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 # 1098.
DERRICK ANDERSON: When I Was Your Man
This song is just insanely, insanely catchy. Derrick Anderson is probably best known for playing bass with both the Bangles and the Smithereens (among others), and for the Andersons!, an ace combo that scored significant TIRnRR airplay with the track "From The Get-Go" (from the Andersons!'s 1998 debut album Separated At Birth). 2017's A World Of My Own has been Anderson's only solo album to date, and it merits pop immortality with "When I Was Your Man." The track is sold by its effervescent backing vocals, courtesy of Kim Shattuck and Anderson's fellow Bangles Vicki and Debbie Peterson, as Anderson himself presides over it all. "When I Was Your Man" does not get played anywhere near as often as it should be played.
Hey, it's 10 Songs' first ever Choose-Your-Own-Adventure! The ongoing team-up between Big Stir Records and SpyderPop Records--like Superman and Batman, your two favorite heroes in one adventure together--continues. Following Big Stir's recent reissues of nonpareil SpyderPop releases by Bill Lloyd, Lannie Flowers, and Danny Wilkerson, the World's Finest team crusades forward with not one, but two Chris Church albums, Backwards Compatible and Limitations Of Source Tape. In that same all-for-one spirit, we decided to spin a track from each album, "Dumb It Up" from Backwards Compatible and "Something Completely" from Limitations Of Source Tape. Thus is justice served. Plus, y'know, justice digs pop music. So do we!
THE CLINGERS: Gonna Have A Good Time
Reruns of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour introduced me to the music of the Clingers, a group of four sisters who delivered this killer cover of the Easybeats' "Gonna Have A Good Time." If I remember correctly, the E! channel started rerunning edited versions of the Smothers' programs circa 1989-90, maybe a little earlier, and it was on a cable channel higher than my VCR could reach at the time. Even as I was eventually able to capture the Clingers' 1969 TV performance of "Gonna Have A Good Time" on my VHS machine, tracking down a copy of the actual song remained a daunting task for years thereafter. The Clingers 1967-1971, a 2018 compilation CD, finally saw that task to its long-overdue conclusion. Now: gonna have a good time!
THE COCKTAIL SLIPPERS: Be The One
The first time I heard the Cocktail Slippers I was (of course) driving in my car, a Sunday night, either on my way to or driving home from the radio studio. Yeah, back when we used to do this thing live. Ah, those were the days. Syracuse's TK99 was carrying Little Steven's syndicated Underground Garage at the time, and Little Steven played the Cocktail Slippers' "You Do Run," from their then-current album Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. I was hooked from the first note.
So, this musta been around 2009, and I've been a Cocktail Slippers fan ever since. But I had no idea they had a new album out: Shout It Out Loud was released last month, and while I wish the title tune were a KISS cover--that would be awesome--I intend to spend some happy minutes gettin' all caught up with the rockin' pop oomph of new Cocktail Slippers. SHOUT IT OUT LOUD! Rich Firestone played "Hush" (a sparklin' cover of the Billy Joe Royal/Deep Purple classic) on his essential SPARK! show Radio Deer Camp last week, and we followed suit with "Be The One" this week. The Cocktail Slippers are still pencilled in on our calendar.
COLD EXPECTATIONS: In The Padlocked Night
Cold Expectations' current single "In The Padlocked Night" is a solid and accomplished pastiche of '80s new wave at its moodiest and broodiest. It calls to mind MTV, the left of the dial, and a zillion indie and/or edgy acts of the era, without ever resorting to borrowed moves or stolen licks. I can't even put my finger on precisely which artists this conjures, so let's say it's an original, and let's say it's time for 120 Minutes. I mean that as a compliment.
AMOS MILBURN: Down The Road Apiece
The first rock 'n' roll record? Amos Milburn's 1946 recording of "Down The Road Apiece" belongs in that discussion, predating viable contenders like Jackie Brenston's (or really Ike Turner's) "Rocket 88" (1951) and Fats Domino's "The Fat Man" (1949). There is no reasonable definition of rock 'n' roll music that could exclude Milburn's "Down The Road Apiece."
THE MONKEES: As We Go Along
I've read comments about how the Carole King-Toni Stern composition "As We Go Along" is in a difficult time signature, which always prompts me to reply, "Oh, you musicians with your musician talk!" From the soundtrack for the Monkees' only movie, the bitter and brilliant Head, "As We Go Along" gives Micky Dolenz yet another chance to shine, delivering a masterful vocal well beyond what we should expect from a self-described manufactured image with no philosophies. Maybe the Monkees were being sarcastic when they said that. Monkees is the craziest people!
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| Photo by Dana Bonn |
When Dana and I saw the Monkees in 2012, Micky's performance of this song caused Dana to just lean back in his chair and whisper, Wow...! Manufactured image? Sure. But with substance to reinforce that image, talent to make it last. Difficult time signature notwithstanding.
