THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, May 15, 2009
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
Milkcow Blues Boogie by Elvis Presley
Roots Rock Weirdos by Robbie Fulks
American Music by The Blasters
Marie Marie by Dave Alvin & The Guilty Women
Silent Partner by Big Sandy & Los Straitjackets
One Last Question by Jason & The Scorchers
Amos Moses by Jerry Reed
When the Police Came by Mama Rosin
Kissin' Kouzans by C.C. Adcock

Soy Chicano by Flaco Jimenez
Jockey Full of Bourbon by Los Lobos
If You Ever Go to Houston by Bob Dylan
Boxcars by Rosie Flores
Honky Tonkin' by Joe Ely
Hank Williams Saved My Life by Ashley Raines
Steam Roller by Kris Hollis Key

I Could Get Used to This by Lil Mo & The Monicats
After All These Years by Mose McCormack
It Wouldn't Be Hell Without You by Cornell Hurd
One Kiss Away from Lonliness by Amber Digby
Shakin' All Over by Eilene Jewell
Hillbilly Blues by Ronnie Dawson
Ladies Love Outlaws by Waylon Jennings
Honky Tonk Affair by David Serby
Midnight Stars and You by Wayne Hancock

Back in the Goodle Days by John Hartford
The Cold Hard Facts of Life by John Doe & The Sadies
Botomless Well by Bobby Bare
Comeback Kid by Deano Waco & The Meat Purveyors
Now We Have the Bomb by Jon Langford
The Magician by Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks
Johnny One Time by Willie Nelson
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

HOOTENANNY FESTIVAL 2009

I'll be there.

Will you?

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: KHAN'S KINGDOM

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
May 15, 2009

Unlikely as it might seem, one of the greatest living soul men happens to be a Canadian of East Indian descent living in Europe. I'm talking about his majesty King Khan (born Erick Khan), who, with his band The Shrines, will amaze and delight all his subjects with the group's latest album, What Is?!

Khan is known — though not nearly as known as he should be — in two musical contexts. With his Montreal pal Mark Sultan, he's part of a stripped-down blues/punk/doo-wop duo called The King Khan & BBQ Show. But it's with The Shrines that he really shines. They're an extremely tight, though thoroughly insane, nine- or 10- or 11-piece band complete with horn section and a go-go dancer (billed as "Bamboorella, Go-Go Queen of the Underworld").

I was fortunate enough to see this band last summer at the Pitchfork Festival in Chicago. With The Shrines cooking ("like Stax/Volt all-stars on crystal meth," is what I wrote at the time) and Bamboorella gyrating like a crazy cheerleader, Khan bounced and lurched around the stage like a cross between Screamin' Jay Hawkins and some Hindu god.

A little explanation about this album. What What Is?! is is a reissue of The Shrines' most recent studio album, which was released by the German label Hazelwood in 2007. But, for reasons known only to the gods of commerce, it wasn't released in the U.S. at that time. It's now on Vice Records, which last year released the band's "greatest hits" compilation The Supreme Genius of King Khan. Five of this album's 14 songs also appeared on Supreme Genius.

Songs like "Land of the Freak," "I See Lights" (I love the bongos here), "I Wanna Be a Girl," and "Le Fils de Jacques Dutronc" (French lyrics on this one) show Khan and The Shrines at their hopped-up, rock 'n' soul finest. A classic tune is "In Your Grave," which starts out with a basic garage-rock guitar hook, and then takes a sharp turn to the funky with a snaky blaxploitation wah-wah guitar. The band plays like a dynamite truck with no brakes going 100 mph down a mountain road.

But Khan can also get mellow and meaningful. "Welfare Bread" is sweet, Southern-style soul with lyrics like "You don't have to pay your bills anymore, now/You just have to eat my welfare bread."

But the biggest surprise on What Is?! has to be the five-and-a-half minute "Cosmic Serenade." What can I say? It's cosmic. I'd read before that Khan considers one of his biggest influences to be the music of Sun Ra, but I never really heard much evidence of that until I heard this song. Meandering horns and primitive, jangly percussion (tambourine? rainstick?). Khan doesn't start singing until nearly two minutes into the track and then not for long.

