RADIO RUSS

Russ Gordon, who produces the Los Alamos summer concert series (which I'm never able to attend since they're on Friday night) just started doing a radio show on KRSN.

According to an e-mail he sent, the show started 3 p.m. today on KRSN, 1490 AM. "The show will be Mon. thru Fri. and hopefully, it'll be on the web by week's end," Russ said. "The music will be `free form', an eclectic mix."

Knowing Russ, I bet it's good.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, August 27, 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
Another Man Done Gone by Irma Thomas
Idlewood Blue (Don't Chu Worry 'Bout Me) by Outkast
Crazy Crazy Mama by Roky Erikson
Eve of Destruction by The Dickies
Hands by The Raconteurs
Lady Bird (Green Grass) by The Fall
Heart of Darkness by Pere Ubu
Cue the Light Brigade by The Cherry Tempo

I Wish That I Was Dead by The Dwarves
Longhaired Guys from England by Too Much Joy
Down the Road by Dead Moon
Bold Maurader by Drywall
Man in the Plaid Suit by Hellwood
Nightmare Hippy Girl by Beck
Save it For Later by Sol Fire
Sweetheart (Frito Lay) by The Electric Ghosts
Do the Trouser Press by The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band

Bat Macumba by Os Mutantes
El Nozanin by Sevara Nazarkhan
Tokyo Surf by Stuurbaard Bakkebaard
Tip My Canoe by Dengue Fever
Pretty Thing by Nightlosers
Lieto by Varttina
Troubled Friends by Gogol Bordello

C'est pas la mer a boire by Les Negresses Vertes
Idol by Kazik Staszewski
Biskotin by Istanbul Blues Kumpanyasi
Mana Janab Ne Pukara Nahin by Shaan
Sitta by Cankisou
The Soba Song by 3 Mustapas 3
Natasha Loves Reggae by The Red Elvises
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, August 25, 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
Eight Miles High by Chris Hillman
The Heart Bionic by Bobby Bare Jr's Young Criminals Starvation League
I Hung it Up by Junior Brown
Wild Gods of Mexico by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Radio the Station by Goshen
Tiger, Tiger by The Sadies with Kelly Hogan
Lonesome On'ry and Mean by Waylon Jennings
Juan Charrasqueado by Steve Chavez

Peggy by Eric Hisaw
Madman by Chrissy Flatt
Caves of Burgundy by Trilobite
Don't Get Weird by Boris & The Saltlicks
Inman's Liquid Gold by Raising Cane
Geogie Buck by Carolina Chocolate Drops
This Old Cowboy by The Marshall Tucker Band

Thirsty Ear Festival Set
Kokomo by Greg Brown
If I'm to Blame by Chipper Thompson
Gone in Pawn (Shake Sugaree) by Po' Girl
Midnight Moonlight by Be Good Tanyas
Wind Howlin' Blues by David "Honeyboy" Edwards
Down Home Blues by Hazel Miller
Surfer Girl by Dave Alvin

Summertime's Almost Gone by Jono Manson
Blues in the Bottle by Chris Smither
Mojave High by Tony Gilkyson
Slow Down Old World by Willie Nelson
Wild Geese by Bill & Bonnie Hearne
I Don't Want to Play House Anymore by Carrie Rodriguez
On the Banks of the Rio Grande by Blind James
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: SOME LOCAL CDs

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
August 25, 2006

Here’s a batch of CDs released in recent weeks (well, in some cases, recent months) by New Mexico musicians we know and love.

* Summertime by Jono Manson. Jono’s back! After lying low for a few years, Manson seems to be gigging everywhere. And he has a new album, his first solo record since 2001’s Under the Stone.

Summertime is pure white soul, featuring a funky, horny (great sax and trumpet) band.

Several cuts stand out. “Jr. Walker Drove the Bus” is an upbeat tribute to the “Shotgun” man, utilizing a passage of Walker’s “What Does It Take (to Win Your Love).” “Ends of the Earth” is a soul ballad that would make Robert Cray jealous and features a cool organ solo. Manson gets almost swampy on “Red Wine in the Afternoon,” with a tasty slide guitar and mandolin.

His humor shows through on the rocking “Please Stop Playing That Didgeridoo.” His irritation with the hippie didj player grows as the song progresses. “If you don’t stop, I’m going tok it in two,” Manson growls. “You ain’t no aborigine/in your tie-dye T. ... Take your hacky sack ’cause them’s the only balls you’ve got.”

*The Cherry Tempo by The Cherry Tempo. Singer/songwriter Javier Romero has been making music around here since he was old enough to step up to a microphone. He was in Mistletoe a few years ago, and like that group, The Cherry Tempo plays brash but always melodic indie pop. The band’s Web site mentions a song called “Sunny Day Beatlestate.” That doesn’t appear on this CD, at least under that title, but that could almost sum up the sound here — a cross between classic emo and the Fab Four, sometimes mixed with new-wavey synths. (The opening strains of “Treble Is High” take you in a time machine to 1982, while the untitled “secret bonus” track sounds like Wall of Voodoo on angel dust.)

