CANCELLED

The Hurricane Katrina benefit concert with Los Mocosos I posted about yesterday has been cancelled --ironically due to weather.

New Mexico Music Commission director Nancy Laughlin said Friday because of this week’s rains, the ground around Paolo Soleri was so muddy trucks couldn’t get in to unload equipment.

The Music Commission has another hurricane relief benefit featuring New Mexico performers scheduled for Oct. 7 at Albuquerque’s Kimo Theater.

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: OTIS & ALVIN

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
September 30, 2005

Otis Taylor has to be the most eccentric blues stylist working today. His new album Below the Fold, is a sonic wonder and — par for the course for Taylor — an intense listen.

You know you’re going to be in for a ride in the opening stains of the first song, “Feel Like Lightning.” A plunking banjo is joined by a screaming guitar, a crazed fiddle drums and bass, as Otis shouts “Oh Yeah!” It’s a joyful one-chord acoustic cacophony -- and there’s a cello in there too.

And to illustrate Taylor’s bizarre sense of arrangements, the song “Boy Plays Mandolin” indeed features Taylor picking that instrument. But when he sings, “When I was a boy, I played, I played the mandolin …” he’s answered by Ron Miles’ cool trumpet.

And while Greg Anton’s martial drumming on “Right Side of Heaven” suggests an Otha Turner-like fife and drum number, there’s no fife to be found. Just a dangerous showdown between Miles’ trumpet and Taylor’s harmonica.

Speaking of drums, this is the first time Taylor has employed them since reviving his music career in the late ‘90s. Anton only appears on about half the songs on Below the Fold, but the addition is welcome. Drums certainly don’t make this music sound conventional.

Taylor’s songs are portraits drawn from historical injustices -- often little-known stories -- and shadowy corners of the singer’s personal history.

“Your Children Sleep Good Tonight” is about the 1914 Ludlow Massacre in which Colorado National Guard troops shot at and set fire to a tent community of striking miners, killing 11 children northwest of Trinidad. None of the Guard members were ever prosecuted. “Hey hey, Mr. Rockefeller, I know your children sleeps good tonight,” Taylor taunts. (The Rockefeller Family controlled Colorado Fuel & Iron, the major coal operator in the region.)

“Government Lied” tells the story of German soldiers in World War II shooting American soldiers. According to Taylor’s liner notes, “At the end of the war, the responsible Germans were hanged for killing the white soldiers, but the U.S. government said that the black soldiers were missing to they wouldn’t have to account for them.”

Taylor has to write the darkest “Mama” songs in all of popular music. His last record had a ditty called “Mama’s Selling Heroin.” On this CD there’s “Mama’s Got a Friend,” an autobiographical story of a boy with two mommies. He never says exactly how he feels about the situation, but the tension of music -- the repeated minor-key acoustic guitar riff, droning cello, edgy fiddle, sinister trumpet -- paints the emotional landscape as “Every time I go to school, people ask me about my sister,” Taylor moans.

Below the Fold is a powerful testament to Taylor’s strange vision of the blues. It’s an album that somehow manages to be jolting as well as hypnotic.

Also Recommended:

*Motivational Speaker by Alvin Youngblood Hart. If Otis Taylor is blues’ great eccentric, Hart is the great eclectic.

His musical interests cover a wide field of musical styles that touch on the blues. Following his 2002 effort Down in the Alley — which was basically an acoustic collection of songs by ascended masters like Charlie Patton. Skip James and Sleepy John Estes — on his latest CD the gruff-voiced Hart returns to his high-voltage electric — and far more varied — sound.

There’s a couple of tunes here that are juiced-up, fiery versions of tunes Hart had previously recorded in acoustic versions -- “Big Mama’s Door” (subtitled “Might Return” in this version) and “How Long Before I Change My Clothes.” Blues purists probably prefer the original versions, but I bet the electric versions here would make Howlin’ Wolf smile.

On several cuts on Motivational Speaker, Hart tips his hat to the psychedelic blues of Cream and Jimi Hendrix.

