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 CLIQUE: Superman
The closest thing White Whale Records act The Clique ever had to a hit was their cover of Tommy James and the Shondells' "Sugar On Sunday," which peaked at # 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969. That single's B-side was a song called "Superman," which ultimately became the group's most enduring contribution to pop culture. More people know it from R.E.M.'s 1986 cover, and many folks likely presume it was written by R.E.M. The Clique's original is a little bit quirkier, sort of calling to mind the late '60s Bee Gees sound without that group's trademark falsetto. And since mentioning one comic-book song gets me thinking about another comic-book song....
BEEBE GALLINI: Nobody Loves The Hulk
HA! Ya wanna talk about a choice of cover song that hits my personal demographic right on the gamma-irradiated noggin? "Nobody Loves The Hulk" was a 1969 single by an obscure group called The Traits, and we've played it several times on past TIRnRRs. Beebe Gallini's take on the tune appears on their new Rum Bar Records release Pandemos, and it is indeed incredible, mighty, and Marvelous. They even throw in a heartful 'n' appropriate Hulk SMASH!! that I don't recall hearing in The Traits' original. Listen to it. Buy it. Don't make angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm...y'know.
STONEWALL JACKSON: Me And You And A Dog Named Boo
I'm prepared to presume no one expected this one to turn up on the playlist this week (though I also imagine no one's all that surprised by it either, given our repeated insistence that it's ALL pop music). Honestly, I didn't even know this track existed until about a week and a half ago. I was toying with the idea of playing a Lobo track some time, though if I did, it (probably) wouldn't be "Me And You And A Dog Named Boo." Anyway. I was looking for Lobo-inspired inspiration when I stumbled upon this 1971 cover by country singer Stonewall Jackson. Inspiration acquired! Sorry, Mr. Lobo; I now regard Stonewall Jackson's rendition as the definitive "Me And You And Dog Named Boo." Yeah, the Brady Bunch kids' attempt at it notwithstanding.
ALLAN KAPLON: Notes On A Napkin
Some time back, our friend and listener Allan Kaplon sent us a track called "Flesh And Blood," recorded under the dba The Non Prophets. We dug it, and we played it on the radio. Now, Allen's recording under his own name, and his album Notes On A Napkin intrigues and delights. Jamie Hoover of The Spongetones produced six of the album's 11 tracks, Jamie's fellow Spongetone Steve Stoeckel pops up on one of those six, and Elena Rogers chips in some exquisite backing vocals. That Kaplon lad's pretty good, too.
KID GULLIVER: Forget About Him
This makes 20 weeks in a row that TIRnRR has played at least one song featuring a lead vocal from Simone Berk. Shall we make it 21 next week?
THE RUTLES: Ouch!
I was a freshman in college when the classic TV special All You Need Is Cash aired in 1978, offering the world at large its first long-form view of the fabulous Faux Four, The Rutles. The guys in the dorm room across from me had a television, one of those guys happened to be a big Beatles fan, so a bunch of us settled in front of the tube to experience Rutlemania.
Unlike my peers, I was already a Rutles fan. I was hooked about a year and a half before that, when Monty Python's Flying Circus luminary Eric Idle guest-hosted Saturday Night Live in October of '76; that show included a clip of Eric and this fake band The Rutles cavorting their moptopped way through "I Must Be In Love," a FABrication which turned out to be the musical brainchild of Neil Innes. Innes played The Rutles' John Lennon counterpart Ron Nasty alongside Idle's Dirk McQuickly; the clip had previously appeared on the 1975 BBC series Rutland Weekend Television, but it was new to me on SNL in '76. Innes returned as Nasty on SNL in 1977, leading up to the 1978 TV special.
The Friday night prior to the March 22nd, 1978 airing of All You Need Is Cash, NBC included two Rutles clips on its weekly musical showcase The Midnight Special. One of those clips was The Rutles' "Help!" parody, "Ouch!"
Awrighty. We love you Rutles, oh yes we do.
Alas, I was the only one of those assembled in that Thompson Hall dorm room to appreciate The Rutles. Story of my life: I, Square Peg. I bought the "I Must Be In Love"/"Doubleback Alley" 45, and my sister gave me a copy of The Rutles' LP that she picked up in the UK. A legend that will last a lunchtime? Ouch.
THE STAN LAURELS: I'm Only Sleeping
It wasn't by design, but we wound up playing a number of covers on this week's extravaganza. The Stan Laurels' fab rendition of The Beatles' "I'm Only Sleeping" is the virtual B-side of their recent Big Stir Records digital single "This Is Your Life." Since we've played the A-side in the past, we figured we'd flip instead. It is, of course, far from the first time we've flipped for The Beatles.
TAVARES: Free Ride
In a previous 10 Songs post about Tavares' hit "It Only Take A Minute," I wrote about how their cover of "Free Ride" served as my actual (if belated) gateway into all things Tavares:
"It was the late great Dick Clark who got the ball rolling in my belated discovery of Tavares. In (I think?) the '90s, VH1 was running selected, edited archival episodes of American Bandstand, and one such episode included Tavares lip-syncing their 1975 cover of The Edgar Winter Group's "Free Ride." I always liked EWG's original, and I'd never before heard Tavares' take on it, but that cover instantly became the definitive version for me...."
BADFINGER: Baby Blue
We closed this week's show with two examples in our ongoing discussion of The Greatest Record Ever Made!: "Baby Blue" by Badfinger and "September Gurls" by Big Star. An infinite number of songs can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as the take turns. I've been writing a book about that subject, and while that project has hit some roadblocks, I aim to continue bludgeoning its path forward in my usual charmingly stubborn fashion.
The Badfinger song and the Big Star song both rate chapters in the book, and "September Gurls" was the first track I ever described as GREM! "Baby Blue" looms large in my legend as the single that meant the most to me on the radio, a song spinning in my ears at the very moment that I fell permanently in love with radio.
BARNEY RUBBLE AND THE FLINTSTONE CANARIES: The Soft Soap Jingle
A post-playlist coda. Because it's important to be clean.
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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.
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