TERRELL'S TUNEUP: SXSW Wrap-Up

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
March 23, 2018

I just got back from the South by Southwest music festival in Austin. People are correct when they say that the festival has grown way too big, the traffic is impossible, and the parking is even worse. But despite all this, I managed to see a lot of good music.

Here are some of my favorites.

[Note: The videos embedded are not from this year's SXSW, except maybe the one for Nobunny. However that one was posted a few days before I saw Nobunny, so it's obviously not the same gig.]

* The Ghost Wolves at the 720 Club: Barely a year ago, I’d never heard of this Austin-based band. But after seeing them tear up this Red River Street dive with their unique brand of punk/blues/garage sounds, I feel like an overzealous cult member bent on spreading the word. Singer-guitarist Carley Wolf and her husband, drummer Jonathan Wolf, rock wild. Their lyrics and song titles seem to seethe with anger. And yet, somehow, listening to them only makes me grin. Indeed, I was grinning like a fool at the 720. But the cool thing was that Carley was grinning even more. The lady has an infectious smile that serves to fortify her monster guitar playing. And she doesn’t even need all six strings to make her magic. On the last several songs, Carley played an electric guitar with only one string — the low E string, I think. Pure primitive power.




* Nobunny at Hotel Vegas. I saw Wolves and I saw bunnies. If he were more famous, singer-guitarist Justin Champlin would do for shopping mall Easter bunnies what John Wayne Gacy did for clowns. And he should be more famous. Behind that ratty rabbit mask is a master of irresistible, hooky pop-punk songs.



* Shinyribs at The Dogwood. I was a huge fan of The Gourds, perhaps the greatest group to come out of Austin during the great alt-country scare of the late ’90s. I’m not sure what happened to them, but singer Kevin Russell has carried on with a new band, Shinyribs, and done quite well. In 2016, they released a fine New Orleans-flavored album called I Got Your Medicine (the band's fourth since 2010). Just recently, Shinyribs was named Best Austin Band by The Austin Chronicle.

Backed by a band that includes a sax and trumpet and two female backup singers, Russell, dressed in a loud yellow suit, did a medley of tunes including “Hey Pocky Way” and “Shotgun Willie.” At other points in the show, he started singing “Helter Skelter” during an unrelated number. And at least a couple of times, he made incongruous references to Roky Erickson’s “Cold Night for Alligators.”




*Count Vaseline at Hotel Vegas. Born Stefan Murphy, Vaseline is an Irish guy with a Beatle Bob hairdo who adopts the onstage persona of a deranged man standing on a soapbox and demanding that his crackpot warnings be heard. He started off slow. A growling guitar and ominous drums created the atmosphere as the Count went into a Jim Morrison-style vamp like some beatnik shaman. There is more than a little Mark E. Smith, the late frontman of The Fall, in Vaseline’s heady stew. He sounded like he was trying to stave off doomsday by prodding the audience to dance. Count Vaseline’s SXSW performance was much different than his recent release, Tales From the Megaplex, which is far poppier. I like that record, especially his Velvet-esque song called “Hail, Hail, John Cale” (“Lou Reed died wishing he could be John Cale ...”). But I like the weird live version of the Count even more.



* Yamantaka // Sonic Titan at Hotel Vegas. This was my major music discovery at SXSW 2018. It’s an avant-garde experimental noise group from Canada that calls its style “Noh-Wave” — a sly reference to Noh theater, a Japanese musical theater that’s been around since the 14th century. The band has two female singers, one of whom plays guitar, the other playing percussion instruments, including a large round drum and cymbals. Yamantaka did one number with serious Native American overtones. My first thought was that it sounded like Yoko Ono had produced a powwow record.




* The Waco Brothers at the Yard Dog Gallery. I’ve been going to see this band, led by Jon Langford of The Mekons, play the annual Bloodshot Records party during SXSW for more than 20 years now. I guess you could call it a ritual — a Dionysian ritual, where the frenzy becomes enlightenment — or something like that. The shows have all been high-energy, irreverent, frequently chaotic, and almost always inspiring.

This year, they played their classic songs — “See Willy Fly By,” “Red Brick Wall,” and “Plenty Tough, Union Made,” including some of their most inspired covers like George Jones’ “White Lightnin’,” Johnny Cash’s “Big River,” and Neil Young’s “Revolution Blues.” My favorite moment came after their performance of “Walking on Hell’s Roof.” In the middle of the song, Langford announced a fiddle solo from Jean Cook. However, her microphone wasn’t working, so the solo went unheard. You could tell this irked Langford. So, after the song was done and the mike problem was solved, the band decided to play that part again so Cook could have her solo heard. It was short but amazing.



