Tonight on THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO

We've got your new stuff, we've got your old stuff, we've got your everything-in-between stuff. THE RAMONES (though, oddly, nothing from the ALL THE STUFF compilations)! THE AMPLIFIER HEADS! RAMSEY LEWIS! THE MUFFS! TAXI GIRLS! THE JAM! JUNIPER! THE BLUE HERONS! BEN VAUGHN! EMPEROR PENGUIN! BETH PEABODY! THE MOBERLYS! THE SPONGETONES! ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ATTRACTIONS! THE HIGH FREQUENCIES! AMY RIGBY! THE CONTOURS! STAR COLLECTOR! RANDY KLAWON! THE PLIMSOULS! TIGER BOMB! THE TAMS! LYRES! DAVID MYRH! SKOOSHNY! PRINCE! ROXY MUSIC! THE RUNAWAYS! THE SELECTOR! THE GREENBERRY WOODS! THE ANIMALS! THE SMITHS! THE SMALL FACES! THE HOVERING SPOOKS! MONOGROOVE! THE MONKEES! ALL the stuff! And MORE! Sunday night, 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming via sparksyracuse.org, and as WESTCOTT RADIO on the Radio Garden app. The weekend stops HERE!

10 SONGS (plus a High School Reunion BONUS!): 7/18/2026

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 # 1345

THE HIGH FREQUENCIES: Subterranean Homesick Blues

We open this week's broadcast bop-a-thon with another great track from the forthcoming tribute album Jem Records Celebrates Bob Dylan, this one courtesy of that force of rockin' pop nature known as the High Frequencies. As our pal Fritz Van Leaven reminds us, Elvis Costello's "Pump It Up" was directly inspired by Bashful Bobby's "Subterranean Homesick Blues;" for their take on the song, the High Frequencies retain the original punk and bile of Robert Zimmerman and Declan McManus alike, while applying an accomplished dash of pure, pretty effervescence that enhances the experience without diluting its anger. The pumps still work! Maybe vandals tried to take the handles, but the mighty muscle of the High Frequencies stopped the damned vandals cold. LOOK OUT, KID! You will absolutely be seeing and hearing this one in future playlists. 

RAMSEY LEWIS: Wade In The Water

Before viewing Questlove's excellent new documentary Earth, Wind & Fire: To Be Celestial vs. That's The Weight Of The World, I did not know that EWF's Maurice White had been a drummer with the Ramsey Lewis Trio from 1966 to 1970. See, ya learn stuff watching TV. That connection was sufficient to prompt Ramsey Lewis's return to the TIRnRR playlist, a feat accomplished with the title tune from Wade In The Water, the first Lewis album to feature White. Wade in the water? Smokin' on the water! We'll hear another track from the same album this Sunday night.

Why? We got a good reason. (And we're not taking the easy way out.)

THE ICICLES: I Wanna Know

THE BLUE HERONS: Take A Break

From this week's playlist commentary:

"... A recent Only Three Lads podcast introduced me to the music of the Blue Herons, and further informed me that Blue Herons singer Gretchen DeVault was also in the Icicles. And I love the Icicles! That compelled me to buy the current Blue Herons album Demon Slayer, to pull out my trusty CD copy of the Icicles' A Hundred Patterns, and to include a track from each in this week's playlist...."

Over the past couple of decades, the Icicles' "Snowman" has been a frequent fixture of our seasonal playlists, and I confess my short attention span--which my daughter once described as AD...OS! (Attention Deficit...Ooo, SHINY!)--prevented me from delving further. We remedied that by playing "I Wanna Know," another go'geous track from A Hundred Patterns, and I cursed the AD..OS! that stopped us from programming this perfect crystal twenty years ago. 

When Gretchen and her Blue Herons collaborator Andy Jossi were on O3L, the show's hosts Brett Vargo and Uncle Gregg played the title track from Demon Slayer, and I was duly mesmerized: Dreamy and vibrant, with echoes of '90s worthies like the Primitives and the Darling Buds. WANT! And got. That's why a benevolent deity gave me a credit card in the first place.