After hearing this, I think Khan and the band ought to try Pharaoh Sanders' "The Creator Has a Master Plan."

You also can hear Sun Ra echoes, though not quite as obviously, in the opening minute or so of "Fear and Love." It's a fast-paced tune, but Khan doesn't play the soul shouter here. Instead he sounds like some laconic, psychedelic ranger. There's an irresistible multihorn freakout where most people would have put a solo.

The album ends with "The Ballad of Lady Godiva" — no, not the stupid old Peter & Gordon hit. This is an uncharacteristic folk-rockish, lo-fi tune with droning keyboards (by Freddy Rococo) and what sounds like a dulcimer. Khan sounds almost like Bob Dylan as he urges everyone to take off all their clothes.

It's great that Vice is rereleasing this album. I hope someday the company rereleases Khan's other albums, Three Hairs and You're Mine (originally on Switzerland's Voodoo Rhythm Records) and Mr. Supernatural, as well. And perhaps Khan will get his supernatural self to a recording studio soon and make a new album. I believe America is ready.

Also recommended:

Blue Day by Howard Tate. This album is the latest effort by Tate, an underappreciated soul man of the 1960s who re-emerged earlier this decade after decades in the wilderness of drugs, tragedy, and undeserved obscurity. Blue Day doesn't quite have the excitement level of his 2003 comeback album, Rediscovered. It's fun and very listenable, but too many tunes are run-of-the-mill.

A couple of the songs here are remarkable, however. The opening tune, "Miss Beehive," is a cautionary tale apparently inspired by troubled soul singer Amy Winehouse, the "Miss Beehive" who "likes to misbehave."

Sings Tate, "Everybody knows she puts something up her nose/And she don't want to go to rehab." But, with Tate's experience in life's gutter, there's compassion in the lyrics. "The girl is so defensive/Why does she act so tough/All of us should reach out to her/And send her a little love."

And there's "Stalking My Woman," a minor-key, first-person account of an obsessed lover who doesn't care about a judge's warnings to leave the poor girl alone.

If all the songs were as powerful as these two, Blue Day would have been a soul classic.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, May 10, 2009
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Webcasting!
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Not to Touch the Earth by Modey Lemon
Do the Rump by The Black Keys
Big ol' Bear by Little Howlin' Wolf
Cheap Women by The Black Smokers
Get Down Lover by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Let Me Holler by King Khan & The Shrines
Deliliah by Tom Jones

Voodoo Love by The Monsters
You Don't Love Me Yet by Roky Erikson
Motorpsycho by Nekromantix
They Saved Einstein's Brain by The Dirtbombs
Designed to Kill by James Chance
Insane Jane by The Molting Vultures
Dragstrip Riot by New Bomb Turks
Hulkster's in the House by Hulk Hogan

Hey Thelma by Don & Dewey
Crazy Lover by Richard Berry
Little Chickie by Jimmy Kelly & The Rockabouts
A La Carte by James "Red" Holloway
Bopper's Boogie Woogie by The Big Bopper
The Boogie Disease by Doctor Ross
Jungle Talk by Shane Kai Ray
Yessiree by Impala
Andre Williams is Moving by Andre Williams
Bad Boy by Larry Williams

It's All Good by Bob Dylan
Fork in the Road by Neil Young
Nocturnal Twist by Los Straightjackets
Vanity Surfin' by Jesus H. Christ & The Four Hornsmen of the Apocalyose
Sugarfoot by Black Joe Lewis & The Honey Bears
Back to My Old Ways Again by Howard Tate
Pouring Water on a Drowning Man by James Carr
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, May 8, 2009
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
Bluebird by Dallas Good
It Just Dawned on Me by John Doe & The Sadies
Lady Killin' Papa by Deke Dekerson
Lulu's Back in Town by Dan Hicks
I Can't Be Satisfied by Hot Tuna
Betty Lou Got a New Pair of Shoes by Neil Young & The Shocking Pinks
Hot Rod King by Kris Hollis Key
Next Sunday, Darlin' is My Birthday by Hank Williams

