This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1071.
THE ARMOIRES: Great Distances
It turns out that The Armoires have been lying to us. Naughty Armoires! Who's been messing up everything? It's been Armoires all along.
They're insidious. So perfidious!
And Incognito is the title of The Armoires' new album, collecting all this backward masquing under one roof. It's EIGHT bands for the price of one, plus bonus stuff, too. We played The YES IT IS...er, The Armoires' Incognito cover of XTC's "Senses Working Overtime" on this week's show. And we played "Great Distances" again, too. Listen, man: a hit's a hit, no matter the name above the title.
ROBERTA FLACK: Killing Me Softly With His Song
Roberta Flack's 1973 hit "Killing Me Softly With His Song" is among the tracks I've added to the book. Its haunting mix of smooth 'n' silky delivery and an exposed vulnerability bordering on the outer suburbs of paranoia made it an unforgettable component of my prime AM radio-listening era.
MARVIN GAYE: I Heard It Through The Grapevine
"...There may be some incongruous symmetry in the fact that my first recollection of Marvin Gaye's swaying soul juggernaut 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine'--a song that offers as painful and as piercing a portrait of infidelity and helpless anger as any primal scream to ever top the pop chart--was delivered in a public service television commercial on behalf of venereal disease awareness. It was a far cry from its later use in 1980s commercials for California raisins, lemme tell ya.
"Marvin Gaye's own collection of contradictions seems suited to that sort of odd juxtaposition. Gaye could in turns be smooth supper-club crooner, R & B dynamo,
amiable pop juggernaut, progressive black power avatar, horny devil, envelope pusher, mainstream star, and sweet soul personified. Calling him a chameleon does disservice to his legacy; he was versatile, he was accomplished, and he was one of the greatest talents ever to grace the grooves of a 45. His duets (with Tammi Terrell or Kim Weston) are the essence of 1960s radio-ready pop music. Both 'What's Going On' and 'Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)' serve the disparate needs of social commentary and slow dancing. His earnest pleas for gettin' some, from 'Let's Get It On' to 'Sexual Healing,' epitomize consensual seduction. 'Ain't That Peculiar' just sounds' y'know, awesome.
"And, for all that, 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine' stands as the definitive Marvin Gaye track...."
In our pop songs, some lines cut with deliberate precision, evoking a gnawing ache that echoes the desperation of watching helplessly as love slips away. I loved you, well...never mind in Big Star's "September Gurls" is an example. They say a heart's not quite a heart until it's been broken in Human Switchboard's "(Say No To) Saturday's Girl" is another.
"(Say No To) Saturday's Girl" is the lead-off track on the group's 1981 album Who's Landing In My Hangar? It was the third Human Switchboard track I ever heard, one of two tracks on a Human Switchboard flexi-disc put out by Trouser Press magazine. A few years before that, "Your Much Madder Than Me" was my introduction to Human Switchboard, courtesy of its appearance on a 1978 sampler album called Waves Vol. 1, which also featured Syracuse's own power pop powerhouse The Flashcubes, plus 20/20, The Romantics, The Last, Paul Collins and more. Although the band was based in guitarist Bob Pfeifer's home state of Ohio, Pfeifer and keyboardist Myrna Marcarian first met at Syracuse University. Myrna, at least, still had ties to Syracuse after that, since I remember seeing her a time or two at Desert Shore Records up on the SU hill in the late '70s. I recall speaking to her once, complimenting her on "You're Much Madder Than Me" when the store's owner introduced us. (How he knew who I was is a mystery lost to memory. And beer.)
This little mutant radio show has a number of basic credos and go-to procedures in place: radio's job is to sell records; any record you ain't heard is a new record; great records don't care what year it is; it's ALL pop music; and more! One lesser-known element of TIRnRR's SOP is when certain acts release a new song, we play that song at our first opportunity.
