Forty years ago today, His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular -- aka, the uncrowned king of Scotland -- was forced to flee from his native Uganda and give up the power he enjoyed and abused for nearly a decade.
Encyclopedia Britannica said of Amin, "He was noted for his abrupt changes of mood, from buffoonery to shrewdness, from gentleness to tyranny. He was often extreme in his nationalism."
Good thing that could never happen here ...
Encyclopedia Britannica also says, "Amin came to be known as the “Butcher of Uganda” for his brutality, and it is believed that some 300,000 people were killed and countless others tortured during his presidency."
By late 1978, the Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas etc. had made the stupid mistake of invading neighboring Tanzania. That country launched a counter attack that eventually drove him out of the country. Amin escaped first to Libya, then eventually he settled in Saudi Arabia.
He died and went to Hell in 2003.
At least he left behind some fine songs in his "honor."
Outside In Productions just announced this summer's Santa Fe Bandstand schedule.
Shinyribs at 2018 South by Southwest
Ad it's going to kick off with none other than Shinyribs!
In a magnificent act of copy-and-paste, here's that schedule:
• Opening Night with SHINYRIBS (June 19): Shinyribs is an American country-soul, swamp-funk band. Known for his outrageous outfits and on-stage antics, front man Kevin Russell delivers a rousing dance party of a show that’s impossible to forget. Winners of “Best Austin Band” at the 2019 Austin Music Awards.
• PETER ROWAN AND THE FREE MEXICAN AIRFORCE with LOS TEXMANIACS (June 22): Grammy-award winner Peter Rowan comes back to Old Santa Fe for his 3rd Bandstand appearance. For this special show, Peter will be backed by New Mexico’s own Grammy winning conjunto band Max Baca y Los Texmaniacs.
• LA MERA CANDELARIA (June 27): This LA-based band fuses cumbia with the relaxed vibes of son cubano, creating a refreshing new musical mix. Founder Stephani Candelaria hopes her lyrics, which tackle queer relationships and gender roles, inspire cultural change in her community.
• JIM LAUDERDALE (July 10): Jim Lauderdale is a 2-time Grammy winning Americana icon, a singer-songwriter whose unmistakable rhinestone-incrusted silhouette has been a symbol for creative integrity and prolificacy for
thirty-one albums over decades of recording.
Terrance Simien at Santa Fe Bandstand, June 2014
• TERRANCE SIMIEN AND THE ZYDECO EXPERIENCE (July 16): For 35 years, two- time Grammy award winning artist Terrance Simien, 8th generation Louisiana Creole has been shattering the myths about what his indigenous Zydeco roots music is – and is not. Don’t miss this special Cajun dance party.
• AL HURRICANE, JR. (July 20 at SWAN Park): Affectionately known as "The Godson" of New Mexico Music, Al Huricane Jr. proves the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, having created numerous solo albums and
contributed such celebrated songs as "Flor De Las Flores" to New Mexico's unique style of Spanish music.
• AMY HELM (July 24): Amy Helm is an American singer-songwriter and daughter of The Band drummer Levon Helm and singer Libby Titus. She is a past member of the Levon Helm's Midnight Ramble Band and Ollabelle.
• LOS STRAITJACKETS (August 1): Mixing the familiar sounds of Dick Dale, Duane Eddy, and the Ventures, Los Straitjackets create their own version of energetic surf guitar twang, complete with Mexican wrestling masks.
• ELIZA GILKYSON (August 7): Eliza Gilkyson is a twice Grammy-nominated (2006/2015) singer songwriter and activist who is one of the most respected musicians in Folk, Roots and Americana circles.
• DAVINA AND THE VAGABONDS (August 8): With influences ranging from Fats Domino and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to Aretha Franklin and Tom Waits, Davina and the Vagabonds have grown from a down-and-dirty
blues band into one of the most exciting acoustic ensembles on the international stage.
So where does a big music star with big financial problems go for help? If it's the early '90s, apparently they ran to the Border to pitch for Taco Bell.
That's what Willie Nelson did in 1992 when the IRS Hell Hound was on his trail. Listen to Willie sing the praises of the Woman with the Rose Tattoo -- and also Steak Burrito Supremes:
Rapper M.C. Hammer also made Taco Bell ads. But unlike Willie, Hammer's financial crisis happened a couple of years or so after he'd made commercials for Taco Bell (and KFC, and Pepsi.) So maybe Hammer actually liked crappy tacos.
