Conchas Fire Takes KSFR Tower

I'll probably be doing Internet only versions of The Santa Fe Opry and Terrell's Sound World this week -- and probably for some weeks to come.

The raging Conchas fire near Los Alamos, which reportedly has grown to 60,000 acres, has stopped the power of KSFR's transmission tower on Pajarito Mountain.

"KSFR's tower was in the path of the fire last night and may have been lost," says the web site of Santa Fe Public Radio. It's not clear how much damage was done.

KSFR still is streaming. You can hear it HERE. Jerry Becker's jazz show is coming in loud and clear on my computer speakers.

The New Mexican has it's fire coverage on a handy single page now. This includes the live blog.

Happy Update: Right around noon KSFR went back on the air. None of the station honchos know exactly why, but that obviously means the tower and transmitter didn't burn up. The Conchas fire is still uncontained, so of course there's the danger it'll go off again. But as they say in the radio biz, stay tuned!

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, June 26, 2011
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 (at) ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Who Do You Love? by Bo Diddley
Stay Away by Mondo Topless
Eat For Me by The Juke Joint Pimps
Shakey Shake #7 by Shouting Thomas & The Torments
I'm a Wicked One by The Hives
On the Move by Pierced Arrows
I Heard Her Call My Name by Velvet Underground
Rockabilly Monkey-Faced Girl by Ross Johnson
Hard Water by The Laundronauts

The World's Greatest Sinner by The A-Bones
Squid Lord by The Fall
Wine-O Baby by by Big Joe Turner
Who's Gonna Rock My Baby by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Miss Sue by Don And Dewey
I Hear Sirens by The Dirtbombs
Nunca la Quise by Wau y Los Arrrghs!!
Muchos Burritos by The Come n Go

Whizz Kid by The Hickoids
Space in Your Face by The Mekons
Raspberry Beret by Hindu Love Gods
Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White by The Standells
Dumpster Dive by Black Lips
Courtroom Blues by Johnny Otis
Anala by King Khan & BBQ Show
Mountain Oysters by Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis w/The Bill Doggett Trio

Lovers Never Say Goodbye by The Flamigos
Since I Met You Baby by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
The Wild West is Where I Want to Be by Tom Lehrer
Rickity Tickity Tin by Barbara Manning
Sweetheart (Waitress In A Donut Shop) by Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks
Don't Blame Me by Dex Romweber Duo
Book of Love by The Monotones
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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Summer's Here and The Time is Right For Voodoo in the Streets on The Big Enchilada!

Summer's here and the time is right for dancing in the streets. Not to mention sun, surf, hotdogs, BBQ and, best of all Voodoo orgies! Join me for some magical musical moments to keep your summer hot.

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Here's the playlist:

(Background Music: Ghost Surfer by The Surf Lords)
Voodoo Love by The Monsters
It's Mighty Crazy by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Mad Dog by The Black Lips
It's Friday Night and I Wanna Get Laid by The Experiments
Just Because of You by Chuck Violence & His One-Man Band
Davy, You Upset My Home by Joe Tex
Filme de Terror by Horror Deluxe

(Background Music: Voodoo Theme by The Infoiatis)
Johnny Voodoo by Empress of Fur
Roll the Cotton Down by The Zipps
Goodnight by The Conjugal Visits
Cave Girl by The Tex-Reys
I Got the Creeps by Big John Bates
State and 32nd by Kenneth Rexroth

(Background Music: Voodoo Doll by Dr. Lonnie Smith)
It's Your Voodoo Working by Charles Sheffield
Swamp Water by Mama Rosin with Hipbone Slim & The Knee Tremblers
Free Wi-Fi by Crappy Dracula
Potluck by Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Summertime by Die Zorros

Play it Here:

Night Off the Opry

Laurell Reynolds will be subbing for me tonight on the Santa Fe Opry at 10 pm Mountain. You can still listen online HERE or at 101.1 FM if you're near Santa Fe and northern New Mexico.

