TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Fresh From the Kitchen

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Octber 11, 2019

Besides their music, one thing I like about the “garage-punk space-pop” trio from Albuquerque known as Alien Space Kitchen is that they have a better record of keeping promises than most politicians.

Early this year, they self-released The Golden Age of Climate Change: The ASK EP Project, Volume 1, a 7-song burst of joy concerning the pending last gasp of human history. I enjoyed that EP but took the group’s plan to release a new CD every three months with a grain — no, actually a pillar — of salt.

But my skepticism was for naught. By early summer Alien Space Kitchen — which consists of singer/guitarists Dru Vaughter, drummer/vocalist Noelle Graney and bassist Terry “Mess” Messal — released Give Punk a Chance: The ASK EP Project, Volume 2. Then just a few weeks ago they added Return of the Muckrakers: The ASK EP Project, Volume 3 to their discography. So they’re pretty much on schedule.

As the title might imply, most of the eight tunes on Give Punk a Chance are slightly faster, slightly harder-edged and slightly punkier than most of ASK’s music (though their fans shouldn’t have any trouble recognizing the band).

“It’s so easy you will see/It’s not rocket surgery,” Vaughter sings on the title song, before launching into an unexplained refrain of “God is dead, don’t ask me if I care.”

Another highlight of this EP is the urgent-sounding “505,” a salute, if backhandedly so, to the band’s homeland. “I’ve done my time in the 505,” goes the chorus.

The EP exits with “Enter the Void,” at just over four minutes, the longest song on the record. It starts out with some uncharacteristic acoustic guitar strumming. The electricity soon comes back on, though, and the tempo quickens. By the chorus, it sounds like full-fledged punk rock.

The lyrics deal with “lessons” learned at school: “Today at school they learned me how/to disavow the here and now.” Such observations are intertwined with sly references to classic advertising slogans. “Maybe I should give it up/’cause I’m not feelin’ 7-Up,” Vaughter sings, (reminding me of one of my favorite scenes in Repo Man.)

Like the other ASK EPs, Muckrakers is short but packed with musical goodies.

The first track that really grabbed me here is “This Will Take Time,” one of the group’s trademark cheerful doomsday ditties. This one features the refrain, “The world is in denial/We’re in a downward spiral/We’re dancin’ with the Devil every day …”

While several songs have underlying political messages, “Police Brutality” is a bonafide protest song. “Police brutality every day/What the hell’s going on in the USA?”

Alien Space Kitchen conjures the ghost of a major 20th-century religious thought leader in the song “Jimmy Jones.”

The warning here, in an age where the president is looking more and more like a cult leader, is to not drink the Flavor Aid. (And yes, Vaughter got the correct brand name of the last-call-at-Jonestown drink.) “We’ve got to take a crazy stand before they kill us all/Jim Jones is still among us, his writing’s on the wall,” he sings.

Here’s a quibble: I know what he’s trying to say, but wasn’t “They’re going to kill us! … We’ve got to make a stand” basically what Jim Jones was babbling about as his followers were collapsing around him?

I’m not sure why Alien Space Kitchen chose to do a series of EPs instead of a regular-length album. But having listened to three of them so far, I believe the format works.

I remember the Golden Age of CDs (which preceded The Golden Age of Climate Change by a few decades) when many artists felt obligated to practically fill up each compact disc so it seemed like every album was at least an hour long. Few albums warranted that.

In contrast, the ASK EPs range from 18 to 26 minutes each and, to borrow the title of an old Jerry Lee Lewis box set, they’re all killer, no filler.

In a recent radio interview, Vaughter and Graney said they actually have two more EPs in the can, and Volume 4, which they say will have a completely different sound, will be unleashed late this year or early next. I’m already looking forward.

Also recommended:

* Ride the Tusk by Sex Hogs II. Here’s another EP (five songs, just under 13 minutes) by another garagey/punky trio with roots in this enchanted land. Drummer Nate Daly — I guess you’d call him the boss Hog — played in an Albuquerque band called The Scrams until a few years ago when he scrammed off to Chico, California.

The music is tight, punchy, and pretty melodic. There is plenty of acoustic guitar, played by “Guitar Hog” ( Johnny Meehan).

