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 # 1065.
JOAN ARMATRADING: Eating The Bear
"Eating The Bear" was (I think) the first Joan Armatrading track I knew, a cut from her 1981 album Walk Under Ladders. It's not the best-known track on that record; both "I'm Lucky" and "When I Get It Right" wound up on her subsequent Greatest Hits collection, while "Eating The Bear" remained native to the original album only. I was exposed to all three of those tracks in the same time frame, so I can't say for sure which one I heard first. But, whichever one was first to cross into my sovereign airspace, "Eating The Bear" was the one that had impact. Its impact came via the radio. Of course.
In 1981, I was a recent college graduate (State University College at Brockport Class of 1980), living in an apartment with my girlfriend (who was still completing her undergrad studies at Brockport), working at McDonald's, drinking beer, listening to my music. Brockport is a small village on the Erie Canal. It's located in Western New York, about 19 miles west of Rochester, and the city of Buffalo sprawls another 64 miles or so farther away. We could usually get radio stations from Buffalo and even from Toronto. Buffalo had a generic album-rock station called 97 Rock, which usually wasn't of much interest to me. Sunday nights were the exception. That's when this cookie-cutter rock station transformed itself temporarily into something greater: a weekly showcase called 97 Power Rock.
97 Power Rock claimed a more adventurous format, programming new wave rock and other fare that was presumably edgier than the station's prerequisite diet of Loverboy and Ozzy Osborne. 97 Power Rock played the likes of The Teardrop Explodes, U2, Psychedelic Furs, Viva Beat, Joy Division, Spandau Ballet, The Vibrators, Mission of Burma, old school rock by Andy Fairweather Low, even reggae by Dillinger. It was sufficiently eclectic and vibrant to secure my loyalty.
Joan Armatrading's music was part of that. Walk Under Ladders had a little bit of a post-punk vibe, partially attributable to Thomas Dolby's synthesizer work on the album. That perceived level of cool opened 97 Power Rock's playlist for entry, and Armatrading's own songs, singing, playing, and pure presence did the rest. Man, this sounded fantastic on the radio. It didn't quite move me to buy the album--I was still a few years away from grasping Armatrading's brilliance--but it got my attention. I heard the songs, and a radio ad for the album, all of which prompted me to scrawl Walk Under Ladders in my spiral notebook, on the long, long list of LPs I wanted to buy once I'd accumulated enough burger-flippin' cash to buy all of the albums I wanted.
"Eating The Bear" was the Armatrading track for me. In 1981, I'd never heard the phrase Some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you, so I had no idea whatsoever of the song's subject matter. I just thought it sounded great, and it still sounds great.
For years, Armatrading's Greatest Hits was her sole representation in my music collection, and "Me Myself I" is slated to be discussed in my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). "Eating The Bear" popped into my head again recently, and I snagged a CD of Walk Under Ladders, a wonderful album that I wish had made the transition from my notebook list to my record shelf forty years ago. Better late than never. We played "I Wanna Hold You" on last week's show, "Eating The Bear" this week, and another Walk Under Ladders track will appear on next week's playlist. TIRnRR Power Rock. Sometimes it takes a while, but radio gets the job done eventually.
SAM COOKE: Bring It On Home To Me
When I was an oldies-obsessed college student in the late '70s, there was one time when I sang an impromptu duet with a woman working at the campus snack bar, me doing most of the warbling on a snippet of Sam Cooke's "Bring It On Home To Me." She was surprised someone so young was familiar with the song to begin with, but, y'know, see above reference to oldies-obsessed. Truth to tell, I mostly knew the song from The Animals' cover version, but I knew Cooke's original, too. It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that I learned the secondary vocal on Cooke's recording was performed by a then-unknown Lou Rawls. You'll never find (dum dum dumdee dum) another secondary vocal like his (dum dum dumdee dum). Bring it on home, Lou.
CROSBY, STILLS AND NASH: Marrakesh Express
I've spent many years publicly grousing that Crosby, Stills and Nash broke up three superb groups--The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and The Hollies--to make one okay group. That joke's run its course (which, of course, won't stop me from still resorting to it at whim). I loved CSN when I was young, and I frequently listened to my sister's copy of their debut album. Actually, because I've always been more of a single-song guy rather than an album guy, I listened to "Marrakesh Express" and "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes." The latter is/was my pick, but my short-attention span for radio playlists favors the former.
THE GO-GO'S: La La Land
The Go-Go's have been eligible for induction into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame for many years, but they are at long last first-time nominees in 2021. It's about damned time, and I hope they get in on the first ballot. "La La Land" comes from the group's 2001 album God Bless The Go-Go's, and it remains one of my fave raves among their cavalcade o' wonder.
