FINAL WORD ON THE SC DEBATE

Various thoughts from what the Albuquerque Journal calls the "so-called Blogosphere" and hats off to Larry, who said the debate was one of the worst he'd ever seen as far as formats go. My story is HERE.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 27, 2007
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
NEW: email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Daddy Was a Preacher But Mama Was a Go-Go Girl by Southern Culture on the Skids
Last Rebellion by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies
Race With the Devil by Gene Vincent
Sneakin' by George Weston
Hot and Nasty by Black Oak, Arkansas
Things You Do to Me by Hank Williams III
The Ballad of Thunder Road by Robert Mitchum
Killin' Time in Texas by Gurf Morlix
Old Faithful by Bill Hearne's Roadhouse Revue

The Night That Porter Wagoner Came to Town by Tabby Crabb
Satan Gets the Gold by Porter Wagoner
Suburbia by The Riptones
Wrong Side of the World by Johnny Bush & Justin Trevino
Hollywood Hillbilly by Dale Watson
Sucker For a Trucker by Milly & The Sequins
One Has My Name by Jerry Lee Lewis
Got U on My Mind by The Watzloves
Molly Married a Traveling Man by Uncle Dave Macon

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS SET
All songs by DBT except where noted


Where the Devil Don't Stay
Wallace
The Boys From Alabama
I Met Her in Church by Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham
The Living Bubba
Hobo by Patterson Hood
Sinkhole


I Was Drunk by Alejandro Escovedo
Cat and Mouse by Ry Cooder
Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain by Carla Bozulich
Try Me One More Time by David Bromberg
No Demon by Jorma Kaukonen
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

DEBATE ANALYSIS

Here is my analysis of Bill Richardson's performance at last night's debate. CLICK HERE

You can find my live blogging of that debate by scrolling just a couple of posts down.

STATE CHAIRMAN BATTLES

Yikes, I thought the race for state Democratic chairman was getting interesting.

But the GOP contest between incumbent Alllen Weh and Earl Greer is getting interesting too, according to Mario Burgos' blog. Getta loadda THIS:

April 26, 2007

Lou Melvin
RPNM Rules Committee Chairwoman
5150-A San Francisco NE
Albuquerque, NM 87109

Dear Lou -

In accordance with Rule 10 of the Bernalillo County Republican Party Supplementary Rules, the following State Central Committee Members from Bernalillo County are not in good standing.

Please consider this a formal challenge of the following State Central Committee members:

Christopher Atencio
Mario Burgos
John Butrick
Samuel Carnes
Whitney Cheshire
Diego Espinoza
State Representative Justin Fox-Young
Elaine Henederson
Wade Jackson
Enrique Knell
Fran Langholf
Vickie Perea
Patrick Rogers
Patricia Rush
Dianne Shams-Avari
Matthew Stackpole

Mario raises the possibility that C de Baca is supporting Greer against Weh, but that's not certain from the post.

The plot thickens. Mario, who ran against C'De Baca for Bernalillo County GOP writes:

I made a decision in that race to focus on Mr. C' de Baca's performance failures, but I also made a decision not to attack him personally. I choose not to point out Mr. C' de Baca's criminal conviction from 1996:

Here’s what the Albuquerque Tribune (7/24/96) reported about C de Baca’s 1996 bid-rigging conviction in California:

Fernando C de Baca, 58, of Albuquerque pleaded guilty Tuesday in San Diego County District Court to conspiring to inflate bids for asbestos removal at two malls owned by the Hahn Co. of San Diego. One of them was Coronado Center in Albuquerque.

(C de Baca, acording to Burgos, told The Albuquerque Tribune that the California Superior Court later dropped the charges.)

But here's my favorite:

I also decided not to bring up the fact that the Executive Director,
employed by the Bernalillo County Republican Party and hired by Mr. C' de Baca, spent Election Night partying with Patricia Madrid supporters at her "Victory" Party. Or, the fact that this same individual, proudly has posted pictures on his personal website of himself posing with pornography star Jenna Jameson while wearing a t-shirt advertising her website.

The chairmanships of both parties will be decided Saturday.

Here's an Associated Press story from earlier this week about those races by Barry Massey. CLICK HERE

Stay tuned.

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: SOME OF MY FAVORITE AUDIO BLOGS

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 27, 2007

In my ongoing quest to inform you, the music-loving, working families, about cheap and innovative ways to enjoy music in that fabulous system called the Internet, I’ve discovered a few audio blogs that I’ve been enjoying lately.

For the uninitiated, audio blogs are where you can find free music samples — sometimes just clips or streams, though the ones I like are those where you can download MP3s of entire songs and/or podcast “radio” shows, sometimes with commentary from the hosts and other fun stuff.

