ALONG CAME JONES

I was nearly a no-show last night for No-Show Jones.

Nobody's fault but mine. I'd never been to Isletta Pueblo Casino before and I didn't realize it was off the Broadway exit off I-25. I figured it was further south ... so I ended up in Los Lunas. Then I turned around, turned off at the Isletta Pueblo exit and ended up on South Coors, exploring the rural splendor of the Albuquerque's South Valley. By the time we got the casino, Jones had been onstage for about 30 minutes.

Yes, I'm an idiot.

George Jones in his prime probably had the best voice in country music -- male or female, living or dead.

But last night there were signs that the magnificent soul-piercing instrument is going. He seemed hoarse and he wasn't making all the high notes and sometimes he seemed flat.

Still, a fading Possum is more soulful than 98 percent of the competition. He did wonderful versions of "A Picture of Me Without You" "Golden Ring" and, of course, "He Stopped Loving Her Today."

His version of "Who's Going to Fill Their Shoes" would have been more moving had the audience not applauded wildly almost every time another picture of a dead country star flashed on the screen behind the band.

I enjoyed "The Blues Man," a song written by Hank Williams, Jr. that's on his latest album. (He duets with Dolly Parton on the record. Last night Dolly's part was filled by his tour singer Sherri Copeland, who stood in for Tammy on "Golden Ring.")

I was even more impressed with "50,000 Names," a song about the Vietnam memorial wall. I like this nearly as much as Iris DeMent's "There's a Wall in Washington." I was hoping that Jones would follow "50,000 Names" with "Wild Irish Rose," which is about the death of a homeless Vietnam vet.

He sang a bunch of his hits. "The Window Up Above" started out nicely, but after the verse, it became apparent that this was just part of a medley with "The Grand Tour" and (I think ... don't hold me to this) "Walk Through This World With Me." He also did a too-short version of "White Lightning."

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to talk with George about our business deal he was proposing a couple of months ago.


XXXXX

Since I went to the concert, I had Laurell sit in for The Santa Fe Opry last night. She was nice enough to e-mail me her play list:

Buck Owens- Buckaroo

Iris Dement- Wasteland of the Free
I'll Take My Sorrow Straight
Emmylou Harris- Heaven Only Knows
Jeannie Sealy- Don't Touch Me
Sir Douglas Quintet- Texas Me
Nuevo Laredo
Merle Haggard-It's Not Love But It's Not Bad
Somewhere Between
John Prine- I Guess They Ought To Name a Drink After You
Loretta Lynn- Honky Tonk Girl
Townes Van Zandt- Waitin' Around To Die
John Hartford- Turn Your Radio On
Hank Williams- Lovesick Blues
Rose Maddox and Vern Williams- Let Those Brown Eyes Smile at Me
Grateful Dead- Operator
Allman Brothers- Ain't Wastin' Time No More
Bob Dylan- You Ain't Goin' Nowhere
Country Pie
Carl Smith-Let Old Mother Nature Have Her Way

John Anderson- Seminole Wind
Kate and Anna McGarrigle- Goin' Back To Harlan
Heart Like a Wheel
America- A Horse With No Name
Cowboy-Pretty Friend
Bread- Make It With You
Eagles- Most Of Us Are Sad
Linda Ronstadt- Birds

Neil Young- Love Is a Rose
Emperor Of Wyoming
Michael Hurley-Lean On Me
Johnny Cash- The Beast In Me
Thirteen
George Jones- He Stopped Loving Her Today
Roy Orbison- Love Hurts
Randy Scruggs- Both Sides Now

Comin' Down- Meat Puppets

THIS BIKE ISN'T REALLY A PIPE BOMB

I actually saw this band with my daughter and a friend of hers at CBGBs when we went to New York in the late '90s.

Seems that the campus cops at Ohio University got a little jumpy when they saw a bicycle with a sticker for the Florida group This Bike is a Pipe Bomb.

My favorite line in the news account below is the college dean who "urged students to be more careful when showing support for the band ..."

I'll play a song by them on Sunday's Sound World.

Between this and the terrorist Morrissey getting questioned by The FBI, these are difficult times.

