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.
This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1048.
THE FLESHTONES: American Beat '84
A national treasure! I think I first heard The Fleshtones in the very early '80s, either via the live version of "Shadowline" on the 2-LP soundtrack of the film Urgh! A Music War, or via an MTV airing of "R-I-G-H-T-S." I had the Urgh! record, and the 1981 Roman Gods record became my first dedicated Fleshtones purchase. The Roman Gods track "Let's See The Sun" was my go-to 'Tones tune in short order. Super-Rock!
Within just a few years, though, the supremacy of "Let's See The Sun" was abruptly usurped by "American Beat '84." WBNY-FM in Buffalo hooked me on the track, and its appearance in an early scene in the Tom Hanks slob comedy Bachelor Party sealed the deal. I bought the 12" single at a used record store on Buffalo's Hertel Avenue, and it remains one of my all-time favorites.
ROBERT GORDON: Someday, Someway
I think Robert Gordon's rock-solid rendition of "Someday, Someway" was released prior to the song's author Marshall Crenshaw's version, but I definitely heard MC's version first. Both are great.
JOEY MOLLAND: Rainy Day Man
In last week's edition of my Greatest Record Ever Made! video series, I talked about how much Badfinger's "Baby Blue" meant to me. You can see the video here, you can read about it here, and you can read my GREM! book chapter about the song here.
That's prologue. Now, Badfinger's beloved guitarist Joey Molland has a brand-new album out, Be True To Yourself. Working with producer Mark Hudson and such stalwarts as Micky Dolenz and Julian Lennon, Molland retains the essential These guys sound like The Beatles! promise that made me a Badfinger fan when I was in middle school. "Rainy Day Man" is an awesome single, ready-made for radio, a beguiling tease for a must-have album.
IRENE PEÑA: It Must Be Summer
Hey, congratulations to America's Sweetheart Irene Peña, as she assumes benevolent stewardship of Big Stir Records' essential digital singles series. The story of TIRnRR's blissful history as Peñamaniacs was told here, and we're delighted that the Big Stir singles will continue in such capable hands. To celebrate, we figured we'd serve up a repeat spin of Ms. Peña's own recent Big Stir single, her irresistible cover of Fountains Of Wayne's "It Must Be Summer." It must be Big Stir. Huzzah, Irene!
THE O'JAYS: Love Train
A message from The O'Jays. The message never goes out of style (which is good), and the need to repeat it never fades away (which is unfortunate). Get on board.
THE ROLLERS: Who'll Be My Keeper
Both this week's playlist and the CD reissue of the 1979 album Elevator credit this track to The Bay City Rollers, but the original LP and its little-heard follow-ups shortened the group's name to just The Rollers. I wrote about Elevator here, and elsewhere I also wrote this:
I adored The Bay City Rollers--"Rock 'n' Roll Love Letter,""Yesterday's Hero," and a superb album track called "Wouldn't You Like It" are sublime power pop nuggets that transcend the perceived limitations of teeny-bop pop--but this post-mania LP is the only full Rollers album that ever grabbed me. By this time, lead singer Les McKeown had split (replaced by Duncan Faure, late of the group Rabbitt), and the group had shortened its name and released this album as a desperate bid for a new audience. Desperate or not, it sounds fine, especially the fab "Who'll Be My Keeper."
There is some fabulous stuff to be found in this brief chapter of The Bay City Rollers' career, '79 to about '82 or so. I've still never heard the rare cassette-only release Burning Rubber, but both Voxx and Ricochet include a few stellar tracks, particularly "85," "God Save Rock And Roll," "Roxy Lady," and "Doors, Bars, Metal."
EVIE SANDS: Don't Look Back Don't Look Down
Singer. Songwriter. Producer. Musician. Evie Sands has been making records for more than five decades, but her music first came to my ears because of her association with SoCal musician (and expatriate Central New Yorker) Adam Marsland. In the first decade of our current sparkly century. Sands played guitar and sang as a member of Adam Marsland's Chaos Band, and I saw her when the AMCB did a club show in Syracuse circa...2005, maybe? They were on a bill with local combo Beauty Scene Outlaws, and it was the first night I ever heard BSO's song "Carl Cafarelli," about some crazy guy who later tried to maintain a daily blog. Weirdo. It was also the night I annoyed AMCB bassist Teresa Cowles by asking her if she played regularly in any bands back in L.A.; Yeah, I was just on stage here with my Danelectro bass, she replied, the you moron! unstated but clearly implied. Oops.
