TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, December 10, 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
Fish in the Jailhouse by Tom Waits
In the Colosseum by Kazik Staszewski
Two Girls (One Bar) by Pere Ubu
Joker Hysterical Face by The Fall
Fire Down Below by Nick Cave
Fish Shack Closing by The Unband
Where's Your Boyfriend At by The Yayhoos
Don't Believe in Christmas by The Sonics

Siki Siki Baba by Kokani Orkestar
Prenzlauerberg by Beirut
El Nozanin by Severa Nazarkhan
Fernando's Giampari by A Hawk & A Hacksaw
Traffic Policeman by Zvuki Mu
Constantinoble by The Residents
I Want to See You Belly Dance by The Red Elvises

Oops I Did it Again by Richard Thompson
The Barren Fields by Hundred Year Flood
Down by The River by Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Fat Daddy by Fat Daddy
O Holy Night by Robert Mirabal

Action is Action by Eleni Mandell
The River in Reverse by Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint
Hold On by Los Lobos
Straight to Hell by The Clash
Field Commander Cohen by Leonard Cohen
Leave Her Johnny by Lou Reed
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, December 8, 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
Life of a Fool by Paul Burch
Big Cheeseburgers and Good French Fries by Blaze Foley
Rattlesnake by Ramsay Midwood
Accentuate the Positive by Kelly Hogan & Jon Rauhouse
Jackson Shake by Arty Hill & The Long Gone Daddies
Backstreet Affair by Webb Pierce
I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink by Merle Haggard
Six Bullets for Christmas by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies

Xmas on the Isthmus by Terry Allen
I'm Not Coming Down by Ed Pettersen
Kingdom of Cold by Hundred Year Flood
Break This Fool by The Texas Sapphires
We're Gonna Hold On by Solomon Burke with Enmylou Harris
I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know by The Davis Sisters
Since the Well Ran Dry by Tony Gilkyson
Truckin' Trees for Christmas by Red Simpson

SACRED HARP SET
The Christian's Hope by Denson's Sacred Harp Singers of Arley, Alabama
Antioch by Henagar-Union Sacred Harp Convention
Wondrous Love by The Old Harp Singers of Eastern Tennessee
The Signs of The Judgement by Wineglass Sacred Harp Singers
The Good Old Way by Denson-Paris Sacred Harp Singers
Weeping Mary by Roswell Sacred Harp Singers
IDUMEA by Sacred Harp Singers at Liberty Church
The Last Words of Copernicus by Alabama Sacred Harp Singers
I'm Going Home by Sacred Harp Singers at Liberty Church
Whitestown by Henagar Union Sacred Harp Singers
Traveling Pilgrim by Henagar Union Sacred Harp Singers

Young at Heart by Tom Waits
Bedford (Avenue) by Eleni Mandell
Gatsby's Restaurant by June Carter Cash
Just Leave Me Alone Today by Dan Reeder
One Thing I Want to Tell You by Chip Taylor
He'll Have to Go by Ry Cooder
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

RADIO AMERICA

I just got interviewed by the folks at Radio America (not Air America) about our governor's presidential plans.

I didn't realize until after I agreed to do it that this is an ultra conservative network, home to G. Gordon Liddy and Michael Reagan. I'm supposed to be on a news show called Dateline Washington. A list of past guests there includes Tom DeLay, Mary Matalin, Gerald Ford and Gary Bauer.

So I'll fit right in.

It's scheduled to be on at 4 p.m. Mountain Time. (See link above.)

RICHARDSON'S FOX PAS

My story on Gov. Richardson's Fox News interview where he said the magic words "I'm running ..." can be found HERE.

The "fair and balanced" Fox story, including a video of the interview, is HERE

Here's my take on what happened: It's obvious that he just let his guard down when talking with Fox reporter Carl Cameron, skipping the usual tiresome coy disclaimers.

It's not the first time this has appened. When I interviewed on the phone in October for a campaign profile, I asked if he'd announce his presidential campaign in New Mexico. Without hesitation, he said yes. But then he caught himself, and quickly added, "If I announce I'm running."

What's weird is that in six weeks or so, it's all going to be moot. He'll make his big exploratory committee announcement surrounded by hundreds of supporters and it'll be off to the races.

