Friday, March 6, 2026

DANA & CARL at THE SAMMYs

The Syracuse Area Music Awards--aka THE SAMMYs--take place tonight, March 6th, at The Palace Theatre in Syracuse. The show starts at 7:00 pm, and it will include live performances from Brass Inc, London McDaniel, Nate Gross, Stephen Douglas Wolfe, and newly-inducted SAMMYs Hall of Famers the New York Flyers.

Dana and I are honored to have been invited to present the award for Best Alternative, and we thank our friend Carol Thoryk O'Leary for extending that invitation to the lousy likes of us. The nominees in this category are Boustrophedon (for WINTER//STEEL [Remixes]), Clove (for after everything), mistrials (for The Culture Cool-Aid EP), Porch Couch (for Free), and Tame The Giant (for Second Hand Sound). We'll also be there in the audience to cheer for our pal Susan Coleman (of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio Fave Raves Harmonic Dirt), as Susan is recognized with the Jack O Bocchino Spirit Of The SAMMYs Award. Well deserved!

If you're in Syracuse tonight, JOIN US! It's SAMMYS time.

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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Thursday, March 5, 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, March 4, 2026

THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! The Runaways, “School Days”

Drawn from a previous post, this is not part of my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1).

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 RUNAWAYS: School Days
Written by Joan Jett and Kim Fowley
Produced by Kim Fowley
Single from the album Waitin' For The Night, Mercury Records, 1977

During spring break of 1978, I saw the Flashcubes, the Runaways, and the Ramones on an incredible triple bill at a nightclub in Syracuse. Although "Cherry Bomb" is undeniably the Runaways' signature tune (and it gets its own entry in The Greatest Record Ever Made! [Volume 1]), "School Days" is my favorite Runaways track. It's the most straight-ahead, no-frills rocker in Runaways canon, uncluttered by pouting or preening, unsullied by metal moves, just pure, punk-fueled Joan Jett oomph 'n' aggro.

Listening to "School Days" conjures a random memory of a girl I met that summer of '78. Janis was a co-worker, a fellow janitor on the morning crew at Sears. We were not a couple, and never likely to be a couple. There was no chemistry of that sort. I don't think I could even say that we were friends, really. Co-workers. She was cute, roughly my age, and in retrospect I guess it's odd that the thought of asking her out never occurred to me. I knew she had a boyfriend, so that was like an automatic KEEP OUT! sign to me. I may not have been the gentleman I wanted to be, but I was willfully determined not to be an asshole. To try not to be an asshole. That determination had already failed me at school, as I stole a friend's girlfriend and warred constantly with my roommate. But I continued to try.

For dramatic purposes, the part of Janis will be played by Lita Ford

Anyway, Janis and I were friendly enough, as co-workers can be, and during breaks she confided to me (and to everyone else on our small maintenance crew) that she was worried that she was pregnant. The worry became a dead certainty in her mind that she was pregnant, and that her stupid boyfriend remained, y'know, stupid, like boys are. (I'm a boy, and she's right; boys are stupid). Janis said Stupid Boyfriend--apparently unfazed by the daunting possibility of fatherhood--suggested they make with the bouncy-bouncy more often and try for twins. Janis rolled her eyes and sputtered in recounting the tale told by her idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

And nothing was the precise result. Over the course of breaktime conversations spanning days into a week and more, Janis's salutation of Carl, I might be pregnant evolved into Carl, I think I'm pregnant, and finally Guess what, Carl, I'm not pregnant! There may have been a little more back-and-forth of uncertainty, dread, and relief in Janis's story, but that was the gist of it. She broke up with Stupid Boyfriend. I still didn't ask her out. It was getting near time to return to school.

Janis wasn't a Runaways fan, at least not as far as I was aware. But the song reminds me of that summer. Timing, I guess. I associate the Runaways' "School Days" with that period of my life, when I was working and partying during vacation, flirting with getting into some real trouble--at separate times that summer, I sheltered an AWOL Marine and a teenage girl running away from home--but getting away with it as unscathed as any of us can claim. I had a little bit of money. There were bands to see, records to hear, friends to join, fun to have. School days. In between school days, sure, but still...

Used to be the troublemaker
Hated homework, was a sweet heartbreaker
Now I have my dream
I'm so rowdy for eighteen

School days. Here's to ya, Janis. Friends?

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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Tuesday, March 3, 2026

COMIC BOOK COVER GALLERY: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, Part 1: Back issues acquired in the '60s, '70s, and '80s


This week's Comic Book Cover Gallery begins a four-part celebration of The Brave And The Bold, a popular DC Comics title that ran for 200 issues from 1955 to 1983. The book began as an adventure anthology starring the likes of the Viking Prince and the Golden Gladiator. A bit later, B & B offered the debut appearances of the Justice League of America, the Silver Age Hawkman, the Teen Titans, and Metamorpho the Element Man. But it's most often remembered as a superhero team-up title, specifically a Batman team-up title.

When I was a kid, I loved The Brave And The Bold; at times, it was probably my favorite individual title. As I...well, I won't say matured, 'cuz that ain't ever gonna happen. But as I progressed into teendom, I became increasingly disenchanted with the book's disregard for DC continuity, and of writer Bob Haney's sometimes outlandish plot elements and Marvel Comics-lite characterization. Looking back now, the stuff that bugged me about B & B in the '70s could be seen as selling points, and much of the reason Brave And Bold fans retain such fondness for the series.

And it doesn't hurt that not one, not two, but three of my all-time favorite comics artists did stints as B & B's regular draftsman. Nick Cardy and Neal Adams each served only a very brief tour of duty as The Brave And The Bold's resident designer, but the great Jim Aparo did a bunch of issues over a long span of time, and Aparo is the one artist most associated with book. And my God, his work here was stunning.

Art by Nick Cardy

Art by Neal Adams

This month, I'm devoting Comic Book Cover Gallery's designated weekly blog space to The Brave And The Bold, beginning with a gallery of  B & B back issues I acquired in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. The illustration at the very top shows Starman and Black Canary starring in The Brave And The Bold # 61, the first B & B I recall seeing, albeit just in a house ad. Next week's installment will focus on applying covers to issues I originally acquired without covers, and then we'll take two weeks to go through issues I picked up when they were new.

Art by Jim Aparo

As always, we'll be sticking exclusively to the '60s-'80s era of acquisition I've established for these galleries. The 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.

NEXT WEEK: Brave and Bold issues I originally acquired without their covers, but we'll be puttin' the covers back on. B & B seeing you!

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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