(In my defense, I did know who she was, but mistakenly believed she was just filling in on tour for Severo, whom I thought was the band's regular bassist; I didn't realize Severo had joined The Smithereens, and Cowles was now the AMCB's permanent four-string wizard. With my faux pas corrected, Teresa Cowles allowed me to live. I'm grateful for that.)
I didn't really speak with Evie Sands, but I bought some CDs of her old recordings, including her original '60s versions of songs like "I Can't Let Go" and "Angel Of The Morning." Evie Sands was the first artist to record and release those tunes, before they became hits for The Hollies and Merrilee Rush, respectively. Now, Evie has a brand-new album called Get Of Your Own Way, which was just released in Europe and is officially due out in the States in January. I joined the Kickstarter for that project, and the magnificent end result has been well worth the long wait. We'll be hearing another track from Get Out Of Your Own Way on next week's show.
THE TROGGS: I Can't Control Myself
Well, it's certainly been a minute or two since I've written an entry in The Everlasting First, my A-Z series of reminiscences about how I first encountered various musical acts and fictional characters. The most recent full entries were S Is For THE SEX PISTOLS in November of 2018 and S Is For THE SHADOW in August of 2019. T Is For TARZAN is waaaaay overdue, and that further delays its eventual successor, T Is For THE TROGGS. Wild Thing, you make my heart sing. But in the mean time, this week's show programmed a spin of my favorite Troggs track, "I Can't Control Myself." I had the 1966 Atco Records 45, albeit a little over a decade after the fact, intrigued by its then-scandalous description of a girl whose slacks were low and her hips were showin', ba-ba-bop-a-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Oh, no? Oh,YES!
WAR: Low Rider
As much as I loved War's big hit "Why Can't We Be Friends?" when I was 15 in 1975, it was the only War song that mattered to me at the time. War's earlier AM radio smash "The Cisco Kid" hadn't connected with me in '73, nor did I have much use for "Low Rider," the follow-up to "Why Can't We Be Friends?" I didn't really succumb to "Low Rider" until the early '90s, when a fantastic Syracuse group called L'il Georgie and the Shufflin' Hungarians used to include it in their raucous 'n' funky live sets. Then I got it, and suddenly found myself the willing slave to its Latin-derived rhythm and cobra-like groove. The Hungarians did a great cover, but nothing can match the original.
The whims and alchemy that combine to create each weekly TIRnRR playlist somehow led me to wanna program "Low Rider" this week. I don't think we ever played it on any previous show, and I didn't actually own a copy of the song. But ya can't argue with a DJ's whims--it's unhealthy and rude--so I purchased a two-CD War anthology just so I could play "Low Rider." The rest of the set sounds pretty damned good, too, so War will likely continue on future shows. My teenage self was such a clueless little pisser.
KIM WILDE: Kids In America
On This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, we tend to play The Muffs' willfully snarky and messy cover of "Kids In America" more often than we play the original 1981 version by British singer Kim Wilde. We love both versions. I recall that Kim Wilde's eponymous debut LP was once a fave on my turntable--mostly for "Kids In America," of course, but I remember playing and digging the album as a whole, or at least some of its tracks. I'm curious to re-investigate that sound, to see if it still holds up for me almost forty years later. But my copy of that album is long, long gone, a victim of one of the many periodic purges my vinyl collection has endured over the years. I'm not a kid anymore.
Kids in America. When the record came out in the summer of '81, I was 21 years old, already a year out of college, living with my girlfriend in a one-bedroom apartment. I was still a kid, emotionally and chronologically, though I was trying hard to pretend otherwise.
I voted for the first time the preceding November. I wish I could say that I voted to re-elect Jimmy Carter, a fine man whom I did not appreciate until it was far too late. I can at least say that I did not vote for Reagan--God, no--but I wish that I hadn't wasted my vote on third-party candidate John Anderson. I was a kid. I didn't know any better...but I should have.
Forty years later, I can't necessarily claim that I've learned all that much. But I keep trying. I married the girlfriend. We voted on Sunday. We hope all the other kids in America will do the same.
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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).