But I think Joe Monahan has a good point though in today's blog.

... instead of taking his lumps and wiping the egg away with a serving of humor, the Governor and his multi-headed press staff proceeded to make matters worse by insisting the Guv's statement that danced across the Internet at lightning speed was taken out of context and that the Guv was not running for the 08' Dem prez nomination, at least not yet. They then tore into Fox for having `incorrectly reported that Governor Richardson has announced he will run for president.' ...

As is usual with these cases of jangled nerves under the harsh glare of the national spotlight, the reaction to the mistake was worse than the error. ... reacting so heatedly to his semantic error gets him off to a shaky start in a scene crowded with heavyweights like Hillary Clinton.

Monahan reports that Richardson's staff called Albuquerque television stations to implore them not to cover the story. I can't vouch for that. When I called spokesman Gilbert Gallegos, he told me the report was "absolutely false" -- even though the guv's words were on video. But he never asked me to not to write the story.

XXXX

Speaking of Monahan, one local politican denies something from a previous Monahan blog post.

State Sen. John Grubesic, D-Santa Fe, told me Thursday that he didn't actually hug Richardson at last weekend's Senate Democratic Caucus meeting. It was just a handshake, not a hug, he said.

Grubesic said he did apologize to Richardson for his "personal attack" early this year in the infamous "Flabby King" letter. Personal attacks don't do anyone any good, Grubesic said, especially his constituents.

He said he won't hesitate to stand up to Richardson when he disagrees on an issue. But he said he'll refrain from namecalling.

Grubesic, whose first year in office was marred by two well-publicized encounters with police, said he definitely will run for re-election in 2008, though he expects opposition.

A COUPLE OF MUSIC FILMS FROM SF FILM FESTIVAL

A version of these reviews were published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
December 4, 2006

We Like to Drink: We Like to Play Rock ’n’ Roll; music documentary; 75 minutes; Tipton Hall, College of Santa Fe; 9:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 8, and 10 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 9

It’s the classic rock ’n’ roll myth. A gang of lovable losers, usually boyhood friends (yes, most of the time it is boys), start a rock band. In a brief time, they become known for crazy, spirited shows fueled by incredible amounts of booze and illegal substances. They hit the road in a van or an old school bus. And right when the gold ring of wealth and glory seems to be in reach, they fall off the merry-go-round. Usually it’s a combination of money problems, personality problems, girlfriend problems, and addiction problems.

Country singer Gillian Welch summed up the seductive power of this myth in her mournful ballad “April the 14th”:

“It was a five-band bill, a two-dollar show/I saw the van out in front from Idaho/And the girl passed out in the backseat trash./There were no way they’d make even a half a tank of gas/They looked sick and stoned, and strangely dressed/and no one showed from the local press./But I watched them walk through the Bottom Land/and I wished I played in a rock ’n’ roll band.”

Santa Fe filmmaker Lexie Shabel also explores this myth in her new film, We Like to Drink: We Like to Play Rock ’n’ Roll. Shabel tells the story of The Unband, a punk/metal group that started in Boston and moved to Los Angeles. It was signed to a little indie label called TVT and made an album called Retarder full of songs like “Pink Slip,” “Cocaine Whore,” and the tune that would provide the title for Shabel’s film.

This isn’t Shabel’s first music movie. In 2003’s VFWbya, the New Jersey native documented the short-lived but fabled music scene at Santa Fe’s VFW Club with local favorites like Hundred Year Flood, Goshen, and ThaMuseMeant.

While The Unband is about as obscure as you can get, the story is familiar. But the group comes across as so likable that it captures the viewer’s sympathy. Even though you’re pretty sure you know how the story plays out, you root for the band throughout.


In some ways, The Unband reminds me of The Replacements in its wild, drunken abandon and the way the members connect with their audience. True, The Unband didn’t have a songwriter who came anywhere near Paul Westerberg. But then again, I never heard of the ’Mats playing with a naked drummer.

Shabel follows The Unband from its early days — hanging out at a University of Massachusetts dorm, getting kicked out of crappy little clubs — through its grab at fame. There’s all sorts of hopped-up testimony from early fans and Unband hangers-on attesting to its majesty. There’s even a filmed reunion of the trio with the owner of a Northampton, Mass., pizza joint at which all three used to work. The pizza lady says she knows she’ll see The Unband someday “on the Billboard Awards.”

