THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, February 8, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

Now Simulcasting 90.7 FM, and our new, stronger signal, 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
I Wanna Be Sedated by Two Tons of Steel
Cajun Stripper by Doug Kershaw
Waco Express by The Waco Brothers
Jockey Full of Bourbon by The Santa Fe All-Stars
Drunk All Around This Town by Scott Miller & The Commonwealth
3 Dimes Down by Drive-By Truckers
Redneck Friend by Dave Alvin
Hot Rod by The Collins Kids

Beatin' Ya Down by Dave Insley
Whiskey and Women and Money to Burn by Joe Ely
Morning Goodness by Robert Earl Keen & Butch Hancock
Angels of the Wind by Terry Allen
Lou's Got the Flu by Roger Miller
Oxycontin Blues by Steve Earle
A Few Extra Kilos by The Gourds
A Prisoner Says His Piece by Donna Jean & The Tricksters
No Swallerin' Place by June Carter

Moonshiner by Uncle Tupelo
(Mama) You Got to Love Your Negro Man by Dewey Cox
Yellow Mama by Dale Watson
Great Train Robbery by Ronny Elliott
Jesse James by The Pogues
O.A. Cargill & The Bandit by Acie Cargill
Jack of Diamonds by P.W. Long
Carve That Possum by Tom, Brad & Alice

Love Me by Elvis Presley
More Than I Can Say by Rosie Ledet
Come a Little Closer by The Last Mile Ramblers
Try Me One More Time by David Bromberg
Wild Bill Donovan by Stan Ridgway
Old Five and Dimers Like Me by Waylon Jennings
Always Life Him Up and Never Knock Him Down by Dwight Diller and John Morris
My Ship Will Sail by Johnny Cash
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

eMUSIC FEBRUARY

* What's For Dinner by The King Khan & BBQ Show. Guitarist King Khan is a Canadian of East Indian descent who has recorded on the Voodoo Rhythm label with a hopped-up soul band called The Shrines. (I was lucky enough to nab the album Three Hairs and You're Mine right before Voodoo Rhythm pulled out of eMusic.) BBQ, aka Mark Sultan, is another Canadian who performs as a one-man garage band (think King Automatic, Bob Log III).

Together these two make spirited, stripped-down lo-fi raunchadelic magic. There's raw Yardsbirds/Count Five rave-ups and primitive blues. But what makes this collaboration special is the sweet doo-wop sounds on several tunes. Sultan and Khan aren't afraid to let their inner Frankie Lymon shine.

* Problems by Lee Fields. Fields is one of the leading lights of the current soul revival. Though this proud follower of James Brown started out back in the '70s, about 10 years ago he was one of the major dudes at the influential Desco Records. More recently he's recorded with Sharon Jones.

This is a cool, funky album, not quite as electrifying as Let's Get a Groove On, the album that turned me on to Fields nearly 10 years ago. But there's some great tracks. "Rapping With Lee," with his advice for good relationships, reminds me of those old Joe Tex talking songs. And "Bad Trip" should have a movie scene written around it.

* The World's Rarest Funk 45s by Various Artists. I can't swear these are the "rarest" funk tunes, but I do know I hadn't heard of any of these artists or any of the songs until I stumbled upon Lenny Kaye's monthly column in e-Music.

These funksters -- bands like Tony Bowens & the Soul-Choppers, The PCs Ltd., and Shades of Black -- might not have achieved fame, but they got the sound down. If you like the cool, obscure soul and funk you find on the Funky 16 Corners blog, you'll like these funk 45s.

Unfortunately there's no liner notes available (one of eMusic's weaknesses), but I'm guessing most of these were recorded in the late '60s or early '70s. My favorites so far are "Funky Thing" by Larry Ellis & The Black Hammer (great chugging organ and swampy guitar) and "Eggroll by The M&S Band (hard-charging horns led by a baritone sax.)

* Feels by Animal Collective. I'm a newcomer to this cult. I recently was turned onto Panda Bear -- one of the animals in this collective -- and his solo CD Person Pitch, which was on loads of critic Top 10 lists last year. (It's also available on eMusic.)

This is AC's 2005 album. It's spacey and out-there, but very melodic and accessible. And it rocks without ever getting cheesy. Both Panda and Animal Collective are influenced greatly by Smile-era Brian Wilson. They also remind me of a techno-version of early Mercury Rev.