The finest moment on the whole album has to be Meehan’s crazy, shredding guitar solo on the song “No Blame.” But coming close to that is the crazy, shredding — and all-too-brief — harmonica solo (by I don’t know which Hog) on the final song, “Bricks.”

Both Sex Hogs II and Alien Space Kitchen sell their music, including all the titles mentioned here, through Bandcamp.com. Go buy their stuff.

Video Time!

I couldn't find any videos for Sex Hogs II, but here's Alien Space Kitchen performing "Give Punk a Chance" at a recent Santa Fe show



Here's one of my favorites from Return of the Muckrakers

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Happy Birthday Oscar Brown, Jr.

Ninety one years ago in Chicago, jazz singer, songwriter, poet, playwright and Civil Rights activist Oscar Brown, Jr. was born.

Though his 1960 album Sin & Soul was widely praised, and most if those songs resonate today, Brown never became the star he deserved to be.

Interest in his music was sparked back in 2016 by an unlikely source: one Donald J. Trump, who recited (badly) the lyrics to one of his songs, "The Snake," which was a soulful rewrite of an old Aesop's fable of a woman who found a snake who was dying. She took him in, nursed him back to health and the ungrateful damned thing bit her, saying (in Oscar's version), "You knew damned well I was a snake before you took me in."

In Trump's telling, the snake was a metaphor for Syrian refugees (that might have been changed to Mexicans in some of his versions) and the "tender woman"  represented foolish liberals who didn't recognize the inherent danger of brown strangers. Or something.

No, Trump isn't an Oscar Brown fan. He mistakenly credited the song to soul singer Al Wilson, who covered Brown's song in the '60s.

And a couple of years after he started using "The Snake," Brown's daughters rebuked the president.. "The elephant in the room is that Trump is the living embodiment of the snake that my father wrote about in that song," daughter Africa Brown said on CNN.

Oscar Brown, Jr. died in 2005 at the age of 78. His music lives on.

Here's the first one that grabbed my attention. "Mr. Kix" was covered a few years ago by Dave & Phil Alvin.



"The Work Song" was covered by both Nina Simon and The Animals (!)



Another favorite is "Hazel's Hips."



And here's the song that should inspire us to remember Oscar, not that other guy who likes to recite it.

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Here's the playlist:

(Background Music: Totalitarian Polka by A Pony Named Olga)
Follow the Leader by Wiley Terry
This is Rock 'n' Roll by Los Pepes
Million Times by Alien Space Kitchen
Forever by Sex Hogs II
Reverso Destructo by The ToyTrucks
He's a Mighty Good Leader by Beck
(Background Music: Free Your Ass and Your Mind Will Follow by Funkadelic)

Leader of the Sect by The Downliners Sect
Untamed Dame by Råttanson
Hialeah Backstretch by Charlie Pickett
Red Me by Guitar Wolf
Goin' Away Baby by Jimmy "Duck" Holmes
Take Me to Your Leader by The Lancers
(Background Music:  Soviet National Anthem by youtubeaccount 01)

We Want to Talk to Your Leader by The Scaners
Don't Take Your Bad Trip Out on Me by The Electric Mess
Why Follow Me by Pan Ron
'Til the Following Night by Screaming Lord Sutch
Pony Dress by The Flesh Eaters
Why Don't You Follow Me Down by The Berries
(Background Music: I Will Follow Him by Little Peggy March)

Play it here:

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TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, October 6, 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
Agony by The Muffs
No Man's Land by Imperial Wax
Wish She's Come Back by The Mystery Lights
In Glass by Notts
Along for the Ride by Alien Space Kitchen
Brontosaurus by Hickoids
Homicyde by Kazik & Zdunek Ensemble

I Put a Spell on You by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Heart Attack and Vine by Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Low Down Monkey Blues by Tom Waits with The Replacements
Bastards of Young by The Replacements
End of My Neighborhood by The Fleshtones
Cypress Grove by Jimmy "Duck" Holmes

Bricks by Sex Hogs II
Your Justice by Los Pepes
Disbelief Suspension by Mark Lanegan Band
This Wondrous Day by Kyra
I'm Out of Control by The Milkshakes
Can't Judge a Book by Thee Headcoats
Apartment Wrestling Rock 'n' Roll by Reverend Beat Man
Cock in My Pocket by Iggy & The Stooges
The Mad Daddy by The Cramps

Dancing on My Knees by The Yawpers
Straight Hard and Long by Meet Your Death
Chinese Buffet by The Royal Hounds
Too Bad by Lonesome Shack
I Had a Dream by Dex Romweber
Since I Fell For You by The Night Beats
How Many Stars by The Mekons
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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WACKY WEDNESDAY: In Praise of The Maddox Brothers & Rose

I've been enjoying Ken Burns' Country Music documentary series on PBS.  But one thing I'm not enjoying is the never-ending bitching on social media about artist Burns didn't cover, or cover enough. (I'm about half way through it it, so if, by the end I don't see anything on The Waco Brothers or The Hickoids, I might join in the whine-fest.)