From the Associated Press:

ATHENS, Ohio (AP) — A sticker on a bicycle that said "this bike is a pipe bomb" caused a scare Thursday at Ohio University that shut down four buildings before authorities learned the message was the name of a punk rock band, a university spokesman said.

The sticker on the bike chained outside the university-owned Oasis restaurant near the center of campus attracted the attention of a police officer about 5:30 a.m., spokesman Jack Jeffery said.

Police blocked streets around the restaurant and the Columbus police bomb squad came from about 65 miles away.

The bomb experts hit the bike with a high-pressure spray of water, then pried it apart with a hydraulic device normally used to rescue accident victims trapped in cars, acting Athens Fire Chief Ken Gilbraith said. Once they had it open, they saw there was no bomb.

The buildings, including some classroom facilities, were reopened after a couple hours.

Dean of Students Terry Hogan urged students to be more careful when showing support for the band from Pensacola, Fla.

University police interviewed the bike's owner then released him, Jeffery said. Police are still investigating.

An e-mail seeking comment was sent to Plan-It-X Records, listed on a Web site for the band as its record label. The label does not have a published phone number.

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: HILLBILLY PROTEST

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
March 3, 2006

Norman and Nancy Blake do what they do best on their latest album, Back Home in Sulphur Springs -- simple but irresistible interpretations of old-time rural Southern tunes.

There are songs about ramblin' and jail, sentimental reflections on happy little homes and the fair, sad-eyed sweethearts that singers always tend to leave there, even a couple of shipwreck ballads.

And Chattanooga-born Norman Blake is still one of the finest old-time country pickers operating today. His arsenal -- including guitar, dobro, mandolin, and fiddle -- has the voice of a hillbilly sage. When he sings, you can almost imagine him personally witnessing the past 200 years of southern history.

But there's an edge to this album, a hard-nosed reminder that while the Blakes might exalt the little cabin home and sunny Southern mornings, they are truly citizens of 21st-century America.

It's first apparent in the third track, "He's Coming to Us Dead," the story of a father whose son is killed in a war. The grief-stricken old man warns the soldiers who help unload the casket: "He broke his poor old mother's heart, her sayings all came true/She said this is the way that he'd come back when he joined the boys in blue."

Although the scene obviously is relevant today, the quaint trappings of the train and the telegraph office give away the fact that the song dates back -- at least -- to the late 1920s.

The credits on this album say the song is "traditional." However, many people credit "He's Coming to Us Dead" to G.B. Grayson and Henry Whitter, "first wave" country stars who recorded it in the late '20s.

"He's Coming to Us Dead" is making a "comeback" of sorts. The 1966 version by folkie faves The New Lost City Ramblers appears on the recently released Classic Railroad Songs on the Smithsonian Folkways label. The liner notes for that CD say the song originally was published in 1899 by Gussie Davis, a black songwriter who also is credited for "Goodnight Irene."

What's remarkable about the song is that there are no words about patriotism, heroism, or duty to your country -- just death and grief and broken hearts.

But in case there's any question about where the Blakes' politics lie, you can find the answer in the CD's "hidden" track, a protest song called "Don't Be Afraid of the Neocons," which names names, points fingers, and generally goes far beyond the Dixie Chicks in criticizing the Bush administration -- singing about Iraq, Cindy Sheehan, Hurricane Katrina, and Dick Cheney's underground bunker. But the outrage in the lyrics is leavened by Norman's gentle hillbilly humor.

"Now Georgie Bush he is the man/He landed in Afghanistan. 'We'll get Osama,' was his crack/And now we're stranded in Iraq...."

There's even a verse about the president's fondness for Saudi royalty: "Now Georgie, he is kind and meek/He kissed the king upon the cheek/They walked the garden hand in hand/While the oil and blood dripped on the sand."

"Neocons" reminds me of those historical ballads still sung today about the Garfield assassination or the sinking of the Titanic -- not to mention the fine Irish tradition of antiwar songs.

