10 Songs is a weekly list of ten songs that happen to be on my mind at the moment. Given my intention to usually write these on Mondays, the lists are often dominated by songs played on the previous night's edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. The idea was inspired by Don Valentine of the essential blog I Don't Hear A Single.
THE FLASHCUBES: Got No Mind/Dizzy Miss Lizzy
Got got got no mind/Got got got no mind/Got got got no mind/Got no mind, and I don't mind!
I know I'm not unique in this, but my frustration meter has been reaching its percolatin' point a lot lately. I'm okay at the moment, but I was particularly irate 'n' agity last Tuesday. So Tuesday night, when Dana called me for the weekly ritual slappin' together of the remote-programmed playlist for this week's show, my simmering sense of ineffectual fury (and its corresponding desire to break stuff) prompted me to wanna open with something angry. The Flashcubes. We would open with The Flashcubes.
Given The Flashcubes' well-deserved reputation as Syracuse's own power pop powerhouse, "angry" might not be the first adjective one might choose to apply to their invigorating brand of Cubic pop music. But The Flashcubes began as a punk band in '77, and while they transcended that label in short order, the essential cantankerousness of The Sex Pistols and The New York Dolls was as much a part of their rock 'n' roll DNA as the hook-friendly influence of popmeisters Badfinger and The Raspberries. I didn't mind; I loved all of it, and I still do.
Open angry. 'Cubes guitarist Paul Armstrong's "Got No Mind" channels the psycho therapy of The Ramones' "Teenage Lobotomy" to bludgeon out its own surly message of Fuck THIS. Open angry? Pretty soon, I'll be set to vote angry as well. For right now, a spin of "Got No Mind" serves up the necessary dose of righteously pissed-off catharsis.
In 1978, basement demos of "Got No Mind" and Gary Frenay's "Guernica" formed the incongruous B-side to The Flashcubes' first single, topped by Arty Lenin's pretty pop ballad "Christi Girl." A 1979 live version of "Got No Mind," recorded at my favorite lost local nightspot The Firebarn, eventually appeared on The Flashcubes' CD anthology Bright Lights. On the CD, the track fades out just as the 'Cubes are launching into a ferocious rendition of the Larry Williams/Beatles classic "Dizzy Miss Lizzy." For this week's show, we played the whole (slightly) extended thing, released and unreleased, punk meets pop, I got no mind 'cuz ya make me dizzy Miss Lizzy. It's cool. I don't mind.
BILL BERRY: 1-800-Colonoscopy
Having already opened angry, a bit later in the show I also wanted to play the one 2020 track with the title that best summarizes this misbegotten year. Easy choice: "1-800-Colonoscopy" by Bill Berry, from the John Wicks tribute album For The Record. Am I bitter? Yeah, you bet your ass.
THE BROTHERS STEVE: Beat Generation Poet Turned Assassin [abridged]
ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ATTRACTIONS: You Belong To Me
I saw Elvis Costello and the Attractions at a disastrous on-campus gig in the spring of '78, my freshman year at Brockport. The show occurred shortly before the release of This Year's Model, Costello's first album with The Attractions. The only Costello music I knew at the time would have been the songs on his first album My Aim Is True (plus "Radio, Radio," which we'd all seen EC & the As perform on Saturday Night Live). I don't recall if the beleaguered combo performed "You Belong To Me" that night.
But regardless of whether or not I heard the song played in the ballroom at Brockport, I do know that my first exposure to the song did not come via the LP version. After the live show but before I heard or owned This Year's Model, I had a Costello bootleg called 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong. My favorite track on that boot was a live version of "You Belong To Me," which I recall as much more spare than the studio track (which wasn't exactly Pet Sounds to begin with). My copy of that bootleg is long gone, but if I recall correctly, the live "You Belong To Me" wasn't dominated by Steve Naive's "Batman Theme"-inspired keyboard lick the way the This Year's Model "You Belong To Me" is. In fact, it was jarring for me when I finally heard the official cut on This Year's Model. I got used to it, and came to love it. "Batman Theme" and all.
DAWN: Knock Three Times
Oh, I love this song. People are sometimes surprised to hear me say that, but both "Knock Three Times" and "Candida" are stirring examples of AM radio pop songcraft circa '70 and '71. Though both singles were credited to Dawn, they predate Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent Wilson joining lead singer Tony Orlando; the singles feature Orlando and other studio singers, with the "Dawn" designation applied because the baby needed a name. I don't like anything else Dawn did after that. I don't mean this as a knock against Hopkins and Wilson; they were talented singers, and Dawn's subsequent stylistic shift wasn't their fault.
