STRINGER, KOMA, SPIDER & THE CRABS

Friday night on The Santa Fe Opry I played a song called "Chevy Headed West" by Jim Stringer & The AM Band, off their new album Triskaidekaphilia . It's a moving, bittersweet song about a couple of young guys on a road trip to California in 1968, worrying about Vietnam and learning about the assassination of Bobby Kennedy on their car radio.

In an early verse, Stringer sings the praises of KOMA, that renown 50,000-watt AM radio station in my hometown of Oklahoma City that blasted across the Great Plains every night (from Texas to Chicago, Stringer sings, but it also was heard out here in New Mexico.)

As I kid I mainly used to listen to WKY in OKC. But I'd frequently switch over to KOMA. They played the same basic music as WKY, but they'd always be advertising teen dance parties at VFW halls all over the Midwest -- Kansas, Iowa, South Dakota. There were several bands these ads would talk about, but the one name I remembered was Spider & The Crabs. What a bitchen band name! How could a Spider gig be anything less than totally cool? As a grade school kid I'd fantasize about going to these places. To hell with California dreaming. I wanted to go see Spider & The Crabs in Pierre, S.D.!

Stringer and I were e-mailing Saturday and I mentioned my KOMA memories. He told me that all those bands that advertised on KOMA were managed by a company called Mid-Continent Entertainment. Jim was in a couple of those bands, The Upside Dawne and Tide.

Furthermore there's a Web site that has MP3s of more than 20 of those groups including both of Stringer's early groups, The Red Dogs, the Bluethings ... and Spider & The Crabs!

It's a real treasure trove. CLICK HERE and enjoy!

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, June 13, 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
Daddy Was a Preacher, Mama Was a Go-Go Girl by Southern Culture on the Skids
Wild Old Nory by The Wilders
Jessico by The Kentucky Headhunters
Bow-Legged Charlie by Otis Taylor
Chevy Headed West by Jim Stringer & The AM Band
Uncle Sam's Jail by The Hacienda Brothers
I'm a Gonna Kill You by T. Tex Edwards & Out on Parole
Daddy Rhythm Guitar by Paul Burch
Animal Hoedown by Harry Hayward

Cool and Dark Inside by Kell Robertson
Rice and Beans by Utah Phillips
The Righteous Path by The Drive-By Truckers
Pigsville by The Waco Brothers
My Name is Jorge by The Gourds
Ruins of the Realm by James McMurtry

Rita's Breakdown by Mama Rosin
Brand New Mojo by Boozoo Chavis
Cajun Stripper by Doug Kershaw
Be My Chauffeur by Clifton Chenier
Alligator Man by Jimmy C. Newman
Down in the Bayou by The Watzloves
Give Him Cornbread by Beau Jocque & The Zydeco High Rollers
Sugarbee by Cleveland Crocket
So Long Baby by Jo-El Sonnier
Zydeco Around the World by Rockin' Dopsie

By the Sweat of My Brow by Hazel Dickens
I'd Rather Be Gone by Merle Haggard
Train of Life by Laura Cantrell
Lead Me On by Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn
I'm Watching the Game by The Boxmasters
The Salty Sea by I See Hawks in L.A.
Lorena by John Hartford
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: SWISS VOODOO CAJUN MUSIC

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 13, 2008

This is not your father’s Cajun music.

Tu as Perdu ton Chemin is the work of a Swiss band called Mama Rosìn.

Swiss Cajuns? There are no alligators in the Alps, but I guess they speak French in Switzerland as well as in Louisiana, though it’s a little different.


And, no, the band isn’t named after some nice old lady who speaks Yiddish and makes chicken soup. It’s a traditional Louisiana song best known from the version by Cajun stomper Zachary Richard and is covered on this album under the title “The Story of Mama Rosin.”

Befitting of the group’s label, Voodoo Rhythm, the sound is rougher and rawer than most of the authentic Cajun and zydeco music produced in recent years. No pop-hit covers, no reggae overtones or jam-band trappings here.

It’s rootsy bayou punk at its finest. The band sounds closer to Cajun than do The Watzloves, Voodoo Rhythm’s other group that dabbles in these sounds. (The German-based Watzloves, however, do have a member from Louisiana — DM Bob.)