The chorus appeals to a traditional backwoods loathing of government that predates any person or event in the song: "Don't send your money to Washington/to fight a war that's never done/Don't play their games, don't be their pawns/and don't be afraid of the neocons." This protest only strengthens Nancy's sweet mandolin version of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

And come to think of it, what's with those shipwreck songs? There's not one but two on this album. "The Mermaid" is a traditional song with a theme going back to Homer (no, not of Homer and Jethro). "The Empress of Ireland," written by Patty Bryan, is about a tragedy that occurred on the St. Lawrence River in the spring of 1914, when the Empress of Ireland collided with a Norwegian ship, the Storstad. More than 1,000 died.

In the American folk tradition, shipwreck songs are often allegories for divine retribution against vain and corrupt societies. "God moves on the water!" went the chorus of one popular Titanic ballad.

Do I sense a subtle metaphor at work here?

Also recommended

* Old Time Black Southern String Band Music by Butch Cage & Willie B. Thomas. This is nothing but party music -- well, at least the way they used to have parties in the rural South in the days before stereos.

Recorded back in 1960 by folklorist Harry Oster, Cage and Thomas were part-time Louisiana musicians who earned extra cash by playing for dances, parties, and sometimes even church services. Both men died in the 1970s.

Amazingly, this is the first time most of these tracks have been released.

Cage played fiddle while Thomas played guitar. Both sang -- sometimes in unison, sometimes practically tripping over each other. The result is a rough, spontaneous, good-time sound that makes a listener wish he'd been invited to some of those parties.

There are some familiar songs here: "Since I Laid My Burden Down" (sometimes called "Glory Glory"), "Ain't Gonna Rain No More," Misspi Fred McDowell's "You Gotta Move," and "Careless Love," one of those great American tunes that's been traded back and forth between the races so much that its genealogy doesn't even matter.

Other notable songs are "Rock Me Mama" (featuring Cage's finest fiddle work on the album), "The Dirty Dozens" (the "shake-your-yas-yas-yas" lyrics at that time were considered risqué), and "The Piano Blues," which is 100 percent pianoless.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: GIFTS THAT KEEP ON GIVING

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
March 2, 2006

What do you do when you’re the governor and you’ve already filled the executive branch’s 647 exempt positions, but you’ve still got friends, political supporters and their relatives who need work?

According to a report by KRQE Channel 13 investigative reporter Larry Barker, when you’re Gov. Bill Richardson, you just create new jobs “out of thin air.”

So what’s the big deal? Didn’t Richardson promise to create lots of new jobs?

“The practice is so common that state agencies have coined a name for it,” Barker said. “When the governor sends a new hire down to claim a job that doesn’t exist, they call it ‘a gift from the North.’”

Under state policy, departments can hire temporary exempt employees for periods for no more than three months. The governor must approve any extension of that period.

But, Barker said, there’s no evidence that Richardson ever approved extensions for these “temporary” employees. According to the report, the extensions were done informally with no paper trail.

One state senator calls the practice “illegal.” The administration denies any wrongdoing.
Whatever the case, it’s bound to be an issue in the upcoming campaign. Even before Barker had run his report Wednesday night, the state Republican Party was sending mass e-mails touting the segment “on Bill Richardson and his abject cronyism.”

That "C word" is popping up more frequently in GOP statements about the governor. Of course, state Democrats have been using the same word to try to link U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson to the Washington, D.C., lobbyist scandals.

The gift catalog: Among those “gifts from the North” featured in Barker’s report:

* Ed Stapleton, husband of House Majority Whip Sheryl Williams Stapleton, D-Albuquerque, makes $40,000 annually as a racing clerk at the state Racing Commission. The racing-clerk position actually was occupied by another employee. That person got to keep her job, but she only makes $26,000 a year.

* Steve Gallegos, a former Albuquerque city councilor and Bernalillo County commissioner, was paid $83,000 to be legislative liaison for the state Transportation Department. Gallegos resigned this week to run in the Democratic primary for the seat now held by incumbent Public Regulation Commissioner Lynda Lovejoy, who cannot seek re-election.

* Randy Romero, brother of former ambassador and Richardson ally Ed Romero, gets paid $62,000 for a “temporary” exempt job at the Labor Department.

* Former state Rep. Bennie Aragon — who is the uncle of former state Senate powerhouse Manny Aragon — is paid more than $55,000 as “special projects coordinator” for Expo New Mexico (formerly known as the State Fair).

