Sunday, Sept. 15, 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
Sewer Fire by Thee Oh Sees with Lars Finberg
Seething Psychosexual Conflict Blues by Figures of Light
Jesus Christ Twist by Rev. Beat-Man
The Wolf Song by LoveStruck
Hey Jackass by Geek Maggot Bingo
Love All of Me by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Negative and Hostile by The Grannies
The Cutester Patrol by The Grandmothers
No More Rainy Days/ Interlude by The Dirtbombs
Vampire by Black Joe Lewis
Lockdown Blues by The Angel Babies
Head-On Collision by Big Ugly Guys
Drug-Stabbing Time/Sean Flynn by The Clash
Another Toe by The Pixies
Journey to the Center of the Mind by The Ramones
Don't Be Angry by Nick Curran & The Nightlifes
Baby Doll by The Del Moroccos
The Corner Man by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Dreaming by The Go-Wows
Like a Pill by The Nevermores
She Said Yeah by The A-Bones
A House is Not a Motel by Marshmallow Overcoat
Stoned by The Black Lips
Trash Truck by TAD
Lumumba Calypso by E. C. Arinze
The Sky is a Poisonous Garden by Concrete Blonde
Weight by Chief Fuzzer
Night of Broken Glass by Jay Reatard
The North Seas by Thee Verduns
Malandrino by Gogol Bordello
Too Dry to Cry by Willis Earl Beal
Lonesome Stranger by Pietra Wexstun & Hecate's Angels
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, Sept. 13, 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 Single Girl by The Dirt Daubers
You Knee'd Me by The Hickoids
Truck Drivin' Son of a Gun by Dave Dudley
Trashy Women by Jerry Jeff Walker
Too Much by Rosie Flores
White Freightliner Blues by Halden Wofford & The Hi Beams
Gimme a Ride to Heaven Boys by Terry Allen
Honey, Do You Love Me, Huh? By Hank Williams with Curley Williams
Pig Fork by The Imperial Rooster
Road to Ruin by Anthony Leon & The Chain
Everybody's Getting Paid But Me by The Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band
I Can't Make It Without You by The Haddix Family
11 Months and 29 Days by Johnny Paycheck
Warmed Over Kisses. By Dave Edmunds
One Swell Foop by The Honkey Tonk Merry Go-Round
The Rains Came by The Sir Douglas Quintet
Sleepless Nights by The Mekons
Artificial Flowers by Cornel Hurd featuring the Sex-Sational Blackie White
Highway Cafe by Kinky Friedman & The Texas Jewboys
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Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican Sept. 13, 2013 An actual bubblegum album by a serious grown-up band in 2013?
Yes indeed. Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-blooey is a bubblegum album by The Dirtbombs, long promised by the group’s singer and guitarist Mick Collins.
The Dirtbombs are a serious band, right?
In my book they are. Started by Collins in the ’90s following the demise of his previous group, The Gories — an inspired blues/punk/slop band — The Dirtbombs were the best (if not the most famous, which would be The White Stripes) group to come out of the Detroit garage scene.
But bubblegum? Those of you who weren't around when bubblegum ruled the AM airwaves might not know what the term means. Sometimes “bubblegum” is used to describe any vapid teen pop, but that’s not what The Dirtbombs are doing on this album.
According to the All Music Guide, “Bubblegum is a lightweight, catchy pop music that was a significant commercial force in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Bubblegum was targeted at a preteen audience whose older siblings had been raised on rock & roll. It was simple, melodic, and light as feather — neither the lyrics or the music had much substance. Bubblegum was a manufactured music, created by record producers that often hired session musicians to play and sing the songs.”
The true giants of the genre were Buddha Records groups like The Ohio Express (known for hits like “Yummy Yummy Yummy” — yes, there was love in their tummies — and “Chewy Chewy”); The 1910 Fruitgum Company (“1, 2, 3, Red Light,” “Simon Says”); The Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus (“Quick Joey Small”); and made-for-TV bands like The Partridge Family, The Banana Splits, The Archies, and Lancelot Link & The Evolution Revolution.
Now technically, The Archies weren’t human. They were, in fact, cartoon characters. And the Banana Splits were human, but they were humans dressed like cartoon animals.
But even more out-there is the fact that Lancelot Link and his band were trained chimpanzees dressed in wigs and hippie costumes who appeared on Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp, a live-action Saturday-morning kiddie show in the early ’70s. An album of their music was actually released back then, and a video of the Lancelot Link song “Wild Dreams (Jelly Beans),” posted in a recent Ooey Gooey preview piece on Spin.com, shows these chimps indeed sounded a little like the Dirtbombs do on their new album.
Back during the great bubblegum scare, I was a little older than the target age group for this stuff, and for the most part I didn't share Collins’ affection for it. In fact, I hated the stuff. But little by little, I began to see at least a little value in the genre. Wilson Pickett had a hit with The Archies’ “Sugar Sugar.” A few years later, The Talking Heads covered “1, 2, 3, Red Light.” Meanwhile, The Dickies, an L.A. punk group, did a magnificent version of The Banana Splits theme song. And The Cramps covered “Quick Joey Small.”
And now The Dirtbombs have bubblegum on the soles of their shoes. They didn’t do covers of bubblegum hits. Instead, as Collins explained in an interview in Ghetto Blaster, “I wasn’t trying to make a period piece; I was more seeing if I could pick up where bubblegum left off ...”
If nothing else, Collins and crew capture the weird essence of many bubblegum elements. Just look at the song titles: “Sunshine Girl,” “We Come in the Sunshine,” “Sugar on Top,” “No More Rainy Days,” “Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet,” “Hey! Cookie,” etc. I don’t know whether I’m in more danger of sunstroke or a diabetic coma after listening to this.