I'm heading downtown where The Hickoids, Blood-Drained Cows and Manby's Head have a little rock 'n' roll entertainment planned. If you're out and about check out the show at The Underground.

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: Hey! You! Get Onto My Cloud!

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 24, 2011


I felt like Cinderella being invited to the royal ball.

Last week, buried in my email among my music press releases, pleas for money from politicians, notices of car dealers and Albuquerque restaurants I’ve never heard of following me on Twitter, and fabulous business opportunities from widows of high-ranked Nigerian officials was my invitation!

It was from Google Music Beta. It had been weeks and weeks since I’d sent my request for an invitation. (To be honest, having to request an invitation made me feel cheap and tawdry. But I like that feeling.)

(If you haven't already, you can request your information HERE.)

For those of you still trying to figure out this internet fad, Google Music is the latest major entry into the realm of “cloud” storage for music. It joins Amazon Cloud Player, which launched earlier this year. And before the end of the year it will be joined by Apple’s iCloud.

The “cloud” has been a big internet buzz for the past couple of years among music fans. Those of us who listen to music over our computers do so using a player, such as iTunes or Windows Media Player (I understand there are still people who use that) to play MP3s or other music files stored on our computer or external hard drive.

But with the cloud, you upload your music files to big ol’ computers somewhere far away — probably located in nightmarish sweatshops in hideous countries where child labor is forced to work 16-hour shifts to keep dangerous machinery running just so you can listen to your lousy Coldplay MP3s whenever you want. (Just kidding, just kidding. Nobody sue me, please.)

I set up my Amazon Cloud Player when that first came out. And now with Google Music Beta, I could upload even more of my collection to a home up in the clouds. My collection is nearly 227 gigabytes (GB) — well more than 42,000 “items” (mostly individual songs, with several podcasts, radio-show soundchecks, etc.).

What is the advantage of having music on the cloud? You can access both Amazon Cloud and Google Music from any web browser on any computer. For those of us with huge digital music collections, that means we don’t have to lug around our external hard drives everywhere we go to enjoy thousands of songs. Your computer blows a gasket, your hard drive freezes up, your house burns down, and your music, or at least a good chunk of it, still will be available for you online.

Cloud wars: I've found both cloud systems easy to operate from my laptop. And I’m no audiophile, but to these ravaged ears, the playback sounds as good as it does from iTunes.

Most of the comparisons I’ve read — written by people who know a lot more about this tech stuff than I ever will — have tended to give the edge to Google over Amazon. Google Music uploads your music faster, critics insist (both take a long time to upload your tunes), and Google lets you upload more music for free.

Amazon currently allows you to upload five gigabytes of music for free to their Cloud Player. But if you purchase any MP3 album from Amazon, you get 15 more GB for free for a year. (I took advantage of that, buying the North Mississippi Allstars’ latest album, Keys to the Kingdom, when it was on sale for $5.)

What happens at the end of the year isn’t clear. Can you renew by buying a new album? Will you have to cough up $20? Will the company zap 15 gigs from your library if you don’t? Time will tell. There are various plans for additional storage at Amazon Cloud. They all work out to $1 a year for each GB, up to $1,000 for 1,000 GB.

Are these clouds or chemtrails?

One cool thing about Amazon. When you buy MP3s from the site now, they automatically go to your Cloud Player stash. And these songs don’t count against your limit. One uncool thing, though — you have to manually upload MP3s you bought from Amazon before the launch of the Cloud Player — and these will count against your limit. So far I’ve used nearly all of my Amazon allotment. That’s more than 4,000 songs.

But over at Google Music Beta, you can upload 20,000 songs for free. You don’t even have to buy an album. In fact, you can’t buy an album there, for reasons best known to the captains of the music-industrial complex. As of now, I’ve only uploaded nearly 9,000 songs. (Note my personal figures are updated than the ones published today in Pasatiempo.)