While I was writing this blurb, I came across a live version (from Lisbon) of Panda Bear's "Bros," a show-stopping 11-minute tune also on Person Pitch. I couldn't resist I just wish there were more live Panda tunes here.

* Evangelista by Carla Bozulich . I've been a Carla fan ever since the night back in the early '90s when I saw The Geraldine Fibbers open for Mike Watt at Club Alegria in Santa Fe. This album, released in 2006, isn't as accessible as The Fibbers or Carla's 2003 take on Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger. Aided by former Fibber and current (I think) Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, Carla on this album sounds much closer to her earlier band Ethyl Meatplow.

The album starts out with a 9-minute existential cry ("Evangelista I") that I can only described as "bruised gospel." It sounds like a tortured sermon from the very pits of Hell, harsh and naked. The next song, "Steal Away," is gentler, though still infused with despair. It sounds like a lost Bob Dylan gospel song. Then with "How to Survive Being Hit by Lighting" she's back in the fires -- though this one sounds like an electrical fire. There's never a moment that's not intense on this album. On "Baby, That's the Creeps," when Carla, backed by a spook-show organ, sings "I won't go now into your dark room ..." you get the feeling she's about to be ensnared by a serial killer.

Evangelista ain't easy listening by any stretch of the imagination. You have to be in the mood -- and that's a pretty strange mood -- but it's powerful stuff.

* Everything is Possible: The Best of Os Mutanates. (The eight tracks I didn't already have from Technicolor.) Imagine a mash-up of "The Girl from Ipanema" with Santana's "Evil Ways," mix in a goofy Beatle-y sense of humor and you've got a start on comprehending Os Mutantes, Brazil's best known "psychedelic" band from the late '60s and early '70s. They were playing their unique style back when it was dangerous to do so under the military regime of the era.

At first the softer edges of these Mutants put me off a little. But their melodies, pretty, Sergio Mendes side gets to be addictive. It hooks you in and before you know it, you're being sideswiped by some craziness.

* Mind of Fire by S.T. Mikael. I guess I've been in the mood for foreign psychedelia lately. Mikael is a Swede who's been cranking out strange and sometimes wonderful rock for years. Released last year, this is his first album in 11 years.

The first tracks are lengthy studio tracks, lots of fuzz-heavy guitar and Deep Purple organ sounds, recorded with other musicians. But the last 10 are bedroom recordings made during the last decade, which in the "Bonus CD Intro" track Mikael describes as a time of loneliness and feeling lost. There's lots of meandering LSD rock rock, but also some disturbing slow acoustic doom passages in which Mikael sounds like a Scandinavian Jandek.

*Venus on Earth by Dengue Fever. Speaking of foreign psychedelia, if you're not familiar with Dengue Fever, change that now! They're a southern California band featuring the vocals of Cambodia-born Chhom Nimol. They specialize in surf/garage sounds colored by the type of American-influenced Asian rock that young Cambodia loved in the '60s and '70s until it was wiped out by those most evil Commie maniacs, the Khmer Rouge, who took over in the mid '70s, doing their best to wipe out all vestiges of "corrupt" Western cultural influences. Pol Pot is dead and discredited and Dengue Fever lives. Long live rock 'n' roll ! (See my full review of this album HERE)

Plus:

* "Rockin' Chair Daddy" and "Rock a Little, Baby" by Harmonica Frank Floyd. This is the original version. After downloading the latter-day Harmonica Frank album last month, I had to get some of his original stuff. The first one is from a Sun Records compilation, the latter from an obscure compilation, Memphis Rockabillies, Hillbillies & Honky Tonkers, Vol 2 from a just as obscure label, Stomper Time. Unfortunately, in each case it's the only Harmonica Frank cut included.

* "Cheney's Toy" by James McMurtry. This single from McMurtry's upcoming Just us Kids was a free track from eMusic, so I snatched it, even though I have the advance CD. It's a diatribe against the current chief executive, which I don't mind, though I have trouble with the truism that forms the premise of the title. McMurtry's written far better protest songs. This comes nowhere near "Can't Make It Here" or even "God Bless America" (the McMurtry song, not Kate Smith's), which is on Just Us Kids.

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: JON SPENCER -- THE TRASHMAN COMETH

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
February 8, 2008

I didn’t realize until a few weeks ago when I downloaded a rarities compilation called Jukebox Explosion: Rockin’ Mid-90s Punkers! by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion just how much I’ve missed Jon Spencer in all his get-down gonzo glory.