* The Hickoids at Voodoo Doughnuts. This cowpunk/scuzz-country outfit is another band I make a point of seeing every time I go to SXSW. I’m pretty sure this set is the first time I’ve ever seen them during daylight hours — so now I can attest that it’s not the dark of night that makes The Hickoids maniacal. Singer Jeff Smith had an extra-long microphone cable and he used that to go out into the audience and harass — in the nicest possible way — law-abiding doughnut customers, getting in their faces, singing directly to individuals, and even going out onto Sixth Street and menacing passersby. He dragged at least one stranger into the shop, and he even sat on my lap for a few seconds.

Showbiz is a wonderful thing.




Check out my snapshots from SXSW on FLICKR

THROWBACK THURSDAY: The Moondog Coronation Ball

The most terrible ball of them all

History.com calls it "history's first rock concert." The poster called it "The most terrible ball of them all."

Alan Freed

The fire marshal called Alan Freed's Moondog Coronation Ball a threat to public safety and, with the help of the Cleveland police, shut it down shortly after it started.

Helped along by massive ticket counterfeiting and possibly by overbooking on the part of the event’s sponsors, an estimated 20,000-25,000 fans turned out for an event being held in an arena with a capacity of only 10,000. Less than an hour into the show, the massive overflow crowd broke through the gates that were keeping them outside, and police quickly moved in to stop the show almost as soon as it began. 

This show did not have the star power of DJ Freed's later rock 'n' roll package shows. But it was a pretty amazing line-up of R&B acts. So in honor of that ill-fated ball, which took place -- or would have taken place -- 66 years ago this week here are a bunch of songs from those stars of the Coronation Ball.

The most famous name on the bill was The Dominos, a group led by Billy Ward and which included future soul star Jackie Wilson. The Dominos were best known for their hit "60 Minute Man" but I've always loved this bizarre little tune called "The Bells."



Tiny Grimes & The Rockin' Highlanders were known for wearing kilts onstage. I think this live jazzy Grimes clip is from a few years before



Danny Cobb's "My Isabella" was full of bongo fury



Varetta Dillard cried "Mercy, Mr. Percy"! (Enlightened lyric of the day: "I don't care if you hit me / Long as you don't quit me ...")



Finally, Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams reportedly was the only act who actually got to play a song at the Moondog Coronation Ball before it got halted by the law. Maybe it was this one.

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Making a Monkey of Charlie

God said it. The Tennessee State Legislature believes it. That settles it.

On this day in 1925, a piece of legislation called The Butler Act was signed into law by Tennessee Gov, Austin Peay.

This law made it illegal for any teacher in the state to teach the blasphemous theory, espoused by a British ne'er-do-well named Charles Darwin that the human race descended from "lower animals."

The Butler Act was what prompted the infamous Scopes trial -- in which high school science teacher John Scopes was convicted of violating the law by teaching forbidden science in his classroom. 

The law actually stayed on the books until 1967 after another Tennessee teacher was actually fired for violating it.

This issue, which remains a real one in some fundamentalist  circles, naturally has sparked some songs during the years.

The best one was "The Bible's True" by hillbilly music titan Uncle Dave Macon.

Here is a more contemporary update of Uncle Dave's song. I'm not even sure who the artist is. But he's sure that Darwin and his theory is a bunch of bunk and hooey. How could  tadpole turn in to a monkey?

Louisiana jazzman Clarence Williams had some fun with whole evolution thing with this tune. Western-swing master Milton Brown, country singer Hank Penny, zydeco giant Boozoo Chavis and many others have done versions.



Of course, in the late '70s, Devo took the evolution battle to a whole new level, playing with the real possibility that someday, somewhere, people will take their gospel of De-Evolution literally.

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Barrence Whitfield & The Savages and The Electric Mess

OnceA version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
March 16, 2018

Once again, Barrence Whitfield and his savage band, The Savages, have hit another one out of the park. His new album, Soul Flowers of Titan, hits — seemingly effortlessly — that sweet spot between garage rock, R&B, soul, blues, and who-cares-what-you-call-it.

This is his fourth album since Whitfield reunited with original Savages Peter Greenberg (a New Mexico resident for nearly a decade) and Phil Lenker. And, even though the frontman is pushing sixty-three, there doesn’t seem to be any sign he’s slowing down. And, most important: This sound never gets old.