THE LEGAL MATTERS: Light Up The Sky
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio's long 'n' harmonious history with The Legal Matters was detailed here, as part of the expanded supplemental liner notes to our 2017 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4. So! Word of a brand-new Legal Matters album perked up our ears and mandated a playlist spot for its advance single, "Light Up The Sky." The album, Chapter Three, is due from Futureman Records on April 30th, and it is a compulsory purchase for any breathing fan of rockin' pop music. Don't argue. Do what radio tells you to do.
JUICE NEWTON: Queen Of Hearts
During that same early '80s period when I was listening to 97 Power Rock, I was also occasionally tuned to AM Top 40. That format had provided the soundtrack of my formative years, and even into the early '80s I held tightly to a naive conviction that cool 'n' compelling pop sounds could one day reclaim the AM radio dial. That stubborn faith had no foundation in the plausible, but I clung to the belief with great determination..
Juice Newton's "Queen Of Hearts" was the best thing on AM Top 40 in 1981, and its # 2 Billboard chart ascendancy gave temporary credence to my misguided dream of what AM pop could become again. I didn't really know anything about the song--that it had been written by Hank DeVito (pedal steel guitarist for Emmylou Harris), nor that it had first been recorded by Dave Edmunds. I just knew a transcendent AM pop record when I heard it. And as big an Edmunds fan as I am, I still regard Juice Newton's take as the definitive version of "Queen Of Hearts."
KEN SHARP: Hold Me, Touch Me
GENE SIMMONS: See You Tonight
Speaking of those KISS solo albums, my pick of the lot is this uncharacteristically tender pop ballad from Simmons. Although I was a KISS fan myself, I didn't buy any of the solo albums at the time, opting only to pick up Ace Frehley's hit 45 of "New York Groove" contemporary to the releases. When I decided to write a history of KISS for Goldmine magazine in the late '80s, I tried to fill in some of the gaps in my KISS collection. The Gene Simmons record was not among my acquisitions in that search-and-secure action. I did grab a Best Of The Solo Albums collection, and that had to suffice for the time being.
Best Of The Solo Albums did not include "See You Tonight." I didn't even hear that song until KISS performed an acoustic version in their 1995 TV appearance on MTV Unplugged. I say thee WOW! It immediately reminded me of Big Star, and I picked up both the MTV Unplugged and Gene Simmons CDs at my first opportunity thereafter.
THE TARTAN HORDE: Rollers Show
KISS, Juice Newton. By now, it should be clear that I'm unashamedly into the sounds I'm into, and that would certainly include the music of The Bay City Rollers. In 1977 and '78, the idea that my burgeoning love of punk and power pop could also encompass the Rollers led me to take Nick Lowe's "Rollers Show" at face value. It's a tribute! Nick's a Rollers fan like I'm a Rollers fan!
Years later, I would discover that Lowe wrote a song called "Bay City Rollers, We Love You Show" as a contract-breaker, a tune so deliberately bad that its submission would allow Lowe to free himself from a songwriting commitment with United Artists, a bond he wanted to escape as quickly as possible. Lowe was appalled when UA loved the damned thing, and issued it as a single, credited to the non-existent combo The Tartan Horde. The original single had an instrumental as its B-side; some subsequent release paired it with "Rollers Show," which was an absolutely beguiling pastiche of the Rollers. "Rollers Show" also turned up on Pure Pop For Now People, the American version of Lowe's debut album Jesus Of Cool.
And I still take it at face value. Pure pop, pure magic, its author's intent notwithstanding. Bay City Rollers, we love you.
TRACEY ULLMAN: Breakaway
I moved from Brockport to Buffalo in August of 1982. The two years spent in Brockport after graduation had been...well, they certainly had been. Maybe I'll write about all of that some day. I kept on listening to the radio, AM and FM. At the beginning of '83, a new job required my own set of wheels, so my Dad arranged for me to get the 1969 Chevy Impala that had previously belonged to my grandfather. My first car. My first opportunity to drive with the radio on.
In the Impala, I was sometimes able to pick up a great AM hit station out of Toronto. More often, the Impala's AM dial was locked on 14 Rock, a former Christian station that had recently converted to a pop format. It was my last gasp of trying to listen to AM Top 40, and it had its moments.
Tracey Ullman's "They Don't Know" was one of the finer moments. I was not familiar with Kirsty MacColl's original British single, nor could I even figure out initially who was responsible for this splendid, irresistible confection emanating from my car's speakers; note to DJs then and now: if you play it, SAY IT! Jeez, how can radio do its job of selling records if we don't know the names of the records playing?
I eventually ID'd the singer and the song. Tracey Ullman became far better known as an actress and comic performer, but she made her mark in music, too. She's considered a one-hit wonder in America, but her British hit cover of Irma Thomas's "Breakaway" shoulda been a smash on these shores as well. Wish I coulda heard that on the radio, too.
(And if Tracey Ullman's "They Don't Know" really was my final big AM Top 40 song, then I went out in style. Radio up. Windows down. Let's hit the road and drive.)
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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). My weekly Greatest Record Ever Made! video rants can be seen in my GREM! YouTube playlist. And I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl
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