It was the only time in my life that I preferred The Rolling Stones to The Beatles.
Why? Damned if I know. It wasn't like I suddenly relinquished my life-long love of your John, your Paul, your George, and your Ringo. Nonetheless, for a very brief period there in the early '80s, I did listen to the Stones a bit more often than I listened to The Beatles. But it was okay. I listened to The Beatles, too. I listened to a lot of stuff, and I couldn't get enough of it all. Turn it up!
Most of my music at the time was on record or radio. I didn't have wheels--I wouldn't get my license until just before my 21st birthday in January 1981, and I wouldn't get a car until 1983, well after we shuffled off to Buffalo--and there just wasn't a lot of live music that I cared about in Brockport. Southern rock? Pass, thanks. There were exceptions: a terrific young Rochester band called The Insiders occasionally played at Priority One in Brockport, and we would never miss a chance to see them; a college classmate named Ken Goffman had a Stooges-influenced band called The Party Dogs, and we caught another young band--I've long since forgotten their name--at Priority One precisely once, and I was struck and delighted by their decision to include a Rick James song within their repertoire of oldies and new wave covers. We accompanied friends to a couple of shows in Rochester (the mighty Blotto and ex-Herman's Hermits frontman Peter Noone's new wave combo The Tremblers). Some other friends were fans of a competent (though, I felt, boring) Buffalo-area cover band called Breakout, and we tagged along to see Breakout a few times, too; my best memory of Breakout was a show around Christmas time, when one of the members took the stage in a Santa suit to belt out a cover of AC/DC's "Highway To Hell," retitled "Sleigh Ride To Hell"--coal for everybody! I also made a few trips back home to Syracuse, and tried to catch Screen Test and 1.4.5. there if schedules aligned.
So: without a steady source of live music, records and radio had to see me through. I read Trouser Press and Creem with religious devotion. I listened to Brockport's campus station WBSU, Rochester's WCMF (which played my two-for-Tuesday request for The Ramones!), a Sunday night alternative rock show called Power Rock on Buffalo's 97 Rock, and, best of all, WUWU out of East Aurora, The Rock Of Western New York, the most quirky and adventurous commercial FM station I ever heard.
I was a regular at Brockport's Main Street Records, where new LPs were cheap, and cutout and used LPs were even cheaper. I stretched my budget to include this bounty, new and old. From Main Street, from friends, from radio, from magazines, I cast my net wide. LPs. 45s. Cassettes. Flexi-discs. Record label budget samplers! Roxy Music. Love. The Motown Story. Nikki & the Corvettes. The Modern Lovers. The Lords Of The New Church. Invictas A Go Go. Ear Piercing Punk, which turned out to be a collection of obscure '60s garage sides. The Fast. The Doors. The Last. Former Playboy playmate Bebe Buell. Monkeemania. Deface The Music. Raw Power. Loaded. Squeezing Out Sparks. Love's Melodies. Wanna Buy A Bridge? The Nylon Curtain. Gary Numan. Vincebus Eruptum. Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart. Devo Live. The Temptations. The Holy Sisters Of The Gaga Dada. Elvis Presley. Little Richard. Wild Honey/Friends. KISS. Phil Seymour. Give 'Em Enough Rope. Black Market Clash. London Calling. Double Fantasy. The Grass Roots. Great Buildings. Panorama. Donna Summer. The Music Explosion. The Chesterfield Kings. Romeo Void. Are You Experienced? Dillinger. The Penetrators. Curtis Seals. The dB's. The Laughing Dogs.
And more. Always more.
Something drew me to the Stones, especially to Keith Richards' bad-boy junkie image, which dovetailed with my grungy guitar-hero worship of Johnny Thunders. I can barely stand to listen to "Start Me Up" nowadays, but I loved it then. I also discovered The Velvet Underground, but my favorite albums were likely Setting Sons and Sound Affects by The Jam, LPs over which I obsessed with great joy and fulfillment.