I intended to include that title track in this week's show, but the playlist ran a teensy bit too long, forcing me to sub the slightly shorter "Take A Break" in its place. Not to worry! We will slay that soulless demon on our next show.

THE RAMONES: I Wanna Live

From a previous edition of 10 Songs:

I moved back to Syracuse from Buffalo in 1987. It was not a great time in my life, and it was still going to be a little while before things got better. 

In good times and less-good times, music has always been a highlight. I don't remember if I heard "I Wanna Live" before picking up my copy of the Ramones' 1987 album Halfway To Sanity. I may have seen its video on MTV, but my memory insists I didn't even know the Ramones had a new album out when I spotted and immediately purchased Halfway To Sanity at The Record Theatre up on the SU hill. 

The album includes a fab guest appearance by Blondie's Debbie Harry on "Go Li'l Camaro Go," a meeting of CBGB's minds I'd been wishing for since the late '70s. Nonetheless, my favorite was (and is) "I Wanna Live." 

Is it a life-affirming track? By default, I guess, though it could also be read as a suicide note. But the guitar sounds like it wants to live. Joey Ramone likewise sounds like he's digging in for the long haul. It's what I want, and I'm going with that. 

GENERATION X: Dancing With Myself

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE SPONGETONES: Lifetimeline

This week's show was already programmed when we received word that TIRnRR Fave Raves the Spongetones were releasing a new single. Well, we've gotta play THAT!. Advance copy secured, playlist tweaked ever-so-slightly, and this uberfab track "Lifetimeline" was on the radio where it belongs. And it's back where it belongs again on our next show. The lifetimeline is secure.

SKOOSHNY: It Hides More Than It Tells

Think Like A Key Music is one of our favorite archival labels, particularly for their recent slate of previously-unreleased '70s and '80s live tracks by the majesty of the Shirts (as heard here and here). Think Like A Key's new Skooshny collection The Recordings 1971-1981 plays right into our lovably ornery demographic, preserving 21 tracks of left-of-the-dial pop music that merited a much wider audience. I remember reading about Skooshny in the pages of Bomp! magazine (and I think in Trouser Press) when I was in my teens and early twenties, but I don't think I heard any of their music at the time.

Well! We're hearing it now, thanks to the good folks at Think Like A Key Music. And we're putting it on the radio. More next week.

BETH PEABODY: Out And About

A lot of the coolest radio shows on the whole friggin' planet have been playing "Get It Out," the fabulous current single by Beth Peabody. It's a great song choice, and "Get It Out" deserves every second of that airplay.

We also played Beth's "Get It Out" last week, but we've been playing its virtual flip side "Out And About" all along. Both songs were written and previously recorded by Jim Basnight, Beth sang on Jim's versions, and Jim now plays on Beth's new versions, too. Jim's "Get It Out" has itself received its share of TIRnRR spinnage, and maybe that's why our current Beth Peabody selections have gravitated to "Out And About" instead of "Get It Out."

Still, I don't think we're merely defaulting to "Out And About." Man, both tracks are as radio-ready as one could wish, but there is a specific groove in "Out And About" that just annexes my attention, making its continued TIRnRR playlist appearances both inevitable and unerringly, righteously appropriate.

THE AMPLIFIER HEADS: Rock 'n' Roll Riot

This little mutant radio show has been all in for the Amplifier Heads' forthcoming album Super 8, doling out advance singles as they've become available. That willfully manic plan brings us this week to "Rock 'n' Roll Riot," an exercise in a-stompin' and a-rompin' that lives up to the celebratory promise of its title. Rock 'n' roll riot? Sign us up! And yet another track from Super 8 will open our next radio riot on Sunday. Man your stations, Amplifier Heads! There's a riot going on the air.

MONOGROOVE: Back To School

Back to school? Yep. Got a 1976 high school reunion party that I'll be crashing next week. I'm sure that night's soundtrack will stick to the music of the Me Decade, but for now we start our prep time with a spin of  Monogroove's TIRnRR Pick Hit "Back To School." We'll continue that prep on our next show, supplementing "Back To School" with three additional secondary-education tracks (two from the '70s, one from before I was born) that put the proper BOOM! in the ol' sis-boom-bah. 

