This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1035.
EMITT RHODES: Fresh As A Daisy
In the early '90s, I put together a proposal for a book I wanted to write about power pop. I had a little bit of name recognition in pop circles at the time, but the project never had much of a chance of becoming real, and my prospective publisher told me to go all the way...home.
One evening, when the book project was still a potential thing, I was chatting with Gary Frenay of The Flashcubes and Screen Test between sets at an acoustic gig in Skaneateles, NY. In the conversation, Gary mentioned Emitt Rhodes; I replied that I didn't recognize that name. Gary looked at me silently for a beat, and then said, "And you want to write a book about power pop...?"
Point taken.
But then Gary mentioned Rhodes' former group The Merry-Go-Round, and I was a bit more familiar with them (which probably saved me from being exiled from Flashcubes fandom right then and there). I knew two Merry-Go-Round tracks--"Live" and "You're A Very Lovely Woman"--from their inclusion on various-artists '60s compilations in Rhino Records' Nuggets series in the '80s. Still, I had never heard any of Rhodes' solo work.
I had to fix that.
I don't recall the order in which I assembled my belated Emitt Rhodes library. If memory serves (and it rarely does with me), I picked up The American Dream, Mirror, and Farewell To Paradise at various used record shops over the next year or two. I'm not sure if I ever owned a vinyl copy of the 1970 eponymous debut album. I definitely bought one of my Rhodes LP acquisitions at a store in Virginia Beach, during the same idyllic vacation when I first heard Material Issue's "Kim The Waitress" on the radio. I may have gotten one of them at another cool place on Eau Gallie Road in Melbourne, Florida in August of 1994. It's also likely that I got something (probably The American Dream) from the basement of Johnnie's Collectibles in Syracuse when I was researching a different book that I also didn't write in the '90s. I'm pretty sure I grabbed a beat-up Merry-Go-Round anthology at Desert Shore Records up on the SU hill. By the late '90s, I had also added One Way Records' CD reissue of Emitt Rhodes, and Varese Sarabande's Emitt Rhodes career anthology CD Listen, Listen. And by then, I certainly understood why Gary Frenay would question the credentials of a pop pundit who didn't know Emitt Rhodes.
But there are still a lot of people who don't know this music. Rhodes never breached the boundary of Billboard's Top 40; The Merry-Go-Round's "Live" died at # 63, and Rhodes' classic "Fresh As A Daisy" only made it as high as # 54. Both should be well-known, well-loved staples of American radio. They should not be obscurities relegated to the left of the dial and the fringes of the internet. One wishes the world at large had followed Gary Frenay's lead in appreciating Emitt Rhodes. As Emitt Rhodes leaves us, the world seems not as fresh as it should have been.
In 1997, Rhino Records hired me to write the liner notes for the 1990s volume in its Power Pop Classics anthology series Poptopia! I saw the list of tracks the label wanted to license for each of Poptopia!'s three decade-specific volumes, and I know the Rhino folks wanted "Fresh As A Daisy" for the 1970s disc. It was not to be. In 2018, Screen Test released a cover of "Fresh As A Daisy" on their Through The Past, Brightly collection, with Gary Frenay's lead vocals channeling Emitt Rhodes as a capable rockin' pop fan oughta.
Well if you come from Heaven
You know that that's okay
Just as long as you're here to help me
It doesn't matter how long you stay
We wish you could have stayed a little longer, Emitt.
THE BANGLES: Live
Before those above-cited Rhino Nuggets LPs hipped me to The Merry-Go-Round's "Live," I already knew the song as one of my favorite tracks by The Bangles. I was a huge Bangles fan in the '80s, and their 1984 All Over The Place album was loaded with engaging tracks. I had no idea that "Live" was a cover, but whatever its genesis, I was wholly captivated by The Bangles' dreamy rendition, and equally swayed to swoon with The Merry-Go-Round's original version.
THE BAR: Katie's Shoes
The BAR is Jim Babjak, Danny Adlerman, and Kurt Reil, an irresistible troika of rockin' pop forces pooling their resources to commanding effect. They've just released a digital single of "Katie's Shoes" as a tease for their eponymous debut album, which is itself due out soon. Go to dannyandkim.com for more information.
Of course, TIRnRR fans already know how great this track is. The BAR let us use it on our 2006 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 2, and Dana and I are delighted that we're finally going to be hearing more music from The BAR.
I think "Katie's Shoes" was our formal introduction to Danny Adlerman, a musician and author of children's books in collaboration with his wife Kim. We were already corresponding with Jim Babjak of The Smithereens and Kurt Reil of The Grip Weeds when we were assembling TIRnRR2, and conversations led us to The BAR. As they often do. Danny's a true believer, and we're happy to be in his corner. Our shared history started here.
