10 SONGS: 7/27/2024

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 # 1243.

THE MAVERICKS: True Love Ways

THE VILLAS: Someone To Hold On To

THE HALF CUBES: The Girl

July 21st. 

This week's show fell on the 40th anniversary of the day Brenda and I got married. We are still together, and together will shall remain. Happy Anniversary, Brenda!

Our wedding song was the lovely Buddy Holly ballad "True Love Ways." So we open this week's rockin' pop proceedings with the Mavericks' ace cover of "True Love Ways," segued into "Someone To Hold On To," the Villas' irresistible ode to finding the love of one's life (as heard on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 5), and wrappin' up our opening true-love tribute trifecta with the Half Cubes' remake of the Rubinoos' "The Girl," a track which recruits Rubinoos Jon Rubin and Tommy Dunbar to assist in establishing a beach head to hold on to true love ways. The girl. As a boy, that's all I ever want. My girl is Brenda.

It just so happens that Sunday was also Half Cubes singer and bassist Gary Frenay's 40th anniversary. HuzZAH, Gary and Jackie! See, now I understand why Brenda and I couldn't hire Gary to play at our wedding in '84. Priorities. I can dig that. And Dana and I will open our next TIRnRR with a brand-new single by the Half Cubes.

Meanwhile....

THE RUBINOOS: Nowhereseville

By the time you read this, I expect to be enjoying the afterbuzz of my first-ever Rubinoos show. I've been a fan since I was 17; 47 years is a long time to wait to see one of my favorite bands, but I betcha it was well worth the wait.

On this week's TIRnRR, I wanted to prep for last night's Rubinoos club show by playing some Rubinoos, and supplementing with a number of other tracks featuring Rubes guitarist Tommy Dunbar. The latter category included the Half Cubes number in our opening set, plus tracks by Duncan Faure, Vox Pop, Ken Sharp, Marty Rudnick, Scott McCarl, Kyle Vincent, and Suzy and Los Quattro. 

And for the evening's first Rubinoos spin, we opted for "Nowheresville," the track the Rubinoos allowed us to use on our 2017 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4. Here's what I wrote about "Nowhereseville" at the time:

...The music we listen to as teens can resonate throughout our lives, etched in memory alongside every eternal snub and accolade. In 1977, I was a seventeen-year-old senior at a high school in Syracuse's northern suburbs. I liked oldies better than most then-current music--the Beatles, the Monkees, the Dave Clark Five, the Animals, and my recent discovery, the Kinks--but I was also looking for new. I liked KISS. I liked "Cherry Baby" by Starz, and "Isn't It Time" by the Babys, "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas, Boston's debut LP, Sweet's Desolation Boulevard, and Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. Spurred by intriguing things I read in Phonograph Record Magazine, I would become a fan of the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and Blondie before the end of the year, as this high school senior transformed into college freshman. But before the Ramones, or the Pistols, or my nascent hormonal devotion to Blondie's Debbie Harry, one group stood as the great teen hope. That group was the Rubinoos.

The Rubinoos were young, not much older than I was. They were on the radio, with a hit cover of Tommy James and the Shondells' "I Think We're Alone Now," and (on freer-form WOUR-FM) with a delectable album track called "Wouldn't It Be Nice." They were on TV, lip-syncing "I Think We're Alone Now" and "Rock And Roll Is Dead" on American Bandstand. They were revered in the pages of Phonograph Record Magazine, and they were one of the subjects of My First Rock Journalism. Their eponymous debut album was an absolutely essential purchase for me. God, I loved this band. That has never changed over the ensuing crashing and passing of four freakin' decades. I love the Rubinoos. I will always love the Rubinoos...