There’s “Stomp Dance,” which starts out with what sounds like tribal drums, soon joined by a fuzzy bass before building up to a “Crosstown Traffic” frenzy and “Shoot Me a Grin,” which sounds like an invocation to prehistoric guitar gods.

“The Worm,” (written by Paul Rodgers in his days with Free), is slow and heavy with a hint of wah-wah in the guitar. Meanwhile the six-minute “Shootout on I-55” is a frantic jam.

Hart tries straight-ahead soul -- complete with a rag-tag horn section and a female backup singer (Susan Marshall) -- with his cover of Otis Redding’s “Nobody’s Fault But Mine”

And he’s no stranger to country music. One of the greatest delights on his 1998 album Territory was a lap steel-heavy tune called “Tallacatcha,” which, though written by Hart himself, sounded like a lost treasure from the Hank Williams song book.

On Motivational Speaker Hart goes hardcore honky tonk on a Johnny Paycheck stomper called “The Meanest Jukebox in Town,” then shows his latent cosmic cowboy tendencies on a Haight Ashbury-era Doug Sahm song, “Lawd I’m Just a Country Boy in This Great Big Freaky City.” (Hart has included this one in his live repertoire for years.)

But perhaps the strongest number here is a traditional tune called “In My Time of Dying.” Hart plays it slow with dreamy guitars -- including an inspiring slide played by Audley Freed.

THE RICHARDSON BOOK: CHAPTER 2

Some of my sneak preview book review of Bill Richardson's upcoming autobiography Between Worlds got cut, I presume for space. (Here's what was published in The New Mexican Sunday.)

There were several interesting items about Richardson’s childhood and early adulthood in Between Worlds. I thought I might put the cutting-room-floor stuff in my column yesterday, but there wasn't space.

So here's some of the other parts of the book I quoted from:

* Richardson talks about his childhood in Mexico city, where he was His father — a Republican who was a friend of President Eisenhower — was very demanding and stingy with compliments — traits Richardson admits he picked up. “I admired my father enormously as I grew up, and loved him too. I only wish I’d have told him so, just once.”

* Richardson’s father made sure both his children were born on U.S. soil so there would be no doubt about their citizenship. The Richardson had been born aboard a ship.

* Moving from Mexico to Massachusetts for prep school, Richardson felt like an outsider. “Here I was, not quite thirteen, the dark-skinned boy from Mexico among a bunch of fair-skinned kids from cities like New York and Boston and Chicago and their posh suburbs. A few of the kids called me Pancho, but I didn’t take as a slur as much as a recognition of the obvious: I wasn’t one of them.” Richardson goes on to say that it wasn’t until he proved himself on the baseball field that he gained acceptance at the school.

* Richardson’s first election was president of the Delta Tau Delta at Tufts University. But there was a serious move to throw him out of office after he clamped down on marijuana use at the frat house. Richardson’s book repeats his long-standing statement that he’s never tried marijuana.

Remember, folks, as the governor's office reminded me this week, all of this is from an advance copy and is subject to change before the November publication.

KATRINA BENEFIT AT PAOLO

The state Music Commission is among the sponsors for a benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina victims scheduled Saturday at Paolo Soleri Amphitheater.


The concert will feature Los Mocosos, a San Francisco-based Latin-rock band, plus my buddies Bayou Seco and The Georgie Angel Blues Band. Also playing are Chris Dracup, Hillary Smith, Native Spirit, Jimmy Stadler, Teri Lynn Browning, Mosaic Dance Company, Moving People Dance Company, Wise Fool Circus performers, Paz and Luke Reed & Western Civilization.

Tickets are $20. Gates open at 3 p.m. All proceeds will go to the Salvation Army’s hurricane relief effort.

The Music Commission has another hurricane relief benefit scheduled for Oct. 7 at Albuquerque’s Kimo Theater.

And hey, the Music Commission has it's Web site up. Check it out. There's even a page for Commissioner Tony Orlando.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: GRUBESIC IS BACK

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New MexicanSeptember 29, 2005

The last we heard from state Sen. John Grubesic, it wasn’t pretty.

