TERRELL'S TUNEUP: AN AMERICAN BAND

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

I’m not sure why anyone would be interested in a Florida bar band that most people outside of Florida have never heard of — a group that rose in the early ’80s and then sputtered to a stop well before the end of the decade, leaving behind no real hits and no MTV videos to get nostalgic over. Why would anyone care about a beer-drenched band led by a singer who called it quits, left showbiz for law school, and never looked back?

Because they sound so dang good!

You have to wonder why you never heard of them, and you wish you had been there for at least a few of those nights in some sweaty Fort Lauderdale saloon.

This is the story of Charlie Pickett, attorney at law, whose studio work from the crazy ’80s was recently released in an irresistible retrospective from Bloodshot Records.

The album Bar Band Americanus is credited to Charlie Pickett And — which first made me think that some guy was ripping off Johnny Winters. That’s not the case. Charlie’s first band was called The Eggs. Later, after the original Eggs cracked up and Pickett moved to Minneapolis, his band became known as The MC3.

Whatever he was calling his group, Pickett played a high-charged brand of roots rock. Like any self-respecting bar band of that period — or, I’d argue any period — his debt to Exile on Main St.-era Rolling Stones is proudly displayed.

Nearly all the songs here are original, though there are rocking covers of The Flamin’ Groovies’ “Shake Some Action” and a stomping take on Son House’s “Death Letter.” I have to agree with the liner notes that The White Stripes’ version sounds like it owes more to Pickett’s take than to Mr. House’s. (This reminds me — at this year’s Thirsty Ear Festival, young bluesman Samuel James argued that “Death Letter” is the greatest song ever written. Talk amongst yourselves.)

Among the highlights here are “Liked It a Lot,” a bluesy slow burner with a feedbacking guitar screaming in the background. It’s a song of sexual jealousy with lyrics I won’t even try to sneak in here. Let’s just say this could be considered a male version of Marianne Faithfull’s infamous “Why’d Ya Do It?”

On the other end of the spectrum is the upbeat “Penny Instead,” in which Charlie sings about his unabashed love for a woman, happily comparing Penny to less desirable girls in his past (“I could have had crazy, but I got Penny instead”) while his slide guitar squeals with delight.

One of my favorites here is “A. on Horseback” — the “A” is short for “America.” It’s a nostalgic look at this great nation of ours (“There were giants in those days”), featuring a cool ongoing duel between Pickett’s slide and Jim Duckworth’s burning guitar. Then there’s “Marlboro Country,” which shows The Eggs could handle the “Louie Louie”/“Hang On Sloopy” riff with the best of ’em.

Also recommended:

* Poison by Hundred Year Flood. Speaking of great American bar bands, Hundred Year Flood is one group whose members I hope never go to law school. Their long-awaited fifth album is ng short of a jewel — and a polished jewel at that. Poison is definitely slicker than most of the group’s previous releases. But it works.

Several tunes stand out here. Some of them are ones the band has been playing live for some time now.

The opening cut, “Hell or High Water,” has received much attention because Taj Mahal plays harmonica on it. Taj sounds great, but I’d be hooked on the tune even without him. It’s a slow swamp-stomper that starts off with Bill Palmer singing, “Last night I heard the coyotes howl and moan.” It’s like an omen that sets an uneasy mood. Felecia Ford sings the next verse. Flood’s repertoire is roughly divided between “Bill songs” and “Felecia songs,” but some of the band’s best are the ones on which they both sing lead.

The title song is one of the catchiest rockers on the album. It features a “Peter Gunn” bass line and a garage-rock guitar riff that will poison your brain.

The lyrics of “Sara & Jane” sound a little bit like an early Bruce Springsteen song, though the music, with a whining electric guitar, sounds a lot like classic Fleetwood Mac.

The song “Electricity” broods in the darkness, slow and spooky (“This is how death must feel, helpless and unwanted,” Ford sings). Don’t listen with the lights out. Meanwhile, “Grinding Wheel,” also sung by Ford, has a nice country feel. It’s an emotional little song with great imagery of an angry man who “left a mark out on the gravel when you drove away.”

“Neck of the Woods,” which features vocals by Flood pal Shannon McNally, is awfully purdy, but the most gorgeous song on this album (and perhaps in HYF history) is “Truly.” Sung by Ford, it’s nothing but a sweet declaration of love and fidelity (those of us who were at the band’s performance on the Plaza last summer, the day that bass player Kendra Palmer and drummer Jim Palmer had their baby, will always remember “Truly” as the song that opened that show).

After a few listens, my surprise favorite on Poison is “Down Thru the Holler,” a minor-key folk-rocker with some fine acoustic guitar work by Bill Palmer and haunted harmonies between him and Ford.

I’ve said it before. This town is lucky to have a band like Hundred Year Flood. This album reinforces that notion.

AN IMPORTANT MEMBER OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION GETS TESTY WITH THE PRESS

LEGISLATURE SHAKE-UP?

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 6, 2008

Final results of several New Mexico legislative races won’t be known until county clerks count provisional ballots, a process that could take several days.

Meanwhile, with the likelihood of several new Democratic faces in the state Senate, Gov. Bill Richardson said Wednesday there’s a better chance he’ll be able to get along with the Legislature’s upper chamber. The Senate in the past has been a major stumbling block for Richardson initiatives, such as health care reform.

While insisting that he never interferes in legislative leadership battles, Richardson at a news conference blasted one of his chief critics in the Legislature, Senate President pro tem Tim Jennings, D-Roswell.

Unofficial returns posted by the secretary of state show three Republican incumbents in the Senate were trailing Democratic challengers. Republican Whip Leonard Lee Rawson of Las Cruces was more than 500 votes behind Democrat Steve Fischmann. Sen. Steve Komadina, R-Corrales, had 55 fewer votes than Democrat John Sapien.

And, in a race that turned out not so close, incumbent Sen. Diane Snyder, R-Albuquerque, was defeated by Democrat Tim Eichenberg by a margin of nearly 13 percentage points.

On the House side, three incumbent Albuquerque conservatives were trailing Democrats:

Challenger Bill O’Neill was ahead of Rep. Teresa Zanetti by four percentage points. Benjamin Rodefe was beating Rep. Eric Youngberg by 413 votes. The closest House race was in District 30, where Rep. Justine Fox-Young was 155 votes behind Democrat Karen Giannini.

While the unofficial results include all polling places plus early and absentee ballots, James Flores, a spokesman for the secretary of state, warned that the unofficial results do not include provisional ballots, so the results in closer races are uncertain. “Those will be counted during the canvass,” Flores said. “We won’t know until then.”

Provisional ballots are cast by people who show up at the polls and find their names aren’t listed on the rolls, or by those casting votes away from their home precincts. It is up to county clerks to determine which provisional ballots will be counted, and traditionally about half eventually are thrown out.

Flores didn’t have any totals of the provisional ballots in the close legislative districts. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Mary Herrera said there were “tons” of provisional ballots cast statewide on Election Day.

Provisional ballots caused a major problem in February’s Democratic Party presidential caucus. In the extremely close race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, it took about two weeks for a final vote count. The caucus was run by the party, but voter rolls were provided by the state.

But even though the latest vote count isn’t final, Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, on Wednesday issued a news release in which he welcomed Eichenberg, Fischmann and Sapien to the Senate. “I met with and offered my support and assistance to all of the candidates immediately following the primary election. It is difficult to unseat an incumbent and I am gratified to see that we were successful in those races,” Sanchez said.

Richardson on Wednesday told reporters he hopes newly elected Democratic legislators tend to be progressives, “and this will allow the Legislature to push for new progressive initiatives and new opportunities for change.”

Speaking of the Senate, the governor said, “With these new Democrats likely coming to the Senate, I expect we also may see a number of positive changes in legislation, and with that I see an opportunity to engage in honest dialogue. I see an opportunity to break the gridlock that has plagued our progress on a lot of important issues.”

In addition to new senators who won or may have won Tuesday, some other new progressive Democrats claimed seats in the primary, including Eric Griego and Tim Keller of Albuquerque. Also, Peter Wirth of Santa Fe, who has been a House member for four years, won an unopposed Senate seat.

Asked whether he was hoping for a change in Senate leadership, Richardson demurred, then added, “But I think Sen. Jennings is going to have to answer to his caucus on how he interfered against a Democrat in a race, a Democrat who happened to win.”

He was referring to the Rawson/Fischmann race. Jennings recorded a “robo call” on behalf of Republican Rawson’s campaign in which he took “a stand against the character assassination” of Rawson by Fischmann.

The Democrat had pounded Rawson on several issues, including his use of more than $100,000 in public money to pave a road adjacent to a commercial development he owns. Jennings has said a group supporting Fischmann called his home Roswell one day and suggested that Rawson is a “crook.”

Richardson also criticized Jennings for sending a letter to school superintendents across the state, which warned that because of budget shortfalls some school districts might have to lay off personnel — even though Richardson has said his budget won’t call for layoffs. The letter, the governor said, was “irresponsible and premature.”

Regarding the recorded-phone-call issue, Jennings said Wednesday that while he didn’t endorse Rawson, “If someone is spreading lies about someone, I’m not going to sit and say, ‘Go ahead.’ ”

On the school letter, Jennings said he was only trying to warn school officials to start looking for ways to trim their budgets so they won’t have to lay off anyone. He said he sent the letter because he was chairman of the Senate Education Committee in the early ’80s, when the state had similar budget problems.

“Obviously when the governor is mad, he lashes out at you and goes into attack mode,” Jennings said. “I don’t have to run every letter I send by the governor. He never runs his letters by me.”

Wirth said Wednesday he’s not aware of any leadership challenges in the Senate. “I’ll be watching and listening to see what develops.”

CAMPAIGN 2008 MOSAIC

I was inspired while getting my photos for my column in previous post.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: IT WAS THE ELECTION THAT WAS

It’s over.

The longest election cycle in the history of the galaxy is over.

Hopefully, the volume of new messages in my e-mail in-boxes, both work and personal, will be reduced to humane levels.

My cell phone won’t be constantly buzzing with new text messages from the Obama campaign. (I just signed up last summer to get the news of his vice-presidential pick and suddenly they wanted me to work for them.)

I won’t feel compelled to start off each day looking at the RealClearPolitics.com electoral college map.

Indeed, it’s been a long election. For me it actually started in June 2005, when I followed Gov. Bill Richardson to the great state of New Hampshire. He hadn’t yet declared his candidacy. In fact, it was still more than a year away from his gubernatorial re-election campaign. Though he wouldn’t admit it at the time, Richardson was clearly testing the waters back in 2005 in the first primary state, making speeches, doing interviews and making contacts who could help him in the 2008 primary.

The real campaign, at least for most New Mexico political reporters, didn’t start until January 2007, when Richardson formally declared he was running for president. By the next month I was traveling to Carson City, Nev., for the first Democratic presidential forum. Richardson was there, as was Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, “Mad” Mike Gravel (who brought some much-needed laughter to the rather dull affair) and Tom Vilsack. (Remember him? He dropped out of the race not long after the Carson City forum.)
The only no-show in Carson City that day was Barack Obama. A year later I wondered if that contributed to his defeat in the Nevada caucus.

The presidential race was pretty nonstop after that. There seemed to be a debate every couple of weeks. But things didn’t really get serious in New Mexico until several months later when Pete Domenici announced he wouldn’t seek re-election. Reporters had to scramble to see who was and wasn’t running for Domenici’s seat, then all three of the state’s Congressional seats. Six Democrats and two Republicans ended up on the 3rd Congressional District primary ballot, not to mention two independents early in the race, plus a small army of Democratic politicians who were considering or rumored to be considering the congressional race.

Normally I bellyache every two years about the number of state legislators who get a free ride on election day. But this year I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved that there wasn’t any competition in the Roundhouse races in the Santa Fe area.

I’d also be lying if I said it wasn’t fun.

I’ll have lots of fond memories from this election — the freezing cold of New Year’s Day in Iowa, which made January in New Hampshire seem like a tropical paradise; the Democratic cigar party in Denver, plus running in to the likes of Jimmy Carter, Madelyn Albright, The Daily Show fake-news team and Captain Morgan; Obama in Española; John McCain in Albuquerque; Mitt Romney at an Airport Road tire store, just down the street from the restaurant where Caroline Kennedy spoke a few days before; strolling the farmer’s market with Tom Udall; eating tamales with Steve Pearce on a sunny day in Mora County; watching Richardson campaign among New Hampshire Hispanics at a Manchester barbershop; Richardson’s “job interview” ads, Udall’s “parrot” ads, Pearce’s “hippie” ad.

Yes, it was a heck of an election, Brownie. Now I’d better get busy deleting e-mail before my computer goes catatonic.

’60s Flashback: At the risk of mixing my roles as political columnist and music columnist, prompted by the first victory of a black presidential candidate, and the image of tears streaming down the face of the Rev. Jesse Jackson on television after Obama had been declared the winner, I spent a good chunk of Wednesday morning listening to Mavis Staples’ excellent We’ll Never Turn Back. This album, produced by Ry Cooder, consists mainly of civil rights-era songs — spirituals, civil-rights anthems, union songs and even blues, such as J.B. Lenoir’s “Down in Mississippi.” In the middle of the latter tune, Staples does a lengthy spoken part during which she remembers the Mississippi of her youth, when she was forbidden to drink out of certain water fountains.

“My gran’ma said, ‘Young ’un, you can’t drink that water,’ She said, ‘You drink from that fountain over there.’ And that fountain had a sign, said ‘For Colored Only.’ ”

I’m not black, and I didn’t grow up in Mississippi. But I clearly remember back in the mid-’60s, when I was a grade-school kid in Oklahoma. Our class had a field trip in which we rode in an old bus — apparently an old city bus — that had a sign saying: “Back for Colored Only.”

I don’t even remember where our class went that day. All that stands out from that day is that sign. I’m not even sure whether the back-of-the-bus rules still were being enforced in Oklahoma City by that point. But it was still close enough in time that nobody had bothered to remove that weird oppressive message from that bus.

So it’s easy to see why Rev. Jackson shed a tear, and why U.S. Rep. John Lewis, himself a civil rights activist, was speaking so emotionally in television interviews on Tuesday night and why, as blogger Joe Monahan reported, Lenton Malry, the first black state legislator in New Mexico, had tears in his eyes at the KNAW-FM studios when Obama’s victory was announced.

BLOG BONUS: Here's Mavis singing "Eyes on the Prize" from We'll Never Turn Back"