But til then, let's look at the doughnut and not the hole. There are many great country musicians to whom Burns devoted precious footage who aren't very well known to modern ears, and one such act is the band known as The Maddox Brothers and Rose.

Fred, Cal, Cliff, Don, "Friendly" Henry (the working girl's friend) and little sister Rose Maddox brought the boogie to country music, basically playing rockabilly decades before anyone ever heard of rockabilly. Mixing honky-tonk, a little bluegrass, some R&B -- and almost always irreverent humor -- they provided good times and great sounds for the Okies who had migrated to California during the Great Depression. They also were forerunners of the Bakersfield sound and inspirations to the likes of Merle Haggard and Buck Owens (who recorded several duets with Rose in the early '60s.

Though they called their style "Okie boggie," the Maddox clan was from Alabama. The whole family walked, hitchhiked and hopped trains to Modesto, Calif. in 1933.

From Don Maddox's bio on the PBS website:

In 1939 they drove their Model A to the Sacramento State Fair and entered a hillbilly band competition. The Maddox siblings took the stage and ripped through “Sally Let Your Bangs Hang Down,” with hard-driving rhythms and raunchy lyrics, and tore up the competition, officially winning the title “California’s best hillbilly band.” After that, the family performed at rodeos and in honky tonks up and down the West Coast. Rose, only 12 at the time, performed in bars, despite rules that no one under the age of 18 could enter. During that period, she heard Woody and Jack Guthrie perform “Reno Blues”—a song she later remade into the group’s biggest hit, “The Philadelphia Lawyer.”

When Don and his brothers returned from military service in 1946, the band reformed. Dressed in gaudy, brightly colored costumes made by North Hollywood tailor Nathan Turk, the Maddox Brothers and Rose called themselves “America’s Most Colorful Hillbilly Band” and were known for their high-energy performances – with hollers, spoken asides, and brother Cal’s crazy laughter. Don became the comic of the group and developed a confident “Don Juan” persona. His screeching “mule” fiddle became an integral part of the Maddox stage show.

Here's the song that won them that contest in Sacramento:



This is the song that made me a fan after hearing it on KUNM's Home of Happy Feet years and years ago.



Mama was right ...



Most of us are familiar with this kind of blues



And here's an oddity from 1956 I just stumbled on. I'm not sure why they renamed "I Got a Woman" to "The Death of Rock and Roll." I just hope Ray Charles got some royalties.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, September 29, 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
Along Came Jones by The Coasters
Glad Rag Ball by Daddy Long Legs
Who Controls the Weather by Alien Space Kitchen

Alien Space Kitchen interview
One More Time by The Dildonts
Let it Come Down by Alien Space Kitchen
I Won't by The Replacements
Barely Getting By by Imperial Wax
60 Minute Man by Jerry Lee Lewis
This Year's Girl by Elvis Costello
Two Dollar Elvis by Left Lane Cruiser
The Coffee Song by Stan Ridgway

Hard Times by Jimmy "Duck"Holmes
Snake Farm by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Thee Olde Trip to Jerusalem by The Mekons
Child of Mercy by The Yawpers
No Blame by Sex Hogs 2
Automatic by Los Pepes
Risking My Heart by Råttanson
Schoolbus by The Toy Trucks
The Beast is You by The Electric Mess
A Lonely Song by Daniel Johnston

Facestabber by Thee Oh Sees
Thick Skin by The Mystery Lights
Love by Sleater-Kinney
Silver Spring by Fleetwood Mac
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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Go to The Big Enchilada Podcast which has hours and hours of music like this.

CLICK HERE

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TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Intense Deliberation and Heavy Sadness

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
September 27, 2019

Faithful readers of my music screeds should certainly realize that probably 99 percent of my record reviews are favorable. Ripping into bad music by chirpy little pop stars or stinky old classic rockers years beyond their prime doesn’t bring me much joy. But more importantly, I’d much rather tell people about great music they might not be familiar with.

But there’s one big exception. That’s when some singer or band who I absolutely love releases a record that disappoints me — music that’s so unworthy of musicians who are capable of so much more. That’s when I dip my proverbial pen into the metaphorical poison ink.

You only hurt the ones you love.

So after intense deliberation and heavy sadness, I have decided to blast The Center Won’t Hold, the new album by one of my top favorite bands of the past couple of decades, Sleater-Kinney.

In case the above verbiage seems somewhat familiar to fans of this group, that’s because I was riffing on the announcement in July by longtime Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss that she was leaving the trio. “The band is heading in a new direction and it is time for me to move on,” she wrote on social media soon after S-K had finished recording The Center Won’t Hold.

A “new direction.” That’s an understatement for the ages.

Quick historical note: Sleater-Kinney first rose from the smoldering ashes of the great Riot Grrrl scare in Olympia, Washington, in the early 1990s. But there was something special about them. It didn’t take long for S-K to slip the surly bonds of the basic girl-punk sound.

Besides Weiss’ mighty drums, there was the scorching two-guitar attack of Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein (also of Portlandia fame). There was Tucker’s hopped-up banshee wail (the group’s greatest weapon). And they only seemed to get better with every new album.

One of the best shows I've ever seen ...

They took a hiatus that lasted a decade or so shortly after releasing their 2005 album The Woods. I missed them dearly in their absence but their 2015 comeback album, No Cities to Love, was nothing short of amazing. (And their concert in Albuquerque in the spring of that year was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.)

That’s one of the main things that saddens me so about the gloopy mess that is this latest record.

For reasons best known to Corin, Carrie, and Janet (if indeed the latter was part of this decision), they called in Annie Clark, better known among indie-rock circles (whatever that means these days) as St. Vincent. A lot of people, including many whose musical tastes I respect (my own beloved children among them), like her music. But I find it overly precious and boring and much of it soaked in synthy uselessness.

That’s fine. St. Annie can do what she wants. I just wish she hadn’t brought those dubious qualities to Sleater-Kinney’s new album. (Some may call me a stodgy old dinosaur, but I don’t give a flying darn.)

The dearly departed Weiss does play on the new album, but her normal power is diluted severely by synthesized beats. Also, the wild guitars of Tucker and Brownstein take a backseat to the electronic gizmos.

Seriously, had you played me this album without telling me who it was, I would not have guessed it was Sleater-Kinney.

The title song, which starts the album, is cruelly deceptive. It starts out slowly with clanking percussion and a synthesized bass line. The vocals — I think it’s Tucker — seem detached to the rest of the musical backdrop. Then about two-thirds of the way into the song, the old Sleater-Kinney seems to come back to life for the final minute of the track.

But it’s just a tease. By the next number, “Hurry on Home,” the new, artsy, synth-pop S-K is back and, for the most part, here to stay.

I have to admit there are a couple of tunes I actually like. “Bad Dance” comes dangerously close to rock ‘n’ roll. “And if the world is ending now/then let’s dance, the bad dance/we’ve been rehearsing our whole lives,” Brownstein sings. It’s definitely the sexiest song on the album. “Come over here and show me/that you crave a little more/Let me defang you/and defile you on the floor …”

And despite the fact that it’s just as synthy as the worst songs on the album and doesn’t really sound like the Sleater-Kinney I revere, the upbeat “Love” is so catchy it’s addictive. It sounds almost faux-’80s New Wave, maybe The Go-Gos high on pep pills and hair spray. And, somewhat ironically, it’s about S-K’s early history, even dropping the names of some of their early albums.

“Heard you in my headphones/Slipped you my address/Call the doctor/Dig me out of this mess/Tuned it down to C/Turned the amp to ten/A basement of our own/A mission to begin ...”

I’m glad the brave women of Sleater-Kinney no longer have to sleep in their van, as they sing about in “Love.” But I sure hope they turn the amp back to 10 and return to the basic sound that brought us to them in the first place.

Video time:

Here's the best song from this sub-par album



And here's a live video of "Step Aside" from 2006

Come back, Sleater-Kinney!