10 Songs is a weekly list of ten songs that happen to be on my mind at the moment. The lists are usually dominated by songs played on the previous Sunday 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.
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| John Wicks, Carl Cafarelli, Paul Collins, Dana Bonn, June 11th 2009 |
This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1112: WE'RE YOUR FRIENDS FOR NOW! 30 Years Of Dana & Carl.
THE FLASHCUBES: Flavor Of The Month
If it was difficult to distill three decades of Dana & Carl radio shows into one three-hour playlist, it would be even more of a challenge to whittle all of that down to just ten songs. So, we're not going to attempt that. From our 30th anniversary shindig, these are just the ten songs I feel like annotating a little bit.
And it starts with the Flashcubes. Syracuse's own power pop powerhouse! Given how important the 'Cubes have been to us, I wanted to begin this celebration with a Flashcubes track. Obviously. I had my favorite 'Cubes song "No Promise" lined up as the likely pick, but although I didn't tell anyone (not even Dana), I was hoping for a different choice: something new. I knew the group was working on new recordings--they released two new covers in 2021-2022, of Pezband's "Baby It's Cold Outside" and the Dwight Twilley Band's "Alone In My Room"--and hints dropped by two of the 'Cubes suggested a third was due imminently. An early mix of that third cut, a cover of the Posies' "Flavor Of The Month," arrived just in time to be included in this week's 30-year blowout. HuzZAH! On the radio it goes. Flavor of the month? Flavor of 30 years, my friends.
(Will there be still more Cubic covers to come in 2022? I dunno. But I betcha. The answer will be in revealed in flashes. Brilliant flashes.
DIGBY: Spirit
I've told these stories before. I'm going to tell them again.
Digby's 2003 album Go Digby was a huge TIRnRR favorite, with two of its tracks ("Minerva" and "Spirit") scoring significant airplay on our weekly radio party. So when Digby came to town for a show at Happy Endings coffeehouse, Dana and I were there!
Unfortunately, Dana and I were just about the only ones there. There was, I think, one other person in attendance, and that guy had never heard of Digby, he just happened to be there. Digby's audience that night would number three. Three would be the number, for the number would be three.
That's gotta be demoralizing. Gotta be. Nonetheless, Digby sucked it up, hit the stage, and played as if there were Digby At Budokan. They put on a show. Troupers. And one hell of a good rock 'n' roll band. Digby got spirit.
THE CHARMS: Top Down
Speaking of troupers, count the Charms' lead singer Ellie Vee amongst the troupiest. We were playing the hell out of the Boston group's 2003 debut album Charmed, I'm Sure, and she somehow got trapped into doing a telephone interview with Dana & Carl. That wouldn't have been so bad by itself--no, really, we're not that unpleasant to deal with--but the interview itself was overwhelmed by tech glitches. Listeners could not hear Ellie at all; they just heard me, asking questions, and then repeating whatever Ellie said (YES, ELLIE SAYS SHE'S DELIGHTED TO BE ON THE SHOW. NO, SHE INSISTS THAT SHE'S NOT LYING WHEN SHE SAYS THAT.). Oy....
To her enduring credit, Ellie put up with all of this static like the pro she is. She even let us include a Charms track, "Talk Is Cheap" (fitting!), on our second compilation album, This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 2. A trouper. We've been blessed to meet some true rock 'n' roll troupers over this thirty-year gig. Ellie Vee is one of the best.
THE BEAT: Rock N Roll Girl
Sometimes I wanna pinch myself to make sure this isn't just a dream. Lemme check now...OW! Ouch! Okay, not dreaming. Damn! Magic fingers hurt...!
Where was I? Yeah, it's been cool to have so many opportunities to connect in some way with musicians whose work has affected me. As a freelance writer, I was able to interview the Ramones, Joan Jett, Mark Lindsay, Cyril Jordan, Greg Kihn, and more, and I've had correspondences with a large number of others. And it was a real treat the day that Paul Collins and John Wicks came to visit This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio.
I've been a fan of both of these guys since I was in college. I saw John play with his group the Records in 1979; I plucked my copy of Paul's former combo the Nerves' EP off the retail rack even before that, and my allegiance followed Mr. Collins as he formed his own group, the Beat.