And just like when I was in high school: I solemnly swear not to learn anything.

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.

My new book of short stories Guitars Vs. Rayguns!! Short Stories And Other White Lies is out now, and you can get autographed copies of the new book and my previous book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) directly from me. You can still get my previous 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.

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. 

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

Dave Murray's 70th Birthday [alternate video]

 

Today is our pal Dave Murray's 70th birthday. Yesterday, we shared a congratulatory video I concocted to commemorate the occasion. Today, on his actual birthday, here's an earlier take of that video, with some different jokes, some of the same jokes, a Kinks-inspired opening I discarded, and a familiar lack of actual entertainment. No matter. IT'S DAVE'S BIRTHDAY! And Happy Birthday to you.

THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO wishes DAVE MURRAY a Happy 70th Birthday

Tomorrow (July 17th) is our friend Dave Murray's 70th birthday. Dave's a good bud, and he's a very good writer; for proof of that claim, look no further than his fascinating 2024 novel A Breath Of Fresh Air, a compelling work of fiction inspired by Dave's own real-life experience as a Cystic Fibrosis patient and a recipient of a double lung transplant more than twenty years ago. And long before the 1998 debut of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl, Dave was the very first Dana & Carl fan, going all the way back to 1992 and our pre-TIRnRR radio show We're Your Friends For Now.

To celebrate Dave's 70th birthday, I made a little video, offering a virtual toast to Dave as he enters his seventies. The video also offers further proof that I can't play a friggin' instrument to save my life. But no matter! It's the thought that counts. And we're thinking Dave deserves the happiest birthday. We hope you'll join us in sending him that wish.

TV EYE: Another updated list of TV series I've seen in their entirety

Above image by Tyrone Biljan, courtesy of 13thdimension.com

In 2021, I posted a list of TV series that I've seen in their entirety, every episode. This is another update of that list, still missing a number of shows my memory can't retrieve, but adding some recent completions. The list also includes current series that I've watched in their entirety to date, with either the promise or the hope of additional episodes coming soon. Those series are marked with an asterisk.

I like TV shows. This is an attempt to list every TV series I've ever watched in its entirety, from Season 1 Episode 1 through the blowout finale. It includes mini-series, broadcast series, cable series, and streaming series without discrimination. And it includes some series I saw piecemeal, as long as I'm sure I saw all of the episodes in whatever sequence I got to them. Some I saw on first run, others I watched after the fact. It is a woefully incomplete list--because, y'know, memory--but it's a start. I'll come back here to add more series as I remember them.

The Adventures Of Superman
Angel

Agatha All Along
Arrow
Batman
The Bear
Being Erica
Billy Joel: And So It Goes
Bionic Woman [2007 series]
Birds Of Prey
Black Lightning
The Bob Newhart Show
Bosom Buddies
The Bronx Is Burning
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Bunheads
The Crazy Ones

Daisy Jones & The Six

Daredevil

*Daredevil: Born Again

The Defenders [Marvel Comics series]

The Dick Van Dyke Show

Echo

Ellery Queen

Étoile

The Event

The Falcon And The Winter Soldier

Firefly

Firefly Lane

The Flash [1990-1991 series]

The Flash [2014-2023 series]

Flashforward [2009-2010 series]

*The Four Seasons

Freaks And Geeks

Friends

Get Back

Gilligan's Island

Gilmore Girls

Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life

Glee

Go On

The Good Place

Gotham

Gotham Knights

The Green Hornet

Hawkeye

Heroes

Heroes Reborn

High Fidelity

The History Of The Sitcom

Inhumans

Iron Fist

Ironheart

It Was A Very Good Year

Jessica Jones

Ken Burns: Country Music

Krypton

Loki

Luke Cage

M*A*S*H

Mad Men

*A Man On The Inside

Marvel's Agent Carter

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

The Middle Man

The Monkees

Moon Knight

Mrs. America

Ms. Marvel

The Munsters

The New WKRP In Cincinnati

The Newsroom

No Ordinary Family

*Nobody Wants This

Our World

Pan Am

Peacemaker

The Penguin

Pistol

Police Squad!