It’s not that Spencer hasn’t been around. In recent years, he’s done a couple of albums under the guise of Heavy Trash, a quasi-rockabilly duo with Matt Verta-Ray. True, Heavy Trash is kind of fun — I really enjoyed their guest appearance on The Sadies’ In Concert, Volume One album a couple of years ago.

But Heavy Trash is just a light snack compared with the all-you-can-eat, Hound Dog Taylor-on-angel-dust banquet that was the Blues Explosion, which hasn’t released an album of new material in four years.

The JSBE seemed to be everywhere back in the last decade. The band once opened for The Breeders at a Sweeney Center show here in Santa Fe. You could say Spencer and the boys tore up the place years before the city did.

Spencer started the Blues Explosion following the breakup of his ’80s band, Pussy Galore, a delightfully raunchy and anarchic group that received even less mainstream notice than the Blues Explosion. (Some of the group’s album titles I can’t even print in a “family” newspaper, and I probably shouldn’t admit how much I like ’em.)

For the Blues Explosion, Spencer recruited fellow guitarist Judah Bauer and drummer Russell Simins for a stripped-down (not even a bass!) sound. Aghast blues purists never fail to note that this band did not produce sounds normally associated with the blues.

However, as one wise critic noted in a review of one of the group’s early albums, they did play blues and soul riffs, but it was blues filtered through The Stooges and New York Dolls. It’s a sweaty, joyful sound. Spencer and crew were roots conscious but not shackled to tradition. When they teamed up with Mississippi blues shouter R.L. Burnside on the 1996 album A Asspocket of Whiskey, Spencer, Bauer, and Simins fit right in, adding spirit and energy what must have been some wild recording sessions.

Jukebox Explosion is a collection of mostly old singles that had been available only on 7-inch vinyl, which means only serious collectors had ever heard this stuff before now. (And some tracks have been previously unreleased.) Most of the songs were recorded from the band’s mid-’90s glory days, although some are later.

“Ghetto Mom,” for instance, is an outtake from Plastic Fang, the Explosion’s 2002 album. Unserious collectors who love Spencer won’t be disappointed. All 18 tracks are high-charged, high-decibel offerings to the voodoo blues gods with Spencer howling like a soulman trapped in the rubble of a subway wreck.

The album is released on a label called In the Red — which might describe the company’s finances, though more likely it’s a reference to where the sound-level needle was when these songs were recorded.

There’s an ode to a serial killer, “Son of Sam,” which features a jittery guitar intro and a guest saxophone player who makes the horn scream in sympathy with the killer’s victims. And there’s a tribute to an exotic dancer, a chaotic little rocker called “Show Girl,” featuring background vocals by Spencer’s wife, Cristina Martinez (formerly of Pussy Galore, now with the band Boss Hog).

The Explosion actually slows down for “Jailhouse Blues,” an ominous spoken-word dirge featuring Spencer on theremin. In the minute-and-a-half “Get With It,” there’s a desperate harmonica and a crazy piano. I thought the latter probably was the ivory tickler from Reefer Madness, but in reality it’s none other than Dr. John.

All in all, this is beautiful trash, and I’m happy to see it unleashed to the masses.

Also recommended

*The Black and White Album by The Hives. Despite what The Hives may tell you, The Hives is not my favorite band.

I do enjoy these Swedish meatheads quite a lot, however, and few current bands have made a dent in the mainstream rock as relentlessly as The Hives.

On The Black and White Album, the first Hives album in about three years, the band, fronted by singer Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist, continues down its path of straight-ahead, punk-metal-edged guitar rock.

The band saved its best for the first. “Tick Tick Boom” is the hardest rocker on the record and an instant classic Hives tune. The group sounds like it’s been listening to Green Day on the bouncy “You Dress Up for Armageddon.” But The Hives go for the throat on other rockers like “You Got it All ... Wrong,” “Square One Here I Come” (check out the Alice Cooper influence here), and the album closer “Bigger Hole to Fill.”

The Hives frequently display an off-kilter sense of humor and their special way with self-referential titles and shameless self-promotion. For instance one song is called “T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S.” (”We rule the world/ This is our world,” goes the robotic chorus.)

There’s also an instrumental tune called “A Stroll Through Hive Manor Corridors,” a break from the romp ’n’ roll, that features a creepy Casio organ. This one, as well as the piano-led singalong “Puppet on a String” (no, not the Elvis Presley song) are in the tradition of other inspired sore-thumb tracks that stick out on Hives albums — the weirdo soul of “Diabolic Scheme” on Tyrannosaurus Hives and the quirky Impressions cover “Find Another Girl” on Veni Vidi Vicious.