In 2009, Paul Collins and John Wicks were touring as an acoustic duo, and the tour brought them to nearby Cortland, NY. I had another commitment that prevented me from hitting that show, but TIRnRR's longtime friend Richard Rossi arranged for Paul and John to appear with us on the air at the TIRnRR studio in Syracuse the night before their gig. They sang, we chatted, and it was just a blast. They could not have been nicer to us.
We're told you shouldn't meet your heroes. Screw that. The gray, anonymous dispensers of such wisdom have never had any freakin' clue about what's really best for us. Meet your heroes if you can. Tell them how important they are to you. Be a fan. Be polite and respectful, for God sake, but be a fan. It's part of the dream.
At the Cortland gig the next night, Paul recognized Dana and gave him a big bear hug, and said that appearing on TIRnRR was "so much fuckin' FUN!" I approve of that message. I corresponded with John and Paul for years after that. We lost John Wicks to cancer in 2018. I still hear from Paul now and again, and he supplied a fresh congratulatory bumper for our 30th anniversary show.
And I told Paul: I wanna go back in time, and I wanna tell my late '70s and early '80s self that someday some of your heroes will be aware of whatever the hell it is you do, and they'll acknowledge you. They'll be good to you. It's not a dream. But it's like a dream. Paul's right: it is so much fuckin' fun...!
MARY LOU LORD: Aim Low
Dana and I met singer Mary Lou Lord on two separate occasions, and Dana met her once or twice after that. The first time I heard Mary Lou's music was when Dana played "Lights Are Changing" on the very first This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, December 27th, 1998. (NOTE: for those confused by the math problem of a show that started in 1998 celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2022, be advised that the Dana & Carl show predates the launch of TIRnRR, commencing on January 15th, 1992 as We're Your Friends For Now. A more detailed history of our radio shell game can be found here.)
Mary Lou played a disastrous, audience-talking-through-the-razzafrazzin'-set club gig in Syracuse in...1999? Dana and I were there, and we commiserated with her for an hour or two after the show. And yeah, as I've said many times since then, she and I spent a lot of that time talking about our daughters. Didn't see that coming when I was a teenager dreaming about meeting pop stars.
THE POPTARTS: I Won't Let You Let Me Go
The first track played on the first TIRnRR was "I Won't Let You Let Me Go" by the Poptarts, an all-female local quintet from the same vibrant late '70s scene that gave us the Flashcubes. The group's lead singer Gael Sweeney and her husband David Soule (who had been in the Tearjerkers, whose lone single "Syracuse Summer" is The Greatest Record Ever Made) later sat in with us for an evening of TIRnRR, promoting a Lou Reed Night live show they were hosting at Happy Endings. Dana actually played at that show, too, as bassist for Lovelorn. I...did not play. I think I hummed along from my perch in the audience.
PACIFIC SOUL, LTD.: We Go High
Picking a song from the 30th anniversary playlist, the stories of "We Go High" by Pacific Soul, Ltd. and "Another Night" by the legendary Evie Sands intersect (for us, anyway) with "I Hate Rock 'n' Roll" by Cockeyed Ghost. Cockeyed Ghost's Adam Marsland and I were members of the same online power pop community in the '90s, sharing information and trading cassettes. Adam lived in Southern California, though he had roots in Central New York. Dana and I met him when the Keep Yourself Amused incarnation of Cockeyed Ghost came to Syracuse in the late '90s, and we met Adam again (with bassist Robert Ramos) when they did a 1999 Easter Sunday set at Borders on behalf of their then-recent album The Scapegoat Factory. Adam and Robert visited the radio show, and spent much of their TIRnRR time trading Star Trek and Davey And Goliath impressions, Adam as William Shatner saying Spock! and Robert replying Davey? You had to be there.
(Robbie Rist was also a member of the above-mentioned online pop music community, which was where he and I first got in touch. Robbie played on The Scapegoat Factory, but we met him a few years later when he was touring with Kenny Howes.)
We saw Adam as a solo act a few times after that, and again when his brought his new combo Adam Marsland's Chaos Band to town for a show with Beauty Scene Outlaws at the Half Penny Pub. That night was the first time I ever heard Beauty Scene Outlaws' original song "Carl Cafarelli," but I never did figure out who or what that song was supposed to be about. Some DJ, I guess.
Adam's Chaos Band included Evie Sands, an accomplished singer and guitarist with a dizzyingly impressive resumé; the fact that she was a guest on Shindig! is good enough for me. Severo had played bass on the band's recordings, but Teresa Cowles was in charge of four-string duties that night at the Half Penny. Not realizing that Teresa had officially joined the Chaos Band, I made the false presumption that she was filling in for Severo just for the tour, and I asked her if she played in any bands back in L.A.
Well, can't blame her for taking offense there. "Yeah," she said, "that was me playing the Danelectro bass on stage just now, you stupid boy!" She, uh, didn't actually say "stupid boy," but it was implied and deserved. Oops? I stammered an apology, she realized the source of my error, and forgave me sufficiently to allow me to live. The next time I saw her, when the Chaos Band returned to the area for a show in Cortland, she greeted me with a hug. Forgiveness!
You've probably seen Teresa as Carol Kaye in the Brian Wilson biopic Love And Mercy. She's also a TIRnRR Fave Rave as the voice of "We Go High" by Pacific Soul, Ltd., which is the trio of her, Adam, and Norman Kelsey. The song offers words to live by: When they go low, we go high. It ain't easy, but we try.
RINGO STARR: It Don't Come Easy
We talked to a Beatle. On July 21st, 2003, Dana and I attended Ringo Starr's press conference in Rama, Ontario. With press credentials, I got to ask Ringo a question, and he answered me.
We talked to a Beatle. A Beatle talked back.
Best. Gig. Ever.
THE COWSILLS: She Said To Me
I'm sorry, but if you don't dig the Cowsills, I suspect there may be something fundamentally wrong with you. Seek medical attention. Now.
We began corresponding with Bob Cowsill a bit in the 2000s. I have no recollection of how our email paths crossed, but Bob admired the show and was appreciative of the airplay we'd given the Cowsills' utterly fantastic 1990s album Global. Bob granted us use of the Global track "She Said To Me" on our 2006 compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 2.
Dana, my wife Brenda, and I got to see the Cowsills perform as part of the Happy Together Again oldies tour at a Syracuse date in the summer of 2019. They were just stellar--so good live!--and they did a meet-n-greet after the show. I introduced myself to Bob, and I will never forget the way his face lit up when he realized who we were. "Paul! Susan!," he said to his siblings. "These are the guys from that radio show I was telling you about! They play stuff you don't hear anywhere, and I mean anywhere!"
I'm basically shy. I know I hide that very well, and the confidence I have in my writing and in my pop music taste helps me to manufacture enough bravado to fool folks into believing I'm more outgoing than I really am. I often fool myself into believing that. ACTING! Yet I'm still surprised when someone likes what we do. It's not false modesty--my bravado insists I don't have any modesty of any description--but my inner doubts sometimes compromise my ability to embrace the notion that people like us. I guess, even though my bravado does most of the talking, the work really does speak for itself.
Bob Cowsill's face. I swear, he was as happy to meet us as we were to meet him. I can't tell you how much that means, and how great that feels.
MR. ENCRYPTO: The Last Time [a cappella--expanded mix]
Magic. Oh, this track is just friggin' magic. We've corresponded with Bruce Gordon (aka Mr. Encrypto) for years, and met him on a few occasions when he's flown all the way from California to Syracuse to guest-host TIRnRR with his Let's Be The Beatles! concept. Let's Be The Beatles! insists that the Beatles had such pervasive impact that every single track they ever released prompted the sincere flattery of at least one attempt to mimic it--not as a cover version, but as a theoretical original built from Mersey moptopped DNA. It's a fascinating idea, and it makes for way fab radio.
And of course we're big fans of Mr. Encrypto's own music. We have ears and pulses. Our favorite among favorite Mr. Encrypto tracks is a vocals-only mix of his song "The Last Time," an a cappella masterpiece that is one of the defining tracks of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio's long and storied history.
You wanna know who else likes this track? A listener and guitarist named Joel Tinnel. Joel heard "The Last Time" on TIRnRR, and was properly blown away. Joel played the track for his friend Steve Stoeckel, bassist for the Spongetones, and Joel told Steve, "We should form a band."
Across four states, Joel and Steve recruited Bruce, as well as drummer Stacy Carson, and an incredible group called Pop Co-Op was born, its spontaneous generation prompted by a little mutant radio show in Syracuse.
We did that? Us? We are told that this is true. It's not a dream. It's the best gig ever. We're your friends for now. 30 years on, I'm thinking we may have expanded the definition of "for now." Thank you, friends.
See ya again this Sunday night? We'll be here.
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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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