Here's another ... direct from Lake Edna!
I'm not exactly sure why Little Richard jumped on the taco wagon.
Back to the hills and hollers for another Big Enchilada hillbilly episode. Real country music old as well as new, pure as well as mutated. For those who miss The Santa Fe Opry, hold this one close to your heart.
And remember, The Big Enchilada is officially listed in the iTunes store. So go subscribe, if you haven't already (and gimme a good rating and review if you're so inclined.) Thanks.
Sunday, March 31, 2019 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Wonky by The Reverend Horton Heat
Moon by REQ'D
Some Conversations You Just Don't Need to Have by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
Oogam Boogam by Alex Chilton
One Ugly Child by Thee Headcoats
My Life to Live by The Flesh Eaters
Evergreen by Alien Space Kitchen
No Place in Space by The Scaners
Rockabilly Fart by A Pony Named Olga
Election Day in Satchidananda by Unknown Instructors
Nowhere to Hide by The Fadeaways
Hey You by Simon Stokes & The Heathen Angels
Earn Your Heaven by The Yawpers
Come and Get it by Mean Motor Scooter
Cut Me Down by The Ar-Kaics
It Is or It Ain't by The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
MEKONS SET
(all songs by The Mekons except where noted)
Tom, Sally, Jon & Rico -- and those are just
the Mekons who sing!
The Sun / The Galaxy Explodes
You Lied to Us by Mekons 77
Flowers of Evil Part 2
Hard to Be Human Again
Come and Have a Go If You Think You're Hard Enough
In the Desert
Big Zombie by Chivalrous Amoekons
Beaten & Broken by Robbie Fulks and Mini-Mekons
If I Was a Mekon by Too Much Joy
Cast No Shadows
Hillbilly Bop by Martha Fields
Be Real by Freda & The Firedogs
The Old Man's Soul by Henry Townsend
Lucky Day by Tom Waits
Evening All by Mekons 77 CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Want to keep the party going after I sign off at midnight? Go to The Big Enchilada Podcast which has hours and hours of music like this. And there's a brand new hillbilly episode posted just this morning.
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican March 29, 2018
There aren’t many bands that I’d fly across the ocean to see. The Mekons is one of them.
And if the group’s various performances at the 2017 Mekonville Festival in Pettaugh, Suffolk County, England — a glorious three-day celebration of the band’s 40-year history — weren’t enough to prove that my love for The Mekons wasn’t misplaced, their new album,Deserted, is.
It’s their best album in more than a decade. Of course, a couple of years ago, I told anyone willing to listen the same thing about their previous album, Existentialism. But Deserted is even better. It’s probably their best in a couple of decades. It’s wild, somewhat cryptic, beautiful in spots — and it rocks like folks their age (or my age) aren’t supposed to rock.
Now begins the obligatory part of the column I’ll call “Mekons 101,” which is sadly necessary because so many people don’t know The Mekons from Alexander’s Ragtime Band. The Mekons, a brash, loose-knit art-school band in Leeds, U.K., sprang out of the world of punk in the late 1970s. But by the mid-’80s, they’d gone on to incorporate elements of folk and country music — and, at times, reggae, other world music, and flirtations with electronica and other sounds.
Though sometimes referred to as a collective, this band has had an amazingly consistent membership for decades. Singers/guitarists Jon Langford and Tom Greenhalgh have been there since the beginning. Singer Sally Timms, fiddler Susie Honeyman, accordion man Rico Bell, oud/saz player Lu Edmonds, and drummer Steve Goulding all were in place by the mid-’80s.
The only current member who hasn’t been around since the ’80s or before is “new guy” Dave Trumfio, the bass player, who joined just a few years ago after serving as a sound engineer for the group. He started that job more than 20 years ago.
Deserted was recorded at a studio near Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California. I’d like to think the studio is the lonesome little trailer shown on the album cover and in the video of “Lawrence of California.” I don’t know if that’s so, but whatever the case, like Edward Abbey, The Mekons found incredible inspiration in the American desert. It permeates the lyrics as well as the music.
And if you listen close, you can hear the ghost of Gram Parsons, which haunts Joshua Tree, wailing in the background. (I’m making that up, but years and years ago, The Mekons did record Parsons’ “Sleepless Nights” as well as “$1,000 Wedding.”)
