A tech delay postpones the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio's record release party with Pop Co-Op. Once that's been resolved, I should be able to share the playlist as soon as tomorrow. In the mean time, let's do this week's 10 Songs a day early.
THE BEATLES: I Want To Hold Your Hand
It seemed such an innocent request in '63 and '64. Now? If a person's closer than six friggin' feet away, it's cause for alarm, even panic. There will be no hand-holding in the Coronaverse, no love in the time of pandemic. There will be music, and there actually will be love, as always. Just no physical contact. Now go wash your hands.
BIG HELLO: Action Now
I was going to tie this great track from Big Hello's 2000 effort The Orange Album with a demand for ACTION NOW!! in place of the usual clueless douchebaggery of our nation's Buffoon-In-Chief, but I guess I'll stick with the music. Trump's an asshole, by the way.
"Action Now" popped up a couple of times on my iPod recently, and it sounds great each and every time. Is it a call to action--Now's the time for supersonic action--or is it only rock 'n' roll? I know it's both, and I like it.
Since saying goodbye to Big Hello, the wife 'n' husband team of Chloe Orwell and Brad Elvis have fronted The Handcuffs, another fab group worthy of large-sized salutation and celebration. The Handcuffs' Electroluv album has been in my CD carrying case for weeks, awaiting its overdue return to the This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio playlist. All the more reason for action now, to end this crisis and return The Handcuffs to their rightful place on the radio.
THE DOORS: Touch Me
Ew. Not because of the song--I've become more receptive to The Doors' music over the past few years--but because, y'know...touching. Ew.
THE FOUR TOPS: Reach Out I'll Be There
No. You. Won't. Jeez, keep your razzafrazzin' distance already!
THE GEORGIA SATELLITES: Keep Your Hands To Yourself
Yeah, that's more like it.
The Georgia Satellites may have put on the loudest show I've ever survived, which is saying something when you consider that my first concert was KISS, that I saw The Ramones nine times, and that I just about put my head into the PA at one of The Flashcubes' gigs. My most vivid memories of the Satellites' circa '87 set at The Lost Horizon are the sheer volume and resultant lingering buzz in the ol' ears, and Dan Baird asking the audience, Y'all all right? You're awfully quiet. Are you gettin' enough to drink? It's a proven fact: the more you drink, the more we sound like the goddamned Beatles. It's true!
THE PANDORAS: It's About Time
The Pandoras' irresistible '80s garage-pop classic "It's About Time" was one of the tracks I included in last week's fake playlist This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio: Isolation Edition. I chose the song for its recurring line Ain't it about time we got together now, and placed it near the end of the playlist (segued into Ben E. King's "Stand By Me") as a totem of hope that this period of willful separation will pass. It won't pass anywhere near as quickly as we'd wish, but it will pass.
THE POLICE: Don't Stand So Close To Me
Okay, everyone else sick of this joke, of this hit by The Police serving as the unofficial Love Theme From Social Distancing? Me too, though that won't prevent me from using it just this once. These are not proud times.
I absolutely adored "Roxanne," and regarded it as the coolest song on the radio in 1979. I quite liked "Message In A Bottle" and probably a few other scattered tracks from the first two Police albums, but I found myself losing interest in the group after that. Mind you, I never relinquished my affection for "Roxanne" and "Message In A Bottle," but that affection did not extend to subsequent efforts. When I managed a record store in the '80s, one of my clerks was horrified--horrified--to learn of my indifference to The Police. I waived my right to his counsel on that matter (and I waived it kinda rudely).
POP CO-OP: Underworld
But in a similar matter to how my icy disregard for The Doors gradually thawed over time, so too did I slowly become less dismissive of The Police's music (though I doubt I'll ever be able to tolerate any of Sting's solo material, or that horrid stalker song "Every Breath You Take"). So this wonderful Police pastiche by Pop Co-Op came along at just the right time. "Underworld" is on the brand-new Pop Co-Op album Factory Settings, but it was originally released on a 2018 collection called Back In Time--Lost Hits Of The 80's Vol. 2, the second of two various-artists collections that gather contemporary artists to salute the '80s with original songs that sound like they could have been on MTV during the heyday of Reaganomics and Miami Vice. The Back In Time sets are the brainchild of Dan Pavelich, and they succeed in re-writing and expanding pop history to accommodate the paradox of brand-new records from the 1980s.
The acts on Back In Time take on phony noms du bop for their concoctions, so "Underworld" was originally credited to "PCPD," as in "Pop Co-Op Police Department." It's an effective theft and rehabilitation of The Police's sound, and it first reached me right around the same time that I decided to add a Police best-of CD to my home library. I kinda like The Police now, but if you surreptitiously slipped "Underworld" onto any Police record (see what I did there?), it would be among the best tracks on that record. I hope my former record store clerk would approve.
(And more about the new Pop Co-Op album Factory Settings--Your Favorite Record Of 2020--on tomorrow's exciting edition of Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do).
STEVE STOECKEL & HIS THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO ALL-STARS: I Could Be Good For You
The Pop Co-Op story has its roots in a virtual combo I called Steve Stoeckel & his This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio All-Stars. I had no right to name this group, but somehow I got away with it. "I Could Be Good For You" began as a songwriting exercise, as the ever-intrepid and ever-inventive Stoeckel decided he wanted to experiment with an attempt to craft lyrics by committee. He solicited ideas from various on-line acquaintances, and this new song was written line-by-line by a collection of pop fans, some of whom had previous experience, and some of whom didn't have much experience at all.
So "I Could Be Good For You" was written by Stoeckel with Dan Pavelich, Kathy Jackson Firestone, Loyd Dillon, Brenda Trent Dillon, Elizabeth Racz, and Joel Tinnel, each of whom shared songwriting credit. Steve recorded the track, with a guitar break by Joel Tinnel and a backing vocal by long-time TIRnRR pal Rich Firestone, and let me affix the TIRnRR brand name to its spurious billing. It appeared on our 2013 CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 3, and it was our show's single most-played track that year.
But its most important and lasting legacy is laying the first brick on the pathway to what came later, as Steve and Joel eventually recruited Bruce Gordon and Stacy Carson to form Pop Co-Op. The story of Pop Co-Op started here.
UTOPIA: I Just Want To Touch You
Right. I'm calling' a cop.
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| C'mon, you're gonna have to stay farther apart from each other than that! |
Barring pandemics, 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, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.
The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:
Volume 1: download
Volume 3: download
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