THE PLEASERS: Lies
I haven't written very much about late '70s British power pop group the Pleasers, but what I have said about them may give the impression that I don't like them. I do like the Pleasers, and at one point in college I preferred their version of "The Kids Are Alright" to the Who's original. I...got over that phase. But I still enjoy their version, and we had originally intended it to be our radio show's opening theme song, before a minor complication prompted us to change our show's name from the originally-announced The Kids Are Alright! to the now-familiar This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. (That long story was told here.)
My problem with the Pleasers wasn't a problem with the Pleasers, per se, but my objection to anyone holding them up as the epitome of power pop in 1978 and '79. The Romantics, the Flashcubes, Generation X, and so many others were better suited for the role of power pop's standard bearer than the Pleasers were. It's not the Pleasers' fault that the British press made them power pop's paper tigers, and tore 'em down in the same motion.
"Lies" (not a cover of the Knickerbockers' 1960s power pop prototype) was on the group's EP The Pleasers, which I bought in 1978. Their single of "The Kids Are Alright" followed, and my favorite of theirs was a dynamic 45 called "You Don't Know." I liked the Pleasers. I liked Herman's Hermits, too, and a number of other acts that weren't necessarily the frenzied power-pop toppermost of the poppermost, but were still fine in their own right. Held apart from expectations of hype and The Next Big Thing, the Pleasers please-pleased me just fine.
THE PORTUGAL JAPAN: Boy Meets Girl
Man, this record is like sugar-frosted amphetamines. BOY MEETS GIRL! GIRL MEETS BOY! Dana had a compilation CD called Innocence Is Bliss, subtitled "A Female Frenzy Of Sensational Sounds!" From that set, he played the Portugal Japan's "Boy Meets Girl," and I knew I needed my own copy, STAT. That "STAT" process took a little longer than it shoulda (by several years, actually, thereby delaying my above-mentioned introduction to the Cocktail Slippers). But I have it. And I love it. BOY MEETS GIRL!!!
THE RAMONES [with DEBBIE HARRY]: Go Lil Camaro Go
It's a little hard to believe that we've never gotten around to playing this on the show before, but I guess it's also hard to believe that the album that carried it--1987's Halfway To Sanity--was the only Ramones album I never owned on CD. I have now rectified that omission.
1987 was a period of transition for me. I moved back to Syracuse after the personal failures of just under five years living in Buffalo (a story told in part in my '80s memoir The Road To GOLDMINE). Things were not terrific. At least I was starting to write more, and with (slightly) more frequent success. I got my first CD player, a Pioneer, in either '87 or '88. Vinyl continued to be my main format for a while thereafter, but CDs eventually took over for me. I rarely, rarely buy vinyl now.
But in '87, I was still a vinyl kind of guy. I bought my copy of the Halfway To Sanity LP at The Record Theatre up on the SU hill, a store which had recently declined an option to hire me. I remember playing the album's fascinating opening track "I Wanna Live" for some friends visiting my apartment. They were amazed at how different it sounded, compared to their memories of the Ramones records we'd listened to together nearly a decade before that. I was still a fan. I never stopped being a fan.
During the course of my interviews with the Ramones in 1994, discussing each of the group's albums in detail, Johnny Ramone asked me what I thought of Halfway To Sanity. I confessed that I hadn't listened to it in years. It's not one of my favorites, but it does have "I Wanna Live," "Garden Of Serenity," and it does have "Go Lil Camaro Go," a slight but memorable track made more memorable by guest vocals from Blondie's Debbie Harry.
I listened to Halfway To Sanity again last month, and it's better than I remembered it. It's not Rocket To Russia or Road To Ruin, but it kicks in its own confident way, and I think I prefer it to its predecessor Animal Boy. It was the last Ramones album I bought on vinyl; I switched to CDs by the time Brain Drain came out.
I had always wanted Debbie Harry to record something with the Ramones...or at least a Ramone. In college, I told everyone within earshot that Debbie should join the Ramones to duet with Joey Ramone on a cover of Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe." Within a couple of years, when Joey eventually did the song with Holly Beth Vincent (as a single by Holly and Joey), a friend was amazed that I'd predicted such a thing, only getting the female singer wrong. It stung when that friend soon became a former friend. That sort of thing happens in periods of transition. I wanna live. Living comes at a cost.
I remember my failures. I try to balance those recollections with memories of scattered victories along the way. Regrets? I've had a few. Well...more than a few, if I'm being honest. And a lot of those regrets took root in the '80s. A period of transition.
But the past isn't going anywhere. We can learn from what we've seen, but only the road ahead offers any opportunities to correct our course. Turn up the music. Full speed ahead, periods of transition be damned. Go, lil Camaro. GO.
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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
I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl.
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