But not all of the talk is happy. One of the film’s saddest moments is when the band is dissed by someone it looks up to: Eddie Spaghetti of The Supersuckers. “They weren’t very good, if I recall,” Spaghetti says matter-of-factly in a filmed interview. “Weren’t they just trying to be AC/DC?”

And it all seems to fall apart on the road. Money problems. Arguments. Hurt feelings. And two of the three seem to hate Kate, the girlfriend of guitarist Matt Pierce. She’s a blonde, hard-boozing, tough-talking version of Yoko Ono. “Women and money killed The Unband,” bass player Mike Ruffino says after a diatribe about Matt and Kate.

My main problem with the film is that it never says what eventually happened to Kate. She’s apparently gone by the end of the film. Matt speaks of her in the past tense. Did she melt when someone threw water on her or what?

The film ends optimistically. The Unband is playing together again after several years apart. But they all seem so adult now. Drummer Eugene Ferrari is painting his house, and he has his pants on. Matt is working with head-injury victims. Mike is married.

They all seem happy. But is that crazy spark that propelled them — that dangerous voodoo spirit that rode them like a mad cowboy — gone forever?

I think probably so. But We Like to Drink: We Like to Play Rock ’n’ Roll leaves you wondering whether that matters at all.

Nina Baby; short; 14 minutes; Tipton Hall, College of Santa Fe; 2:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 8, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 10

This 14-minute short is a captivating little nugget that leaves you wanting to know more about its precocious, homeless, trumpet-playing protagonist.

Laivan Greene stars as 13-year-old Nina. “You got a last name?” an unseen interviewer asks. “Just Nina,” she replies impatiently. (The director, known only as C.A.M. in the credits, might have a similar answer if you inquired about that name.)

“I know what you’re thinking,” Nina says at the beginning of the film, as she walks the streets of Los Angeles playing her horn. “She’s black. ... when she’s gonna start rapping? Well I got three words for you. ‘Go screw yourself.’”

She’ll play for anyone willing to listen — and even those not willing. And she talks. Nina is speaking throughout most of the film. But you don’t want her to stop.

“Yeah, that’s right, I read too,” she says defensively after speaking dreamily of James Baldwin. “Sorry to disappoint you, in case you were hoping I was like, some idiot-savant musician.”

We briefly get introduced to others who are important to her. There’s a flashback of her late brother, who she describes as “the last audience I had that I could count on.” Then there’s her father, a broken man who lives under an overpass and plays solitaire chess. “He’s a king to me,” Nina says.

Nina longs to make it big in the jazz world. To follow that dream, she hocks her beloved trumpet for a bus ticket to New York. Armed with a Rube Goldberg-style instrument, she sets up shop in front of the Village Vanguard.

The film ends on an optimistic note — it’s perhaps a little too feel-good considering the likely fate of homeless kids in strange cities. But then again, do we really need another After School Special-like cautionary tale? Maybe at this point we need more fables about following dreams rather than messages of fear and repression.

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: SACRED HARP

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
December 8, 2006

One of the strangest, most powerful forms of music to rise from the American South is Sacred Harp singing. Those familiar with Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music have heard the simple, mysterious sounds. T Bone Burnett used some Sacred Harp in his soundtrack for Cold Mountain a few years ago. Alan Lomax did field recordings at Sacred Harp gatherings.

It’s a tradition that’s populist in nature. There are no Sacred Harp “performances” because there’s no separation of performer and audience at a Sacred Harp “singing.” Everyone is supposed to sing. And thus comes a new Sacred Harp compilation: I Belong to This Band.

Released by the independent Dust-to-Digital label — the same folks who brought us the impressive six-disc box set Goodbye Babylon (featuring Southern gospel music from 1902 to 1960) a couple of years ago — this collection spans nine decades of recorded Sacred Harp music, from the first known group to record in 1922 (The Original Sacred Harp Singers were “probably from Texas,” the liner notes say) to an Alabama singing recorded in July of this year.

So what is Sacred Harp music? First of all, it’s “sacred” music, but there’s no harp. It’s usually a cappella music so named for a hymnal called The Sacred Harp, first published in 1884 but updated several times since.