THE CLASH: Train In Vain
"Train In Vain" is far and away the most pop-sounding track The Clash ever did. "Pop" never really seemed to be The Clash's primary goal; they were The Only Band That Mattered, politically aware, socially conscious, and that ambition and reputation (plus, y'know, actually being great) made them the most revered group to come out of 1970s British punk. Punk songs like "White Riot" are pop, of course--it's ALL pop music, after all--but "White Riot" isn't pop in the same way that "Train In Vain" is pop. Nor is "London Calling," nor is the throwaway B-side "1-2 Crush On You." Nor is "Rock The Casbah," even though that was The Clash's biggest pop hit in America. "Rock The Casbah" was popular; "Train In Vain" was pop. I tell ya, outside of "Train In Vain," the closest thing to pure pop in the Clash catalog o' hits is "Spanish Bombs," which is much prettier and catchier than one would expect of a song about the Spanish Civil War.
"Train In Vain" has no qualifiers, no asterisks next to its description as an unabashed pop tune. If we close our eyes, we can imagine "Train In Vain" by Otis Redding, "Train In Vain" by The Monkees, "Train In Vain" on Motown or Apple. As we open our eyes, it's The Clash, with guitar hero Mick Jones crooning a simple song over a simple riff, a boy in love and unashamed to say it. There is not a shred of self-consciousness in play, no taint of irony; to paraphrase another set of British punks, he means it, man.
THE GO-GO'S: Beatnik Beach
The Go-Go's released some terrific B-sides. I devoted an installment of my B-side appreciation series The Other Side Of The Hit to "Surfing And Spying," The Go-Go's' great original Ventures tribute that backed "Our Lips Are Sealed." The other side of "We Got The Beat" ("Can't Stop The World") coulda been an A-side single itself. "Speeding," "Good For Gone," "I'm With You," and "Mercenary" (the respective flips of "Get Up And Go," "Head Over Heels," "Turn To You," and "Yes Or No") may not have been Billboard chart hit material, but they do rock, and they provide further proof of the sheer splendor of The Go-Go's.
"Beatnik Beach," the fab B-side of "Vacation," doesn't sound like a shoulda-been radio smash, but I've always loved it--YEAH yeah!--and it remains one of my favorite Go-Go's cuts--yeah YEAH! There's a new Go-Go's documentary premiering on Showtime this weekend, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing it. YEAH YEAH!
THE JAM: The Eton Rifles
Eatin' waffles! Eatin' waffles!
It's an in-joke. Move along.
THE KINKS: I Took My Baby Home
For a very brief flash of time, "I Took My Baby Home" was the most exciting track that The Kinks ever released. It didn't have a lot of competition for that title, since it was the B-side of the very first Kinks single, and much more distinctive and interesting than the perfunctory cover of Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" on its A-side. The Kinks' second single, "You Still Want Me"/"You Do Something To Me," paired a couple of fine beat numbers, though I'd say "I Took My Baby Home" was still the pick of this four-song run.
The Kinks' third single was the greatest record ever made, and its release ended the short reign of "I Took My Baby Home" as the best of The Kinks.
Nonetheless, "I Took My Baby Home" remains a superb rock 'n' roll track, with its strutting harmonica come-on and its euphoric tale of a helpless chap gleefully seduced by his girl (whose high-powered kisses really knock him out, they knock him oh-oh-over).
And it was one of the songs I acquired in my first year as a Kinks fan. I started with "All Day And All Of The Night" on a various-artists LP at Christmas of 1976, added "You Really Got Me," the Kinks-Size LP and maybe Sleepwalker before heading off to college the following August, and scored my first Kinks compilation album during the fall semester. This Kinks volume of The Pye History Of British Rock introduced me to "I Took My Baby Home," right alongside "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion," "Sunny Afternoon," "I'm Not Like Everybody Else," "Where Have All The Good Times Gone," and "Till The End Of The Day." I knew "I Took My Baby Home" before I knew "Waterloo Sunset," though I would discover that one soon enough. Not a bad way to get to know The Kinks, I say.
(And I still mentally change the song's line "And she put her hands on my chest" to "And she put my hands on her chest." Aggressive girl. I bet her name was Lola.)
THE RUNAWAYS: School Days
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 my eventual book 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.
And listening to it on this week's show conjured 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.)
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' 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' 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 this week, the song reminded 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?
THE SPINNERS: Could It Be I'm Falling In Love
Rhino Records' 1970s soul box Can You Dig It? has become one of my key go-tos in assembling tracks for each week's This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio playlist. I have a separate CD anthology of The Spinners, and the group was already a Featured Act on the show back in the days when we did Featured Acts, but scanning the tracks on Can You Dig It? while considering possibilities for TIRnRR provides a different sense of inspiration. I would never have become interested in co-creating a radio show if I hadn't fallen in love with AM radio when I was a kid. Anything, any sound, that renews that vital lifeline to the dream radio station playing in my head...well, that's what I need. Could it be I'm falling in love? Could be. That pure love of the sound of pop music is why we keep doing this.
STEVIE WONDER: Uptight (Everything's Alright)
My book's chapter on Stevie Wonder's "I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)" mentions that I was a latecomer to appreciating the wonder of Wonder. But it was impossible to resist "Uptight (Everything's Alright)." The song is a joyous explosion of abandon and bliss, the rush of young love fully expressed as the giddy, exuberant celebration the experience demands. God, what a rush. I may need to write a second book just to make room for "Uptight."
