This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1039.
THE BEATLES: I've Just Seen A Face
In the '60s and '70s, kids in America--hey, where is Kim Wilde when we need her?--did not know most of The Beatles' albums in the way The Beatles intended them to be heard. The U.S. record label Capitol butchered the original U.K. releases, chopping them up, making them shorter, playing with sequencing, cobbling together whole "new" Beatles product made up from tracks excised from other albums. That's not even considering how Capitol messed with the sound of the master tracks. You could call it a triumph of the Philistines, and I'd be hard-pressed to give you an intelligent counter-argument.
Well, except for this, as many of my fellow Americans have already said: whatever the faults of the Capitol releases, it's how we Yanks heard The Beatles. It's how we fell in love with the music of The Beatles.
When I think of Rubber Soul, I think of the U.S. version of Rubber Soul. I have the Parlophone CDs. I get it. You'll never convince me that "I've Just Seen a Face" is an album track on Help! "I've Just Seen A Face" is the first track on Rubber Soul. That's how I heard it, and that's how it is.
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| Ah, THERE ya are, Kim! Me and the rest of the kids in America just wanna say hi. |
We don't think of The Dave Clark Five as album artists. The DC5's legacy was built on singles, compact 45 rpm blasts like "Glad All Over," "Bits And Pieces," "Do You Love Me," and "Any Way You Want It." The group's LPs generally surrounded the singles with mere filler, but there were exceptions. The U.S. release Having A Wild Weekend--my favorite DC5 album--includes the fab single "Catch Us If You Can" as its high point, but it also has some other certifiably solid cuts: the title track flat-out rocks, mid-tempo numbers "A New Kind Of Love" and "I Said I Was Sorry" display an agreeable maturity, and both "Don't Be Taken In" and the brooding "Don't You Realize" remain among my top Dave Clark Five choices. The Coast To Coast album contains a similarly contemplative classic called "When," which was featured in the group's underrated Having A Wild Weekend movie.
"It Don't Feel Good" is a standout track from the 1966 Try Too Hard album. No, it's not as flat-out irresistible as the hit single that gave the album its name. But it is further evidence that there is such a thing as a decent DC5 album track. There are several of them, actually.
THE FLESHTONES: It Is As It Was
Welcome to another edition of Because My iPod Said So!, where a song comes up on the ol' digital playback device and prompts me to say, Yeah, I oughtta play that on the show this week. The joy of radio! The best of The Fleshtones is ideal fare for TIRnRR, and it's worth noting that the group's best isn't limited to their late '70s and '80s material. "It Is As It Was" is from The Fleshtones' 2014 album Wheel Of Talent, which also contains one of my all-time top 'Tones picks "Just For A Smile." My delighted obsession with "Just For A Smile" tended to elbow aside other tracks on Wheel Of Talent, but while this certainly isn't the first time we've played "It Is As It Was" on TIRnRR, it's been a while. Good to have it back!
THE FOUR TOPS: Baby I Need Your Loving
The Four Tops are my favorite Motown act, which is a helluva compliment when you consider the storied competition. Here's part of a Four Tops testimonial I wrote for another project:
...British post-punk folk singer Billy Bragg would much later pay tribute to the emotional power of The Four Tops' lead singer in a song called "Levi Stubbs' Tears," a devastatingly stark tale that is markedly more downbeat than even the darkest seven rooms of gloom that Stubbs and company ever visited on record. It's an effective tribute nonetheless, its own harrowing narrative upping the ante of The Four Tops' 45 rpm melodramas into the realm of tragedy. As great as Bragg's track is, and as riveting its sad narrative, it still can't compare to the impact of Levi Stubbs' own tears, poured forth in every note of every Four Tops smash....
Of course I also love Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, The Marvelettes, The Contours, Martha and the Vandellas, and the rest of the best from Hitsville, USA. I love The Mynah Birds (with Rick James and Neil Young), and I wish the current corporate overlords at Motown would scrape together whatever can be found to make a Mynah Birds CD. But The Four Tops...! Levi Stubbs, man. Levi Stubbs.
JOHNNY & THE HURRICANES: The Beatnik Fly
This rock instrumental take on "The Blue Tailed Fly" was the first Johnny & the Hurricanes track I ever heard, one single among two little storage books of 45s left behind by a young woman named Nancy, who had been a friend of my brothers. Of that small cache of 7" treasures, Nancy's orphaned Buddy Holly single had the most pervasive impact upon young and impressionable me, but "The Beatnik Fly" means a lot to me, too. Most would consider the # 5 hit "Red River Rock" as Johnny & the Hurricanes' signature tune; in my personal pop world, the sound of Johnny & the Hurricanes is defined by "The Beatnik Fly."
