Is BEATLES VI Really My All-Time Favorite Album?

Is Beatles VI really my all-time favorite album? Yes it is, yes it is, yes it is, oh yes it is. Yeah. More or less. Lemme 'splain.

My favorite body of work in all of pop music remains the stuff The Beatles released from 1964 through 1966, basically A Hard Day's Night through Revolver, that monolithic opening chord through the hypnotic fadeout of "Tomorrow Never Knows." I adore the Fabness that preceded this period, and I do love Sgt. Pepper and beyond, too. But The Beatles, '64 to '66? There's just something about that run that knocks me out, without fail, without apology. Of course there's other great music I want to hear alongside that--I want to hear Pet Sounds, The Ramones, Chuck Berry, Wilson Pickett, The Kinks, P. P. Arnold, The Monkees, Big Star, The Isley Brothers, The Flashcubes, The Sex Pistols, KISS, Bowie, Lulu, Little Richard, Dusty Springfield, Prince, The Bay City Rollers, The Jam, Freddie and the Dreamers, ABBA, The Four Tops, Suzi Quatro, and...and...TURN IT UP!!

Where was I? Oh, right. Pop music. My point is that, for all the terrific, transcendent sounds I wanna hear again and again and again, if some chuckleheaded cosmic edict forced me to to limit myself to an endless loop of just one brief snippet of a rockin' pop c.v., I would select John, Paul, George, and Ringo, after '63, before '67. Final answer.




There are specific points of division among Beatles fans. The White Album, for example. But Sgt. Pepper would seem to be the defining line of demarcation between advocates of exuberant Beatle pop and apostles of mature Beatle Rock (mit einem capital R). Abbey Road is in the latter group, Rubber Soul in the former, that album's relative maturity notwithstanding. I love the latter group; I worship the former.

There are still lines within lines. Among those who may favor The Beatles' work before Sgt. Pepper, the emphasis is often on 1966. And man, it's difficult to argue with that. Rubber Soul was released at the very end of 1965, so it's really a 1966 album by most consideration. Beatles '66 includes both Rubber Soul and Revolver, two perennial candidates for Best Album Ever. 1966 is the natural habitat of "Nowhere Man" and the non-LP "Paperback Writer," irresistible singles that further the argument on behalf of '66; a 45 B-side, "Rain," is The Greatest Record Ever Made. With Rubber Soul, Revolver, "Nowhere Man," "Paperback Writer," and "Rain," it is perhaps understandable that 1966 dominates the discussion of The Beatles before Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play.




Few will speak as fervently on behalf of the group's output prior to Rubber Soul. The work isn't dismissed outright--that would be dumb--but it's not held in as high regard as the perceived masterpieces of 1966, or '67, et cetera. But me? Although I adamantly include 1966 within my toppermost/poppermost, I insist that the wonder of '64 and '65 belongs right up there with it.

I confess that I'm tempted to go back even further, to include the 1963 releases. I'm happy to exclude the 1962 debut single, "Love Me Do," which is fine but nothing really special. "Please Please Me" invents power pop in '63, and the immediate, incandescent rush of Beatlemania--"I Saw Her Standing There," "Twist And Shout," "She Loves You," "I Want To Hold Your Hand," "All My Loving"--is a palpable thrill from that second forward. There are days when I believe "Please Please Me" or "Thank You, Girl" (in its 1964 U.S. Capitol mix) must be The Greatest Record Ever Made, a title which an infinite number of the very finest records can claim, as long as they take turns.



But no: 1964. A Hard Day's Night. The music The Beatles crafted for their feature film debut is a quantum leap beyond, embracing the moptopped frenzy of utter global domination and running into an open field with a triumphant exclamation. We're out! Top of the world, lads. A few of the songs on the soundtrack--"A Hard Day's Night," "I Should Have Known Better," "If I Fell," "And I Love Her"--already exude an unexpected maturity within a pure pop framework, and the same could be said of "You Can't Do That" and "I'll Cry Instead," written and recorded contemporary to the movie, but not used therein. This is not to slight the other soundtrack tunes; ain't nothing wrong with "Can't Buy Me Love," the Dave Clark Five pastiche "Tell Me Why," or the infectious "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You," which are (at worst) part and parcel of the transition from Great to GREAT, and even that sells 'em short. Your drive-my-car mileage may vary. As 1964 careens into '65, our Fab Four work with producer George Martin to become something...other. Something greater. To me, this is the very essence of the best of The Beatles. The tracks on the Help! soundtrack in 1965 are just incredible, as is the "We Can Work It Out"/"Day Tripper" 45. Moving to '66 again, the American hodgepodge LP Yesterday And Today (released between Rubber Soul and Revolver) is mostly scrumptious leftovers from '65 and '66 (including "Day Tripper," "We Can Work It Out," and "Nowhere Man," George's Byrds-like "If I Needed Someone," and Paul's obscure ditty "Yesterday"). Honestly, I can't imagine a more riveting collection of pop music than what The Beatles did in this magic span of '64 to '66.