But will this free storage at Google Music last forever? An article at Engadget.com speculated last month, “Chances are you’ll have to pony up in order to keep things there once the beta label is yanked.”
One factor in Amazon’s favor is that you can download your music from the cloud. This is a huge advantage if your computer or hard-drive crashes — though I’d hate to guess how much time it would take to download 20 GBs from Amazon. Google doesn’t have this feature.

There is free music available from Google Music when you first set up your cloud player. You get to select from several genres. I didn’t want to clutter up my online library too much, so I just chose blues and alternative rock, The free blues selections were good, with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Elmore James among them. The “alternative rock” selections were fairly useless (though there was some good Social Distortion tracks). But heck, they were free, and deleting duds is easy.

Both the Amazon and Google services can be accessed on Android phones. Neither is supposed to be accessible from an iPhone (there are no iPhone apps for them), but there’s a backdoor way in through the Safari browser.

Just log into your Amazon account and go from there — simply ignore the warning that the service isn’t compatible. Once you’re in, just add it to your home screen for easier access in the future. That’s good news, at least if you want to listen when you’re someplace where your connection is steady. I played it in my car, and it worked for several songs in a row, but several times the streaming music got choppy. This won’t replace my regular iPod.

Speaking of i-things, Apple’s iCloud is bound to shake up the fledgling music cloud biz. The only free storage Apple is going to give you is for the stuff you buy on iTunes. But for $25 a year, you get unlimited storage. For those with big collections, that’s a bargain.

Whichever service becomes the most successful, I believe a lot more music junkies are going to have their heads in the clouds.

The Mekons Return

Those lovable Mekons are releasing a new album, Ancient & Modern in late September on their reconstituted label Sin Records.

Their friendly publicist said it's cool to share this Mp3, "Space in Your Face" from the album. CLICK HERE to play (right-click to download).

Here's the press release:

On Ancient & Modern, Mekons bring you an “album” just like albums used to be; cardboard things filled with cheeky, chunky 78rpm shellac. Just take a look at the cover of Ancient & Modern and you’ll know what we’re talking about! Let the band take you for a walk down memory lane, to the world as it was just before the First World War ... to the Edwardian Era, to the Naughty Naughties a hundred years ago, a cozy nostalgic world: cricket on the village green, punting down the river in a striped blazer and boater, off with the hounds, picnic hampers, community singing, mistresses and wives, mysticism, secret societies, dangerous poetry, radical modern art, Freud, national strikes, revolution, anarchists, bombers, British concentration camps ... oops, is that really a hundred years ago?!? Mekons travel back/forward to a world unaware that it’s waiting for the pistol to CRACK CRACK CRACK in Sarajevo, plotting their singular course through the digital tsunami of contemporary sounds that blare tinnily from your mobile phone or spin at 78rpm in His Master’s Voice from the horn of your exquisite Gramophone.

Despite the talk of 78 shellac, I'm assuming it will be on CD as well.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, June, 2011
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 (at) ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Susquehanna Hat Company by Too Much Joy
Red Cobra #9 by The Mummies
Raw Meat by Black Lips
Midnight To Six Man by The Pretty Things
Hell Ain't What it Used to Be by Nashville Pussy
Sweet Talk by The Naughty Ones
Dog Food by Iggy Pop
Washing in the Blood (of Rock and Roll) by The Professor and His One Man Dirty Rhythm and Blues Explosion
Rollin' and Tumblin' by Canned Heat
Cause I Sez So by New York Dolls
Give Him A Great Big Kiss by The Shangri-Las

The Flame that Killed John Wayne by The Mekons
Run Away From Me by Movie Star Junkies
Born With a Tale by The Supersuckers
Cosmic Belly Dance by The Monsters
Shaggy Dog by Lightnin' Hopkins
My Baby Got Drunk by Paul "Wine" Jones
Nobdy Gets Me Down by T-Model Ford
Racoon City Limits by Black Smokers
Neat Neat Neat by The Hickoids

Merry Go Round/My Name Is Larry by Wild Man Fischer
Don't Shake Me Lucifer by Roky Erikson
I'm Weak by New Bomb Turks
Question My Sanity by L7
Motorhead with Me by Nobunny
Sinister Kid by Black Keys
Schrodinger's Puss by Crappy Dracula
Shave Your Beard by Ros Sereysothea

Standing on the Verge of Getting It On by Funkadelic
Stepchild by Solomon Burke
All You Can Eat and You Can Eat it All Night Long by Candye Kane
Land of Hope and Dreams by Bruce Springsteen
The Way We Were Wild Man Fischer with Mark Mothersbaugh
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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R.I.P Larry "Wild Man" Fischer

Wild Man Fischer is dead. He was 66. His name was Larry.

The mentally ill street musician "discovered" by Frank Zappa died of a heart attack in Los Angeles on Thursday.

His New York Times obituary is HERE.

The Los Angeles Times remembers him HERE.

Like other  musicians who have struggled with mental illness -- Roky Erikson, Daniel Johnston, Wesley Willis, Brian Wilson, Sid Barrett -- watching or listening to Wild Man Fischer made you uncomfortable. Are we laughing with him or at at him? Are we exploiting the poor guy? Are we feeding his demons when we laugh and cheer him on?

And yet who could be unaffected when, hearing him sing "My Name is Larry," by his recreation of conversations with his family, most of whom he portrayed as patronizing him, trying to ignore him, fearing him? And how can you not feel the raw spirit in his manic performance?

Below are a couple of videos by which to remember this troubled soul, as well as a trailer for the documentary dErailRoaDed.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, June 17, 2011
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 (at) ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Stop the Train by Mother Earth
You Only Kiss Me When You Say Goodbye by Cornell Hurd
Ruby Jane by Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys
Let's Do Wrong Tonight by Simon Stokes & The Heathen Angels
Hootin'-Nanny Papa by The Buchanan Brothers & The Georgia Cats
The Gal Who Invented Kissin' by Hank Snow
Rocky Top by Rose Maddox
Yankee Taste by Jayke Orvis
Viva Sequin / Do Re Mi by Ry Cooder

The Ballad of Maria and Fred/ The New Jesse Davy by Guy Standard
Road Movie by Zeno Tornado & The Boney Google Brothers
Yes, Sir by The Great Recession Orchestra
Prince Nez by The Squirrel Nut Zippers
Me and Me Girl by The Pussywarmers
Pink Burrito by R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders
Pussy by Harry Roy & His Bat Club Boys
Glad It's Dark by Jimbo Mathus
Beatin' On The Bars by T.Tex Edwards & Out On Parole

London Zydeco by Mama Rosin & Hipbone Slim & The Knee Tremblers
Still Believe by Sean K. Preston
Last Call at the Old Ponderosa by Paul Rhae McDonald
Kohrn Sirrup Sundae by The Imperial Rooster
Another Wreck on the Highway by Angry Johnny
I'm Gonna Take You Home And Make You Like Me by Robbie & Donna Fulks
Sittin' on Top of the World by Gal Holiday
Old Black Joe by Jerry Lee Lewis

Cat from the Rain by Gary Heffern with Carla Togerson
Bad News by Whitey Morgan
Facebook Page by John Egenes
Here We Are Again by Wanda Jackson
Time Out for the Blues by Levon Helm featuring Teresa Williams
Don't Forget Me, Love by Toni Brown
Big Black Dog by Emmylou Harris
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: Zydockabilly, Exotica Obscura

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 17, 2011

Remember those stupid Reese’s Peanut Butters Cup commercials in which one dorky kid eating a jar of peanut butter while walking down the street bumps into another? “You got your peanut butter in my chocolate,” the first kid says. “You got your chocolate in my peanut butter,” the other responds.

Instead of being mauled by a pack of rabid dogs like they deserve, the two discover a great new taste sensation.

I don’t bring this up to indicate an association with or sponsorship by Reese’s — nor do I intended to disparage the company’s fine products. But when I first saw the new album Louisiana Sun by Mama Rosin and Hipbone Slim & the Knee Tremblers, I thought about that ad.

“Hey! You got your Swiss zydeco in my British neo-rockabilly.”

Indeed, Mama Rosin, named for a classic Cajun tune best known for the version by Zachary Richard, is a three-man group from Geneva that plays a hopped-up, rocked out version of Cajun and zydeco music.

Hipbone Slim & The Knee Tremblers

Hipbone Slim, also known as “Sir Bald Diddley,” is a London rockabilly boy. What the two bands have in common, besides their history of appropriating their respective styles of American roots music to their own weird ends, is their affiliation with Voodoo Rhythm Records, which is always keen on subverting roots music just for kicks or thrills.

For the most part, it works. This album was recorded partly in England, partly in Italy, but its heart is in the American South.

There are several tracks that sound more “zydeco” (“Citi Two-Step,” “London Zydeco”) or more “rockabilly” (“Quel Espoir?,” “The Cat Never Sleeps”). My favorite ones are those in which both elements combine into something new and threatening.

Such is the case with the first song, “Voodoo Walking,” described on the album cover as “a classic Charles Sheffield number in a new dress.” Though it’s sung in French by Mama Rosin’s Cyril “Jeter” Yeterian, you can hear the influence of Louisiana R & B shouter Sheffield’s early ’60s regional hit “It’s Your Voodoo Working” as well as the main hook from Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning.” It’s noirishly swampy, with a spooky melodeon solo by Yeterian.

“Swamp Water” lives up to its name. Hipbone Slim handles the vocals here. There’s strong drumming by Rosin’s Xavier Bray on this percussion-heavy song, while Yeterian’s Cajun licks on the melodeon keeps it right in the bayou.

 “Killing Two Birds With One Stone” and “Gettin’ High” have a basic John Lee Hooker stomp-boogie sound, but with zydeco overtones. “Princess Havana” takes a Caribbean detour, while “Trouble Ain’t So Never Far Away,” sung by Hipbone, sounds like a tribute to New Orleans piano-dominated soul ballads.

And then there’s the title song, a re-working of The Rivieras’ “California Sun” (later covered by The Ramones), now a zydeco-drenched, banjo embellished pan-national anthem of summer fun.

I don’t want to get too corny here and babble about how music is the international language or some such hogwash. The main thing on this album is that it sounds like both bands had a lot of fun making it.

Also recommended:


* The Chronicles of the Pussywarmers. Last week, reviewing Jimbo Mathus’ new album, Confederate Buddha, I lamented the fact that there’s nothing on the album that sounds anything like the music of Jimbo’s best-known band, the Squirrel Nut Zippers. Just a couple of days after I wrote that, I received this new album by the Pussywarmers, a band led by singer-guitarist Fabio “Pozzo” Pozzorini, from the Italian speaking part of Switzerland.

The label touts the group as an “exotica obscura freak show varietease sea cruise orchestra” that plays Weimar Republic-era jazz (the musicians’ lives must be a cabaret, old chum). And it’s true, this band has a distinct Euro vibe.

But I hear a lot of the Zippers’ neo-vaudeville/Dixieland craziness in there, too. In fact the first song, “Me and Me Girl” a jazzy calypso romp, could almost be the sequel to the Zippers’ “Hell.” Further into the album “La nen la Bambele,” with its muted trumpet and bluesy melody sounds like some long-lost Cab Calloway song, kidnapped by Europeans.

Virtually every song here is a mysterious musical adventure. “Chanson d’amour (Ce n’est pas pour moi),” sung in French, reminds me of the music of the band’s Voodoo Rhythm labelmates The Dead Brothers, especially when the song changes into a waltz with a musical saw providing a ghostly response to the guitar and piano solos.

“La marcia dell’amor negato” could almost be a polka. And the near-five-minute “Broken Mirror,” featuring drumming straight out of Burnt Weeny Sandwich/Weasels Ripped My Flesh-era Frank Zappa, reminds me of psychedelic version of Brecht and Weill’s Three Penny Opera.


Two of the three photos used here were stolen from Brother Panti-Christ's Myspace page.