Above all, I like to find MP3s that you aren’t going to find anywhere else, songs that aren’t even for sale. Here’s a few such sites:

* GaragePunk.com
This site, run by Jeff Kopp — a longtime music promoter, fanzine publisher, DJ, and fanatic from St. Louis — is dedicated to podcasts of “traditional garage rock to trashy punk, surf/instro to rockabilly, ’60s garage to swamp rock, broken blues to greasy R & B, soul to funk, frat rock to psych, freakbeat to power pop, proto punk to new wave, noise to lounge/exotica, and anything in between.” The shows, produced by several individual podcasters, have names like The Vagabond Garage Rocker, Savage Kick, Get Drunk & Play Records and Killed by Porn.

The fi is far from hi. As the site explains, “It’s important to keep in mind that these are very low bit-rate MP3s. The shows range from 64-80 kbps mono, which is a very low quality MP3, much lower audio quality than even a ‘good’ sounding MP3, and way, way lower than CD quality.” The sound quality reminds me of the AM radio in my long-gone ’63 Ford Falcon.

One recent night I listened to an hour-long podcast called Flying Saucer Rock ’n’ Roll #26, hosted by Canadian Dan Electreau, which features good old-school garage/psychedelic/trashabilly rock — and one crazy soul tune, “Alley Rat” by a guy named King Coleman — interspersed with cheesy dialogue from ’50s sci-fi and horror flicks. Unfortunately I can’t find play lists for the show. Among the performers are Alabama space surfers Man or Astro-Man? and rockabilly wunderkind Ronnie Dee (who grew up to be Ronnie Dawson). But mostly they were cool hopped-up bands I basically know nothing about, such as The Giant Robots, The Stingrays, and The Happy Happy Jihads, who wrote an instrumental called “Red Baron vs. Mars,” inspired by the comic-book style logo of the Flying Saucer Rock ’n’ Roll podcast.


* Funky 16 Corners
If there’s a better place to find rare soul, funk, and old R & B MP3s on the Web, I haven’t found it. This blog, produced by music writer Larry Grogan, features funky stuff from his vinyl collection.

Grogan includes music from some famous folks. Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett were featured in recent posts. But Funky 16 Corners is a great spot for lesser-knowns as well. Ever hear of soulsters like Diamond Joe or Curly Moore or Stacy Lane, who did the Pickett-esque shoulda-been hit “African Twist”? I hadn’t either until I started frequenting this blog.

There are several themed podcasts. One recent one focused on Philly soul, another featured music from New Orleans. (I downloaded this one. I’d heard of most the artists, like Aaron Neville, Irma Thomas, and Eddie Bo. But it included some rarities, such as a Neville song called “Ape Man.”) Grogan also recently posted a podcast collection of proto-funk 45s by New Orleans soul man Lee Dorsey.

* Edward Chewtoy
Chewtoy has an audio site that is pretty small and which hasn’t been very active lately. The latest music post was made in May 2006, featuring a collection of Asian folk-music downloads.

But Chewtoy’s major contribution to American culture is a post featuring 26 MP3s from a criminally overlooked rock ’n’ roll subgenre — strip club rock. “This was what R & R was supposed to sound like some 50 years ago,” Chewtoy explains. “The stuff hot-blooded gals used to shake their moneymakers to in strip clubs.” It’s basically Twist-era R & B, some of which is colored by jungle-themed exotica.

Most of the selections are from a long out-of-print CD series called Las Vegas Grind. I’d only heard of one of the artists here — soul man Andre Williams, who does a suggestive little R & B workout called “Sweet Little Pussycat,” complete with yackety sax and fake meows. But I suppose in the strip-club rock pantheon, names like Space Man & The Rockets, Jack Hammer, and The Hully Gully Boys are golden gods. The latter group does a song called “Yabby,” complete with wild bongos, pseudo-cannibal chants, and a roller-rink organ solo.

“Little Girl” by John and Jackie would be a generic early ’60s rocker except that Jackie responds with a sexy “Little boy!” every time John sings “Little girl.” She makes undisguised orgasmic noises during much of the rest of the song. “Topless” by Rolls Royce & The Wheels is a novelty dialogue between a man and a woman discussing a beach bunny in a topless bathing suit over a bluesy musical backdrop. “I wouldn’t be caught dead in one,” the woman says. “I don’t want you dead in one, I want you live in it, baby,” the man replies.

* The 365 Project
This is a wellspring of obscure music, novelty tunes, strange children’s songs, and just plain weird audio. You can find programs including the Rev. Mike Mills’ 1980s explanations of Satanic “backward masking” in rock records; alternative versions of all the songs on Jesus Christ Superstar; George Wallace and Bobby Kennedy campaign songs; and The Odd Couple Sings — duets by Jack Klugman and Tony Randall. What else do ya’ need?

My favorite recent download is “Palolo Valley Girls” by Da Mokettes & The Incredible Q Band. It’s a Hawaiian rewrite of the Frank and Moon Unit Zappa hit, complete with local slang and island references. “She’s a Valley Girl in a Goodwill store.” Makes you wonder why nobody ever did an Española “Valley Girls” takeoff.