These Geneva Mama's boys have all their traditional Cajun instruments down — accordion, banjo, and even a triangle. You can tell they love and respect Cajun and zydeco as they romp through traditional favorites such as “La Valse Criminelle” and “Pine Grove Blues.” They love the music and respect the tradition. But fortunately they don’t treat it too reverently.

There’s a hopped-up drummer who sounds as if he’s trying to beat an alligator to death with his sticks. And there are lots of weird little touches, such as the subtle electro-freakout surge that threatens to overwhelm the end of “Johnny Can’t Dance.”

The strangest and most wonderful song here is “Rita’s Breakdown,” which, in addition to the accordion and slide guitar, features almost industrial-style drums and some metal guitar. With the sirens in the background, it’s almost as if Public Enemy produced a BeauSoleil record.

You can’t help but love the simple touches too, such as the spirited if somewhat out-of-tune hollering by the singer on the waltz “Prairie Ronde.”

Also recommended:

* Someone’s Got to Pay by The Wilders. I’ve covered a lot of murder trials for The New Mexican, but I’ve never served on a jury. But Phil Wade, who plays guitar, mandolin, banjo, and dobro for the Kansas City, Missouri, country-rock band The Wilders, did, back in 2005. He and his fellow jurors in Jackson County decided on a life sentence for “a young man, recently divorced, who shot his ex-wife outside her apartment complex,” Wade writes in the liner notes of this album.

“As I listened to the testimony unfold, I was unnerved by a nagging familiarity to the story. It was an old murder ballad come to life.”

The life-sentence decision was not something Wade took lightly. And apparently the experience has haunted him. He wrestles with it on Someone’s Got to Pay.

This isn’t really a concept album, though there are recurring interludes called “Sittin’ on a Jury,” which deals with various aspects of the trial — the defense, the prosecution, the verdict, etc. Some end with the plea, “Hey, Mr. Judge, let me off of this jury.”

The murder-trial aspect of the CD lured this old crime reporter into the album, co-produced by “Renaissance Mountain Man” Dirk Powell. Thus I discovered a band that makes a tired genre sound fresh. Songs like “Wild Old Nory” (a hard-rocking bluegrassy tune that could almost be an old ballad though it was written by Wilder singer Ike Shelton) and “My Final Plea,” (a fiddle-driven honky-tonker) deserve to be alt-country classics.

* Trains and Boats and Planes by Laura Cantrell. This is a nine-song EP by a New York country gal. Cantrell, born in Tennessee, hosted a show called Radio Thrift Shop for many years on New Jersey’s WFMU-FM. (Full disclosure: I’ve never met Cantrell, but both of us are part of the Freeform American Roots (FAR) radio group that produces a monthly chart. )

In recent years, she’s become best known for her own music. Her 2000 album Not the Tremblin’ Kind made her a favorite of the late British DJ John Peel and helped lead to an opening spot on an Elvis Costello tour.

Cantrell’s talent is only eclipsed by her great tastes. I knew I was going to love Trains and Boats and Planes — if only for her covers of two of my favorite obscure country songs from the early ’70s: Roger Miller’s “Train of Life” (covered by Merle Haggard on his landmark 1971 Someday We’ll Look Back album) and John Hartford’s “Howard Hughes’ Blues” from one of his greatest albums, Morning Bugle (1972).

Plus there are versions of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” New Order’s “Love Vigilantes,” a sad soldier song that sounds like it was written as a country tune, and a nice down-home version of the Burt Bacharach-penned title cut, which originally was a “British Invasion” tune by Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas.

I believe there was a federal law in the 1970s that stated that all country-rock bands had to cover Haggard’s “Silver Wings.” I’m not sure if it’s still on the books (it might have been amended to “Pretty Polly” sometime in the late ’90s), but Cantrell does such a fine cover of the Hag classic you almost forget you’ve heard it a zillion times.

Sorry technophobes, but this is a digital-only release, available from iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, and other digital retailers. As the Firesign Theatre might say, if you ask for it at a store, they’ll think you are crazy.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: THE LATEST ON BUCKMAN

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 12, 2008

A colorful and controversial political consultant from Mississippi who caused some embarrassment for New Mexico Democratic Party leaders a few years ago is back in the news, this time for pleading guilty in federal court to not filing income tax returns.

Richard Buckman, 39, pleaded guilty in February to two misdemeanor counts of willfully failing to file his federal income tax returns for 2002 and 2003, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office from the Southern District of Mississippi. He faces a year in prison and a fine of $25,000 for each count.

Buckman is almost an archetypal behind-the-scenes Southern political operative. Chicago political writer Stump Connolly wrote about a hotel bar encounter with Buckman, then working for John Edwards’ presidential campaign, while covering the 2004 Wisconsin primary. His description of Buckman — “a dark, brooding man in a dark suit and camel’s hair coat leaning into my shoulder” — seemed to indicate someone who enjoyed creating an air of mystery about himself. Besides his political consulting firm in Washington, D.C., he also is a partner in an entertainment business in Los Angeles.

Buckman made national news in 2004 for allegedly offering U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss., an unusual deal. Pickering said Buckman told him Democrats were willing to end their opposition to the nomination of the congressman’s father, Charles Pickering Sr., to a federal appeals judgeship. All Rep. Pickering had to do was agree to a redistricting plan that would effectively eliminate his congressional seat. (Buckman denied the story.)

In his current tax case, according to a May 29 story in the Sun Herald, a southern Mississippi paper, Buckman’s guilty plea was part of a plea bargain in which the government agreed to drop two other counts of failure to file tax returns. Those were from the years 2000 and 2001.

“The plea agreement also calls for Buckman to pay $181,714.81 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service for the years covered in the indictment,” the paper said.

During that four-year period, Buckman received gross income of almost $1 million, the U.S. attorney said.

Buckman’s sentencing, originally scheduled for last month, has been postponed until next month, the Sun Herald said.

“I have made some mistakes in my life and I am trying to make amends, do the right things, and get my life straight now,” Buckman told me in an e-mail Wednesday.

Buckman, The New Mexico years: Buckman first came to public attention in this state when several Democrats began to publicly question the $40,000 contract he had with the state party in 2004 and 2005. The contract was for “party building and fundraising.” But some party activists questioned the value of Buckman’s work and called the contract a “sweetheart deal” — literally — noting Buckman at the time was dating the party’s then executive director.

Then-state Democratic Party chairman John Wertheim defended Buckman in a 2005 interview, saying Buckman “did valuable work for the party in terms of fundraising” and had helped strengthen the state party’s relationship with the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Wertheim insisted Buckman’s relationship with the executive director had nothing to do with getting his contract. But the director resigned about a week after stories about Buckman and his contract appeared in The New Mexican. State Democrats said her departure had nothing to do with the stories.

But Wertheim on Wednesday no longer would defend Buckman. “As I learned more about Mr. Buckman, it has caused me to question whether it was wise to employ him as a consultant,” Wertheim said. “Hindsight is 20-20.”

There was another notorious New Mexico incident involving Buckman.

He was arrested in Albuquerque on a drunken-driving charge in October 2004. The two Albuquerque cops who pulled him over said Buckman showed the classic signs of intoxication — bloodshot, watery eyes, slurred speech and the strong odor of alcohol — and he failed a field sobriety test.

However, a judge later ruled the sobriety test wasn’t valid because Buckman was too heavy. Police guidelines state that DWI suspects who are more than 50 pounds overweight shouldn’t be given certain physical tests involving balance. So Buckman’s DWI charge was dropped.

Bad blood in Texas: Buckman became involved with another state Democratic Party executive director, though not in a romantic way.

Mike Lavigne, a former executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said Wednesday that he and a group of investors were “scammed” out of $35,000 by Buckman in a business deal involving the purchase of storage containers from the government. Lavigne created a Web site about Buckman, whom he calls a “con artist.”

Lavigne, who now has his own government and public relations firm in Austin, Texas, said Buckman promised to repay everyone involved when the deal fell through — but all the checks bounced.

When one of the investors confronted Buckman via e-mail, he replied, “The funds have been held up by the Feds is what happened. I am in meetings today with them as they want to have me roll on some people, mostly politicians and attorneys, in return for freeing my money, and making my charges go away. ...”

Asked about this Wednesday, Buckman replied: “There is no truth to what (Lavigne) says about me ‘scamming’ anyone. It was a business deal that didn’t work out. It’s his word against mine, no charges or lawsuits filed by him against me, so that just simply isn’t true. ... If Mike has an issue with his business with me he can file a civil lawsuit and a judge can decide, until then, that is what it is, nothing more.

“There was a conversation between he and I that was suppose to be confidential that there were people who wanted to discuss things with me. ... I am told that his repeating that and anyone who printed something of that nature could very well be committing Obstruction of Justice.”

Buckman’s sentencing is scheduled for July 25 in Gulfport, Miss.

REMEMBERING UTAH

My buddy Kell Robertson will headline a local tribute show next month for the late Utah Phillips. Also on the bill are Joe West, Georgie Angel, Kendall McCook, Mitch Rayes and Richard Malcolm.

Here's an excerpt from the official press release:

78-old New Mexico “beat” poet-songwriter Kell Robertson will make a rare public appearance to headline A Tribute to Utah Phillips concert at Santa Fe Brewing Company, Monday, July 14, 2008, starting at 7 pm. Joining Kell onstage to honor their mutual friend and inspiration, the late bard Utah Phillips, will be Joe West, Kendall McCook, Mitch Rayes, Richard Malcolm (of Burning Moonlight) and White Buffalo Music Presents Georgie Angel. Additional guests and friends of both Kell and Utah are expected to show up and sit in. Bill Nevins, contributing editor of Albuquerque ARTS monthly, will MC the evening. Admission is only $5 at the door, and fine food and beverages will be available.

This will be a rousing evening of music, stories, poetry and gentle rebellion, as befits the memory of the late Utah Phillips, the widely beloved songsmith, union advocate and raconteur who collaborated with Ani DiFranco on Grammy-nominated albums.

Kell Robertson, a long time friend and comrade-in-song of Utah Phillips, is himself an American treasure who has lived quietly in the Santa Fe area for the past ten years. He has performed his music and poetry from San Francisco to New York City .. For several years he tended bar and performed at the Thunderbird in Placitas, where he played and sang with the likes of Lightnin' Hopkins and hosted poetry and sang at Silva's Saloon in Bernalillo.

Kell lived in San Francisco for many years in the late 50s and early 60s, where he made his living singing at noted venues such as Vesuvio's and the Coffee Gallery, favorite hang outs for Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Diane di Prima, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and other Beat writers of the fabled North Beach scene. Kell’s songs, recorded on the albums Cool & Dark Inside and When You Come Down Off the Mountain, are finely crafted and heartfelt music of the American West. Although mostly retired from performing, Kell composes poetry and still writes and plays his guitar every night on the secluded farm where he lives near Cerillos. A new collection of poetry is expected later this year from Pathwise Press

RICHARDSON BRINGS KILLER ROBOTS TO NM

Apparently they'll be in Alamagordo, where they could do millions of dollars in improvements.

ALAMOGORDO -- Governor Bill Richardson today announced DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Pictures and director Michael Bay will return to New Mexico to film major sequences for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The next installment of the box office hit Transformers is expected to hit theaters next summer.

“Transformers was a huge success and I am pleased that Dream Works, Paramount Pictures and Michael Bay have decided to return to New Mexico to film the second installment,” said Governor Richardson.

The first film, starring Shia LaBeouf, Tyrese Gibson, Josh Duhamel, Megan Fox and John Turturro, grossed more than $700 million worldwide.

The current production has been prepping in Alamogordo since April and expects to begin filming in the fall.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, June 8, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Webcasting!
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
IN MEMORY OF BO DIDDLEY
(All songs by Bo, except where noted)

Bo Diddley
Diddley Daddy by The Super Super Blues Band
Pretty Thing by The Pretty Things
Cookie-Headed Diddley
Before You Accuse Me
Story of Bo Diddley by The Animals
Pills by The New York Dolls

Sixteen Tons
Bo Diddley's a Gunslinger by Warren Zevon
Bo Diddley's a Headhunter by Roky Erikson
Signifying Blues (Bo Diddley with Jerome Green)

Crackin' Up by King Khan & The Shrines
Cadillac by Van Morrison & Linda Gail Lewis
Bo Diddley Put the Rock in Rock 'n' Roll
Who Do You Love by Ronnie Hawkins & The Band
You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover
For another cool Bo Diddley tribute check out the latest RadiOblivion podcast

Moonland by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Smooth Jazz by Evangelista
Say it Loud (I'm Black and Proud) by James Brown
I Just Dropped In to See What Condition My Condition Was In by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Waddlin' Around by The King Khan & BBQ Show
Surf Rider by The Lively Ones
Yumma by The Fuzzy Set
Midnight Blues by The Detroit Cobras
Sex and Dying in High Society by X
We Repel Each Other by The Reigning Sound

I Fought the Law by Bobby Fuller Four
Johnny Appleseed by Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros
Pier 51 by CARBON/SILICONE
O Leaozinho by Caetano Veloso
Nantes by Beirut
Seems so Long by Stevie Wonder
You Can Never Hold Back the Spring by Tom Waits
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Laurell subbed for me Friday so I could see X and The Detroit Cobras. Here's her playlist.

Friday, June 6, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Substitute Host: Laurell Reynolds

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
Solar Broken Home-Steve Terrell
Wasted Days & Wasted Nights-Freddy Fender
This Ol Cowboy-Marshall Tucker Band
Molasses In the Moonlight-Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan
Michael Hurley-I'm Getting Ready To Go/Oh My Stars

Fishing Blues-The Holy Modal Rounders
Wake & Bake-The Assylum Street Spankers
The Protest Song-Neil Innes
Hippy Boy-The Flying Burrito Brothers
Okie From Muskogee-Merle Haggard

Fountain Of Love-Frank Zappa
El Paso-Marty Robbins
A Profound and Beautiful Sadness-Derrol Adams
Other Side to This Life-Fred Neil
Emmylou Harris-Everybody's Talkin At Me

Neil Young-Wayward Wind /Love In Mind (live at Massey Hall 1971)
Johhny Cash-You Wild Colorado
Gordon Lightfoot-Beautiful
Juanita-Rosalee Sorrells

Blue Canadian Rockies-The Byrds
Blue Eyes Cryin In the Rain-Willie Nelson
One Paper Kid-Emmylou Harris & Willie Nelson
Moment of Forever-Willie Nelson

Make You Feel My Love-Bob Dylan
Non Dirle Che Non E Cosi (If You See Her Say Hello)-Francesco de Gregori
Red River Valley-Don Edwards

Defying Gravity-Jesse Winchester
John Hartford-Tater Tate and Allen Mundy
Joe West-The Human Cannonball
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

eMUSIC JUNE

* I've Got to Know by Utah Phillips. I downloaded this one just a couple of days after Phillips died in late May. I stumbled across this album on eMusic was searching for some good songs to play on my tribute to Phillips on The Santa Fe Opry.

This is a 1991 album, recorded during he first Gulf War when Korean war vet/pacifist Phillips was pretty pissed off at the U.S. government. As always, Utah tells the story best (from his Web site):

"During the Gulf War, I got plenty good and mad. I parked my car and wouldn't drive it because I said it wouldn't run on blood. Then, with the help of Dakota Sid Clifford, I went into a small but very fine studio here in Nevada City. I said to Bruce Wheelock, the engineer, `Set up two mikes and start the tape. I'll tell you when I'm done.' For the next seventy minutes I spouted, fulminated, and sang about war, peace, pacifism, and anarchy. I used songs, poems, and rants to make the point, and said, `Okay, turn off the machine.' Bruce said, `Don't you want me to edit it?' I said, `No! I'm mad! Leave it the way it is!'

* The King Khan & BBQ Show I was so happy that an American label (Vice Records) was releasing a King Khan & The Shrines best-of The Supreme Genius of King Khan & The Shrines) that I decided to download the album from Khan''s other band that I didn't have. (The one I do have is What's For Dinner?, which I got from eMusic a few months ago.)

The two-man King Khan & BBQ Show is a minimalist project for Khan, as the Shrines is a 9-piece soul outfit with a horn section. However, it's a fuller sound for BBQ (aka Mark Sultan), who normally plays as a one-man band.

This band, however isn't your normal high-throttle blues-bomb duo like The Black Keys, The Bassholes, etc. Sure there's some of that , though these guys usually swerve more to a garage-band sound. You hear aural references to both "Psychotic Reaction" and The Syndicate of Sound's "Little Girl" in "Lil' Girl In The Woods." But what really sets them apart is their wonderful do-wop sensibility that permeates several tunes here. This magic is evident on the first track "Waddlin' Around." Plus, you can even hear a little Righteous Brothers call-and-response in "Bimbo's Theme."


* Recapturing the Banjo by Otis Taylor. Otis gets together with a small army of his fellow contemporary blues warriors -- Alvin Youngblood Hart, Corey Harris, Guy Davis, Keb Mo' -- and jazz banjo man Don Vappie for a banjo-driven feast of sound. These guys want to reclaim the banjo as an African, and African-American instrument. There's old songs, new songs, and fresh takes on some of Otis' greatest hits.

For my complete review in Terrell's Tune-Up, CLICK HERE.

* Flammend' Herz by The Dead Brothers . This instrumental album is a soundtrack by Voodoo Rhythm Records' Swiss "funeral orchestra" for a documentary by Andrea Schuler and Olifr Rutz about Germany's oldest tattoo parlour. The cuts tend to be short (only one tune here being over three minutes), establishing an atmosphere for just a moment, then moving on to the next one. You'll hear traces of gypsy jazz, banjo, accordion, tuba and even some spooky slide whistle on "Geistzug." The Brothers rock out on the first half "Road Worker Blues" (before it turns into a piano meditation) and Sicilian folk music on "Mai Lo Cantado Il Blues." And there's a way-too-short take on one of my favorite Leon Redbone tunes "Lulu's Back in Town." Some interesting stuff, but don't get this before you hear The Dead Brothers' most recent record Wunderkammer, which I reviewed a couple of years ago and also is available on eMusic.

* 10 tracks from The Pretty Things by The Pretty Things. After hearing a snippet of the song "Pretty Thing" by The Pretty Things on the latest Sonic Nightmares podcast, I decided I needed to play that on my Bo Diddley tribute on Terrell's Sound World. So I spent my last 10 tracks of the month on 10 of the 17 tracks available on this 1965 album. Asumedly for some legal copyright reason the song "13 Chester Street" isn't available on eMusic. So I took my points from Pepsi bottle caps and got this stray download from Amazon. So imagine my disappointment when I found out the damned Amazon Mp3 is damaged. Makes weird popping nosies. I want my Pepsi back!

X and DETROIT COBRAS at SANTA FE BREWING CO.

Yikes, what a show!

As faithful blog/Tune-up readers know, I just saw X three months ago at South by South West, and I considered that show one of the best of the festival. I normally don't go see bands that I've seen that recently, but, hell, X is X. Besides, I really wanted to see The Detroit Cobras.

And I'm glad I did.

I had a feeling it was going to be a fun night early in the afternoon when I went to the Brewing Company to buy my ticket (no kiddies, I don't get into concerts for free all the time. Paying for music is good for the economy, good for America and good for the soul.) Sitting at an outside table was none other than the members of X eating lunch. They were a friendly bunch. We talked a little about the Austin show, which they said was fun.

Between those two X shows, I have to say that the band sounded better in Austin, mainly because the vocals were mixed far better than in Santa Fe. Last night it was hard to hear the singing over the roar of the instruments.

But the Santa Fe show was more fun than the SXSW show, which was a live television performance (Direct TV). The local crowd last night was far rowdier and the band picked up on the energy. While in Austin their songs were clear, concise and tight, in Santa Fe they went a little crazy and stretched out at times, keeping those fires stoked.

It was a middle-aged mosh pit. It was the first one in several years for me, and, large as I am, I was being bounced around like a pinball. Yes, it was annoying at first (mainly because several potentially good photos were ruined when someone would come flying into me) , and yes, it did get old after a while. But in the middle, it was exhilarating.

As for the Detroit Cobras, they were good too.

The Cobras are a guitar-based self-described "covers band" that specializes in old R&B and soul tunes with a little rockabilly thrown in. Most of their material is obscure enough it might as well be their own. Singer Rachel Nagey has a husky sexy voice.

They got off to a rather slow start. It was still daylight, which Rachel said was strange for them. These flatlanders also complained about the altitude and lack of oxygen.

But once they got going and the audience warmed up, the magic started working. By the time they did "Shout Bama Lama" (an old Otis Redding tune) the place was on fire. I hope the altitude doesn't keep them away from Santa Fe in the future.

A couple of times during X's set, the Cobras took the stage as background singers/dancers. There seemed to be a good comradery between the two bands -- something you don't always see between headliners and opening acts.

Check out my photos of the concert. You can see X HERE and The Detroit Cobras HERE.