I knew I was going to love this album just a few seconds into the thunderous first song. “Lawrence of California” sounds like a lunatic’s call to arms — but one that’s tempting to follow because it’s so joyful and powerful. The band sings like an angry mob seemingly driven by Honeyman’s demonic fiddle. The song’s refrain, “I will be the king,” sounds like a last-gasp proclamation by the leader of a ragtag army about to be mowed down. (For most of their 42 years together, all original songs are simply credited to “The Mekons,” not individual members.)
“Harar 1883” deals with a military deserter (the title refers to a famous photograph of poet Arthur Rimbaud in Ethiopia), and is somewhat slower but no less mighty. And the most intense song here is “Mirage,” which sounds like a meditation on post-apocalyptic gloom.
By far the strangest song on Deserted is “Weimar Vending Machine,” which starts off with an ominous slow-burning tempo and lyrics about Iggy Pop trying to buy a sandwich from a vending machine in Berlin. It includes a lyrical shout-out to playwright Bertholt Brecht’s Threepenny Opera: “Show me the way to the next whiskey bar.” Then the music makes a sudden shift to the boogie, with Bell pounding on piano like Leon Russell backed by falsetto voices that remind me of Frank Zappa’s Flo & Eddie era. The oft-repeated refrain in the last couple of minutes is, “The priest is gone, the priest is gone ...”
One of the real highlights here is sweet, melodic, and pretty. That’s “How Many Stars?” which has deep folk roots. “Captain, Captain, tell me true/Does my sweet William ride with you?” (Sweet William — wasn’t that the fallen lover of “Pretty Peggy-O”?). The captain tells the woman, “He’s lost out in the dark, my dear.” Then the song takes a classic “Butcher Boy” turn, with the heroine taking a pen to paper for what turns out to be a suicide note. “Father, father dig my grave ... show them all I died for love.” The story is ancient, but the melody could haunt you forever.
Also recommended:
* It Is Twice Blessed by Mekons 77: One of the highlights of Mekonville in 2017 was the set by the original Mekons lineup, which featured Langford (on drums!) and Greenhalgh, as well as singers Andy Corrigan and Mark “Chalkie” White, guitarist Kevin Lycett, and bassist Ros Allen. It was too good to be a one-off, so late last year this group released this album of new recordings.
Though most of these Mekons emeriti had long forsaken the music biz, this record is amazingly tight. And there are a number of standout tracks.
I’m not sure what “Bug Out Time” is about, but it’s a wild stomper with audio traces of dub reggae. Some songs are political in content, such as “Borders,” “You Lied to Us,” and “Still Waiting” (which could be an answer to the early Mekons showstopper, “Where Were You?” The big hint is “the girl with the yellow hair,” who appears in both tunes).
Though there are other songs here fueled by political rage — like that other team of Mekons — there is also plenty of wry humor, so the album doesn’t come off as just another angry screed.
Video Mekons
Here's "Lawrence of California."
This is the Mekonville version of "How Many Stars," featuring Tom Greenhalgh's kids on background vocals. (I was standing pretty close to the stage on Susie and Lu's side.)
I'm a few days late, but I'd like wish each and every one of you a happy World Day of Puppetry!
According to the Puppeteers of America website, March 21 is the day to honor the puppets among us.
Puppetry in America is older than the country itself, but until the beginning of the 20th century, puppet shows were rare. Puppeteers kept their art a closely guarded secret, certainly not shared with the public. In the first half of the 20th century, some puppeteers (most notably Tony Sarg) helped to lift the veil of secrecy, sharing information about their work, which led to the formation of the Puppeteers of America in 1937... Today, almost three quarters of a century onward, puppets hold a place in the public’s heart that is rivaled by few other arts. They appear on stage, in movies, on television, and now, on the Internet. The Puppeteers of America is proud to present this National Day of Puppetry taking place all over North America and brought to you by the local Puppeteers of America guild in your area.
I'm not even sure there is a Puppeteers of America guild in my area. But that doesn't matter. Puppets and music go together like peanut butter and bacon.
Listen to the puppets sing!
Hey Hey We're The Muppets
One of the first ventriloquist dummies I ever saw as a kid was Jerry Mahoney. Here he is singing with his special friend, Paul Winchell
There was a real chemistry between Andy Gibb and Madam
Here's an Elvis puppet song that was a hit in the '60s
James & Bobby Purify soulfully embraced their puppethood