For those unfamiliar, the Florida-born Whitfield was working in a Boston record store in the early ’80s when he met up with guitarist Greenberg, a veteran of garage-punk bands like Lyres and DMZ. Barrence Whitfield and the Savages’ self-titled album was released in 1984. After a second record, the band broke up.

Whitfield kept recording until the mid-’90s (including a couple of country-folk flavored albums with Tom Russell). Then came the reunion with Greenberg and Lenker circa 2010 (the first reunion concerts were in Taos, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque). And the rest is — ongoing — history.

Hardcore Whitfield fans will notice some tweaks to the basic Savages sound — the band’s added a keyboard player, Brian Olive. And a couple of tracks feature a trumpet alongside regular sax man Tom Quartulli. But the additions seem natural. And the sound is still savage.

The album kicks off with a strong rocker called “Slowly Losing My Mind,” originally done by an obscure R&B group called Willie Wright & His Sparklers, who recorded it for the Federal label in 1960. I bet if Eric Burdon heard this, he’d say, “Damn, The Animals should have done this!” And there’s another Sparklers song on Soul Flowers, the nearly-as-raucous “I’m Going to Leave You.”

I liked the carefree “Let’s Go to Mars” when I first heard it. But I liked it about 10 times more after seeing the goofy, almost surreal video the group did for the song, which was written by Greenberg and Lenker. I won’t describe the whole thing, but I’ll just say the best part is when Greenberg performs a guitar solo inside Whitfield’s mouth. (You’d think it would be dark in there, but Greenberg’s wearing his sunglasses.)

Other highlights on Soul Flowers include “Adorable” (“I’m gonna get a gun/Just to shoot it at the sky”); “I Can’t Get No Ride,” originally done by Memphis soulman Finley Brown (and originally recorded by Whitfield on his 2009 solo album Raw, Raw, Rough); and “I’ll Be Home Someday,” an intense minor-key blues that was co-written by Hank Ballard of The Midnighters. (Speaking of whom, I’d love to hear Whitfield sing “Work With Me Annie.”)

But ask me on another day, and I might tell you the highlights of this album are “Sunshine Don’t Make the Sun” or “Tall, Black and Bitter” or “Edie Please” or the slow-burner called “Tingling.” Like just about all of Whitfield’s releases, Soul Flowers of Titan is a consistent work — consistently excellent. If I were going to Mars, I’d want to take my Whitfield albums with me for the trip.

Also recommended:

* The Beast Is You by The Electric Mess. Four years ago, when I reviewed House on Fire, the previous album by this Brooklyn band, I said, “Next time I review an Electric Mess album, I don’t want to talk about how undeservedly obscure this band is.”

So I won’t talk about that. Even though …

It took them nearly four years, but the Mess is back with another electrifying collection of 13 fast-and-furious neo-garage/quasi-psychedelic pounders.

With her raspy voice and audible sneer, singer Esther Crow (she’s apparently dropped her “Chip Fontaine” persona) sounds like she’s either perpetually outraged by or perhaps sardonically bemused by the world around her. On “I’m Gone,” she snarls, “Got no use for all your spiritual talk/All your positive vibes are really such a crock.”

And a few songs later, a tune called “You Can’t Hide” — my favorite cut on the album, at least so far — features a spoken-word segment where she says, “Like a wild dog in the night/I’m gonna sniff you out, baby.”

But while she sounds like the aggressor there, just a few seconds later, she’s saying, “Get off of me, you get off of me! Get off of me!” (That’s an especially surprising turn in a song that starts out, “Let me be your sloppy seconds, baby.”) [Author's Note: In a Facebook post yesterday Esther Crow herself said, "... the lyrics he refers to: "you get off of me!" Are really: "you can't hide from me!" So I remain the creepy aggressor after all!"]

And on another favorite, “Plastic Jack,” Crow confesses, “I’m a charlatan to the highest degree ... I’m a fraud, a phony ... a quack, a swindler, a deceiver, imposter, a backslider.”

While Ms. Crow is the undisputed star, she couldn’t do it without the rest of the band. The musical interplay between guitarist Dan Crow (Esther’s husband) and keyboardist Oweinama Biu continues to amaze and mystify, while the rhythm section of bass man Derek Davidson (who also writes a large share of the songs) and drummer Alan Camlet provide a solid, if frantic, foundation.

Though the group is a self-proclaimed “mess,” there is nothing slapdash about this tight little unit.

Video time!

Here's that Barrence Whitfield video I mentioned above


And here's the title song of the new album by The Electric Mess

SXSW DAY 3

Those wascally Waco Brothers with some Waco sisters

I've been going to see The Waco Brothers play the annual Bloodshot Records Party at the Yard Dog Gallery during South by Southwest for more than 20 years now. Not every year. When I started covering the state Legislature back in 2001 I had to start skipping every other year because the last week of the 60-day session always falls during SXSW. And I had to miss SXSW 2010. And there was one year, 2004 I believe, that The Wacos didn't play, though Jon Langford was there with The Mekons and with various other bands he plays in.

A rare fiddle solo from Tracy Dear
(the world's greatest living Englishman)

But I've been going to see The Waco Brothers at the Yard Dog for more than 20 years now. I guess you could call it a ritual -- a  Dionysian ritual where the frenzy becomes enlightenment.

Or something like that.

all these times I've seen The Wacos play, no show has ever been the same. They've all been high-energy, irreverent, frequently chaotic and almost always inspiring. But they've never been the same.They never get old and almost always they are one of my favorite SXSW shows.

That's certainty the case this year at the Yard Dog on Friday.

For those not acquainted, The Waco Brothers started off as a country-rock side project for Mekons conspirator Jon Langford back in the mid '90s after he moved to Chicago. The group quickly took on a life of its own, hooking up with Bloodshot, an upstart independent record company in Chicago. They've done 11 albums for Bloodshot. (The only non-Bloodshot record the Wacos did was 2004's Nine Slices of My Midlife Crisis, which was done under the name of  Uncle Dave & The Waco Brothers. Uncle Dave was Dave Herndon, a former editor of New Mexico Magazine.)

Besides Langford, the group have two other lead singers -- Dean Schlabowske and Tracey Dear -- which means you don't get sick of the same voice over and over again. While membership has changed over the year -- and for the record I miss steel guitarist Mark Durante -- Langford, Schlabowske and Dear have been there from the start. And bassist Alan Doughty has been there almost as long.

On Friday, the band stormed through their classic songs -- "See Willy Fly By," "Red Brick Wall," "Plenty Tough Union Made," including some of their most inspired covers like George Jones' "White Lightnin' ," Johnny Cash's "Big River," and Neil Young's "Revolution Blues."

My favorite moment in today's show came after their performance of "Walking on Hell's Roof." In the middle of the song Langford announced a fiddle solo from Jean Cook. However, her microphone wasn't working, so the solo was unheard. You could tell this irked Langford. So, after the mike problem was solved, the band decided to play that part again so Cook could have her solo. It was short but amazing.

I just hope I'm able to go to Waco Brothers shows at the Yard Dog for another 20 years.

Shinyribs

* Another great show Friday was Shinyribs' set at a West 6th Street bar called the Dogwood.

I was a huge fan of The Gourds, perhaps the greatest alt-country group to come out of Austin during the great alt-country scare of the late '90s. I'm not sure what happened to them.

But Gourd singer Kevin Russell has carried on with a new band, Shinyribs and done quite well.

Last year they released a fine New Orleans flavored album called I Got Your Medicine. And just recently the band was named band of the year by the Austin Chronicle.

The band includes a horn section (sax and trumpet), two female backup singers, piano and bass, with Russell on guitar.

Dressed in a loud yellow suit he did songs including a medley of ”Hey Pocky Way,” “Shotgun Willie” and at least one other song. At other points in the show he started singing "Helter Skelter" during an unrelated song. And at least a couple of times he made incongruous references to Roky Erikson's "Cold Night for Alligators."

I do miss The Gourds, but Shinyribs is fantastic in its own right.

SXSW DAY 2

Count Vaseline preaches to the sinners

When I was a younger man going to South by Southwest back in the 1990s, I'd frequently zig-zag across downtown Austin walking great lengths to see the next act. From the old Austin Music Hall to Emo's, then back to Antone's then over to Stubbs' ... I'm getting exhausted just writing about it.

In recent years though I've tried to stay in one area in a night. And Thursday night I managed to stay in one venue -- Hotel Vegas on East 6th Street the whole night (except one short excursion a couple of blocks up the street to a bar where I didn't find any notable music.) Guess I'm getting old and lazy but sometimes that works.

Beware of Puppy

Here's who I heard Thursday night:

* Bubble Puppy. This is the band that brought to Hotel Vegas. They're a Texas psychedelic band from the late '60s known mostly for their one hit "Hot Smoke and Sassafras."

Unfortunately the Puppy disappointed.

No, it's not because they're old guys. I'm way too old to be an ageist. Besides, two of the greatest rock 'n' roll shows I've seen in recent years -- The Sonics, who I saw in New Orleans in 2013 and Question Mark & The Mysterians, who I saw in New York in 2010 - were old guys by the time I saw them. But both of these bands play with the same abandon and energy that propelled them as youngsters, sticking to their unique original visions.

Bubble Puppy, which features three lead guitarists, are competent musicians. But instead of the crazy energy that I remember from "Hot Smoke and Sassafras" the group seems to have settled into a style I'll describe as "Dad Metal." They seem to have embraced that moment when psychedelic music drifted away from t.he spirit of proto-punk garage music and music became "heavy."

I admit I got to the show late and I assume I missed "Hot Smoke and Sassafras." Perhaps my opinion would have been softened had I heard that.

I did, however, get to Bubble Puppy's set in plenty of time for the drum solo ...

* Yamantaka // Sonic Titan. This was my major music discovery Thursday. It's an avant-garde experimental noise group from Canada that calls its style "Noh-Wave" -- a sly reference to Noh theater, a Japanese musical theater that's been around since the 14th Century.

The band has two female singers, one of whom plays guitar, the other playing percussion instruments, including a large round drum and cymbals.

Yamantaka did one number with serious Native American overtones. My first thought was that it sounded like Yoko Ono had produced a pow wow record.

I've got to hear more of this band.


* Holy Wave. This definitely is my favorite psychedelic band from El Paso. They're about to release their latest album Adult Fear.

The sickly sweet aroma of illegal and dangerous marijuana permeated the area in front of he stage as the band started out slow and dreamy.

Slowly and methodically, the music builds. Drums slowly come in and the beat builds slowly. Before you know it, the buzzing guitars build up to the point it seems like they're going to explode. A listener finds himself engulfed.

Damn, it IS like a wave!

* Count Vaseline. I didn't even realize the Count was playing tonight. But he turned out to be my favorite act of the evening.

Born Stefan Murphy, Vaseline is an Irish guy with a Beatle Bob hairdo who on stage adopts the persona of a deranged man standing on a soapbox (he actually was standing on a plastic box for much of his set) demanding his crackpot warnings be heard. His band includes a guitarist and drummer, though I also saw Vaseline fooling with some kind of music software on a tablet.

Like Holy Wave, who were still playing outside when Count Vaseline began his indoors performance, Vaseline started off slow. A growling guitar and ominous drums created the atmosphere as the Count went into a Jim Morrison-like vamp like some beatnik shaman. There is more than a little Mark E. Smith from the latter-day Fall in this heady stew.

He sounded like he was trying to stave off Doomsday by prodding the audience to dance.  Occasionally Vaseline would pick up an electric guitar. At one point, he had a tambourine around his neck.

I've gotta say this performance is much different than Vaseline's recent EP Tales From The Megaplex, which is far poppier. While I like that record, especially a Velvetesque song called "John Cale" ("Lou Reed wishes he could be John Cale ...") I like Thursday's version of the Count even more.

Damn, it's already Friday ...

Holy Wave, getting holy

SXSW DAY 1

The Ghost Wolves at the 720 Club Austin

Barely a year ago I had never heard of the duo known as The Ghost Wolves.

But after seeing them tear up the Red River Street dive known as the 720 Club Wednesday night with their unique brand of punk/blues/garage sounds, I feel like an over-zealous cult member bent on spreading the word.

"Nobody like a cry baby!"

Faithful readers should know I already was a fan. Their most recent album Texa$ Platinum was high in my Top 10 list for 2017

As I wrote in my review of that record:

The Austin couple of singer/guitarist Carley Wolf and her husband, drummer Jonathan Wolf, rock hard and wild with lyrics and song titles (“Attitude Problem,” “Whettin’ My Knife,” “Strychnine in My Lemonade”) that seem to seethe with vexation. And yet somehow listening to them only makes me grin.

Indeed. I was grinning plenty last night.

But the cool thing was Carley was grinning even more. The lady has an infectious smile that serves to fortify her monster guitar playing.

And she doesn't even need all six strings to make her magic. On the last several songs, Carley played an electric guitar with only one string -- the low E string I think, though it might have been the A. I couldn't help but be reminded of Eddie "One-String" Jones, the mysterious Skid Row bluesman discovered in Los Angeles in 1960 whose amazing primitive music was documented on the album One-String Blues.

But like I said, this is a duo and The Ghost Wolves wouldn't be the Ghost Wolves with the sturdy drumming of Johnny Wolf. He keeps the relentless energy going.

Speaking of energy, I'm about out mine. Stay tuned for tomorrow!