...[For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4], we initially selected a track called "This Is Good," a frothy li'l pop tune whose title provides its own spot-on review. But another song on the [This Is The Rubinoos] EP kept haunting the ol' consciousness. "Nowheresville" can best be described as pop noir, a shotgun marriage--well, more like a .45 automatic marriage--between a hardboiled crime paperback and Tiger Beat, Mickey Spillane meets Shaun Cassidy. And even that sells it short. It is a fully-realized slice of pure pulp, made pretty in spite of itself by the talent of the Rubinoos. Jon Rubin's unmistakable, irresistible voice soars, Tommy Dunbar's guitar twirls tastefully, while the lyrics could serve as a summary of something published by Gold Medal Books in the '50s or Hard Case Crime today. The one they call Honey was slurring her words/"Oh, why should we have to cut this thing in thirds?/I know the perfect patsy/Yeah, a pretty little bird/Who better to take the fall in Nowheresville?" Man, I would read that book, battered cover to battered cover, right now.

The juxtaposition of these extremes is somehow natural and flawless. How did the Rubinoos pull this off? In the words of Mike Hammer in Spillane's I, The Jury: It was easy.... 

KISS: Calling Dr. Love

Speaking of how the music we listen to as teens can resonate throughout our lives....

GLENN ERB: I Never Said Goodbye

The new Glenn Erb album Category Four comes to us courtesy of Friend To The Show Rich Rossi, who worked on the record and co-wrote all of the originals (not counting the cover of the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter"). The album was produced by Jamie Hoover--THERE'S your pop pedigree!--and Rich thought we might wanna consider its opening track "Baby Is A Hurricane" for airplay on our little mutant radio show.

Instead, I was drawn to the closing track, "I Never Said Goodbye," a solid tale of a relationship reaching the end of its road. It makes its TIRnRR debut this week. It spins again on our next show. Say hello to Glenn Erb.

DEADLIGHTS: For Free

New single from Deadlights? Instant airplay, guaranteed. Good stuff, as always.

THE RUBINOOS: Wouldn't It Be Nice

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE RUBINOOS: I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend

ALSO The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE GRIP WEEDS: Lady Friend [vocals only mix]

Wow. Rubinoos playing in Rochester this week, the Grip Weeds in Syracuse last week. People should envy us. I envy us. The Grip Weeds put on a fantastic show at the Lost Horizon, and their cover of the Byrds' "Lady Friend" has become a perennial TIRnRR Fave Rave.

The Grip Weeds' full recording of "Lady Friend" is on their sublime 2021 covers album DiG. This lovely a cappella mix can be found on A Deeper DiG, the bonus third disc packaged with the DiG Super Deluxe Edition. That is, of course, the edition any self-respecting Grip Weeds fan will get.

So: Respect yourself! Here it comes again. Dig?

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. 

My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available for order; you can see details here. My 2023 book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is also still available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. 

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. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl

THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! The Rubinoos, "Wouldn't It Be Nice"

This is not part of my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Probably should have been.

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 RUBINOOS: Wouldn't It Be Nice

Written by James Gangwer and Tommy Dunbar

Produced by Gary Phillips, Glen Kolotkin, and Matthew King Kaufman

From the album The Rubinoos, Beserkley Records, 1977

All hope abandon ye who enter here

How can a crowded, chaotic hallway seem so empty? The tumult is palpable, its air heavy with sweat and hormones, its loudest rah-rah-sss-boom-bahs seeking to engulf and drown the square pegs alienated by its clamor. People, people, everywhere, and not a stop to think. 

In the middle of it all, he stood alone, quietly shutting his locker, willing himself into an anonymity he wasn't sure he wanted, but still a camouflage he was too intimidated to relinquish. Shuffle. Jostle. Ridicule. Scorn. If it were a movie, a paper airplane would sail his way and lodge itself--painfully--in his ear. 

But it wasn't a movie. It wasn't even real life. It was high school.

(And please don't tell me high school is real life. Surely our lives can aspire to something better than that.)

And he sees her. Again, as he sees her every day. The sight of her face restores an ember of the hope he was supposed to have abandoned. He thinks she's pretty. She thinks he's pretty. They connect in a way the tumult all around them cannot comprehend. They draw closer to each other. And she whispers in his ear:

Could you come over tonight? Nobody's home, nobody except me.