My favorite here is “City of Squares.” Add about 17 singers and some robes, and you’ve got what could be one of the best Polyphonic Spree songs ever. I’m fond of the sentimental “Of Ghosts, Keepsakes,” an uncharacteristically soft ’n’ purdy number.

*Third Floor Serenade by Sol Fire. This is the second album by this band, fronted by brothers Buddy and Amado Abeyta. You could call this a second-generation Santa Fe band since the Abeytas’ dad, Chris Abeyta, is a founder of the longtime local favorite Lumbre del Sol. (Sol Fire does Chris’ song “Universal Flight” here.)

Like the band’s friends The Cherry Tempo, Sol Fire has a modern-rock sound. However, it has a more distinctive Chicano-rock sound. You can hear a little Carlos Santana in some of the guitar solos.

And like Santa Fe bands going back to the ’50s and ’60s, these guys know how to rock (“Save It for Next Time” proves this), but they’ve got a true feel for soulful, romantic ballads. (A few years ago in an interview, Dave Rarick of the classic ’60s Santa Fe group The Morfomen told me, “We played Rolling Stones songs and everything, and they were good to dance to. But mf the Santa Fe groups were known for the romantic ballads. ‘The End of the Highway’ was like that, ‘When You Were Mine’ was. Maybe that’s part of the Spanish influence. We liked the romantic stuff.”)

This really shows on “We Don’t Have That Much Time Together,” a mainly acoustic, Terence Trent D’Arby-penned song featuring a pop-flamenco guitar.

*Corridos y Mas by Steve Chavez. I don’t speak Spanish, so I’m a real dilettante (or dill-something) when it comes to music like this, but I have to say I love most of the songs on this album by Española singer Chavez. This is more traditional music than the other stuff I’ve heard by him. The best songs here are upbeat corridos.

As Chavez explains in a press release, “A corrido is basically a song written in story form (which) documents a historical event, be it love, war, or even the death of a popular or famous individual.”

Even with my linguistic handicap, there’s plenty to appreciate. Songs like “Juan Charrasqueado” and “Rosita Alviare just good, get-down music I associate with Fiesta. It’s danceable and hummable, and Chavez has a smooth, sincere voice that deserves to be heard in more homes.

E-mail: stevechavez@newmexico.com.

*Ride the Rain by Raising Cane. If there’s such a thing as a bluegrass corrido, Aimee Hoyt’s found it on her song “Inman’s Liquid Gold,” a tune about bootlegging and murder in southwestern New Mexico.

Inman murdered a neighbor during Prohibition but got out of jail free, reportedly because the governor was one of his customers. That wouldn’t happen these days. Inman would go to prison, but politicians would donate his campaign contributions to charity.

*The Music of Le Masque by Christopher B. McCarty. This is a collection of country-rock, folkish, soft-rock tunes by songwriter Chris, who is probably most famous for co-writing several Steve Miller tunes. A couple of those are here, including a tropical version of “Swingtown,” which was a hit for Miller back in the '70s.

The best title is undoubtedly “Vincent Van Gogh With a Gun.” It’s actually a pretty tune. But my favorite is the opener, “Glimpse of God,” a Dire Straits-like rocker.


* Trilobite by Trilobite. This is a folky little group led by Albuquerque singer/songwriter Mark Lewis, backed by singer Michelle Collins (who sometimes reminds me of Victoria Williams, sometimes of ThaMuseMeant’s Aimee Curl).

The mood here is often dark and mysterious. This feel is aided by the plethora of strings. Dave Gutierrez plays mandolin, banjo, and pedal steel, while some tracks have violin (Hilary Schacht), viola (Alicia Ultan), and cello (Sasha Perrin, who also plays pump organ).

My favorite track on this album is also one of my favorite songs on another New Mexico album, Cactusman Versus the Blue Demon by Boris & The Saltlicks. Lewis wrote “The Caves of Burgundy” — a song about a man being lured into the realm of faery (or maybe it’s just hell) by a supernatural beauty following a car wreck

BLOG CHANGES, ETC.

I just rearranged my links on the right side of the blog to include a new section on some of my favorite New Mexico music sites. It's not intended to be complete. And if you're looking for an individual band or singer, try the state Music Commission's directory or The New Mexican's music directory. The links are right there.

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In another change, I've decided to go back to Haloscan for my comments here due to problems described at the bottom of in the "Mystic Judicial Dwarves" post below.

All new posts will have Haloscan comments. Unfortunately it seems that I can't disable the Blogger comments without hiding the existing comments. So the old posts will have two comment links. So use the one that says "Comment," not the one that says "Post a Comment." (Is that confusing enough?)

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Here's a link to my story in today's New Mexican about another Robert Vigil relative in the state Treasurer's Office who was fired only to find another government job.