The book, and others like it, used shapes — triangle, oval, rectangle, diamond — for the various notes. (It’s supposed to make it easier for average folks to read music, but it seems pretty complex to a rube like me.)

The songs feature four-part harmonies. Though it can be done by small groups, normally Sacred Harp is choral music. At a singing, the room is divided into four sides — with trebles, tenors, basses, and altos in their own sections — with rows of chairs facing the center, where a leader stands.

Typically, Sacred Harp songs start off with what sounds to a newcomer like an incomprehensible incantation, a magical invocation in a long-dead tongue to dusky, hoary spirits. I actually was disappointed to learn that what I thought was mystical speaking in tongues is nothing more than the choir singing “mi, fa, so, la ...” to get the song going.

The rhythm of the songs sometimes seems almost martial. In songs like the minor-key “Child of Grace,” the foot stomping is audible. You can almost imagine the singers marching on some of the tracks.

A few of the songs in the collection have military overtones. “The Christian Warfare,” by the Original Sacred Harp Singers, was written in 1835 and seems to anticipate current foreign policy:

“I’m called to contend with the powers of darkness,/And many sore conflicts I have to pass through./Oh Jesus, be with me in every battle,/And help me my enemies all to subdue.”

But the sweetness of the melody suggests that the battle at hand is more metaphorical than literal.


Then there’s “Christian Soldier.” Recorded in 1928 by the Denson Quartet, it’s a song written by Isaac Watts in 1724. It sounds a little more militant.

“Must I be carried to the skies/On flow’ry beds of ease,/While others fought to win the prize/And sailed through bloody seas?/Are there no foes for me to face?/Must I not stem the flood?/Is this vile world a friend to grace,/To help me on to God?/Sure I must fight if I would reign;/Increase my courage, Lord,/I’ll bear the toil, endure the pain,/Supported by Thy word.”

One of the most interesting tracks is “New Morning Sun,” recorded in 1960 by S. Whit Denson. Using then-novel multitracking technology, Denson — an original member of the pioneering Denson Quartet — sang all four harmony parts and played piano.

Nearly half of the tracks on this collection are from the Henagar-Union Sacred Harp Convention at the Liberty Baptist Church in Henegar, Ala. (home of the Louvin Brothers). While not as “historical,” they are some of the most powerful performances on the album. A potent, if troubling, tune they perform is “Whitestown,” written by Watts in 1719 about a settlement in New York.

“Where nothing dwelt but beasts of prey,/Or men as fierce and wild as they,/He bids th’ oppressed and poor repair,/And build them towns and cities there/They sow the fields, and trees they plant/Whose yearly fruit supplies their want;/Their race grows up from fruitful stocks/Their wealth increases with their flocks.”

Racist? Yes. We Caucasians turned out to be as “fierce and wild” as anyone. But it’s a vivid glimpse into the mind-set of the early settlers of this country. The intense melody, a minor-key dirge, sounds like a good soundtrack for a witch burning.

I Belong to This Band is full of such history and mystery. The amazing thing is how Sacred Harp can sound so otherworldly, yet so American at the same time.

On the Web: There’s plenty of information at the Sacred Heart Musical Heritage Association site at . Lyrics and song titles can be found HERE . And there’s a documentary about Sacred Harp (which I’ve yet to see) called Awake, My Soul. You can find information and some film clips HERE.

Hear the Harp: I’ll play a set of Sacred Harp music from this album and others on The Santa Fe Opry, Friday, Dec. 8, on KSFR-FM 90.7, The Opry starts at 10 p.m., and the set will start about 11 p.m.

RICHARDSON TELLS FOX "I'M RUNNING"

Here's the Fox News report that shows Richardson saying, "I'm not running as an Hispanic, I am running as an American who is proud to be Hispanic." CLICK HERE

Here's Richardson's office's office denial:

SANTA FE – New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s Office released the following statement in response to an erroneous report by FOX News:

“FOX News incorrectly reported that Governor Richardson has announced he will run for president,” said Gilbert Gallegos, a spokesman for the Governor. “When asked directly whether he will run for president, Governor Richardson said he will make a final decision in January.

“Other comments from the interview were taken out of context based on a hypothetical question that FOX News posed about the Governor’s strengths should he run for president.”