Poker Face

Powerless

Pushing Daisies

Quantum Leap [1989-1993 series]

Quantum Leap [2022-2024 series]

Quarry

The Queen's Gambit

Reaper

Ringer

*Ripple

Schmigadoon!

Secret Invasion

She-Hulk: Attorney At Law

Sherlock

Smallville

Smash

Square Pegs

St. Elsewhere

Star Trek

Stargirl

**The Steven Banks Show

Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip

Supergirl

Superman And Lois

Taylor Swift: The End Of An Era

*Ted Lasso

This Is Us

Timeless

Unorthodox

V [2009-2011 series]

Veronica Mars

The Village

WandaVision

We'll Get By

The West Wing

WKRP In Cincinnati

Wonder Man

The Wonder Years [1988-1993 series]

The Wonder Years [2021-2023 series]

Younger

The Z-Suite

Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist

If I forgot any series you think I must have seen from start to finish, I welcome attempts to jog my stubborn memory.

There is one series cited with a double-asterisk: The 1994 PBS comedy series The Steven Banks Show. I saw all of the broadcast episodes, but there were additional episodes completed but never aired. Haven't seen those, so...double-asterisk. (Some previous versions of this list also asterisked NBC's 2017 DC Comics sitcom Powerless, but I have now seen all of its episodes, including the three that were never broadcast. I also found the series' unaired original pilot on YouTube; the pilot was very different from the later pilot and series, and I wish the show had followed its original direction.)

This list arbitrarily excludes animated shows, only because I didn't want to rack my brain to identify which cartoon series qualified; the cartoon list would include things like The Flintstones, Batman: The Animated Series (and the subsequent related Superman and Justice League series that were part of that B:TAS universe), and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Among live-action shows, Arrested Development and Twin Peaks would have been listed on the basis of their original network TV runs, but both have since been revived, and I haven't seen any of the latter-day episodes. (On the other hand, I have seen the continuation of Veronica Mars, and I wish there were more episodes to come.)

Among current series, I'm very much looking forward to new seasons of Daredevil: Born Again, The Four Seasons, Nobody Wants This, A Man On The Inside, and (especially!) Ted Lasso, as continuations of all five have already been announced. I'm hoping we'll hear that the Netflix series Ripple will also be returning. 

(I'm way late to the Ted Lasso party; I'd heard the hype and enthusiasm of the show's fans, but never had any real interest in investigating it. My wife and I wound up watching its pilot episode on a whim, loved it immediately, and obsessively watched all three seasons over the course of the next week or two. Ted Lasso now challenges The Good Place for the title of my all-time favorite series. Believe!)

I own home video copies of just a handful of complete TV series. I have The Monkees on DVD and on Blu-ray, Batman on Blu-ray (and I proposed a Batman-Monkees comic-book mashup here), Shindig! on an unauthorized set of DVD-Rs (and I really need to go back and finish watching those), homemade VHS copies of The Green Hornet and Police Squad!, and, if we count non-physical media, the 2011-2012 series Pan Am on iTunes. I may write about Pan Am some day; the timing of its original network run coincided with some emotional turmoil in my life, and the idea of jetting off to Europe seemed mighty appealing to me. The pilot episode of Pan Am would serve as part of the climax in the first chapter of a long-gestating memoir I call Spain, a piece which, frankly, I doubt I'll ever have the will to write.

There are still a lot of older TV series that should probably be on this list. It's likely that I've seen every episode of Get Smart, The Beverly Hillbillies, F Troop, The Odd Couple, The Andy Griffith Show, Hec Ramsey, Switch, When Things Were Rotten, and a big ol' bunch of others, but my reasonable doubt is sufficient for me to omit them from this list. There are some other older shows--The Guns Of Will Sonnett, the 1960s Tarzan, Disney's Zorro--I'd like the opportunity to re-visit, but for now, I don't think I've seen all of those episodes.

Yet. But Zorro is on Disney +. I thought I would've watched all of those by now--damn the real words and its unreasonable demands on my time!--but I have seen all of the first season, and I'm digging the second and final season. Then I'll try to track down the four subsequent one-hour specials. They're not technically part of the Zorro series, I guess...

...But I still wanna see 'em.

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.

My new book of short stories Guitars Vs. Rayguns!! Short Stories And Other White Lies is out now, and you can get autographed copies of the new book and my previous book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) directly from me. You can still get my previous 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.

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. 

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

COMIC BOOK COVER GALLERY: My first live-action exposures to various characters from the 1960s through the '90s, plus some comics covers featuring the same characters in books I acquired in the '60s, '70s, and '80s

Before I started reading comic books, my first exposure to comic book action heroes was as seen on TV. When I was a kid in the early 1960s, reruns of the fabulous 1950s TV series The Adventures Of Superman and the 1930s Flash Gordon movie serial were my de facto introductions to larger-than-life crusaders. In 1966, the Batman TV series transformed my previous casual interest in comic books into a life-long passion.

Today's Comic Book Cover Gallery expands beyond the printed page to gather images of some live-action adaptations of various comics characters, specifically representing my first exposures to live-action adaptations of a strange visitor from another planet, a dynamic duo, a world's mightiest mortal, a star-spangled avenger, an Amazon princess, a friendly neighborhood wall-crawler, a dominoed dare-doll, and more. Plus a few villains! For our purposes, it doesn't matter if the TV or film actor served as my introduction to the character or if I read the funnybook and then saw the movie or show. And to make it a COMIC BOOK COVER GALLERY, we'll accompany each crusading thespian's photo with a four-color counterpart.

(NOTE: My first live incarnation of a character isn't necessarily the first live incarnation of the character. I saw George Reeves star in The Adventures Of Superman way, way before I saw Kirk Alyn star in 1948's Superman movie serial, and I saw Gene Hackman play Lex Luthor before eventually watching Lyle Talbot play irascible ol' Lex in 1950's Atom Man Vs. Superman. And I saw Luthor in comics before I saw him on any size screen.)

As always (at least for the comic books), we'll be sticking exclusively to the '60s, '70s, and '80s era of acquisition I've established for these galleries. Today's selections include books I bought new, back issues I acquired after the fact (but within the timeline), and B-stock contraband originally purchased without their covers. These aren't actual photos of comics in my collection; most images are courtesy of the Grand Comics Database, which is grand indeed. But I did have each and every one of 'em at some point in time.

George Reeves and Noel Neill as Superman and Lois Lane (1950s)

Jean Rogers and Buster Crabbe as Dale Arden and Flash Gordon (1936)

Dick Purcell as Captain America (1944)

Cathy Lee Crosby as Wonder Woman (1974)

Bruce Lee and Van Williams as Kato and the Green Hornet (1966)

Ralph Byrd as Dick Tracy (1930s-1950s)

Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk (1977)

Danuta Wesley as Black Canary (1979)

Rod Haase as the Flash (1979); we could do more from the two awful Legends Of The Superheroes TV specials (Green Lantern, Hawkman, Dr. Sivana, the Huntress, Mordru, Giganta, Sinestro,Solomon Grundy, Weather Wizard, and Aunt Minerva), but...no. Really. Let's NOT. 

Nicholas Hammond as Spider-Man (1977)

Tom Tyler as Captain Marvel (1941)

Sam J. Jones and Nana Visitor as the Spirit and Ellen Dolan (1987)

Johnny Rockwell as Suberboy (1961, unreleased)

Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger (1950s)

Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor (1978)

Scott Paulin as the Red Skull (1990)

Rod La Rocque as the Shadow (1937)

Talisa Soto as Vampirella (1996)

Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan as Tarzan and Jane (1930s-1940s)

Carl Ciarfalio, Rebecca Staab, Alex Hyde-White, and Jay Underwood as the Fantastic Four (1994, unreleased but widely bootlegged)

Helen Slater as Supergirl (1984)

Billy Zane as the Phantom (1996)

Cesar Romero as the Joker (1966)

Julie Newmar as Catwoman (1966)

Yvonne Craig as Batgirl (1967)

Burt Ward as Robin the Boy Wonder (1966)

Adam West as Batman (1966)

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.

My new book of short stories Guitars Vs. Rayguns!! Short Stories And Other White Lies is out now, and you can get autographed copies of the new book and my previous book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) directly from me. You can still get my previous 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.

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. 

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