Saturday, April 25, 2026

10 SONGS: 4/25/2026

10 Songs is a weekly list of ten songs that happen to be on my mind at the moment. The lists are usually dominated by songs played on the previous Sunday night's edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. The idea was inspired by Don Valentine of the essential blog I Don't Hear A Single

This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1333

VICKI PETERSON AND JOHN COWSILL: Downtown

We've been way too late in programming music from the fabulous Vicki Peterson and John Cowsill. We've played their respective alma maters the Bangles and the Cowsills a lot, and we've played Vicki Peterson's work with sister-in-law Susan Cowsill in the Continental Drifters, but so far our pal Rich Firestone's sublime SPARK Syracuse show Radio Deer Camp has enjoyed an exclusive right to fill the airwaves with Vicki 'n' John. Now, news that pop music's favorite couple will be visiting Syracuse's Westhill High School for a show on June 4th has us all giddy. We hope Rich doesn't mind us sharing the love for Vicki Peterson and John Cowsill.

The specifics of the duo's 6/4 Syracuse appearance are especially enticing:

"The first ever West Side Rock Show featuring The Westhill Rock Music Program! The show will feature all of the bands in Westhill’s Rock Music Program including the Killer Pancakes, Clockwork, and our faculty band, After School Special. Student performances to be followed by our headliner and special guests, Vicki Peterson and John Cowsill! Vicki was the lead guitarist and founding member of the iconic all female band in the 1980s, the Bangles. Their hits included "Walk Like an Egyptian," "Manic Monday" and "Eternal Flame." John was part of the Cowsills and also toured with the Beach Boys for almost 25 years. Vicki and John are currently touring in support of their brand new album, Long After the Fire. Vicki will even be performing some Bangles hits with the kids in the Rock Music Program! It will be an amazing evening of great music! Doors open at 6:00 PM. Performance begins at 6:45 PM. FREE CONCERT BUT TICKET RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED!"

To paraphrase Lenny Haise, former guitarist for teen sensations the Wonders: I'm going, you're going, we're ALL going.

And starting this week, TIRnRR is playing selections from Vicki and John's album Long After The Fire. "Downtown" joins TIRnRR here, and another track from the album will spin this Sunday night. We're happy to follow Radio Deer Camp's lead. Giddy, I tell ya. Giddy.

GENERATION X: Ready Steady Go

Congratulations to Billy Idol on being named to The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. My interest in the esteemed Mr. Idol goes back to his pre-solo days with the dynamic punk/pop combo Generation X. Man, I loved Generation X, and my favorite among Gen X favorites remains "Ready Steady Go," a willfully and triumphantly over-the-top celebration of watching the Who on UK TV in the '60s. In love with Cathy McGowan? Can't blame you, Billy. Can't blame you.


THE RAMONES: I Don't Want To Grow Up


Preach, brudders. I understand exactly what you mean.

THE ROLLING STONES: Can't You Hear Me Knocking

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

DEAN LANDEW: Summertime Friday Night

No, it's not summertime yet. And this posts on a Saturday, so even our next Friday feels like a Plimsouls-sanctioned million miles away. No matter! And why wait to the last minute anyway? Dean Landew has the song we need now. Winter? Spring? Summer? Fall? It's a year-round feeling, and I say it's Friday night until the Bay City Rollers declare otherwise.

THE GREENBERRY WOODS: Whenever You Want Me Too

It's All Good, Sugar... is a new album from fabled rockin' pop group the Greenberry Woods, and the very fact that there is such a thing as a new album from the Greenberry Woods oughta be cause for joy and merriment across the friggin' globe. The album reached us too late to include in this week's playlist, and our next show's humble salute to the life and legacy of the late Flashcubes/1.4.5. guitarist Paul Armstrong didn't allow us enough room to program any Greenberry Woods. BUT! This week's extravaganza did include an encore spin of the album's fab advance single "Whenever You Want Me Too." From a previous 10 Songs:

"Rapple Dapple! In my liner notes to Rhino's 1997 compilation Poptopia! Power Pop Classics Of The '90s, I wrote:

" 'The unfortunate fate of the Greenberry Woods offers a sobering reminder that even the best pop bands can still be resolutely ignored by the buying public. Maryland's favorite pop sons released two absolutely dreamy albums--1994's Rapple Dapple and 1995's Big Money Item--only to be met with appalling indifference by retail and radio. Following the group's apparent demise, a couple members resurfaced in a new group called Splitsville, and released an interesting, cartoony debut album on Big Deal in '96. But Splitsville ain't a proper substitute for the Greenberry Woods, whose passing we mourn here with a spin of their signature tune "Trampoline," an impossible-to-resist barrage of singalong charm and halcyon AM-pop style. Come back, guys!"

"(Before we go any further, it's important to note that, my '97 self notwithstanding, I soon became a Splitsville fan as well. Pop pundits. We can be a mite slow on the uptake sometimes.)

"And now, the return of '90s pop stars the Greenberry Woods should merit a guaranteed berth on any power pop radio playlist, and their new single 'Whenever You Want Me Too' certainly deserves that instant-add status. Hell, 'Whenever You Want Me Too' woulda fit in on Rapple Dapple, and I further dig its correct titular use of the word 'too' to create an effective pun for would-be lovers everywhere. We want this. We hope you want it too."

COCKEYED GHOST: I Hate Rock 'n' Roll
ARTHUR CONLEY: Sweet Soul Music

"I hate rock 'n' roll." "Do you like good music? That sweet soul music?" Sometimes the segues just write themselves.

THE BEATLES: Taxman
THE MONKEES: The Door Into Summer


Aftermath of Tax Day: With your fools' gold stacked up all around you, declare the pennies on your eyes. Consult your travelogue of maybe-next-year places, and be thankful they don't take it all.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. You can also become a Boppin' booster on my Patreon page.

I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. You can read about our history here.

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Friday, April 24, 2026

Celebrate INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE DAY with me at PARTHENON BOOKS this Saturday

This Saturday April 25th is INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE DAY, and I will be celebrating alongside other local authors at the mighty PARTHENON BOOKS, 333 South Salina Street in Syracuse. I'll be there from 2:00 to 5:00 pm, and I'll have copies of my books Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones and The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) available for sale. I'll also have copies of various AHOY Comics titles containing short stories I wrote (a teaser for my forthcoming short story collection), and even a few This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio CDs. Stop by! Chat! Buy stuff! And, as always, keep bookstores alive.

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Thursday, April 23, 2026

THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! A weekly feature on THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO [updated list]

The pop noir genius of Todd Alcott

Time for another update on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio's weekly Greatest Record Ever Made! feature.

With the publication of my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), some of the GREM! pieces linked below have been removed from this blog for the time being; I'm told it's because of something about free milk and a cow, but I don't understand dairy farming. They'll be back...someday. In the mean time, y'know, BUY THE BOOK!!

Here's the weekly GREM! story so far:

In 2022, we started doing The Greatest Record Ever Made! as a (nearly) weekly feature on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. Here's an updated list of the weekly GREM!s so far. More to come. Some of these appeared in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), some may or may not appear in the hypothetical GREM! (Volume 2), and one--the Ramones' "I Don't Want To Grow Up"--appears in my book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones.

Each update gives me another chance to share some of Todd Alcott's brilliant images of classic rock 'n' roll songs reimagined as pulp paperbacks. I need to devote a full post to Alcott's work one of these days (or nights). Meanwhile, you can visit his site and buy some stuff. 

And here's a reprise of what I previously wrote about TIRnRR's weekly GREM! series:

An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns.

In 2022, with an eye toward mining the vast resource of material prepared for my ongoing concept The Greatest Record Ever Made!, we started doing a weekly GREM! feature on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl.

Part of the motivation here was, frankly, an effort to cut a tiny little corner in writing my weekly 10 Songs column. See, laziness is the mother of invention. Deciding that one 10 Songs entry each week could be a link to a previously-written Greatest Record Ever Made! piece meant that I only hadda write about nine songs. FREEDOM!

But a weekly feature also enhances the show itself. Prior to this, it had been a very long time since we had any specific weekly feature on TIRnRR. There used to be a weekly Forgotten Original!, there was a weekly Mystery 45! (where Dana grabbed a single from his collection and played it without previewing it), there was a very brief flirtation with Unsafe At Any Speed! (playing a record back at something other than its intended rpm), and I think we even may have had a weekly GREM! feature at some point. Maybe not. Maybe.