Guess I should finish writing Volume 1 first, though. Outtasight!
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You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby!
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.
"Train In Vain" has no qualifiers, no asterisks next to its description as an unabashed pop tune. If we close our eyes, we can imagine "Train In Vain" by Otis Redding, "Train In Vain" by The Monkees, "Train In Vain" on Motown or Apple. As we open our eyes, it's The Clash, with guitar hero Mick Jones crooning a simple song over a simple riff, a boy in love and unashamed to say it. There is not a shred of self-consciousness in play, no taint of irony; to paraphrase another set of British punks, he means it, man.
THE GO-GO'S: Beatnik Beach
The Go-Go's released some terrific B-sides. I devoted an installment of my B-side appreciation series The Other Side Of The Hit to "Surfing And Spying," The Go-Go's' great original Ventures tribute that backed "Our Lips Are Sealed." The other side of "We Got The Beat" ("Can't Stop The World") coulda been an A-side single itself. "Speeding," "Good For Gone," "I'm With You," and "Mercenary" (the respective flips of "Get Up And Go," "Head Over Heels," "Turn To You," and "Yes Or No") may not have been Billboard chart hit material, but they do rock, and they provide further proof of the sheer splendor of The Go-Go's.
"Beatnik Beach," the fab B-side of "Vacation," doesn't sound like a shoulda-been radio smash, but I've always loved it--YEAH yeah!--and it remains one of my favorite Go-Go's cuts--yeah YEAH! There's a new Go-Go's documentary premiering on Showtime this weekend, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing it. YEAH YEAH!
THE JAM: The Eton Rifles
Eatin' waffles! Eatin' waffles!
It's an in-joke. Move along.
THE KINKS: I Took My Baby Home
For a very brief flash of time, "I Took My Baby Home" was the most exciting track that The Kinks ever released. It didn't have a lot of competition for that title, since it was the B-side of the very first Kinks single, and much more distinctive and interesting than the perfunctory cover of Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" on its A-side. The Kinks' second single, "You Still Want Me"/"You Do Something To Me," paired a couple of fine beat numbers, though I'd say "I Took My Baby Home" was still the pick of this four-song run.
The Kinks' third single was the greatest record ever made, and its release ended the short reign of "I Took My Baby Home" as the best of The Kinks.
Nonetheless, "I Took My Baby Home" remains a superb rock 'n' roll track, with its strutting harmonica come-on and its euphoric tale of a helpless chap gleefully seduced by his girl (whose high-powered kisses really knock him out, they knock him oh-oh-over).
And it was one of the songs I acquired in my first year as a Kinks fan. I started with "All Day And All Of The Night" on a various-artists LP at Christmas of 1976, added "You Really Got Me," the Kinks-Size LP and maybe Sleepwalker before heading off to college the following August, and scored my first Kinks compilation album during the fall semester. This Kinks volume of The Pye History Of British Rock introduced me to "I Took My Baby Home," right alongside "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion," "Sunny Afternoon," "I'm Not Like Everybody Else," "Where Have All The Good Times Gone," and "Till The End Of The Day." I knew "I Took My Baby Home" before I knew "Waterloo Sunset," though I would discover that one soon enough. Not a bad way to get to know The Kinks, I say.
(And I still mentally change the song's line "And she put her hands on my chest" to "And she put my hands on her chest." Aggressive girl. I bet her name was Lola.)
THE RUNAWAYS: School Days
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 my eventual book 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.
And listening to it on this week's show conjured 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 |
And nothing was the precise result. Over the course of breaktime conversations spanning days into a week and more, Janis' 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' 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 this week, the song reminded 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?
THE SPINNERS: Could It Be I'm Falling In Love
Rhino Records' 1970s soul box Can You Dig It? has become one of my key go-tos in assembling tracks for each week's This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio playlist. I have a separate CD anthology of The Spinners, and the group was already a Featured Act on the show back in the days when we did Featured Acts, but scanning the tracks on Can You Dig It? while considering possibilities for TIRnRR provides a different sense of inspiration. I would never have become interested in co-creating a radio show if I hadn't fallen in love with AM radio when I was a kid. Anything, any sound, that renews that vital lifeline to the dream radio station playing in my head...well, that's what I need. Could it be I'm falling in love? Could be. That pure love of the sound of pop music is why we keep doing this.
STEVIE WONDER: Uptight (Everything's Alright)
My book's chapter on Stevie Wonder's "I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)" mentions that I was a latecomer to appreciating the wonder of Wonder. But it was impossible to resist "Uptight (Everything's Alright)." The song is a joyous explosion of abandon and bliss, the rush of young love fully expressed as the giddy, exuberant celebration the experience demands. God, what a rush. I may need to write a second book just to make room for "Uptight."
Guess I should finish writing Volume 1 first, though. Outtasight!
TIP THE BLOGGER: CC's Tip Jar!
You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby!
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 2: CD or download
Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio: CD or download
Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 155 essays about 155 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).
Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 155 essays about 155 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).
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