(If it could even be called a shift; "Candida" and "Knock Three Times" were inoffensive radio fodder, and one could [I guess] say the same of "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree." I dig the former; I have no use for the latter.)
EDDIE AND THE HOT RODS: Do Anything You Wanna Do
"Do Anything You Wanna Do" is an incomparable power pop record, with a liberating message meant to be accompanied by raised fists and glasses in juke joints the world over. Its message is a simple clarion call for rock 'n' roll's most basic promise: Freedom. Possibilities. Chuck Berry should approve.
'70s punk grew in part out of a repudiation of the hippie ethos, yet the two opposing notions shared more than either faction would have admitted at the time. The punks cried "Anarchy!," the hippies insisted "Make love, not war," but each professed to reject the rules of societal conformity. Perhaps they created their own conformities along the way. But each was doing its own thing. The hippies said, "If it feels good, do it." The punks prized the practice of DIY. And in 1977, a British group swept up in (at least) punk's periphery crafted a rallying cry: Do Anything You Wanna Do.
The origin and roots of Eddie and the Hot Rods slightly predate our notion of British punk, but they were nonetheless a part of that scene initially. Eddie and the Hot Rods thrived in that melting point where pub rock became punk, and whatever they lacked in spit and venom should be shrugged aside in an imperious flurry of sweat and volume, as the dancers do what the dancers do.
THE GO-GO'S: We Got The Beat
"We Got The Beat" by The Go-Go's will always be one of my favorite songs, but I vacillate between which of two versions I prefer. I've come to gravitate more to the familiar 1982 U.S. hit single and Beauty And The Beat album track, but there is much to be said on behalf of the group's original 1980 Stiff Records 45. The Stiff version has a bit more indie vibe, and it has the backing counter-point answer vocals (But they're walking in time [They're walking in time]) that I still miss hearing on the American remake. On the other hand, the made-in-the-U.S.A. take has that intoxicating, swoon-worthy radio pop sheen, and it adds Belinda Carlisle's spirited testimonial at the end (Everybody get on your feet/We know you can dance to the beat...). Can't go wrong either way. We played the Stiff version this week.
GLADYS KNIGHT AND THE PIPS: If I Were Your Woman
You're like a diamond, but she treats you like glass. Gladys Knight and the Pips have a story to tell.
"If I Were Your Woman" explores the familiar storyline of an interested outsider observing a dysfunctional relationship and wishing he or she could make it right (and, in so doing, earn the prize of love personally). Specifically, our hero sees the spiral of deceit and recrimination playing out before his/her eyes, knows which side is at fault, and wants to replace the faithless nogoodnik and become the redemptive lover the abused party deserves. While the singer covets a neighbor's mate, desire is informed by compassion, concern, empathy. The message to the cherished one is straightforward and true: You can have something better than what you have. I would be better. I could bring you the happiness you deserve.
Many of us have been there, from one POV or another. In some stories we are the victim, in some we are the villain. In our best dreams, we are the hero.
In some stories, though, the potential hero does not take action; Lesley Gore in "She's A Fool," Frankie Valli (and later The Tremeloes) in "Silence Is Golden," they're all passive observers. In "If I Were Your Woman," Gladys Knight engages. She speaks. She pleads. She testifies. Maybe she'll get through to the big lug, and rescue him. She could be the hero, his real hero, if she were his woman.
NIKKI AND THE CORVETTES: He's A Mover
The first Nikki and the Corvettes song I ever heard was "Just What I Need," which was on Bomp Records' incredible 1980 double-album label compilation Experiments In Destiny. I also saw photos and coverage of the group in Bomp! magazine, and was well primed to pick up their eponymous album. "He's A Mover" quickly became my favorite, as it effortlessly evoked the folk-bop bounce of The Monkees, particularly of Monkees written by Neil Diamond. Look out, here come the Corvettes. I'm a believer!
IRENE PEÑA: The Summer Place
Is Irene Peña America's Sweetheart? She is if This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio says she is, and [ahem] This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio says she is. See, there it is in print and everything. We've been on the Peña train since late 2016 (a tale told in greater detail right here), and our show is better for it. Irene's latest digital single from the good folks at Big Stir Records serves up a winning pair of exquisite Fountains Of Wayne covers, "It Must Be Summer"/"The Summer Place." Both tracks offer sincere tribute to the late Adam Schlesinger, and they rock the house from here to Hackensack. Our pal John Borack keeps the time on them Pagan skins, Jeff Colchamiro, Ron Allen, and America's Sweetheart's own sweetheart Steve Zeilman add six-, six-, and four-string magic respectively, and Irene Peña runs the show like a sweetheart oughtta. Did we say magic? We'll say it again: magic. Summer's gone. Magic remains. Sweet.
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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 165 essays about 165 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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