Are his eyes closed or open? Is this real? Can it be real? That is not for us to say.

But wouldn't it be nice?

I was 17 when I discovered the music of the Rubinoos. It was 1977, and I was nearing the end of my sentence to high school. The also-young members of the Rubinoos were on the radio with a cover of the Tommy James and the Shondells hit "I Think We're Alone Now." The Rubinoos' version just missed the Top 40 (# 45), so I may or may not have heard it on Syracuse's WOLF-AM. But I heard it, somewhere. I thought it compared well with my cherished memory of the Shondells.

I'm not sure if this cover of "I Think We're Alone Now" would have been enough to transform me so quickly into a Rubinoos fan. Perhaps not by itself, but there were other factors in play. I read about the Rubinoos in Phonograph Record Magazine. I saw them on American Bandstand. They were only a few years older than I was--maybe in their early twenties?--so they projected YOUTH!! in a way most other acts could not. 

Yeah. I was a fan, pretty much immediately. Rubinoos Forever!

And regardless of whether or not I heard the Rubinoos on AM radio, I know that I did hear them--perhaps incongruously--on FM in '77. Utica's WOUR-FM--The Rock Of Central New York--was a progressive station in the best sense, open to new things, new vistas. In this rough time frame, WOUR introduced me to the music of Graham Parker, Nick Lowe, and Greg Kihn, played LP tracks by the Kinks, Michael Nesmith, Joan Baez, and the J. Geils Band, and, in the summer of 1977, WOUR gave me my first listen to the Sex Pistols. WOUR could be as laid-back and mellow as the next guy. But clearly, they could also be much, much more.

Now, the Rubinoos were a proudly and avowedly pop combo. They were famously booed at '70s shows for covering the likes of the Partridge Family, and they reacted to the crowd's disdain by performing a freakin' Pepsi jingle. The Rubinoos were punk in every way except their sound and image. They were as cool as uncool could be.

And, one presumes, not cool enough for hipper heads at many (most?) progressive FM radio stations. I'm sure that WOUR wasn't the only exception, the only album-oriented rock station to understand the Rubinoos, to get it. But in MY area code, WOUR was the one that got it. Rubinoos on progressive FM? Damn straight, man.

WOUR played "Wouldn't It Be Nice," a track on the Rubinoos' eponymous debut LP in '77. It wasn't a Beach Boys cover, but an original, co-written by Rubes guitarist Tommy Dunbar (with James Gangwer). It shared some wish-for-bliss DNA with the Beach Boys song of the same title, and it shared a lot of earnest teen lust with the Tommy James gem that the Rubinoos covered for their ticket into the Billboard Hot 100.

Like "I Think We're Alone Now," the Rubinoos' "Wouldn't It Be Nice" employs an implied innocence to sweeten its driving urge for passion. Heavy petting sounds, if you will. The Shondells and Rubinoos songs are more discreet than, say, the horniest hits of the Raspberries, and far, far less blunt than the Knack's subsequent "My Sharona" and "Good Girls Don't." But the fact remains that's these are all songs about the joy of sex.

Or maybe the presumed joy of sex. Within the Beach Boys, Shondells, and Rubinoos tracks, the delight and anticipation approach a (roughly) age-appropriate rite of passage. Could you come over tonight?

With apologies to Janis Ian, I learned the truth at 17. I bought the Rubinoos' first album that summer, and picked up the second LP Back To The Drawing Board when it was released in 1979. Unrelated to that, this boy met girls who thought I was pretty. They acted accordingly.

I thought that was pretty nice.

1977 was a crucible year. I discovered the Ramones and the Runaways, Blondie and Television. I started dating, and I slipped the shackles of high school. The Rubinoos were an integral part of the soundtrack of this boy becoming...well, whatever it was I was going to become. "I Think We're Alone Now." "Rock 'n' Roll Is Dead." "As Long As I'm With You." "I Never Thought It Would Happen." "Nothing A Little Love Won't Cure." "1-2-3 Forever." "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend." "Wouldn't It Be Nice." More. The Rubinoos broke up. They came back. They're still as cool as anything ever.