In late July he was in the news for an incident in which a neighbor had reported him for allegedly speeding and nearly hitting her children on Star Vista Road. When a sheriff’s deputy went to talk to him, Grubesic responded angrily, yelling and cursing at the officer — who captured it all on tape.

This was just a few months after another incident in which Grubesic had wrecked his sports utility vehicle and intially lied to state police about what had happened.

Grubesic has apologized for those incidents. He recently even apologized to me personally, though his worst slight to yours truly was not returning my phone calls following the last incident.

He’s purposely kept a low profile since then. Grubesic said in an interview this week that he’s been involved in counseling and Alcoholics Anonymous.

“I attempted to scurry back into my private life and ignore the insanity of politics as best I could,” Grubesic wrote in an email to selected local journalists. “However, recent events have reminded me why I decided to run for office — to be a different kind of leader, vocal, independent and unafraid.”

Said Grubesic, “I admit that I have spent the majority of my short career battling my personal demons (with varied success) and little time focusing on the evils of politics.”

The “recent events” that Grubesic says have compelled him to speak out are the upcoming special session of the Legislature — which he says will be a waste of time — and the recent kickback scandal in the State Treasurer’s Office — in which State Treasurer Robert Vigil and former treasurer Michael Montoya are facing federal extortion charges. This scandal could mean big problems for Democrats, Grubesic said.

Hot air and alligator briefcases: Grubesic said Richardson’s proposal to put $75 million toward gas tax refunds for all state taxpayers look like “ a quick fix designed to accomplish nothing more than garner good press.”

The senator said he likes an energy plan proposed by New York Gov. George Pataki, which, Grubesic said, provides tax credits for alternative vehicles and incentives for alternative fuel production.

“Oil is a finite resource,” he said. “Continued consumption is not the answer. ... Giving rebates or getting rid of the gas tax encourages people to continue to drive and consume, not conserve.”
Grubesic dismissed Richardson’s call to crack down on gasoline price gouging as “hot air.”

He recalled a previous ineffective attempt by the state to challenge the petroleum industry in the ‘90s when Congressman Tom Udall was attorney general. Udall was looking at possible gasoline price-fixing in Santa Fe. Grubesic was working for the AG then.

“I was two years out of law school, had no experience with anti-trust law and was asked to assist in the case the night before a hearing in Carlsbad,” he said. “The industry had strategically filed three separate suits in New Mexico to quash our investigatory subpoenas and all of them were in oil and gas country. When I showed up for the hearing there were 10 attorneys on the other side. They promptly crushed me and helped me pack up my cardboard box in my rental car to go back to Santa Fe, while they packed up their alligator brief cases and flew back to Houston on their private jet.

“We don’t have the people or the money to go on this wild goose chase,” Grubesic said. “Even if we could design an enforceable law and had the manpower behind it, the oil and gas industry would come up with some reason why prices are so high. These guys have been gouging us for years and are well prepared to fight this battle.”

Trouble at the Treasurer’s Office: Grubesic suggested that the speciual session is a “smokescreen” to draw attention away from the looming kickback scandal — even though the governor had been talking about a possible special session well before the FBI arrested Vigil and Montoya.

“As Democrats we should be worried,” he said “I know for a fact that there were memos and an audit lying around in various state offices that nobody dealt with or completely ignored. These activities were known about, but nobody had the guts to do anything about them. The Feds are doing it for us. Now we have lots of tough talk from the very people that sat on their hands while these guys took sacks of money out the back door.

“The only way to move forward is to acknowledge what has happened. As Democrats, let’s be honest and admit our failures and vow to fix it by doing a complete and honest investigation of how far this scandal goes, where the money is within our party, who knew what, when and why nothing was done.”

When asking where the money is, Grubesic acknowledged that he might have an idea where $50 of it went.

He is one of the three dozen Democratic candidates who received small contributions from Vigil in 2004. Others from the Santa Fe area include Sen. Phil Griego and Rep. Peter Wirth, both of whom received $50 from Vigil.

“I’ll return it or donate it to charity,” Grubesic said of his $50. “I don’t want it.”

Note: This morning, after this column appeared in the paper, Rep. Peter Wirth called to say that he returned his $50 contribution from Robert Vigil.