* Democratic political consultant Harry Pavlides got a $42,000 secretarial job at Expo New Mexico.

* After Richardson appointed Sharon Maloof — part of the influential Maloof family — to be deputy tourism secretary, he created a $74,000 position for another deputy secretary to handle the budget and administration of the department.

The way it works: State Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, said on camera the practice is illegal. McSorley estimated as many as 65 jobs were created by the administration in this manner.

“This is not the way government should work, but unfortunately, this is the way it has worked,” McSorley said.

Former Gov. Gary Johnson told Barker he never made such hires during his administration.

“I would just suggest that today you got a whole new layer of upper-level bureaucrats that are getting in the way of state employees doing their jobs,” Johnson said. “Which is significant. This is not insignificant.”

Richardson’s chief of staff defended the practice. “They are clearly qualified for the jobs they are doing in these agencies,” Dave Contarino told Barker. “If there are misclassifications that do not accurately reflect those jobs, then we will have to deal with that. But they are working every day doing the jobs that their Cabinet secretary (has) tasked for them under the governor’s direction.”

We thought he was primping: Last week The Drudge Report offered a sneak preview of a new political book, Strategery by Bill Sammon. The book quotes Bush political guru Karl Rove predicting that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., will capture the 2008 Democratic nomination for president but will lose in the general election.

According to Drudge, Rove says “the ‘hard-driving’ Clinton will easily vanquish Democratic primary rivals like Richardson and former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, who are merely ‘preening for the vice presidential slot.’ ”

Correction notice: This column originally said that Steve Gallegos would run against incumbent PRC member Lynda Lovejoy. Actually Lovejoy can't seek re-eelction because she's serving her second term.

NORMAN PETTY'S MONITORS

No, this blog isn't turning into a classified ads section.

But a friend of mine Bill Simoneau -- a New Mexico rock 'n' roll behind-the-scenes guy who's worked as stage manager at the Thirsty Ear Festival and sound man for Al Hurricane -- has some pretty interesting equipment he's trying to sell. In Bill's own words:

"These four Altec 612a studio monitor speakers were in the Norman Petty Studios, in Clovis, New Mexico, from the 1950s through the early 1970s, when Petty upgraded all his equipment. They were used by artists such as Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison & The Teen Kings, Buddy Knox, The Fireballs and other artists who recorded at Petty's studio. They are in super condition. After Petty sold them, they were used in an Albuquerque studio for about 10 years and have been in storage since.

Lots of documentation will be included with these speakers, including:

correspondence letters from Petty, photos, canceled checks and loan papers from the party who originally purchased them from Petty, a Clovis newspaper article that discusses the sale, and more.

Will sell as a unit of four or in pairs of two.

Also selling Petty's Scully professional tape recorder from the same era.

Contact: tunzter@aol.com"

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, February 26, 2006
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell


OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Video Violence by Lou Reed
Faster Pussycat by The Cramps
Wonder Why by The Stillettos
It Takes a Worried Man by Devo
Never Say Never by Romeo Void
The Temple by The Afghan Whigs
Bird Brain by Kevin Coyne
Springtime in the Rockies by Tiny Tim & Brave Combo

Hey Grandma by Moby Grape
The Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil by The Jefferson Airplane
Combination of the Two by Big Brother & The Holding Company
Here I Go Again by Country Joe & The Fish
Pride of Man by Quicksilver Messenger Service

Who Knows One? by Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars
Sumbawa by Sabah Habas Mustapha
Gunslingers by The Mighty Sparrow
Sumbula by Severa Nazrkhan
Punjabis, Pimps & Players by Anandji V. Shah & Kalayanji V. Shah
James Bond Theme by The Son of the P.M.
Pretty Thing by Nightlosers

Local Boys by Graham Parker & The Figgs
Christo Redemptor by Charlie Musselwhite
The Great Nations of Europe by Randy Newman
Homeland Pastoral by Mark Eitzel
World I Never Made by Dr. John
I Wish I Was in New Orleans by Tom Waits
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

RALPH STANLEY/THE GOURDS

I've been meaning to post all day about the Ralph Stanley/Gourds concert I saw Thursday night at The Lensic.

In short, it was wonderful.