I've wanted to see the Rubinoos in concert since I was 17. Science suggests that was a very, very long time ago. They're playing in Rochester tonight and, in the words of another cooler-than-cool rockin' pop combo, it's not hard, not far to reach. 

And I'm still 17 when I feel like being 17.

The sturm und drang of high-school hallways receded into the rubble of what no longer mattered (if they ever mattered in the first place). The boy and the girl looked into each other's eyes, as so many other boys and girls, and boys and boys, and girls and girls had done likewise over a span of always. Hands joined. Maybe lips met. Plans were made, plans with varying dates, dates with varying plans, but plans with one big, urgent thing in common:

TONIGHT!

I think we're alone now. Wouldn't it be nice to be together tonight? The boys and the girls believe this to be true. Let the chaos get its own girl. Tonight can't wait another minute. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls: The Rubinoos.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. 

My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available for order; you can see details here. My 2023 book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is also still available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. 

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. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl

BRIGHT LIGHTS! The Flashcubes' GARY FRENAY with DANA & CARL on BRIDGE STREET in 2014

 

On July 17th of 2014. my This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio co-host Dana Bonn and I appeared with Flashcubes bassist Gary Frenay on the popular Syracuse TV morning talk show Bridge Street. We discussed that week's upcoming BRIGHT LIGHTS Syracuse New Wave rock 'n' roll reunion show at the Lost Horizon. The evening itself was a big success and a very happy memory. Just over a decade later, it's time to re-visit the hype.

THAT'S how you make something happen.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. 

My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available for order; you can see details here. My 2023 book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is also still available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. 

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. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl

THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO: Another updated list of featured performers

 

This is a (presumably) complete list of all groups, singers, musicians, and/or pop wunderkind that have ever been a Featured Performer or Personality on THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO with Dana & Carl. When we have a Featured Performer, that performer is played at least once per set in that week's show, which generally means a minimum of eight or nine tracks in a three-hour show (and often more than that). Our first Featured Performer was the Kinks, who remain the only act to ever take over an entire episode of TIRnRR; in fact, we have now done TWO all-Kinks shows. This list will continue to expand as we program more Featured Performers and Personalities on future shows.

TIRnRR FEATURED PERFORMERS/PERSONALITIES

1.4.5.

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass

The Animals

The Archies

Paul Armstrong

Burt Bacharach and Hal David

The Bandwagon/Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon

The Bangles

Syd Barrett/Pink Floyd

Jim Basnight

The Bay City Rollers [2 times]

The Beach Boys

The Beatles [3 times]

Jeff Beck

Chuck Berry

The Bevis Frond

Big Star

Simone Berk

Hal Blaine

Joe Bompczyk

David Bowie

The Buzzcocks

Glen Campbell

Eric Carmen

Ducky Carlisle

The Catholic Girls

Alex Chilton

The Dave Clark Five [3 times]

The Clash

Gene Clark/The Byrds

Cocktail Slippers

Paul Collins

Justine Covault

Cotton Mather

The Cowsills

The Creation

David Crosby

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich

Devo

The Dickies

Dog Party

Micky Dolenz

Fats Domino

Tommy Dunbar

The Dukes of Stratosphear

The Easybeats

The English Beat

The Equals

The Everly Brothers

The Flamin' Groovies

The Flashcubes [9 times]

The Fleshtones

Gary Frenay

The Bobby Fuller Four

Game Theory

Go Home Productions

The Go-Go's

Lesley Gore

Rachael Gordon

The Grip Weeds [2 times]

George Harrison [3 times]

Herman's Hermits

John Hiatt

The Hollies

Buddy Holly

The Hoodoo Gurus

Parthenon Huxley/P. Hux

In Deed

The Isley Brothers

Joe Jackson [2 times]

The Jam

Jefferson Airplane [2 times]