Lonesome, On'ry and Mean by Waylon Jennings
Why You Always Cheatin' on Me by Nancy Apple
House of Blues by Mose McCormack
In the Tank by Ruthie & The Wranglers
I'm Gonna Dress in Black by Eilene Jewell
I Miss Being Broken, Lowdown and Alone by Andy Friedman & The Other Failures
Mom and Dad's Waltz by George Jones

Crazy as a Loon by John Prine
Doghouse Blues by Wayne Hancock
Hesitation Blues by Willie Nelson & Asleep at the Wheel
A Wild Cat Woman and a Tom Cat Man by Cliff Carlisle
Honky Tonkin' by Merle Haggard
Mound of Clay by Charlie Feathers
Reality Blues by Deano Waco & The Meat Purveyors
Pollyanna by Patterson Hood
Rock and Roll Killed My Mother by The Hi Fi Guys

Don't Touch Me by Eleni Mandell
Hong Kong Blues by Chris Darrow
Clouds of Swallows by Goshen
Jamie Was a Boozer by Joe West
Complicated Shadows by Elvis Costello
Will You Miss Me by June Carter Cash
One of the Unsatisfied by Lacy J. Dalton
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: CULTURE VULTURES

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
May 6, 2009


With apologies to Edgard Varèse (and Ruben Sano), "The modern-day garage snot rocker refuses to die." Not only that, they're all over the world.

I just got this bitchen little CD, Drop In and Go from sweet Adelaide, Australia, by an Aussie band I'd never heard of called The Molting Vultures. I had a feeling I was going to like it when I first saw the cartoon vulture surfing on the cover.

And I was right. The music of the Vultures is a modern-day extension of the basic Question Mark and the Mysterians/Blues Magoos sound, which hardly ever gets old. Lot of great Farfisa organ (or at least it sounds like the good old Farfisa) and fuzztone guitar.

Plus, the band has a singer, Phillip Vulture, whose only instrument is the theremin, giving some nice science-fiction effects on songs like "Gulls Rock," "Mummy Shakes," and "Bad Bad Woman." All the musicians have the surname "Vulture." Besides Phillip, there are Nick, Mick, Jamie, and Michael "Popeye" Vulture. Their mom, Mrs. Vulture, must be very proud.

While the band rarely strays from the basic hopped-up garage sound, there are some unusual touches. For instance, the song "It's What I Wanted" features some pounding piano that sounds straight out of "Crocodile Rock." This boogie sound returns on the album closer, "Tear It Apart," which also features a childlike harmonica solo by Popeye.

One of my favorites here is the roughly six-minute "Insane Jane," in which the band gets slow and psychedelic, with Jamie Vulture playing the organ nice and spooky and the guitars growling, reminding me a little bit of The Black Angels' sound.

Yes, this kind of music has been done a zillion times before, and The Molting Vultures don't score a lot of points in the originality category.

Still, this is the sound I've loved since the days of "Dirty Water" and "Liar Liar." May these down-under Vultures ever molt.

Also recommended

* Used by Black Smokers. Another sound that refuses to die is that of the crazed guitar-and-drums blues/punk duo. Think Flat Duo Jets, The Black Keys, and The Moaners — and The White Stripes in their early days.

And now, from the great nation of Italy — via Chicago's Pravda Records, one of my favorite little labels — comes Black Smokers, which consists of singer/guitarist/theremin (that again!) player Marcello Milanese and Ivano Zanotti on drums.

The Smokers do lots of high-charged, crunching rockers — as bands of this sort are prone to do. "Kickboxer Girl" is an oughta-be classic. The instrumental "Raccoon City Limits" packs a solid punch in less than two minutes, as does "Notturno Op. 69," in which Milanese makes his slide guitar wail. "Cheap Woman" sounds like the music of a punkier ZZ Top, and "Toc Toc" suggests a stripped-down quasi-rockabilly style.

The thing is, the Smokers aren't afraid to tackle the slower and dare I say pretty ballads as well, such as the dark minor-key "Foggy Days" and the meandering "Rain on the Ocean." Milanese has a gruff, soulful voice that lends itself to these songs as well as to the crunching rockers. And speaking of the Flat Duo Jets, I bet Dex Romweber would dig the tango-soaked blues of the title song on this record.

Gee, it seems like only yesterday — actually it was just a week ago — that I wrote "the free world probably didn't need another version of 'Folsom Prison Blues.'" Nobody listens to me. Here's another one, a 90 mph slide-guitar version. I gotta admit, I kinda like it.

* Happier Than You by Jesus H. Christ and The Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse. This is a poppy little New York group with, yes, four hornsmen (trumpet, sax, and two trombones) and an amazing singer, Risa Mickenberg, who has a sexy, nasally voice and a nicely skewed outlook on love, life, and people we all know.

The album starts out with a song about a character that office workers around the world will recognize: "Liz, the Hot Receptionist." ("She never got promoted/Always wondered why/Her desk was by the printer: easy to stop by.")

Mickenberg sings about the type of relationship that rarely makes it to song in "Back Burner Guy." It's about a man she wants around to "talk about music, talk about art" and have in case her real relationship falls through. "As long as I know you lust after me/I can be the girl he wants me to be," she happily chirps.

Another favorite is "Alcoholics in My Town" sung by Mickenberg and band mate Joel Shelton. It's a folk/rocky little tune about the sad but lovable town drunks they know. Mickenberg and Shelton also share vocals on "Vanity Surfing," which is about Googling yourself on the Internet. (”It’s a special kind of masturbation,” Shelton sings.”)

I hope they Google this. Hey Risa, you're in Pasatiempo!

PASATIEMPO GETS GOV'S ARTS AWARD

Pasatiempo, the arts and entertainment mag for The New Mexican, is one of eight recipients of the 2009 Governor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts.

I'll take a tiny bit of the credit for that. Terrell's Tuneup, my weekly music column has run in Pasa almost every Friday for more than 20 years. (I know the governor reads my music column sometimes.)

Here's what the Department of Cultural Affairs had to say about us:

Pasatiempo, Santa Fe’s ubiquitous arts and entertainment weekly magazine, has been covering northern New Mexico’s active and high impact arts industry for nearly three decades.

Pasatiempo is published by the Santa Fe New Mexican, the city’s locally owned, independent daily newspaper since 1849. The New Mexican has supported Santa Fe’s many arts organizations and cultural events from its very beginnings, most especially under publisher Robert McKinney and now through the leadership of his daughter, publisher Robin Martin.

Pasatiempo is locally produced and uses no syndication or wire services for its editorial content which each week includes a mix of stories and reviews for music, dance, theater, books, films, architecture, restaurants, galleries and museum exhibitions.

“Pasatiempo editor Kristina Melcher, associate editor Robert Nott, art director Marcella Sandoval, and a staff of dedicated and skilled writers, take on, every week, a dizzying array of articles,” said Richard Gaddes, the recently retired director of the Santa Fe Opera, in his letter supporting the nomination. “It has been noted that an average issue of Pasatiempo has the same amount of editorial material as does a Sunday New York Times Arts and Leisure section.”

Not only does Pasatiempo cover arts events with feature stories and reviews, it also serves as an advocate and important watchdog, making sure that organizations live up to the promises they make. The magazine’s writers and editors are not afraid to point out when promises are not met, and the result is a healthier arts industry and a more appreciative audience.

“Santa Fe’s vibrant arts scene has achieved international prominence, but it’s impossible to imagine how that level of recognition could have occurred without the steadfast support for the arts demonstrated at the local level by Pasatiempo, its astute and hardworking reporters and editors, and the New Mexican’s enlightened and committed management,” said Jon Bowman, the executive director of the Santa Fe Film Festival, in his nomination letter.

“Every other week, another newspaper folds,” Bowman said. “Against such a backdrop, where the very survival of newspapers appears in doubt, the thoughtful and nurturing coverage, as well as dedication toward the arts exhibited by Pasatiempo, becomes all the more singular – even heroic and inspiring.”

Gee, nice words from Bowman even.