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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| Please don't bother trying to find this song; it's not here |
This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1133.
ROBIN LANE: All I'll Ever Need
A new single from Robin Lane? Yes, please. My first awareness of Lane's work came in 1980, with the release of the eponymous debut album by her band Robin Lane and the Chartbusters. The memory's imprecise, but I likely came to the Chartbusters via mentions in Trouser Press or maybe CREEM magazine, my interest heightened by the fact that two of the Chartbusters--Asa Brebner and Leroy Radcliffe--had previously been in Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. But if the erstwhile Modern Lovers hooked me initially on the Chartbusters, Robin Lane was undeniably Chartbuster # 1 (Number ONE!ONE!ONE...!)
I played Robin Lane and the Chartbusters frequently, particularly its tracks "Don't Cry," "When Things Go Wrong," and "Many Years Ago." That first album was part of my soundtrack in the early '80s, when I was a recent college grad, a professional burger-flipper, and sharing an apartment with my girlfriend. Our little Sony stereo actually belonged to Brenda, but she usually let me use it (at least when she wasn't playing her Soft Cell "Tainted Love" 45 over and over). When things go wrong, don't walk away/That will only make it harder. A Robin Lane and the Chartbusters lyric provided a working model for the art of living together. Something musta stuck. Decades later, Brenda and I are still together.
And, decades later, Robin Lane is still crafting irresistible rockin' pop music. "All I'll Ever Need" is Lane's first single for the mighty Red On Red Records label, and we eagerly await further fresh Robin Lane releases in the imminent realm of right-NOW-dammit! More new music from Robin Lane? Yes, yes, yes. Please. It's all we'll ever need. Meanwhile, we'll hear "All I'll Ever Need" again on next week's show.
ROSE ROYCE: Wishing On A Star
Well before discovering Soft Cell, Brenda's own pop obsessions included the sweet and soulful sound of Rose Royce. When Brenda and I met in 1978, I don't think I really knew any of Rose Royce's music beyond "Car Wash," the hit disco tune from the 1976 film of the same name. Well, that's not 100 % accurate; I had seen the movie, so I'd heard Rose Royce's soundtrack contributions (including the fabulous "I Wanna Get Next To You," which was a hit in its own right). Nonetheless, the songs didn't register in my teenaged mind at the time.
Brenda owned the Car Wash soundtrack on cassette, but her primary Rose Royce allegiance wasn't to that album. Her fave rave "Wishing On A Star" was the lead-off track from the group's 1977 album In Full Bloom, and it was (along with "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire) Brenda's toppermost of the poppermost. Somewhere in my vast accumulation of stuff, I have a cartoon portrait of Brenda, rendered by one of her college suitemates the year Brenda and I met. The drawing spotlights the dichotomy of R & B-lovin' Brenda falling for the likes of little punk rocker me, depicting Brenda in a Flashcubes t-shirt, wondering aloud, "Who could like a band called the Sex Pistols?" and singing lines from CC-approved numbers by the Ramones and the Rolling Stones. In the midst of this overabundance of attention to the strange stuff I liked, Brenda's suitemate allowed one word balloon expressing Brenda's own musical taste:
I'm wishing on a staaaaaaaaaaar....
Oooo, what a lovely pop record. Although I only knew the song through Brenda, we were both recently amazed to discover that it had never been a pop hit. It bubbled under Billboard's Hot 100; even on the R & B chart, it only managed a peak position of # 52. It fared better in Europe. In America, it was still always a hit in Brenda's ears, its lack of chart success notwithstanding.
We play the hits. TIRnRR's concept of what is and what is not a hit is aware of real-world considerations that define the term in the popular sense...but we don't care about that. We say a hit record is anything that sounds like it oughtta be a hit. When we played "Wishing On A Star" this week, intrepid TIRnRR listener (and Radio Deer Camp host) Rich Firestone remarked that the song was new to him, but he liked it. Brenda was surprised but pleased that she knew the song before Rich did.
Any record you ain't heard is a new record. And a hit's a hit. Wishing on a star? Thanks to Brenda for knowing a hit when she heard it.
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Hey, rockin' pop with a pedigree! Jesse Bryson is no stranger to the TIRnRR playlist--his track "Abilene" is considered an all-time classic in this particular playground, and we gave that one another spin this week--and his Dad Wally Bryson is power pop legend for his own iconic guitar work with the Raspberries and Fotomaker. Yes, pundits overuse the word "iconic." Fine. If you fancy yourself a power pop fan, just think of those opening guitar bits to the Raspberries hits "Go All The Way" and "I Wanna Be With You." If you don't agree those are iconic, I don't agree that you're a power pop fan.
My favorite Fotomaker track is 1978's "Come Back," which the elder Bryson wrote and recorded for the group's second album, Vis á Vis. Now, Jesse has recorded his own new version of "Come Back" as a Big Stir single, performed with panache alongside the Flashcubes' Gary Frenay and Tommy Allen and Fotomaker's Frankie Vinci and Lex Marchesi. As good as its pedigree? And then some. I'll see your icon, and raise ya one.
EYTAN MIRSKY: This Year's Gonna Be Our Year
The Greatest Record Ever Made!
THE ZOMBIES: What More Can I Do
Sometimes the specific time constraints of a three-hour slot prevent us from playing a record we wanted to play. We end most shows with a post-tag track, something short, that plays after we've said goodbye for the week. WAIT!WAIT!WAIT!WAIT!WAIT!WAIT! We got a little more This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. The little post-tag track usually brings the show up to its three-hour mark.
This week, I wanted the post-tag track to be "She's Not There" by the Zombies. Alas, there was not sufficient space left for "She's Not There," forcing us to sub the Zombies' "What More Can I Do" in its place.
Now, ya can't complain about any opportunity to play the Zombies, whatever track you wind up with. But "She's Not There" had a specific li'l spot in pop culture last week, when it was referenced (and not named) on the June 8th episode of Jeopardy!
The category: Put It On What? The clue: Decca F.11940, released 1963 The correct response (which no contestant offered): What is a turntable?
The record cited is the original British 45 of "She's Not There." While we wish we could have played that, "What More Can I Do" is at least a fine stand-in. What more can we do?
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
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