The Jellybricks

Joan Jett

Davy Jones

Tommy Keene

Scott Kempner

The Kinks [3 times]

KISS [3 times]

The Knack [2 times]

The Knickerbockers

Arthur Lee/Love [2 times]

John Lennon [5 times]

Circe Link

Roy Loney and the Phantom Movers

Nick Lowe

Lyres

Mad Monster Party

The Marlowes

Adam Marsland/Cockeyed Ghost

Norm Mattice [1.4.5./The Richards/Dress Code]

Paul McCartney [4 times]

The Monkees [8 times]

Michael Nesmith [2 times]

The Pandoras

The Partridge Family

Irene Peña

The Pengwins

Pezband

Wilson Pickett

Gene Pitney

Pop Co-Op

The Poptarts

The Pretenders

Prince

Suzi Quatro

C. J. Ramone

Joey Ramone

Johnny Ramone

Marky Ramone

The Ramones [2 times]

The Raspberries

Lou Reed/The Velvet Underground

Paul Revere and the Raiders

The Rolling Stones

The Romantics

The Rubinoos

The Runaways

Kelley Ryan/astroPuppees

Screen Test

The Searchers

Bob Seger

The Sex Pistols

Kim Shattuck

The Shocking Blue

Shoes

The Small Faces

The Smithereens [2 times]

Squeeze [2 times]

Ronnie Spector

The Spinners

The Spongetones

Ringo Starr

Gary Stewart

Steve Stoeckel

Sweet

Johnny Thunders

Peter Tork

The Tragically Hip

The Trend

The Turtles

Dwight Twilley

The Dwight Twilley Band

Fritz Van Leaven

Vegas With Randolph

Chris von Sneidern

Mary Weiss/The Shangri-Las [2 times]

Lou Whitney/The Skeletons/The Morells

The Who

John Wicks/The Records [2 times]

X-Ray Spex [2 times]

XTC

The Zombies [2 times]

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. 

My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available for order; you can see details here. My 2023 book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is also still available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. 

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. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl

PROFESSIONAL LIAR RETURNS! My short story RAIN-HAT SAM storms into comic book shops this week

Art by Ed Catto

My latest short story will hit comic book stores this Wednesday, July 24, a prose adventure in the back pages of the AHOY Comics book Project Cryptid # 11.

"Rain-Hat Sam" stars a preposterous superhero I created when I was a kid. Our Sam is a (presumably) heroic figure whose magic hat makes it rain, but the magic hat only makes it rain on Rain-Hat Sam. A silly idea, even for a (presumably) creative adolescent.

But damned if I didn't make it work, here in my current capacity as a (presumably) grown-up storyteller. The resulting short story is a love letter to DC Comics superhero books of the 1960s, specifically to the filler strips like Super Turtle and Cap's Hobby Hints that appeared amidst advertising pages placed in between the (presumably) more-important pages of the funnybook's actual story. The events of my little tale are kinda like what might happen if Super Turtle had been called forth to participate in Crisis On Infinite Earths. Ol' Super Turtle wasn't available; the task fell instead to Rain-Hat Sam.

Rain-Hat Sam THEN...

...Rain-Hat Sam NOW!!

And super kudos to artist Ed Catto, who perfectly recreated my long-ago notion of what Rain-Hat Sam looks like, albeit in a considerably better-drawn rendition. Ed did this with no reference materials other than the text itself, yet it precisely matches my vision of Rain-Hat Sam. Thanks, Ed!

If you don't already have a preferred local resource for new comic books, you can use Comic Shop Locator to find a comics retailer near you. I recommend calling ahead to see if the store stocks AHOY's titles; if they don't have Project Cryptid # 11 in stock, most stores can order it for you.

And so we direct you to the adventures of an unlikely superhero called Rain-Hat Sam. My inner child is thrilled. Hell, my outer child is pretty enthused, too. Let justice rain.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. 

My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available for order; you can see details here. My 2023 book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is also still available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. 

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. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl