10 SONGS: 3/10/2022

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.

This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1119.

EYTAN MIRSKY: Watching From The Balcony

We opened last week's show with a track from Brother Eytan Mirsky's debut album, 1996's Songs About Girls (And Other Painful Subjects), in memory of drummer Chris Garges. This week, we open with Eytan for a happier reason: the release of his brand-new album Lord, Have Mirsky! Eytan's eighth album is another straight-up winner, and its closing track "Watching The Balcony" secures a berth on this week's playlist, and again on next week's playlist. I betcha we'll play more of its tracks in the coming weeks, too. 

TAJ MAHAL: Six Days On The Road

Each week, Dana and I try to mix familiar favorites with a few tracks we've never played before. New releases obviously help out in the latter category, but we also like to dig deep into the archives for classic cuts--both popular and obscure, by acts that might fit either description--in search of something that hasn't yet graced a TIRnRR playlist. In recent weeks, my specific wishes to play something by Rotary Connection, Led Zeppelin, and even Eagles manifested in fresh playlist appearances (though, of course, we have played each of those acts before). Same goes for Taj Mahal this week. I got it into my head that I wanted to play a Taj Mahal song, ideally a Taj Mahal song we ain't played before, and so the hunt began. It was a short hunt; once I stumbled across Taj Mahal's irresistible cover of Dave Dudley's durable country stalwart "Six Days On The Road," I knew I'd bagged my quarry. On to the next round!

THE SHANG HI LOS: Billy

Others have already commented that the Shang Hi Los' new single "Billy" sounds like it could be a theme from an imaginary Western. Listen, when Hollywood inevitably decides to make a big-budget feature film out of my story "The Last Ride Of The Copperhead Kid," I'm most definitely in favor of having the Shang Hi Los on its soundtrack.

THE PRETENDERS: Cuban Slide

Dana is generally the one to put some Pretenders in the playlist, and this week's Pretenders spin is no exception. Great choice, too; "Cuban Slide," an outtake from their debut album Pretenders, employs a version of the Bo Diddley beat to power one of my top Pretenders tracks. It originally surfaced on the Pretenders' 1981 four-song release Extended Play, and I've come to prefer it to anything that was on the group's second album Pretenders II. That's not faint praise, considering that Pretenders II did include two simply fabulous selections from Extended Play ("Talk Of The Town" and "Message Of Love"), as well as the great "Day After Day." Those are all sublime. I just like "Cuban Slide" even more.

RICHIE MAYER: You Don't Get Me High

Interesting little story here. We've been playing tracks from Richie Mayer's 2021 album The Inn Of Temporary Happiness, because we enjoy playing good records. But this week's Richie Mayer spin comes instead from The Inn Of Temporary Happiness Revisted, a truncated and reimagined version that makes an already-fine album finer still. Some credit goes to everyone's pop pal Bruce Brodeen, who suggested this tweak, reducing the album from 17 tracks to (officially) ten, maximizing its punch with a fresh, more fully pop remix. Gets me high, lemme tell ya.

THE BEATLES: No Reply

For all the attention I give to the concept for my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), its inclusive nature--an infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns--renders it distinct from a listing of my own Top 10 or Top 100 or Top 3047. For a near-future blog post, I'm putting together a list of my favorite songs, an all-time Top 10 or maybe Top 20. To keep it manageable, I'm limiting myself to one track per artist. The list will not be ranked, but I'll tell you right now that my # 1 favorite song ever is Badfinger's "Baby Blue" (which also happened to be the subject of the first chapter I wrote for GREM!).

The list will not include anything by the Beatles. My love of the Beatles' music, particularly their output from 1964 (A Hard Day's Night) through 1966 (Revolver) can't be limited to just one song. I wrote about that here, and listed my 25 favorite Beatles tracks here. But, for the sake of argument, if I were to pick a single song to represent my Beatlemania, it could be "Thank You, Girl" or "Rain," or it might be "Help!," "A Hard Day's Night," "The Night Before," "She Said She Said"...

...and it could very well be "No Reply." Honestly, this track's bridge just kills me, kills me, every time. If I were you/I'd realize that I/Love you more/Than any other guy/And I'd forgive/The lies that I/Heard before/When you gave me no reply. Best bridge ever. The rest of the song's pretty fab, as well.

THE BANGLES: The Rain Song

The best-known configuration of the Bangles--with three of its founding members, drummer Debbi Peterson and guitarists Vicki Peterson and Susanna Hoffs, plus bassist Michael Steele (who replaced Annette Zilinskas at the four-string spot in between the group's 1982 eponymous debut EP and their first full-length album All Over The Place in 1984)--split in 1989. The quartet regrouped for the 2003 album Doll Revolution, a splendid and underrated effort that gave us this wonderful track "The Rain Song." Written by Susan Cowsill and Vicki Peterson, and previously recorded by Susan 'n' Vicki with their other group the Continental Drifters, "The Rain Song" is both dreamy and invigorating. And its airplay on this week's TIRnRR scored the reaction DJs always hope for: a listener demanding to know the ID of that great song we just played. (The fact that said listener was himself an ace popsmith--none other than the above-mentioned Eytan Mirsky--made the connection even sweeter. Let it rain.)

ANTON BARBEAU: American Road

Last week, upon the release of Anton Barbeau's new album Power Pop!!! (which both Anton and his intrepid label Big Stir Records rightly insist is not power pop), I attempted to coin the new marketing term CATCHYBUZZ! to describe its not-power-pop appeal. That...did not catch on. Maybe it shouldn't've. Undeterred, we offer another track from Power Pop!!!, and humbly direct you to catch its buzz on your own terms.

TWISTED SISTER: We're Not Gonna Take It

Neither this blog nor this radio show has any power to enact meaningful change in this world of wonder and woe. Hearts and prayers accomplish nothing. Signs and flag decals, however well-intentioned, accomplish nothing. Action speaks. Money talks. To assist in humanitarian relief for victims of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, please consider a targeted donation to Operation USA, an organization with an established record of getting aid to where it's needed the most, without a lot of overhead. And I hope my fellow Americans will join me in not whining about rising fuel prices during this crisis. Our petty hardships are nothing, NOTHING, compared to the plight of the Ukranian people. If you feel differently, well, unless this situation is actually putting you in direct jeopardy, I cordially invite you to button your lip for the duration.

I first heard Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" on my car radio during a morning commute in Buffalo in 1984. I liked it immediately, but its meaning has changed as Ukranian refugees and freedom fighters have adopted it as an unofficial anthem. We sing it along with them. Hearts and prayers. But none of it has any value unless we back it up. 

THE CLICK BEETLES: If Not Now, Then When

Like the song says. Once again: Operation USA. The Click Beetles know what they're talking about.

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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.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl