THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, December 19, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
If We Make It Through December by Merle Haggard
We'll Burn Together by Robbie Fulks
The Check's in the Mail by Johnny Dilks
Me and My Friends by Hank Williams III
Qualudes Again by Bobby Bare
I'll Walk Out by Miss Leslie
Dream Vacation by The Gear Daddies
I'm Barely Hangin' On by Johnny Paycheck
May the Bird of Paradise by Little Jimmie Dickens
Man Overboard by Libby Bosworth & Toni Price
The Tail of the Night Before/Dinosaur Christmas by Wee Hairy Beasties

Freight Train Boogie by The Maddox Brothers & Rose
Don't Miss That Train by Sister Wynona Carr
This Train by Sleepy LaBeef
Gotta Travel On by The Starline Rhythm Boys
That Truck by The Texas Rubies
Dying Breed by Kim & The Cabelleros
Hogtied Over You by Billy Bacon & The Forbidden Pigs with Candye Kane
Beer Can Christmas Tree by Jimmy Baldwin & Michael O'Neal
River of Crystal by Roy Acuff

I'll Have to Forget You by The Pineleaf Boys
Uncle Bud by Boozoo Chavis
Let's Talk About Drinking by The Balfa Brothers
Biker Boys by Rosie LeDet
Sugar Bee by Cleveland Croket
Fonky Bayou by Michael Doucet
Saturday Night Special by Lesa Cormier & The Sundown Playboys
Johny Can't Dance by Mama Rosin
Creole Stomp by Jimmy Breaux

Firewater Seeks Its Own Level by Butch Hancock
Summer Wages by David Bromberg
On the Banks of the Rio Grande by Joe West
Crooked Mile by Peter Case
Have Mercy by Steve Earle
That's the Way Love Goes by Lefty Frizzell
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

RIAA TURNS FOCUS TO SOMALIAN PIRATES

Not really. But they apparently will stop suing 11-year-old girls for illegally downloading "Happy Birthday to You."

See Wall Street Journal article HERE.

Yo ho Ho!

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: IN PRAISE OF FUZZ

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
December 19, 2008

The Fuzztones is one of those groups that seems to have been around forever. Given my taste for basic, loud, snotty psychedelic/garage/trash/primitive rock, I’m surprised that I’ve never been exposed to their music before. And now that I finally have — with their new album Horny as Hell — I think that they may be on the cusp of a major transformation.

First, a little Fuzzy history.

The Fuzztones have been around, in various forms, since the ’80s. They claim they used the description “grunge” years before the Seattle sound. Like The Fleshtones and The Cramps, they started out in New York. But The Fuzztones have gone through a number of personnel shifts and have moved around. The group was in California for a few years but broke up in the early ’90s after a major label deal flopped. T

he Fuzztones re-emerged this century, this time in Europe. Fuzzmeister Rudi Protrudi and his latest incarnation of the band have been based out of Berlin in recent years.

The ’08 model of The Fuzztones includes a horn section and a female chorus. King Khan & The Shrines, also based in Germany, must be a major influence on this punchy garage/soul sound.

Most the songs are Protrudi originals, though they cover a Pretty Things tune (“Alexander,” which features a guest appearance by Pretty’s bassist Wally Waller) and a Billy Gibbons tune — “99th Floor,” which he used to play with his pre-ZZ Top band, Moving Sidewalks.

There are some fine tunes here. “Black Lightning Light” features a lengthy minor-key spook-house-organ instrumental odyssey. This is one of several songs that originally appeared on The Fuzztones’ 2004 “comeback” album, Salt for Zombies.

Protrudi goes back even further in the Fuzztones’ catalog. For instance, my favorite song is probably a new all-hornied-up version of the old Fuzztones song “Ward 81” — which first appeared on their early ’80s debut album Lysergic Emanations. It’s a horrifying little tale of a psychiatric hospital: “Administer the medicine to my heart /Behind barred windows/The walls are whisperin’/Gotta flip a switch, pull out the stitches.”

If I’d been a Fuzztones fan since the start, I’d probably complain about all this recycling and demand more new material. But since I’m not familiar with the originals, I’m not complaining. It just makes me want to go back and catch up.

There’s some good junior-high humor here, Beavis. Besides the album title, which obviously refers to the new horn section (though the sax-playing she-devils on the cover are pretty sexy), some of the songs have titles like “Highway 69” (also from Lysergic Emanations) and the uncomfortable sounding “Johnson in a Headlock” (which originally appeared on Salt for Zombies).

So if you’ve got a dirty mind and a rock ’n’ roll heart, Horny as Hell will put your soul in a headlock.

Also recommended:

* Wrestling Rock ’n’ Roll by Lightning Beat-Man & His No Talent. On the subject of headlocks ... Here’s a Swiss-born one-man band in a lucha libre mask with a cheap four-track tape recorder. This is a rei(with three bonus tracks) of the long, long out-of-print first album by Voodoo Rhythm Records founder Beat-Man — also known as Rev. Beat-Man and also known briefly as Jerry J. Nixon.

The Lightning Beat-Man character came about circa 1992, when the young Beat-Man saw some Mexican wrestling on a trip to Los Angeles and was inspired to combine elements of that with the trash-rock that was his first love. The motto of his act in those days was “I fight on stage against me and my guitar and beat the shit out of it and win every night.” As this recording shows, he did his damnedest to live up to that and usually succeeded.

“Don’t want to talk like Hasil, don’t want to rock like Gene,” he sings in the opening tune and title song, evoking his heroes Mr. Adkins and Mr. Vincent. “I just want to be myself — wrestling rock ’n’ roll, that’s me/My name is Beat-Man.”

Most of the songs feature Beat-Man pounding the you-know-what out of his guitar and shredding his vocal chords as he sings bare-bones basic rock. One of my favorites is “Wild Baby Wow.” There aren’t many more words than the ones found in the title, and a couple of times Beat does a bridge that consists mainly of incomprehensible stuttering gibberish.

Sometimes words just can’t describe a feeling.

Many of these tunes would later appear on LBM’s Voodoo Rhythm album Apartment Wrestling Rock ’n’ Roll, recorded with a merry band of miscreants called The Never Heard of Ems. The song “Wrestling Rock ’n’ Roll Girl,” for instance, became “Apartment Wrestling Rock ’n’ Roll Girl.” If you’re hip to apartment wrestling then you’re probably a perv — and should enjoy this music as much as I do.

BONUS

This review was published with the Christmas CD reviews in this week's Pasatiempo:

* Holidays Gone Crazy by Wee Hairy Beasties. Would you trust your children with members of The Mekons and their disreputable friends? Heck, I would. This holiday album is the second release from the Beasties, which specializes in children’s music. The group is made up of Mekons Jon Langford and Sally Timms, along with Bloodshot Records chums Kelly Hogan, Rick “Cookin’” Sherry, Tom Ray and Joel Patterson.

Warning Christmas purists: Despite the title and the funny reptile in a Santa hat on the cover, not all the songs here are holiday tunes — and some of the holiday songs are for other holidays. In fact, there’s just as many Halloween songs here.

But there are a couple of oughta-be Christmas classics here.

“The Night Before ...” is a spoken-word piece by Timms that joyfully mixes "A Visit from St. Nicholas" with Immanuel Velikovsky’s Worlds in Collision to create a weird dinosaur fable.

“Long long long ago, long before the world we know/a fiery comet struck the earth/ and filled the air with dust and dirt/ Blocking out the sunlight so/ that all was white with ice and snow.”
These naturally leads into “Dinosaur Christmas,” which ce lebrates “Santasaur,” “stegosaurus eggnog and “Jurassic bells.”

The Steve Terrell Christmas Special: It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Join me and my old pal Scott Gullet for two hours of yuletide cheer with my special friends, including Bobby “Boris” Pickett, Rev. Glenn Armstrong, Soupy Sales, Shane MacGowan, and oh so many more. The festivities start at 10 p.m. Sunday on KSFR-101.1 FM and streaming on the web at ksfr.org. (And don’t forget The Santa Fe Opry, country music as the good Lord intended it to sound. Same time, same station, Friday night.)

Speaking of Christmas Music: If you haven't heard my latest podcast, get to it! There's an hour’s worth of my favorite Christmas music. Take a listen to that and to my previous podcasts HERE. Listen at the Web site, download, subscribe — whatever makes you happy.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: THERE'S NO COMMENT LIKE "NO COMMENT"

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
December 18, 2008


You have to give him credit for originality.

Most politicians, when they know they’re going to get peppered with questions about something controversial — say, a grand jury investigation — have a well-rehearsed statement to the tune of, “You guys know I can’t talk about grand jury proceedings, which are secret. I don’t want to say anything that might be seen as impeding an investigation, though I’m confident that no wrongdoing was done by anyone in this administration.” It’s simple, easy, and even though it’s pretty lame, it gets the job done.

But that’s not the route that Gov. Bill Richardson took at a news conference this week. He was able to dodge questions about the grand jury looking into a possible pay-for-play regarding a Beverly Hills, Calif., financial firm that was awarded nearly $1.5 million in work for the state around the same time the firm was making huge contributions to Richardson’s political action committees.

As has been well reported by myself and others, at a news conference about a new solar energy production facility in Belen, Richardson took a few questions about the new project. Then he announced the news conference was over and made a beeline for the door.

I was on the wrong end of the big marble table in the Governor’s Cabinet Room, so I was hoping some of my colleagues would be able to block the governor’s retreat for a few seconds so I could reach him. But Richardson went through them like a knife through hot butter, not acknowledging the questions. He ignored questions about the investigation shouted at him and, according to reporters near him at the time, never made eye contact.

As a former crime reporter, I knew better than to expect any answers about the grand jury proceeding and what he might have said or didn’t say to investigators. The question I had for Richardson — who is President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for secretary of commerce — was whether he had discussed the matter with Obama before, during or after the vetting process. I’m especially curious whether Obama has contacted him about the grand jury since the news broke in the national media.

We might have to wait until the Senate confirmation hearings to get those answers.

No, Richardson didn’t actually invoke the Fifth Amendment, but he clearly exercised his right to remain silent.

National reaction: You can’t really call it a media feeding frenzy at this point, but the national political chattering class has begun paying attention to Richardson’s grand jury.
Consider this item in MSNBC’s First Read blog on Tuesday. Under the headline “Did Obama’s vetters know this?” the blog asks, “Is Bill Richardson headed for a tougher-than-expected confirmation hearing?”

After stating the general facts of the case, First Read continues, “Does the (Illinois Gov. Rod) Blagojevich pay-to-play scandal give this news more scrutiny? The it’s-just-politics defense was probably enough to keep Senate vetters from digging too deep on this BB (Before Blagojevich). But what about now? Also, a retired Chinese-American businessman from San Francisco has started a group that resurrects the entire Wen Ho Lee controversy (by alleging Richardson denied Lee his due-process rights after terminating his employment). The group claims more than 9,000 signatures against Richardson’s appointment. Bottom line for those looking for the one Obama cabinet pick who will face confirmation trouble: You may want to move your chips off of Holder and on to Richardson.”

The right-wing National Review was even harsher, asking, “Could President-elect Obama soon have to look for a new commerce secretary?”

Concluded the National Review, “Maybe this FBI investigation will go nowhere. But in a post-Blagojevich environment, the Obama administration is probably going to be extra wary of associating with government officials under criminal investigation.”

Pull up your cyber socks: Albuquerque Mayor Marty Chávez’s office sent out this news release not once, but twice this week. It’s about a news conference where Chávez was “to Unveil His Public Safety Legislative Package Regarding Identify Theft, Cyber-Stocking, Auto Theft and Sexual Predators.”

I’m not sure what cyber stockings are. Maybe cyber stalkers will have to wear them.

State musicians at inauguration: The best party in the world Jan. 20 will be Obama’s inauguration in Washington, D.C. And some New Mexico musicians have been tapped to play there.

The Española Valley High School Mariachi Sol Del Valle has been invited to march in the inauguration. All participants in the parade are responsible for paying for their own lodging and transportation to and from the nation’s capital, so the mariachi band needs to raise some cash. Anyone interested in helping should contact Alfonso Trujillo, the band and mariachi teacher at Española Valley High School, 505-753-7357.

Playing at the American Indian Inaugural Ball at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Arlington, Va., on Jan. 20, will be Gary Farmer — actor, Santa Fe art gallery owner and blues harmonica demon — as well as Levi & The Plateros, a Native American Blues band from Tohajiilee, N.M.

I have a feeling there might be more announcements of New Mexico bands going to the D.C. shindig. Watch this space.

VANISHING ACT

A lot of reporters were looking forward to asking Gov. Bill Richardson at a press conference this afternoon about the CDR/GRIP grand jury. One TV station reportedly was even running promos about that.

However, right after announcing a new solar facility in Belen and taking a few questions about that project, Richardson announced the conference was over and bolted out of the room, ignoring questions about the grand jury.

Ironically, the new solar project will be part of the Rancho Cielo project, right off a planned new interchange off I-25. That interchange prompted news stories a couple of years ago because the developers, RS Investments, now known as Coast Range Investments contributed $75,000 to Richardson's 2006 re-election campaign.

Richardson might think questions about this will go away if he just ignores the questions. But I don't think so.

Here's the official news release on the new solar production facility:

Governor Bill Richardson Announces Signet Solar to Build Production Facility in Belen Creating 600 Jobs

SANTA FE-Governor Bill Richardson today announced Signet Solar will build the company’s first North American solar panel production facility in Belen. The first phase of the plant will bring 200 high-wage jobs to the state and is scheduled to begin operations in 2010. Signet’s long-term plans call for expansion and the creation of a total of 600 jobs.

“As Governor, I’ve been dedicated to making New Mexico a national leader of renewable energy and the creation of green jobs,” Governor Bill Richardson said. “At a time of economic uncertainty, this project will create hundreds of jobs and reaffirm New Mexico as a clean energy state and major player in our nation’s effort build a new clean energy economy.”

The Signet facility will produce large area thin-film silicon photovoltaic modules for commercial rooftop and ground mounted solar power systems. The first phase of the plant will have an annual production capacity of 65MW — enough to power approximately 20,000 homes. Long-term plans call to increase production capacity to 300MW per year with a 600,000 square foot production facility.

“New Mexico was an obvious starting point for Signet Solar’s expansion into the growing US renewable energy market,” said Rajeeva Lahri, Signet Solar’s Co-Founder and CEO. “Under Governor Richardson’s leadership, New Mexico has demonstrated commitment to renewable energy through public-private partnerships, leveraging its skilled workforce and world class research institutions.”

The 75-acre facility is situated 30 minutes south of Albuquerque on Rancho Cielo, a Coast Range Investments property in Belen. Signet will be the first company to set up manufacturing in the 6,000 acre Rancho Cielo master planned industrial and residential community. Rancho Cielo plans to use Signet panels on a 700 acre solar farm designed to meet the majority of power requirements of the Rancho Cielo community.

“Partnering with Signet Solar, we are excited about bringing such high quality jobs to Belen and the possibility of creating a sustainable green city in New Mexico,” said Jim Foster, Managing Partner of Coast Range Investment.

Headquartered in Menlo Park, California, Signet is the first mover in large area silicon thin film silicon PV technology. Signet began shipping product to customers from its first plant near Dresden, Germany in October of this year. The company has already installed several commercial rooftop and ground mounted systems in the region. Signet’s large-area thin-film silicon PV technology will bring down the cost of solar power and can be used for solar farms, large commercial installations, building integrated photovoltaics and remote habitation.

THE GRIP GRAND JURY

The federal investigation into the Beverly Hills financial firm that won a $1.5 million contract with the state after contributing to political action committees associated with Gov. Bill Richardson is starting to get some national attention.

Here's the Bloomberg story, which on Monday broke the news that a federal grands jury is hearing evidence. The Washington Post followed suit. Here's my own story, which admittedly doesn't break any new ground.

The conservative National Review blog comes out and asks the question, "Could President-elect Obama soon have to look for a new commerce secretary?"

My feeling, at this time is that Richardson will be confirmed, but the Republicans will make him sweat at the hearings. Between this and the Wen Ho Lee issue, Richardson might pine during the hearings for the good old days when his biggest worry was spatting with the state Senate.

DOMENICI'S PRESS OFFICE GOES DARK

Chris Gallegos, U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici's longtime (20 years-plus!) press guy just sent what's probably his last press release announcing his office is "going dark."

He attached a spoof press release that was sent to the Domenici staff four years ago.

From: Letourneau, Matthew (DOMENICI)
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 3:28 PM
Subject: NEWS: Domenici Press Office Goes Dark

NOT FOR PUBLICATION OR BROADCAST CONTACT: MATT LETOURNEAU

APRIL 23, 2004 (202) 224-7098

DOMENICI PRESS OFFICE GOES DARK

Press Staff Issues No Press Releases

WASHINGTON – For the first time in memory, the Press Office of U.S. Senator Pete Domenici did not issue a single press release today.

The successful experiment was considered by many to be impossible.

Chief of Staff Steve Bell had ordered the press office to cease and desist sending out releases in order to see what the impact on the Earth’s equilibrium would be.

Thus far, aside for emotional and physical problems affecting Press Secretary Chris Gallegos, no major changes in the Earth’s atmosphere have been reported.

However, Gallegos, a fifteen year veteran of Domenici’s staff, is showing signs of trauma. Today alone, he lost a substantial amount of blood, and was seen staring at pictures of Domenici as a child, as well as exhibiting signs of belligerent behavior, such as yelling “It ain’t a desert, its paradise!” at the television when a CNN report featuring FLETC-Artesia referred to the area as a desert.

“We’re worried about Chris,” said Deputy Press Secretary Matt Letourneau. “This is new for him. Instead of eating, Chris writes press releases. We’re just not sure where he will be getting his nourishment today.”

It is not known whether the Press Office will resume its policy of blanketing New Mexico with press releases Monday.
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