The music flowed together: the 152 songs below (152 because I couldn't narrow the number down any further), the dozens referenced above, the unnumbered rockin' pop treasures my mind can't conjure in the moment. The J. Geils Band. Stevie Wonder. The Adverts. The Joe Perry Project. Nina Hagen. Pat Benatar. Paul Revere & the Raiders. The Pretenders. My friend's copy of James Brown's Live At The Apollo. Psychedelic Furs. U2. Kim Wilde. The Hollies. XTC. OMD. More Beatles! All of it. All of it mixed with life, and love, and work, and sorrow, with harmony, with discord, with worries, with dreams, with pennies pinched, with splurges justified, ends met, fears kept at bay. With arguments. With strife. With beer and junk food, comic books and video games, paperbacks and almost every movie that played at The Strand on Main Street. With depression. With hope. With any goddamned thing that had a speaker and some way to push the volume. With saying goodbye to some things, and to some people, and holding fast to others. My favorite song, "Let Go" by Dirty Looks, summed it up:
If you wanna find out what you're really made of
Go, let go, and all you gotta do is
Let go
Let go
Let go
All you gotta do is
Let go
Let go
Let GO! GO! GO! GO!
By the end of the summer of '82, Brenda was done with the gap year in her studies, ready to commence graduate work at the University of Buffalo. Would I come with her? Decisions were made. A rocky road was crossed. We remain together to this day.
It's been said that college life--especially dorm life--is like an extended childhood. Moving into an apartment with your significant other may or may not be considered adulthood, but it's a step in that direction. Or at least it should be. We took our steps. We took our missteps, too. We kept going.
Our story continued in Buffalo, a tale chronicled elsewhere in a memoir I call The Road To GOLDMINE. The road winds on. The road. That's what the music's for, man. Whether we're walking, riding, driving, or crawling, the music is made for the road ahead.
3rd Generation Nation The Dead Boys
867-5309/Jenny Tommy Tutone
All's Quiet On The Eastern Front The Ramones
Another Girl, Another Planet The Only Ones
Any Way You Want It The Dave Clark Five
Anytime Screen Test
Apologies The Pointed Sticks
Baby Let's Twist The Dictators
Babylon The New York Dolls
Babysitter The Ramones
Bad Reputation Joan Jett
Better Things The Kinks
Blitzkrieg Bop The Ramones
The Break-Up Song (They Don't Write 'Em) The Greg Kihn Band
C30, C60, C90, Go! Bow Wow Wow
Can't You Hear Me Knocking The Rolling Stones
Carbona Not Glue The Ramones
Catch Us If You Can The Dave Clark Five
Chinese Rocks The Heartbreakers
Crazy Little Thing Called Love Queen
Cynical Girl Marshall Crenshaw
Dancing With Myself Gen X
Dearest Buddy Holly
Death Of A Clown The Kinks
Do The Freddie Freddie & the Dreamers
Do You Wanna Dance The Ramones
Do You Wanna Touch Me Joan Jett
Doing Alright With The Boys Gary Glitter
Empty Heart The Rolling Stones
The Eton Rifles The Jam
Ever Fallen In Love The Buzzcocks
Evil Hearted You The Yardbirds
Femme Fatale The Velvet Underground
Flowers In The City David Johansen & Robin Johnson
Fortune Teller The Rolling Stones
Frenchette David Johansen
Get Off Of My Cloud The Rolling Stones
Get Over You The Undertones
Girls Talk Dave Edmunds
Gloria Them
God Save The Queen The Sex Pistols
Gudbuy T' Jane Slade
Happy The Rolling Stones
Heading Out To The Highway Judas Priest
Hearts In Her Eyes The Records
Hearts Will Be Broken The Records
Help! The Beatles
Heroin The Velvet Underground
History Never Repeats Split Enz
I Fought The Law The Bobby Fuller Four
I Got You Split Enz
I Know What I Want Cheap Trick
I Love Rock And Roll [original import single version] Joan Jett
I Wanna Be Sedated The Ramones
I Wanna Be Your Dog The Stooges
I Wanna Be Your Man The Rolling Stones
I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart
I'll Be Taking Her Out Tonight The Tremblers
I'll Be Your Mirror The Velvet Underground
In The Congo The Bongos
The Israelites Desmond Dekker
It's Cold Outside Stiv Bators
It's My Life The Animals
It's The Same Old Song The Four Tops
It's Going To Happen! The Undertones
It's Too Late The New York Dolls
In The Nighttime The Romantics
Instant Karma! John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
Johnny B. Goode Chuck Berry
Jump Boys The Undertones
Jumpin' Jack Flash The Rolling Stones
Leave Me Alone The Insiders
Let Go Dirty Looks
Let It Go Def Leppard
Let's Groove 1.4.5.