And we've deliberately skipped past a couple of albums that are at the heart of it all for me, two crass commercial repackages slapped together by Capitol Records in '64 and '65, a pair of nearly-sequential releases (separated by The Early Beatles, itself a repackage of '62-'63 Beatles tracks Capitol had once rejected) that are my All-Time Top Two: Beatles '65 and Beatles VI.




If I'd been born in the U.K. rather than the U.S.A., it's likely my view on specific Fave Rave Beatles albums would be at least slightly different. I was raised on the American LPs, which are not the same as even their nearest British equivalents. My pal Rich Firestone has asked me if I could consider the British Beatles For Sale album my favorite, since it contains almost all of the best material from both Beatles '65 and Beatles VI. He's right, of course--Rich is right a lot of the time--and objectively Beatles For Sale ought to be my favorite Beatles album. But I can't quite relinquish the history and emotional attachment I have to those two American hatchet-jobs. I love 'em. I love 'em in all their mutant, misbegotten, glorious splendor. And Beatles For Sale doesn't have the Larry Williams covers, "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" and "Bad Boy."




British pop LPs at the time offered a more generous number of tracks per album than a stingy American record company would care to match. The Beatles native label Parlophone was no exception, and Capitol was likewise as stingy as any other Yank label. U.K. albums with fourteen tracks routinely became American albums with eleven tracks. Combining this creative shuffling with various single sides that were non-LP in England allowed Capitol to streeeeeeetch its Beatles supply into more product. Beatles For Sale was The Beatles' fourth album; its U.S. counterpart Beatles '65 was Capitol's fifth Beatles album (counting the documentary cash-in The Beatles' Story), and Capitol by that point hadn't yet released any version of the group's debut LP Please Please Me. By the time Help! was released in England as The Beatles' fifth album, the American version (which was half Beatles, half Ken Thorne soundtrack music) was Capitol's eighth Beatles album. Take that, Colonials!



Although I give the edge to Beatles VI in my fave album coronation, I do regard Beatles '65 as part of that album's story and glory. Side One of Beatles '65 duplicates the sequence of the first six songs on Beatles For Sale: the incredible "No Reply," followed by "I'm A Loser," "Baby's In Black," Chuck Berry's "Rock And Roll Music" (the first Chuck Berry song I ever heard), "I'll Follow The Sun," and the much-maligned Dr. Feelgood cover "Mr. Moonlight." That is one hell of a great rock 'n' roll album side, even if Capitol did cut and save the final song on Beatles For Sale's first side (The Beatles' take on "Kansas City") for Beatles VI. And even if so many people seem to think "Mr. Moonlight" was the worst track The Beatles ever released; I like it! Side Two of Beatles '65 grabs two Carl Perkins covers from Beatles For Sale ("Honey Don't" and "Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby") with both sides of the "I Feel Fine"/"She's A Woman" single and "I'll Be Back" from the British version of A Hard Day's Night.

Beatles '65 is great. Beatles VI is greater. This album is just flawless, from its performances to the compelling rockin' pop ambiance of its sequencing. The album opens with "Kansas City" (later re-titled "Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!" to reflect that it's a cover of Little Richard's medley of the two songs); it closes with the majestic "Every Little Thing," as pure and uplifting a pop track as The Beatles ever did. It takes all of the remaining six tracks from Beatles For Sale--"Kansas City," "Eight Days A Week," a sublime reading of Buddy Holly's "Words Of Love" (first Buddy Holly song I ever heard), "Every Little Thing," "I Don't Want To Spoil The Party," and "What You're Doing"--adds a couple of songs from the British version of Help! ("Dizzy Miss Lizzy" and "Tell Me What You See"), the first appearance anywhere of The Beatles' romp through "Bad Boy," and the "Ticket To Ride" B-side "Yes It Is."



While this could all be a Philistine's recipe for artless background music, it is somehow perfect anyway. Each track is precisely where it should be. "Kansas City" bops with sure foot and steady gaze into the breezy AM sound of "Eight Days A Week," the casual confidence of "You Like Me Too Much," the raucous rave of "Bad Boy," the unforgettable assimilation of everything The Everly Brothers knew remade by Lennon and McCartney as "I Don't Want To Spoil The Party," and the sheer magic of "Words Of Love," one of the two finest Holly covers ever done. (Before you ask: The Rolling Stones' "Not Fade Away.") Side Two continues the victory lap, with the snappin' "What You're Doing," the nearly crooning "Yes It Is," the incandescent "Dizzy Miss Lizzy," and finally the pristine eins-zwei pop sweetness of "Tell Me What You See" and "Every Little Thing."

Goosebumps. Even more than five decades later, now and forevermore: goosebumps.



I know that this period of The Beatles' recorded legacy is not in the highest favor. Beatles For Sale is considered a lesser effort, an exercise in exhaustion manufactured on corporate demand as The Beatles did everything they could to avoid crumpling under the pressure of the mania they'd generated. The two American LPs it spawned are held in even greater disregard. I still insist they deserve better recognition.

Is Beatles VI really my all-time favorite album? Essentially, it is. I fudge the answer a bit by also talking about Beatles '65, and my ultimate imaginary 2-LP Beatles album would likely be a combination of the two that also includes the Beatle tracks from the U.S. version of Help!--I needs me some "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" and "The Night Before," too. If Beatles VI were a 14-track British single LP, I'd shoehorn in '65 For Sale's "No Reply," "I'll Follow The Sun," and "Rock And Roll Music" to make a perfect album perfecter. In reality, I'll just keep on listening to everything The Beatles did from 1964 through 1966. But if I gotta pick one real-world LP, then Beatles VI it is. Honestly, there just isn't any album I love more than that one.

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Our new compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4 is now available from Kool Kat Musik! 29 tracks of irresistible rockin' pop, starring Pop Co-Op, Ray Paul, Circe Link & Christian Nesmith, Vegas With Randolph Featuring Lannie Flowers, The Slapbacks, P. Hux, Irene Peña, Michael Oliver & the Sacred Band Featuring Dave Merritt, The Rubinoos, Stepford Knives, The Grip Weeds, Popdudes, Ronnie Dark, The Flashcubes,Chris von Sneidern, The Bottle Kids, 1.4.5., The Smithereens, Paul Collins' Beat, The Hit Squad, The Rulers, The Legal Matters, Maura & the Bright Lights, Lisa Mychols, and Mr. Encrypto & the Cyphers. You gotta have it, so order it here. 

THE EVERLASTING FIRST: The Jam

Continuing a look back at my first exposure to a number of rock 'n' roll acts and superheroes (or other denizens of print or periodical publication), some of which were passing fancies, and some of which I went on to kinda like. They say you never forget your first time; that may be true, but it's the subsequent visits--the second time, the fourth time, the twentieth time, the hundredth time--that define our relationships with the things we cherish. Ultimately, the first meeting is less important than what comes after that. But every love story still needs to begin with that first kiss.



This was originally posted as part of a longer piece. It's separated here for convenience.

Anyone who knows me also knows who my favorite bands are: The Beatles, The Ramones,The Flashcubes, The Monkees, and The Kinks. There are dozens and dozens of worthy acts that I love almost as much--I am proud to be a pop music fanatic and obsessive--but I think I've made it clear that this fantastic five sits permanently up there as my Top, my Coliseum, my Louvre Museum, et al.

The Jam used to be right up there with those Beatles and Ramones, too. While I certainly never stopped loving The Jam, they're not as ever-present in my mind as they were a few decades ago. But in the late '70s and early '80s, The Jam rivaled The Ramones for the coveted title of Carl's favorite rock 'n' roll group.

My introduction to The Jam was inauspicious, to say the least. One afternoon in the Fall of 1977, I was lounging in my freshman dorm room, listening to Brockport's campus radio station WBSU. I listened to WBSU, like, all of the time, constantly pestering the student jocks to play more of the new punk/new wave stuff I wanted to discover--Blondie, The Dictators, The Runaways, and the above-mentioned Ramones brudders--and also more of the '60s stuff I loved, from The Raiders ("Let Me!") and The Dave Clark Five ("Any Way You Want It") through The Monkees (the station owned the only copy of the group's Changes LP I had ever seen, though some of the BSU jocks flatly refused to ever play anything by The Monkees).

But this particular afternoon was a singularly revelatory WBSU session, as I heard The Flamin' Groovies ("Misery"), The Vogues ("Five O'Clock World"), and The Knickerbockers ("Lies") for the first time. And the station also played a brand-new song by a punk group out of England, performing a cover of "The Batman Theme." As I heard the song play, I wrote in my journal: "1977 and Batman's a punk. Progress."

And that was the first time I heard The Jam.



From small things mama, as Bossman Brucie would later say. If I seemed dismissive at the time, I think I was nonetheless intrigued. The Jam next crossed my consciousness in October, when TV's The Tomorrow Show took a look at this punk rock thing that was driving some of these mixed-up kids crazy, with the pogo dancing and the safety pins and the anarchy and the use of impolite language. Tomorrow Show host Tom Snyder promised "a punk-rock jam," but he was himself mixed-up; what he meant was that his guests would include The Jam's Paul Weller, along with Joan Jett from The Runaways, and Kim Fowley, The Runaways' former manager. I don't remember much about this show, other than a sense of no love lost between Jett and Fowley, and the fact that I'd already developed a serious crush on our Joanie ("crush" in the sense that I wanted to hug her and squeeze her and call her Gorgeous; my girlfriend Sharon was neither impressed nor amused). I have a vague recollection that Weller was serious and focused, and that he knew what he was talking about, but the precise details are lost in the cluttered hallway of my memory. I really oughtta at least try applying a feather duster to that place some time.



I'm not exactly sure of the sequence of events after that, of how I went from The Jam? to THE JAM!! I do know there were four specific songs involved: "In The City," "I Need You (For Someone)," "The Modern World," and "All Around The World." I can't tell you where or when I first heard any of these, but I can tell you that the first two were staples of The Flashcubes' live set. I saw the 'Cubes for the first time in January of '78, and it was immediately clear that any song they did was okay by me. I bought the U.S. Polydor 45 of "I Need You (For Someone)"/"In The City," and played it often.  I picked up import singles of "The Modern World" (a track I think the 'Cubes also used to cover) and "All Around The World" when I worked at Penn-Cann Mall in North Syracuse that summer. I was hooked. Guitarist Weller, bassist Bruce Foxton, and drummer Rick Buckler had created exactly the sort of modern world I wanted to inhabit.




I returned to Brockport for my sophomore year in the fall of 1978. By then, the previously-cited girlfriend Sharon was already three or four heartbreaks ago. In early October of that semester, I aced some test or paper or somesuch, and felt I deserved a reward; so it was down to The Record Grove, where I purchased a copy of The Jam's second LP, This Is The Modern World. I went back to my dorm, and put it on my roommate's stereo, the volume set somewhere north of lethal. God, I loved this record on first spin. Just about everyone considers it The Jam's least-noteworthy effort, but it's always gonna be special to me. "The Modern World." "All Around The World." "I Need You (For Someone)." Then on to the tracks I didn't already know: "Standards." "Life From A Window." Wilson Pickett's "In The Midnight Hour." I couldn't play Side One loud enough.

My next-door neighbor, on the other hand, thought it was already a wee bit too noisy. I hadn't even met this chick yet, but she pounded on our mutual bedroom wall, imploring me to turn that goddamned racket down already. I grumbled, cursed, but complied. Ever the gentleman, that's me! I did eventually meet this girl next door later that month. Her name was Brenda. Wonder whatever became of her...?




(And yes, she still thinks I play that goddamned racket too loud.)

The Jam didn't exactly fall beneath my radar after that, but I didn't get their next album, All Mod Cons, until well after the fact. Someone--either my then-current roommate Tom or my future roommate Paul--played "Down In The Tube Station At Midnight" for me on his WBSU show in the spring of '79; I liked it, I guess, though it didn't have the exuberance, the immediacy of the Jam tunes I already loved. It was...mature. It would take some getting used to.



By the time I adjusted to the idea of a more grownup-sounding Jam, the group hit me with a new album, Setting Sons. What an amazing record this was! I rarely listen to whole albums nowadays, but I owe myself the pleasure of giving this another complete spin soon. Supposedly originally created as a concept album--a dirty phrase in the post-punk world of 1979-1980--Setting Sons succeeds as a stunning song cycle, simmering with the charred embers of shattered idealism, discarded friendships, wistful memory, and defiant hope. I regard Setting Sons as The Jam's masterpiece.

The Jam's follow-up album, Sound Affects, was nearly as good, highlighted by "That's Entertainment," an unforgettable number that Weller is said to have written following a pub crawl; the track would have been worthy of The Kinks. The "Going Underground" single was another winner, and The Jam were firmly ensconced near the Toppermost of my Poppermost.




And then they were gone. Another album (The Gift), and a pair of 1982 farewell singles, "The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow)" and "Beat Surrender," and Weller pulled the plug. The Jam never caught on in the States at all, but they were huge stars in Great Britain, and they quit at the height of their success. I never had much interest in Weller's next project, The Style Council, but I have to concede neither he nor the rest of The Jam owed me anything. They'd already shown me the modern world, and all around the world: in the city, down in the tube station at midnight, lost in a strange town, Eton rifles beneath a burning sky, gone underground to a town called Malice. That's entertainment.



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THE EVERLASTING FIRST: Jimmy Olsen

Continuing a look back at my first exposure to a number of rock 'n' roll acts and superheroes (or other denizens of print or periodical publication), some of which were passing fancies, and some of which I went on to kinda like. They say you never forget your first time; that may be true, but it's the subsequent visits--the second time, the fourth time, the twentieth time, the hundredth time--that define our relationships with the things we cherish. Ultimately, the first meeting is less important than what comes after that. But every love story still needs to begin with that first kiss.

 
This was originally posted as part of a longer piece. It's separated here for convenience.

 

Among the many well-known members of Superman's supporting cast, from Lois Lane to Ma and Pa Kent, Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen is by far the most significant to be introduced outside of the comics themselves. Our Jimmy first appeared by name on Superman's radio show in 1940, and was almost immediately incorporated into the Superman comics, making his four-color debut in Superman # 13 in 1941. (According to Wikipedia, an "unnamed office boy" depicted in a 1938 issue of Action Comics is considered to be young Olsen in his first-ever appearance; I guess I'll concede the possibility, but it still seems retroactive to me.) The Wiki entry goes on to say that Olsen was rarely used in comics in the '40s, and didn't really become a notable comic-book presence until the '50s.



But Jimmy was indeed a presence on the radio series, and in two Columbia movie serials (1948's Superman and 1950's Atom Man Versus Superman) starring Kirk Alyn as Clark Kent, Noel Neill as Lois Lane, and Tommy Bond as everyone's favorite cub reporter. (Alyn was only billed as playing Kent, incidentally; the credits implied that Superman portrayed himself.) Jimmy didn't appear in the 1951 Superman And The Mole Men feature film, which introduced George Reeves as the new Superman, with Phyllis Coates replacing Noel Neill as Lois. But the movie led directly to the TV series The Adventures Of Superman, with actor Jack Larson taking on the role of Superman's pal.



I don't think it's much of an exaggeration to credit Jack Larson as the individual most responsible for turning Jimmy Olsen into a household name. Larson's unerring portrayal of the bumbling but kind-hearted cub reporter was immensely popular, and the on-screen chemistry between Reeves, Larson, Coates (and later a returning Noel Neill), and John Hamilton's Perry White defined the dynamics of Superman and The Daily Planet for more than a generation. When Reeves' death in 1959 brought the series to an end, there was reportedly talk of starting a new Jimmy Olsen show starring Larson, which would utilize stock footage of Reeves as Superman alongside new footage of Larson. Larson is said to have rejected the idea as ghoulish and repugnant, and he refused to have anything to do with it. The proposed project faded as quickly as a Kryptonian villain sentenced to the Phantom Zone.



In 1954, someone at DC Comics (probably either Whitney Ellsworth or Mort Weisinger, but I'm just guessing) realized that the Jimmy Olsen character was popular enough to sell some comic books, perhaps even as the star of his own title. With Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen # 1 in 1954, young James Bartholomew Olsen became the first Superman supporting character to have his own comic book, albeit one with all of the rest of The Daily Planet's regulars assembled, as well. (By contrast, Lois Lane didn't get her own title, Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane, until 1958, and she needed to prove herself before that with a pair of successful try-out appearances in the audition comic Showcase in '57. As one of Olsen's future crime-fighting partners might have said: Holy Double Standard!)



I was born in 1960, so all of the above was mere preamble for precious little me. The Adventures Of Superman was in active and aggressive reruns in the early '60s, so that served as my introduction to the mythos of Metropolis, including Jimmy Olsen. Jimmy was also a supporting character in the first comic book I can remember, 80 Page Giant # 14, a 1965 collection of Lois Lane reprints. I have no idea what was my first issue of Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen, but I certainly read a few of 'em in throughout the '60s, including many of the '50s stories that DC was fond of repackaging and reprinting.





Like his TV counterpart, the Jimmy Olsen of the comics was brash, foolhardy, trouble-prone, egotistical, intrepid, alternately courageous and frightened, ambitious, impetuous, resourceful, and lovable. He had a signal watch that enabled him to call for Superman's help whenever he needed it, which was often. His attempts at investigative reporting found him masquerading as a gangster's moll, a Texas oilman, and a hit man; scientific experiments gone wrong transformed into a giant turtle-boy, a wolf-man, and a human porcupine (among many other weird identities). Olsen also got directly into the crime-fighting gig himself on several occasions. He acquired stretching super-powers, and became Elastic Lad (making him DC's first stretchable hero, slightly before The Elongated Man, and years before DC's revival of the '40s hero Plastic Man). He joined his pal Superman in The Bottle City Of Kandor, a miniaturized Kryptonian city that survived the planet's destruction; Superman had no super-powers in Kandor, so he and Jimmy donned costumes and masks to fight crime as Nightwing and Flamebird, Kandor's counterpart to Batman and Robin.




And speaking of Batman, Jimmy also teamed up with Robin in a series of adventures. In Silver Age continuity, Jimmy knew Batman and Robin's secret identities, but never knew that Superman was Clark Kent. Superman's best pal? Sure....





But my favorite comic-book incarnation of Jimmy Olsen was that brief period when legendary artist Jack Kirby took over the character, from 1970 to 1972. As one would expect from King Kirby, this was an explosion of creativity and ingenuity, and elements from this series influence DC continuity to this day.

No. No I'm NOT going to say "Golly, Mr. Kent!" Are you some kind of idiot, fanboy?

Today, Jimmy Olsen's highest-profile incarnation is as a supporting on the current Supergirl TV series. He's a different Olsen than we're used to. Many have objected to the idea of the traditionally red-haired, nerdy white kid Jimmy played as a confident, hunky hero by black, bald actor Mehcad Brooks, but Brooks is so good in the role: more dynamic, more authoritative, more capable of ass-kickin' (especially in his guise as Kirby creation The Guardian), but still the good guy who's also Superman's best friend. The casting and characterization change isn't substantively different from Margot Kidder's chain-smoking Lois Lane in the Christopher Reeve Super-films, nor Bela Lugosi's clean-shaven titular vampire in Dracula, nor dark-haired actor Grant Gustin as the heretofore blond Barry Allen on The Flash, nor even the quintessentially British setting of Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity switching to Chicago for its film version. Adapting source material from one medium to another requires creative license, and results are more important than slavish adherence to orthodoxy. Supergirl has been cool so far, and Brooks' performance is a big part of that success.





Still, I have to admit that my image of Superman's pal remains formed by Jack Larson, Mort Weisinger, and Jack Kirby. I can accept new interpretations while retaining my affection for what I've always known. Jeepers, Miss Lane--what more can I do?

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Our new compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4 is now available from Kool Kat Musik! 29 tracks of irresistible rockin' pop, starring Pop Co-Op, Ray Paul, Circe Link & Christian Nesmith, Vegas With Randolph Featuring Lannie Flowers, The Slapbacks, P. Hux, Irene Peña, Michael Oliver & the Sacred Band Featuring Dave Merritt, The Rubinoos, Stepford Knives, The Grip Weeds, Popdudes, Ronnie Dark, The Flashcubes,Chris von Sneidern, The Bottle Kids, 1.4.5., The Smithereens, Paul Collins' Beat, The Hit Squad, The Rulers, The Legal Matters, Maura & the Bright Lights, Lisa Mychols, and Mr. Encrypto & the Cyphers. You gotta have it, so order it here.