Ralph doesn't play much banjo these days. His friend "Arthur Itus," he explained. But the Clinch Mountain Boys is one precision unit. (And that bass player, Danny Davis is one crazy dancer!)

Surprisingly my favorite moment was his a cappella "O Death." When I saw him do this five years ago, it seemed like an obligatory bone to throw at the trendsters who'd never heard of him before O Brother Where Art Thou.

But on Thursday, Dr. Ralph seemed to take the old chant into strange dark dimensions. At the end, after the last "Won't you hold me over for another year?" he sang a solemn "Thank .... yoooooo."

That's when I realized that I'd just witness a man having a conversation.

Later in the show, Stanley said if he lived until Saturday he'd be 79 years old. As far as I know, he made it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RALPH!!!!!!

As for The Gourds, I loved 'em. I was a little bit worried that they might not get a great reception if there were too many bluegrass purists in the audience. But the crowd seemed pretty impressed.

I do get the impression that they were holding back some in their mainly acoustic set -- probably because of the audience. Several people were disappointed that they didn't play "Gin and Juice." My guess is that they figured that there were probably just a few too many "motherfuckers" in the lyrics for some of the older Ralph Stanley fans at the Lensic.

I didn't really care about that missing crowd-pleaser. My only disappointment is that they didn't do "Ants on the Melon."

But I was happy to hear "Burn the Honeysuckle," "O Rings" and "Cracklin's."

By the way, there's a new Web site for purchasing live Gourds shows. CLICK HERE

No, it's not free like the Live Music Archive, but there's nothing wrong with a band trying to make a little cash from their music. Besides, the prices aren't bad. And if you look hard enough you can find a Gourds version of the Three's Company theme.

Come and knock on their door ...

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, February 24, 2006
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Sweet Soul Music by Run C&W
Shake the Chandelier by The Gourds
It Was the Whiskey Talkin' (Not Me) by Jerry Lee Lewis
Starman by Jessi Colter
Blues About You Baby by Big Al Anderson
Darlin' Companion by Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash
Caves of Burgundy by Boris & The Saltlicks
Los Tequileros by Los Pinguinos del Norte

Peggy by Eric Hisaw
Sam Bass' Blues by Danny Santos
Miller's Gulch by Jerry Faires
Take Me Home Poor Julia by Norman & Nancy Blake
Moon Song by Michael Hurley
Lift Him Up, That's All by Ralph Stanley

BLACK HISTORY MONTH SET
Cross That River by Allan Harris
When I Was a Cowboy by Odetta
Don't Let Her Know by Ray Charles
Just Between You and Me by Charlie Pride
Wabash Cannonball by Blind Willie McTell
John Law Burned Down the Liquor Sto' by Chris Thomas King with Colin Linden
There Stands the Glass by Ted Hawkins
Opportunity to Cry by The Holmes Brothers
Talacatcha by Alvin Youngblood Hart
Careless Love Blues by Butch Cage & Willie B. Thomas

Drop Me Down by Tres Chicas
Snake in the Radio by Mark Pickerel
The Death of Clayton Peacock by Fruit Bats
Wild American by Kris Kristofferson
Why Me Lord? by Porter Wagoner
Margie's at the Lincoln Park Inn by Bobby Bare
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: DESERT ROCK, GRUMP ROCK

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
February 24, 2006

Boris McCutcheon, the self-described “singer/songwriter/farmer,” actually comes from New England. But his music always has shown a Southwestern sensibility. To borrow one of his song titles, both the words and the music seem singed by volcanic winds. McCutcheon’s first album, inspired by a stay in Nambé, was called Mother Ditch. His second release, When We Were Big, recorded in Tucson, had song titles like “Diablo Waltz” and “Fine Suede.”

That Southwestern sensibility is even more pronounced in his latest album, Cactusman Versus the Blue Demon, recently released on Frogville Records under the name of Boris & The Saltlicks.

It’s acoustic-based desert-rat music, celebrating the harsh beauty but warning of the cruelty of the desert and its denizens. “I pity this poor place,” McCutcheon sings in “Volcanic Wind,” the album’s first song, “All these creatures have God on their face.” The tune starts out with a “crazy woman” on the side of the road feeding Alpo to the coyotes.

McCutcheon’s songs are sometimes somber, sometimes exuberant, sometimes sardonic. And often inscrutable, like the concept behind the title. (According to McCutcheon’s Web site, Cactusman and the Blue Demon were characters in a series of dreams he had in the early ’90s. And here I thought the Blue Demon was the old lucha libre star.)

He can be a straightforward storyteller. For instance, “Seeds & Candy” is a harrowing tale of a city couple who freeze to death in the mountains of Utah, sung over an irresistible Celt-rock backdrop, with McCutcheon himself on mandolin.

There’s lighter-hearted fare here, too. “Don’t Get Weird” is a bluesy number (Kevin Zoernig slinking in with some nice Jimmy Smith organ riffs) that starts out romantically. “The moon is rising and you delight me.” But trouble, not hot romance, seems to be ahead. By the end of the first verse, he’s pleading, “Don’t get weird, don’t get weird ...”

But the real masterpiece on Cactusman is “Caves of Burgundy.” With a melody that suggests some long-lost Steve Young tune, the lyrics suggest a supernatural encounter, like those spooky old British ballads Steeleye Span used to be so fond of, where malevolent beings seduce unsuspecting humans to follow them to Elfland, which ultimately turns out to be hell.

What I like best about this song, though, is the insane interplay between Zoernig’s tinkly-winkly toy piano and Brett Davis’ strangled, screaming guitar during the final fadeout.

It would be impossible to talk about this CD without mentioning the wonderful artwork on the front and back covers. A series of cartoons by artist Neal Cadogan depicts the cosmic showdown in the desert between the two title characters. Buy this album so McCutcheon can afford to pay Cadogan to make a Cactusman video.

McCutcheon is playing at 9 p.m. today, Feb. 24, at the Cowgirl, 319 S. Guadalupe St. (admission $5), and 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, at the Mine Shaft Tavern, 2846 N.M. 14, Madrid.

Also recommended

*Songs of No Consequence by Graham Parker & The Figgs. “Has rock ’n’ roll just died/Or does it just smell bad?”

Graham Parker on his latest album has a few bones to pick. He’s never been Little Mary Sunshine, but I haven’t heard him so pissed off in years.

In fact, Songs of No Consequence could be the grump-rock album of the decade. It is a virtual bouquet of splendid grouchiness.

Who invented grump rock? Was it Lou Reed, who perfected the form in his 1989 classic New York? Or was it nearly 20 years earlier when John Lennon, whose album Imagine balanced his weepy politically correct title song with blistering put-downs like “Give Me Some Truth” and “How Do You Sleep?” And surely, Randy Newman and Elvis Costello fit into the grump-rock pantheon.

And so does Costello’s contemporary, Parker. He gleefully rips into the entertainment media on the opening cut, “Vanity Press,” but before long, it is obvious he’s talking about the American press in general. “It’s got to be a puff piece/That only shows the best/About the war next door/And it’s a great success,” he snarls in the song.

Parker turns his ire to radio in “There’s Nothing on the Radio,” singing “I don’t want no ’60s junk/Or that ’90s cartoon punk ... I don’t want those whiny chicks/Or those cardboard country hicks ...” He concludes, “The future looks like toast/We’d better burn it.”

His fellow rockers are at the end of Parker’s ugly stick on “Did Everybody Just Get Old?” “That stranger who used to live for danger/is now acting like he never was a teenager,” he sings. “Those rockers with dirty pictures in their lockers/Now have ’em on their computer screens.”

Parker waxes acerbic on a traditional grump-rock target: life on the road. “Well, I can play a guitar just like wringing a neck,” he starts out in “Suck ’n’ Blow,” which is full of imagery of breaking down equipment and screeching air brakes. But I think this old grouch has a soft spot.

“Go Little Jimmy” is about a young blues harpist touring small clubs and wowing the girls. In a rare break in the mood of this album, Parker seems almost excited for the kid.

Of course, he seems to take more pleasure in putting down small-minded, small-town dolts who try to persuade a young woman not to pursue her crazy dreams in “Local Boys”: “Don’t leave here all alone/Don’t go to Paris, don’t go to Rome/Stay in town just like your sister Joyce/And don’t look any further than the local boys.”

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: HAVE DEATH WILL TRAVEL

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Februart 23, 2006

California is having trouble executing condemned murderer Michael Morales. Seems like anesthesiologists and other medical professionals in the Golden State are getting a little queasy about helping out in the fine art of lethal injection.

Something about the Hippocratic Oath or some other medical mumbo jumbo.

So why doesn’t California just do what New Mexico did in 2001, when the state performed its first (and so far only) legal execution since 1960?

Hire moonlighting executioners from Texas.

In 2001, when child killer/rapist Terry Clark’s days officially were numbered, the state hired two employees of the Texas prison system.

The $12,000 contract had to be one of the most macabre ever issued by the state:

“At approximately 20 minutes before the scheduled time for the execution, as directed by the warden, contractor shall insert the necessary catheters into the appropriate veins of the inmate sentenced to death. At the scheduled time of the execution, if directed to proceed by the warden, contractor shall administer the lethal injection to the inmate sentenced to death.”

A New Mexico Corrections Department spokesman said at the time that the two “execution experts” had also been hired to help out with capital punishment in New York, Montana and Kentucky.

So how come California didn’t do the same and hire some outside “execution specialist”?

One of Terry Clark’s attorneys, Brian Pouri — an Albuquerque lawyer who also is licensed to practice in California — said Wednesday that California’s laws governing executions are virtually the same as New Mexico’s.

But in the Morales case, a federal judge ordered restrictions on the lethal-injection process. Basically, Pouri explained, the court ruled that the state could either have an anesthesiologist on hand to make sure Morales wasn’t feeling pain — or in the alternative, give the condemned man a big enough dose of barbiturates to kill him.

“Once they got the doctors involved, that was it,” Pouri said.

Why didn’t that happen in Clark’s case?

Clark, who murdered 9-year-old Dena Lynn Gore in Artesia in 1986, wanted to die. He asked to stop any further legal proceedings.

“Nobody else had any (legal) standing,” Pouri said.

Speaking of medical ethics: The contract for Clark’s executioners included travel and expenses. But there’s one thing the Texas guys didn’t have to provide — the drugs used in the execution.

The sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride were purchased by the state Health Department — you know, that agency with the mission statement that says it’s supposed to “promote health, prevent disease and disability.”

But the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, the agency that licenses government agencies and private companies to buy controlled drugs, said it had no problem with the state Health Department supplying drugs to kill a man.

At least they didn’t give him something illegal like medical marijuana.

No announcement of an announcement: Gov. Bill Richardson has said since before Day 1 that he plans to seek re-election. He is already on the June primary ballot — unopposed.

So there’s no real need for a formal announcement. But can you imagine Bill Richardson giving up a chance to give a speech before an adoring audience cheering wildly every time he says he’s “moving New Mexico forward”?

Yet on Wednesday, when asked whether a formal announcement was forthcoming, Richardson seemed noncommittal.

His chief of staff (and 2002 campaign manager) Dave Contarino said there probably would be some kind of announcement. But Contarino noted that when Bill Clinton ran for re-election for governor of Arkansas, he never formally announced.

Last November during an interview on CSPAN2, Richardson said he wasn’t pledging to serve a full four years if re-elected.

On that show, he used the example of President Bush, who told voters when running for re-election as Texas governor in 1998 that he might run for higher officer. “I may do the same, but I haven’t decided that. ... What I will do is, I will tell my constituents the truth when I talk to them about whether I go beyond this.”

But Richardson said Wednesday that he’s not ready yet to have such a talk with voters.

The latest numbers: Richardson continues to do well in the SurveyUSA/KOB TV poll. The latest one, conducted Feb. 10-12 of 600 New Mexico adults, shows his best numbers in 10 months. The firm has been doing monthly tracking polls of the nation’s 50 governors.

Richardson’s approval rating was 64 percent. Only 32 percent said they disapproved of the way Richardson was doing his job.

For the first time, SurveyUSA shows Democrat Richardson getting a majority of Republicans giving him approval. That’s 52 percent to 42 percent who disapprove.

SurveyUSA’s margin of error is 3.9 percent.