Let's See The Sun The Fleshtones
Lies The Knickerbockers
Love Is Only Sleeping The Monkees
Love To Love The Monkees
Love's Made A Fool Of You Buddy Holly
Mama Weer All Crazee Now Slade
Mind-Bending Cutie Doll The Revillos
National Breakout The Romantics
Nervous Breakdown Eddie Cochran
New Life The Zones
Nothing Really Matters When You're Young Screen Test
Now You Know The Real Kids
Oh My My The Monkees
Oh, Woe Is Me Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
Older Women New Math
On My Radio The Selecter
One Track Mind The Heartbreakers
Orgasm Addict The Buzzcocks
Paint Her Face The Records
Panic In Detroit David Bowie
Paint It, Black The Rolling Stones
Porpoise Song (Theme From Head) The Monkees
Pulling Mussels (From The Shell) Squeeze
The Punk Cherry Vanilla
The Punk Meets The Godfather The Who
Queen Of Hearts Juice Newton
Route 66 The Rolling Stones
September Gurls Big Star
Since You Been Gone Cherie & Marie Currie
Shake Some Action The Flamin' Groovies
Shakin' Street The MC5
She Couldn't Say No 1.4.5.
She's A Dog Simply Saucer
She's Got A Big Boyfriend Blotto
She's So Cold The Rolling Stones
Sheena Is A Punk Rocker The Ramones
Slow Death The Dictators
Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White The Standells
Start Me Up The Rolling Stones
Steam Engine 99 The Monkees
Strange Town The Jam
Surfing And Spying The Go-Go's
Sunday Morning The Velvet Underground
Super Freak Rick James
Surrender Cheap Trick
Sweet Little Sixteen Chuck Berry
Sweets For My Sweet The Searchers
Syracuse Summer The Tearjerkers
Tainted Love Soft Cell
Teacher, Teacher Rockpile
The Tears Of A Clown Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
Telephoto Lens The Bongos
Tell Me A Story The Natives
Tell That Girl To Shut Up Holly & the Italians
That's Entertainment The Jam
There She Goes Again The Velvet Underground
The Tide Is High Blondie
Tiny Steps Elvis Costello & the Attractions
Tips For Teens Sparks
The Train Kept A-Rollin' The Yardbirds
Tomorrow Night Shoes
Turn The Other Way Around Quincy
Turning Japanese The Vapors
Uncle John's Band The Grateful Dead
Vacation The Go-Go's
Walk--Don't Run The Ventures
Walking Out On Love Paul Collins
Waterloo Sunset The Kinks
We Got The Beat The Go-Go's
We Love You The Rolling Stones
What I Like About You The Romantics
Wild Horses The Rolling Stones
Words The Monkees
Yoda "Weird" Al Yankovic
You Really Got Me The Kinks
You Shook Me All Night Long AC/DC
You Still Want Me The Kinks
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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. A digital download version (minus The Smithereens' track) is also available from Futureman Records.
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