Since Greg G sent Doug south of the border in an earlier post today, I thought this was an appropriate time to take another excursion down there, this time in the form of a single-only song from the Kris Kristofferson film Cisco Pike, "Michoacan".
I guess that working with the Crazy Cajun Huey P. Meaux wasn't quite enough crazy for Sahm, because "Michoacan" was co-written by the king of crazy, Kim Fowley.
Sir Doug actually appeared in Cisco Pike, which features a PRIMO cast of 70s performers, from Karen Black to Harry Dean Stanton to Antonio Fargas, and is almost sure to be playing at a Fool's Paradise double feature near you in the near future. As a teaser, here's Doug's scene (about three minutes in), talking about how much he hates complicated California psychedelic music and prefers to keep it simple. He also, unsurprisingly, needs some weed.
The song itself is such a crazy, happy goofed up bounce, and the scene in the studio is so positively loco, that for a while the word "Michoacan", divorced from any geographical context or even an upper case letter, became a code adjective among me and my friends for a messed up but kind of awesome situation, as in: "That party last night was pretty michoacan." This has of course taken on darker meanings since Michoacan became one of the central spots of south-of-the-border drug cartel violence. Surprised this number has not made it into "Breaking Bad".
Speaking of pretty michoacan, check out this photo of Doug Sahm, Steven T. (aka Venus of Venus and the Razor Blades), Question Mark, and Kim Fowley. If that's not the essence of michoacan, I dunno what is.
Next stop Nuevo Laredo?