But these were all many years ago. The tentative beginning of our current weekly GREM! feature was in February of 2022, when we played Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want To Be With You" on our February 6th show, and then followed with "Thank You, Girl" by the Beatles the next week. Then, in typical fashion, I completely forgot about the idea for a few weeks.

Pretty quick work, right?

GREM! resumed as a weekly thingie at the end of March in 2022, and continued thereafter. It skips a week every so often...but not very often. Anyway, here's a list of all of 'em so far. I think the only one we repeated was "That Thing You Do!" by teen sensations the Wonders. Please be aware that I am not under oath. 

But we played them all on the radio. It's our own ongoing contribution to the infinite.

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights, 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at sparksyracuse.org and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. The weekend stops HERE!

THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! The Weekly TIRnRR Featured Songs [updated list]

SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY AND THE ASBURY JUKES: I Don't Want To Go Home

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. You can also become a Boppin' booster on my Patreon page.

I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. You can read about our history here.

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Wednesday, April 22, 2026

THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! The Rolling Stones, "Can't You Hear Me Knocking"

This essay was shared privately with this blog's paid patrons in 2025. It is not part of my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), and this is its first public appearance. You can became a patron of this blog for a mere $3 a month.

An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!


THE ROLLING STONES: Can't You Hear Me Knocking
Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
Produced by Jimmy Miller
From the album Sticky Fingers, Rolling Stones Records/Atlantic Records, 1971

When opportunity knocks, we're advised we ought to answer it. So what do we do when it's desperation pounding on our window?

In 1971, it wouldn't seem like the Rolling Stones could have much cause for desperation. The group had survived the 1969 departure (and death) of its founder Brian Jones, weathered the violent tumult of Altamont, and outlasted the Beatles. The Stones severed ties with legendarily hard-nosed former manager Allen Klein (though not without relinquishing the rights to all of their pre-'71 catalog), and began a new association with Atlantic Records, Atlantic now distributing the band's own new label, Rolling Stones Records. As galling as it must have been to lose control of their work from 1963 debut single "Come On" through 1970 live album Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!, and especially to lose it to a bastard like Klein, I betcha the Stones were glad to be rid of him.

So opportunity was knocking for the Rolling Stones. They answered with a new start, and with a new album sporting a deliberately edgy cover designed by Andy Warhol and Craig Braun, a salacious image equipped with a working zipper. The album was called Sticky Fingers.

Although de facto Brian Jones replacement guitarist Mick Taylor had played on a little bit of the Stones' 1969 album Let It Bleed and on the above-mentioned in-concert exorcism of Ya-Ya's, Sticky Fingers was his first full-length studio album as a Rolling Stone. Even before Jones split, the Rolling Stones had become Mick and Keith's group, with singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards calling the shots. Taylor, bassist Bill Wyman, and drummer Charlie Watts rocked their considerable talents, but refrained from rocking the boat. 

Still, it would be a grave mistake to give short shrift to Wyman, Watts, and Taylor. I don't think there's any question that Jagger and Richards were running the show, but nor should there be any doubt that without the sheer accomplishment and wizardry of its individual players, the Rolling Stones would not have been capable of claiming the title they'd recently seized as their own:

The World's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band.

They staked that claim on stage, on the road. One could say they'd tried to stake it on record as well, but now? Now, in this brave new world that would never know another new Beatles album? Opportunity. Knock, knock. The World's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band would unleash their power in the studio.

Sticky Fingers wasn't necessarily a departure from Let It Bleed, but it felt different, weightier, more...important? At the very least, it felt like a statement. Opening track "Brown Sugar" was an instant classic rock staple (its casual misogyny and implied racism somehow glossed over), and Side 2 opener "Bitch" is even better. "Sway" is self-descriptive. "You Gotta Move" and "I Got The Blues" call upon the Stones' Delta-drawn roots. "Dead Flowers" and especially "Wild Horses" establish a gorgeous, haunting ache that is respectively damning and redemptive. "Sister Morphine," which Mick and Keith co-wrote with an originally uncredited Marianne Faithfull, is appropriately harrowing (if not the equal of, say, the Flamin' Groovies' "Slow Death" or the Velvet Underground's "Heroin"). As coda, "Moonlight Mile" tweaks the blueprint of the soon-to-become-familiar AOR ballad. It ain't a revelation to say this, but even the obvious needs to be said out loud every once in a while: Sticky Fingers is one of the all-time finest rock 'n' roll albums.

"Can't You Hear Me Knocking" is the next to last track on Side 1, a seven-minute-and-fifteen second mic drop, a mind-blowing excursion into the sovereign realm of the goddamned Rolling Stones acting with impunity as the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band. It's a full-body immersion in the concept, riff-driven, a desperate knock with no hope of an answer from that damned elusive satisfaction. Jagger wails, feigning a potential loss of control without ever once conceding the possibility of that silly notion. The band just freaking cooks. I mean, they cook, clean, and put the cat out at night, and they did it all in one take. Duly deputized Rolling Stones Billy Preston (organ), Rocky Dijon (congas), Jimmy Miller (percussion), and saxophonist extraordinaire Bobby Keyes execute dominion by divine right, and Keyes in particular provides honkin' skronk whammin' that paradoxically helps define what is essentially a guitar workout. Impossible. But true! 

Of course the guys with legit Rolling Stones ID badges demonstrate the divinity of their own rights. With Wyman and Watts as the core of the rhythm section, every buoyant boom and prodding tap is tastefully but emphatically in its proper propellin' place. Bill Wyman is resolutely and unfailingly Bill Wyman, the sine qua non of solid groove. Charlie Watts is Charlie motherlovin' Watts. 'Nuff said. 

And if a guitar battle breaks out, you'd better thank the deities that Richards and Taylor are on your side. Bobby Keyes's sublime sax work embellishes and enhances the track; it's still essentially a guitar workout. The song starts with Keef's introductory guitar licks metamorphosing into that killer riff, continues with Keith and Mick trading their prowess, and concludes with Mick Taylor taking over for an extended, improvised solo that proves he was born to be a Rolling Stone. Maybe Mick Taylor was the one answering all that knocking, and answering the summons with ample authority to spare.

When opportunity knocks, we're supposed to answer it. When desperation knocks, we are often the ones doing all that frantic pounding. A decade passed between the release of Sticky Fingers in 1971 and my first belated awareness of "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" in the early '80s. I've described my own not-quite-desperate, not-quite-thriving early '80s situation on previous occasions: A recent college graduate, working at McDonald's, living with my girlfriend in our college town of Brockport, more or less making ends meet but lacking any real sense of direction. My stated goal was to become a writer, but I wasn't writing much, if at all. I was doing a fair amount of drinking. More than anything else, I was failing. My relationship with the girlfriend suffered, and was at potential risk of failing as well. Opportunity wasn't exactly knocking. I'm not sure I was exactly knocking on the right doors either.

Perhaps it's a coincidence that this was also the period in my life when I paid the most attention to the Rolling Stones. I snapped up used copies of most of the Mick Taylor-era LPs. Exile On Main Street. Goat's Head Soup. It's Only Rock 'n' Roll. Sticky Fingers. I never got around to owning 1976's Black And Blue, picking up the post-Taylor Ronnie Wood years with my girlfriend's copy of Some Girls. The sound of the Stones could be heard spinning in our little apartment with a frequency to rival the Ramones, the Jam, and the Undertones. My friend Brian hipped me to "Can't You Hear Me Knocking," and I took that opportunity to dive right in. In my short-attention world of two- and three-minute pop numbers, "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" was my most-played seven-minute song.

Our personal soundtracks can inspire, motivate, distract, and/or uplift in the undetermined manner the grooves allow. They can also be incidental to whatever the hell we do with our lives. I remained my girlfriend Brenda's designated boyfriend as we ditched the disappointments of life in our college town and relocated to Buffalo. We failed there, too. We kept knocking anyway, stayed together, got married, moved to Syracuse, took the opportunity to build a life and a family. Life remains under construction, just like all of the roads in Syracuse. Men and women at work. You can hear us knocking, right?

You can certainly hear when the Rolling Stones come a-knockin', a desperate embrace of opportunity realized, a chance seized, a promise realized. The world's greatest rock 'n' roll band. Can't knock 'em if it's true.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. You can also become a Boppin' booster on my Patreon page.

I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. You can read about our history here.

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