The Hives long ago wore out their “next-big-thing” status, but its great they’re still having this much fun on record.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: NM VOTES. WHAT'S IT TO YOU?

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
February 7, 2008


Twenty-one states that held presidential primaries and caucuses on Super Tuesday dutifully counted the votes cast and reported their results like the conformists they are.

But New Mexico, where the state Democratic Party held a caucus, dared to be different.

We’re mavericks here in this Enchanted Land. We’re rebels, freethinkers. We’ll count our votes when and how we feel like it. We won’t cater to CNN or MSNBC. Or the people of New Mexico.

We might know who won New Mexico by the end of the week.

Or we might not.

What’s it to you?

I attended last month’s Iowa caucuses. Just like in New Mexico, everyone in Iowa seemed amazed at this year’s heavy turnout. Some said the number of people who showed up at Democratic voting sites was double the number who participated in 2004. Of course, Iowa allows independents to take part in the Democratic caucus, and citizens can even change their voter registration right there at the polling place. A real invitation to chaos.

So what did they do with this opportunity? Iowans counted up the votes and reported statewide results within an hour or so. Ho hum. No late nights for the good citizens of Iowa. I guess all the farmers had to get up the next morning and slop the chickens and milk the hogs or whatever they do up there.

But here in New Mexico, we’re not afraid to stay up past midnight or into the wee hours, or even to take a few days to get the vote.

In most states, you just go to your polling place, vote, go home, eat dinner and find out who won by watching TV.

But in New Mexico’s Democratic caucus, voting is a gamble. An adventure.

Maybe you’ll get a ballot. Maybe not.

Maybe you can vote on a scrap of paper. And maybe that vote will actually count.

Maybe you’ll be told to drive across town to another polling place.

Maybe the guy in line behind you will start screaming.

Maybe your ballot will be stored overnight at somebody’s house in Rio Arriba County.

So many chances for fun and surprises.

In other states, they have polling places scattered all over the place. But in a New Mexico caucus, we get by with as few as possible. Rio Rancho, one of the most populous cities in the state, had just one polling place.

Some complained that having all those precincts jammed into one place led to long lines out into the cold and waits of two to three hours if you were determined to help pick a candidate for president.

That’s the negative way to look at it. But look at the bright side: It brought everyone together.

And what about these reports of people getting angry and frustrated about standing in line, then walking out? Who needs these sunshine patriots anyway? Our founding fathers fought and died for your right to stand in line for hours and wait days for results. So I don’t want to hear any sniveling from ingrates.

We should listen to Democratic Party leaders in the state. Sure there were some problems, they readily admit. But isn’t it great we had such a big turnout? Really, who cares what the result was? Details, details.

So let the national television pundits make snide little remarks about New Mexico’s way of voting. We do it our way. We dare to be different.

They’re just jealous.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, February 3, 2008
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
Dropkick Me, Jesus by Bobby Bare
Raw Power by Iggy Pop
Faster Pussycat by The Cramps
Naked by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Kicked Out by Pussy Galore
Bible, Candle and Skull by Th' Legendary Shack Shakers
Are You For Real by Question Mark & The Mysterians
It's Me by Dinosaur Jr.
My Wife's Best Friend by Kevin Coyne

Wild About You Baby by Hound Dog Taylor
Mixed Bizness by Beck
The Snake by Johnny Rivers
Sweet Little Pussycat by Andre Williams
Kukumunga Boogaloo by King Khan & His Shrines
The Girl Can't Dance by Bunker Hill
Love Train by The Yahoos
My Man is a Mean Man by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings

CAMBODIAN ROCK SET
Seeing Hands by Dengue Fever
I'm All Skinny by Sinn Sisamouth
Rather Die Under the Woman's Sword by Yol Aularong
Rebel Guitars with Strange Dialects (from Radio Phom Penh)
Sober Driver by Dengue Fever
Oops ... He's Mute by Pan Ron
Dance Soul Soul by Liev Tuk & Rom Sue Sue
Oceans of Venus by Dengue Fever

Black Sheep by Dewey Cox
Anay Yo (Otebi) by Cankisou
Let's Get Killed by David Holmes
Field Commander Cohen by Leonard Cohen
Fare Thee Well Sweet Malley by Robin Williamson
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis