Black Lips Country

You know I love good old outlaw country and I also love the garage/punk. Well here's  new tune that combines both.

It's surprisingly not-irreverent cover of a Waylon & Willie classic by The Black Lips.

I love this kind of cross-genre mash-up. Reminds me of the great Mudhoney/Jimmie Dale Gilmore collaboration back in the '90s. Of course zealots from either the country world or the punk sphere could very well hate this.

Their loss.





And here's that Townes Van Zandt song that Jimmie Dale and Mudhoney teamed up on.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, April 21, 2013 
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
First hour with special guest Pete Menchetti of Slovenly Recordings
Linda Nina by Los Ardillas
Me Siento Azul by Los Vigilantes
December by Scared of Chaka
Sally Smoked Dope by The Paint Fumes
I Want to Fuck All the Girls in My School
by Bazooka
Congo MC/ I'm Not to Blame by The Oops
Fier by Arsene Obscene
Born in 77 by The Black Jaspars
Nowhere Else to Go by Mouthbreathers

Fireworx by Sultan Bathery
It's on Me by Acid Baby Jesus
In and Out by The Black Lips
Planet Failure by The Spits
Let's Drink Some Wine by The lo-fi Jerkheads

Nulle Autre Que Ton by Magnetix
Muff Diving by The Anomalies
It's Great by Wau y Los Arrrrghs!!!
Your House or the Courthoude by The Livids
Days of Destiny by The Hipshakes
Download the latest Slovenly Compilation HERE

Pete Menchetti will be DJing at Matador in Santa Fe on Wednesday night, 9 p.m.

Here Come the Mushroom People by The Molting Vultures
Shrunken Head by Hipbone Slim & The Knee-Tremblers
Gulls Rock by The Molting Vultures
31 Coupe by Angie & The Carwrecks
Brown Paper Sack by Reigning Sound
Beaver Fever by The Brain Eaters
Come Back Lord by Rev. Beat-Man
Less Bone, More Meat by King Salami & The Cumberland 3
Honey Don't by The Blues Against Youth
Water Main by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

The Final Course by Mudhoney
Always Maybe by The Black Angels
I Put a Spell on You by Them
Weedeye by Churchwood
15 Degrees Capricorn Asc by Sam Samudio
Faster Pussycat by The Cramps
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Like the Terrell's Sound World Facebook page

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 19, 2013 
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM 
Webcasting! 
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time 
Host: Steve Terrell 
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org
 OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Highway Patrol by Junior Brown
FBI's Top 10 by DM Bob & The Deficits
She Liked Every Kind of Music But Country by Robbie Fulks
Sam's Place by Buck Owens
Right or Wrong by Wanda Jackson
Best to Be Alone by Wayne Hancock
Working Girl's Guitar by Rosie Flores
Santa Cruz by The Imperial Rooster
Ain't I'm a Dog by Ronnie Self
When Hillbilly Willie Met Kitty From the City by Tani Allen & His Tennessee Pals

Hometown Shit Beer by Joe West & The Santa Fe Revue
One For the Road by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs
Shadows Fallin' Down My Face by The Dinosaur Truckers
San Antonio Romeo by Cathy Faber's Swinging Country Band
It'll Be Me by The Head Cat
The Parakeet by James Hand
Marie (The Dawn is Breaking) by Willie Nelson
White Dress by Anthony Leon & The Chain
The Woman I Need (Honky Tonk Mind) by Johnny Horton
Swinging Doors by Johnny Bush & Justin Trevino

Eels by The Handsome Family
Take Me to the Fires by The Waco Brothers
Creep Up Fast by The Electric Rag Band
Empty Bottle by The Calamity Cubes
The Low Road by Shooter Jennings
Wolverton Mountain by Southern Culture on the Skids
Tlaquepaque by Joe King Carrasco y El Molino

I've Got a Tender Heart by Eleni Mandell
The Man from God Knows Where by Tom Russell
Out of Control by Dave Alvin
The Law is For Protection of the People/You Don't Tell Me What to Do by Kris Kristofferson
Touch Taven by Elizabeth LaPrelle & Jadoo
Walkin' After Midnight by Patsy Cline
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Like the Santa Fe Opry Facebook page 

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: Mudhoney Crashes Through the Roadblocks

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
April 19, 2013


Vanishing Point is an early-1970s movie about a former cop named Kowalski who picks up a Dodge Challenger in Denver to deliver to San Francisco. He makes a bet in a Denver biker bar that he can drop off the car by the next afternoon. Eluding cops, running them off the road, and crashing through roadblocks in several western states, Kowalski is cheered on by Super Soul, a blind disc jockey at some Podunk radio station who calls him “the last American hero” and “the last beautiful free soul on this planet.”

Vanishing Point also is the name of the latest album by Mudhoney, a band that’s been speeding along the metaphorical highway of rock ’n’ roll for a quarter century.

Heck, the band is named after a Russ Meyer boobsploitation film that played at the same drive-ins that Vanishing Point would a few years later.

Sometimes I feel like the outcast voice in the wilderness Super Soul, rooting for this perpetual underdog band. Fortunately, the new album gives me a lot to cheer for.

Somewhere in a parallel world, some A & R lackey played his boss, music mogul David Geffen, a weird little single by a Seattle band on an independent label nobody every heard of. Fireworks went off in Geffen’s head.

Geffen knew he’d heard an anthem for the new generation. He would sign this band, commission a cool video with punk-rock cheerleaders for that song, “Touch Me I’m Sick,” and Mudhoney would launch a revolution that would shake American culture.

OK, back to reality: actually, something similar happened to Nirvana, another Seattle band on the Sub Pop label. In the wake of its success, major labels would scoop up dozens of Seattle bands, including Mudhoney.

In the early ’90s, Mudhoney was considered, at least by casual fans who didn’t know much about its history, to be kind of like Nirvana’s little brothers. (In fact the one time I saw Nirvana, Mudhoney was the opening act.)

Sometimes I wish it would have been Mudhoney instead of Nirvana to carry the banner back in the days when the flannel flew. I’d argue that Steve Turner is a better guitarist than Kurt Cobain was. Mark Arm’s lyrics have lots more humor than those of Cobain. Musically, Mudhoney drew far more from garage, psychedelic rock, and The Stooges than Nirvana did.

And had Mudhoney climbed to the toppermost of the poppermost, we probably would have been spared a generational spokesman committing suicide. And we probably would have been spared Courtney Love. (Mudhoney, in fact, did a scathing and wickedly funny song, “Into Yer Shtik,” about — at least in part — the widow Cobain.)

But after Nirvana imploded, most of the “new Nirvanas” fell by the wayside, broke up, died of heroin overdoses,went back to the proverbial car wash — whatever, never mind.

Except Mudhoney. Of all those crazy Sub Pop groups of the late ’80s and early ’90s, Mudhoney is the last band standing.

One could argue that Soundgarden might also qualify for that honor. Like Mudhoney, it started out in the ’80s on Sub Pop and just last year released a good album — King Animal. However, Soundgarden broke up for more than a decade. It didn’t soldier on like Mudhoney, releasing new albums on a fairly regular basis.

I did say “fairly” regular, right? Vanishing Point comes five years after the band’s previous album, The Lucky Ones. But even if Mudhoney isn’t as productive as it was in days of yore, it still packs a punch.

The first song, “Slipping Away,” kicks off with a short but snazzy drum solo by Dan Peters (the Gene Krupa of grunge?). The song slows down suddenly as Turner’s rubbery guitar creates a psychedelic sonic assault that would make the Butthole Surfers cry uncle.

This is followed by “I Like It Small,” which is about — wait, is this about what I think it’s about? “Chardonnay” is a minute and 39 seconds of raw punk rock with Arm spitting out a rant against the “critics’ favorite” wine with the same venom most rockers would save for a cheating girlfriend, a bad boss, or the government.

And he gets even more grouchy on “I Don’t Remember You,” a tale about an encounter at a supermarket with a forgotten acquaintance. Arm sings, “It’s a goddamn pleasure to meet you again/Half my brain is missing, and I don’t need new friends/I can’t keep up with the good friends I’ve got/’Scuse me while I fill this shopping cart.”

And I don’t know who or what is the target of “Douchebags on Parade,” which has subtle overtones suggesting Quadrophenia-era The Who.

"Go Mudhoney, go!"

At the moment — and this has changed at least a couple of times since I got the album — my top tune from Vanishing Point is “The Final Course.” It’s a strange tale that involves a decadent feast, accusations about the paternity of a child, the choking of a “shrew,” murder, and cannibalism (which repulses the narrator, though apparently not as much as Chardonnay does the narrator in that other song.)

The lyrics suggest a medieval setting, though when Arm sings “Someone brained me with a skillet, boom boom, out go the lights” it takes on overtones of the Stooges — not Iggy, but Moe, Larry, and Curly.

So Mudhoney keeps barreling on like Kowalski speeding down some Utah highway. There’s not much chance at this point that Mudhoney’s career will end, symbolically speaking, in some glorious, fiery crash like Kowalski did on the screen.

Fans are just happy that they haven’t run out of gas yet.

Blog Bonus: Bring on the videos.

Here's the video for "I Like It Small."



A classic from the golden years of Grunge



And here's a look at the movie that gave the band their name.

The Music of Kevin Curtis, Ricin Suspect

UPDATE April 23, 2013: Charges against Curtis have been dropped shortly after he was released from custody. More details HERE.

The Mississippi man arrested yesterday on suspicion of sending ricin-laced letters to President Obama and U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker has been described in national news reports as an "Elvis impersonator."



That's true. But Kevin Curtis also is an aspiring country singer and songwrtiter. You can hear some of his original tunes on his ReverbNation page. These aren't the kind of songs I normally play on The Santa Fe Opry, but they're probably as good than most the stuff on commercial country stations.

I also found this on Curtis' Facebook page. I can't say for certain it's him, but it's one of the most bizarre tributes to former Santa Fe resident Randy Travis I've ever seen.

Let's Get Slovenly

This Sunday on Terrell's Sound World I'll be joined by Pete Menchetti of Slovenly Recordings, a bitchen punk/garage label based in Reno, Nevada and Amsterdam (!)

Slovenly has released records by the likes of Billy Childish, The Reigning Sound, The Black Lips Wau & Los Arrrrghs!!!, The Spits, Livids (featuring Eric Davidson of New Bomb Turks). Los Vigilantes,  Hollywood Sinners and more.

I wrote about a Slovenly sampler a few years ago in Terrell's Tune-up. CLICK HERE (and scroll down)

As always, the show starts at 10 pm Mountain Time on Sunday. Folks here in northern New Mexico can listen at 101.l FM on your radio dial, and it'll be streamin' at ya, screamin' at www.ksfr.org.

And even before then you can listen to -- and, if you want to do something rash, BUY -- some Slovenly sounds at the label's Bandcamp page.  I'll embed some Livids below.




Tune in Sunday night and don't forget to END YOUR WEEKEND ROCKIN'

The Mice of Eden Avenged!

Here's a little slice of Santa Fe rock 'n' roll history, dug up my my friend and fellow Okie Jeff Hett: The theme from The Avengers by his old band, The Mice of Eden in 1987.




The video reminded me that I helped name this band all those years ago.