There are several songs that — apart from the candy-coated lyrics — don’t sound like a big stretch for The Dirtbombs. “Hot, Sour, Salty Sweet” is one of those, and so are “Sugar on Top” and “It’s Gonna Be Alright.” Collins’ guitar is righteously raunchy in these songs, even if the melodies are poppier than your usual Dirtbombs tune. And “Hey! Cookie” sounds like, well, a garage-rock number. It would have fit seamlessly in early Dirtbombs albums.
Mick Collins playing with The Gories
Lincoln Center, NYC, 2010
But other tunes sink deeper into the bubblegum goo.
“We Come in the Sunshine” owes a big debt to “Good Vibrations,” but there also are strange components such as the Bobby Sherman-style horns and vocal harmonies that sound closer to The Cowsills than The Beach Boys. “The Girl on the Carousel” is a dreamy slow dance featuring an oboe.
But the biggest leap is “No More Rainy Days,” which, after a minute or so of what sounds like an Oompa Loompa march, goes into a weird interlude featuring the voice of the sun. That’s right, the actual sun, whose droning rumble was recorded by a solar observatory run by Stanford University.
I’ll admit, these tunes all are fun and catchy, even if the childlike lyrics and lollipops and rainbows start to wear down a listener used to grittier themes. My main beef is that this is the second genre exercise in a row for the Dirtbombs — the previous album, Party Store, being a tribute to Detroit techno bands. I just hope the next album by this band I love so much is less gooey and has more ka-blooey.
Also recommended:
* Electric Slave by Black Joe Lewis. This is the hardest-edged record so far in the short but thrilling catalog of Lewis, an Austin native who, according to a recent piece in his hometown paper, recently moved to Montreal.
Unlike his previous two albums, this one is released under Lewis’ name alone, not with his band The Honeybears. The horn section is still there, but the soul and funk elements of Lewis’ early work are less apparent.
Also missing are any obvious crowd-pleasers, such as the funny spoken-word segments like “Mustang Ranch” from previous albums. I’m not saying crowds won’t be pleased. Electric Slave is raw, punk-infused electric blues rock. Less jive and more wallop.
The album starts out with “Skulldiggin’,” which has such a distorted, fuzzed-out bass that in a just world, every obnoxious kid with a weapons-grade car stereo would be blasting this at every intersection in America.
Black Joe in Santa Fe
“Guilty” is a frantic rocker with tasty guitar-sax interplay. The nearly seven-minute “Vampire” sounds like a stripped-down cousin of Concrete Blonde’s “Bloodletting (The Vampire Song).” Screamin’ Jay Hawkins could have done this one.
Two other standouts are the highly-caffeinated “Young Girls,” which reminds me of Barrence Whitfield & The Savages, and “The Hipster,” a ferocious cruncher built on a mutated “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” guitar riff and incorporating some lyrics of “Wang Dang Doodle.”
I bet the Electric Slave song that gets the most airplay is “Come to My Party.” I hope a lot of new fans respond to that invitation. Black Joe Lewis always throws an amazing musical party.
Blog bonus: Lotsa videos this week
And a little history for you, kiddies:
Talking Heads liked bubblegum when bubblegum wasn't cool
If you watched television in Southern California in the 1970s and beyond, it was impossible to miss Cal Worthington, the lanky pitchman in the cowboy hat touting deals on a sprawling car lot with his "dog Spot."
"Spot," however, was anything but a dog — think lion, tiger, bull, penguin, anteater, iguana, even a whale. And Worthington, the Oklahoma transplant who rode and wrestled with the exotic creatures in one of TV's wackiest and longest-running ad campaigns, kept the gag going for decades, building a cult following along with one of the most successful car dealerships west of the Mississippi. "Go see Cal" became a part of Southern Californians' vocabulary.
If you had cable TV in Santa Fe in the '70s chances are you saw Cal and his dog spot too. Back then the cable system mainly ran L.A. stations.
I thought Cal was a genius. I just regret I never had the opportunity to buy a car from him -- and maybe get a free elephant ride for the kids.
Sunday, Sept. 8, 2013 KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M. 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell, Guest Co-host Stan Rosen Webcasting! 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org
ANNUAL POST LABOR DAY SONGS FOR THE WORKIN' MAN Plenty Tuff and Union Made by The Waco Brothers
Solidarity Forever by J. Michael Combs & Stan Rosen (live)
Working Man's Blues by Merle Haggard & Willie Nelson
Union Fights the Battle of Freedom by Bucky Halker
There is Power in the Union by Solidarity Singers
Big Boss Man by Jimmy Reed
J. Michael Combs live set
Which Side Are You On
Babies in the Mill
Gone, Gonna Rise Again
Arizona Estada de Verguenza
Banks of Marble
By the Sweat of My Brow
Roll the Union
Bread and Roses
Pie in the Sky by Utah Phillips & Ani DiFranco
Talking Union by The Almanac Singers
Pastures of Plenty by Cedarwood Singers
Joe Hill by Paul Robeson
Brother Can You Spare a Dime by Phil Alvin
Working Man by Bo Diddley
Union Medley by Peter, Paul & Mary
Red Neck Blue Collar by James Luther Dickinson
Republic Steel Massacre by Acie Cargill
Don't Look Now by Creedence Clearwater Revival
I Say Union by The Rabble Rousers
How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live by The Del-Lords
Call My Job by Son Seals
The Work Song by The Animals
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Sunday, Sept. 15, 2013 