THE KINKS: Muswell Hillbilly
I have a black t-shirt emblazoned in white letters with The Kinks' classic '60s logo. It's my favorite t-shirt. When I wear it, some random stranger will often notice it and express approval (even from a socially-distanced vantage point). I've had people insist I'm too young to even know who The Kinks are (which means I'm either older than I look, or that I wasted my money on those three Kinks concerts I attended; I enjoyed those shows, so I don't feel like I coulda been too young to know The Kinks at the time).
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| Yes, I DO wear this shirt all day and all of the night! |
This is not the first Kinks record that most passers-by will cite in reaction to my dedicated follower of fashion choice of wardrobe. "Lola." "You Really Got Me." One guy said "Come Dancing." Muswell Hillbillies isn't exactly an obscure record, but it doesn't usually come up in casual conversation out in the real world, the vast playground beyond our own shared but insular rockin' pop universe. I was pleased. And I made sure to play the album's title track on this week's TIRnRR.
THE KNACK: I Want Ya
I was not quite as much into The Knack as many of my power-pop peers were (and are). Nor was I as much of a Knuke-The-Knack detractor as some others might be. I...like The Knack. Sometimes I love them. I don't think I've ever hated them, nor even really disliked them.
"I Want Ya" is a track from The Knack's second album, 1980's ...But The Little Girls Understand. It's been a long time since I've listened to the record in its entirety, but I don't recall it as anything extra special. The album's single was a "My Sharona" retread called "Baby Talks Dirty," and it did include a confident cover of The Kinks' "The Hard Way" that did not in any way threaten to eclipse the original.
The album's best selection was "I Want Ya," a fast-paced winner that sounds wonderful on the radio. It's not quite my toppermost-of-the-poppermost among Knack tracks--that would be "Your Number Or Your Name" from Get The Knack--but it's up there, probably above "My Sharona."
THE MONKEES: Gotta Give It Time
The Monkees' phenomenal album Good Times! was my # 1 record of 2016. Good Times! was quite well-received in general, but this originally-unfinished leftover from the sessions for 1966's More Of The Monkees was not among its most popular tracks, nor its most distinctive. Nonetheless, it strikes me as an intriguing suggestion of The Monkees as a Nuggets-approved garage band. I mean, it's a pop record, sure, but it's not far removed from the sort of pop record The Standells could have done in '66. If memory serves--I could check, but I'm not gettin' paid here--the basic backing track was done in '66, and enhanced by Good Times! producer Adam Schlesinger in 2016, with a new lead vocal by Micky Dolenz and a new backing vocal by Michael Nesmith.
NEW MATH: Die Trying
Sometimes the giddy euphoria of pop music makes us fall in instant thrall to a new (or new-to-us) record upon first spin. Sometimes...it doesn't work out that way. I was underwhelmed by my initial exposures to the music of The Pretenders, Patti Smith, even Stevie Wonder. My reactions to all of these changed for the better upon further review.
The "Die Trying" single wasn't quite my introduction to the sound of New Math. New Math was from Rochester, NY, friends of my hometown Syracuse Fave Raves The Flashcubes. I saw New Math on a bill with the 'Cubes in the summer of 1978, upstairs at hoppin' Syracuse nightspot The Firebarn. New Math was just terrific, energetic and invigorating. I was sure I was gonna be a New Math fan forevermore.
So, of course, I snapped up New Math's 1979 debut single "Die Trying" as soon as I saw it. By now, I'm sure context has already clued you into the fact that I didn't like the record. At all.
Why not? Damned if I could tell you. I adore it now, and I have no remaining recollection of why it disappointed me so much in the moment. The record didn't change. My perception of it did.
Even though it takes me my whole life
It's not too much of a sacrifice
I'll die trying
Baby, die trying
Determination! I guess the record knew what it was doing.
IRENE PEÑA: I Won't Back Down
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio loves Irene Peña. And for good reason: she has an effervescent and immediately likable personality, and she knows her way around a pop tune, whether it's a pop tune she wrote or a pop tune someone else did first. Of course we love Irene; what's not to love?
We definitely love Irene's new single. Here, she takes Tom Petty's well-known, well-loved "I Won't Back Down," speeds it up just an eensy little bit, and captures our hearts once again. The digital single is available right now from the good folks at Futureman Records, paired with previous TIRnRR Pick T' Click "Own Sweet Time." A portion of sales will benefit Rock The Vote, translating into good music for a good cause. Good? GREAT! This is why we love.
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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 3: download
Volume 4: CD or 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).
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