"Pleasant Valley Sunday" is one of only two of The Monkees' U.S. hit A-sides to feature all four of The Monkees. Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Peter Tork, and Michael Nesmith are also all present and accounted for on "Daydream Believer," as well as on the charting B-side "The Girl I Knew Somewhere," and on the British hit "Alternate Title" (aka "Randy Scouse Git" here in the States, where neither it nor any of its fellow Headquarters LP tracks made it to a 45). Here's what I wrote about "Pleasant Valley Sunday" in a piece celebrating my 25 favorite Monkees tracks:
Every year at this time, we have a standing request from our friend Dawn to play "Roll Away The Stone" by Mott the Hoople. Contract honored again.
Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On The) Dock Of The Bay" is another song that's been part of the GREM! book's blueprint for a good long time. But I haven't yet been able to get a handle on what I want to write about it. I had a piece started, detailing my slow discovery of Redding's music when I was a teen and twentysomething in the '70s and '80s, well after the 1967 plane crash that took Redding's life. I'm not satisfied with that plan, at least not so far. Right now, I think I'm going to take a different approach, commencing a look at Redding's career and potential future path by asking one question:
"Let Her Dance" was originally recorded by The Bobby Fuller Four, who scored a regional hit with it in 1965; the group's follow-up single "I Fought The Law" became their lone national breakout. Marshall Crenshaw released an able cover of "Let Her Dance" on his 1989 album Good Evening. My favorite version is this one by former Dwight Twilley Band co-star Phil Seymour, from his 1980 eponymous solo debut. But all three versions are great.
Oh, this is exquisite. "You Need Love" was originally an obscure track by The Hollies, and the prospect of covering Hollies songs is daunting indeed. The Gold Needles manage a very nice rendition of "Have You Ever Loved Somebody" on their current album What's Tomorrow Ever Done For You (as also heard on this week's TIRnRR), and near-iconic SoCal pop act Wondermints pulls off the near-impossible feat of somehow bettering The Hollies on "You Need Love." Impossible but true: over-the-top pop like no other. Wondermints know what you need.
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HUMAN SWITCHBOARD: (Say No To) Saturday's Girl
"You're Much Madder Than Me" didn't compare me for the magnificent melancholy of "Saturday's Girl." Written by Pfeifer and Marcarian, sung with quiet dignity by Marcarian, the track just burns with sadmaking and regret.
They say a heart's not quite a heart until it's been broken. I think we've all been there.
KID GULLIVER: Boy In A Bubble
And so it is in this case. Kid Gulliver releases a new single, we play that single. Rules are rules, man.
THE MONKEES: Pleasant Valley Sunday
"If we had to pick one track to represent The Monkees, my choice would be 'Pleasant Valley Sunday, the second best song that Gerry Goffin and Carole King wrote for the group. "Pleasant Valley Sunday" is the definitive Monkees track, with a mix of contributions from The Monkees themselves and their studio pals--Micky on the lead vocal (with Davy and Michael singin' along), Michael on electric guitar, Peter on piano, Davy on percussion, plus [bassist] Chip Douglas, [drummer] 'Fast' Eddie Hoh, and Bill Chadwick (the latter on acoustic guitar)--performing a track from one of Don Kirshner's favorite songwriting teams, but all engaged in the track to a degree and in a manner that could not have been possible when Kirshner was in charge. Some have condemned the lyrics as too pat and predictable in their dismissal of suburban values, and there's some merit in that criticism. It doesn't matter. The song is perfect, the performance is pristine. The local rock group down the street is working hard to learn their song...and succeeding in that effort beyond anyone's wildest dream."
The other Goffin-King song referenced above is "Porpoise Song (Theme From Head)," which also happens to be The Greatest Record Ever Made.
MOTT THE HOOPLE: Roll Away The Stone
OTIS REDDING: (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay
Who can say what might have been?
PHIL SEYMOUR: Let Her Dance
WONDERMINTS: You Need 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.
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