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 # 1136: COME ON LET'S GO! A Celebration Of Classic Power Pop, Pure Pop, And The Power Pop Periphery.
THE FLASHCUBES WITH THE SPONGETONES: Have You Ever Been Torn Apart?
POP WITH POWER! It seemed appropriate to kick off our power pop extravaganza with this rock 'n' roll summit meeting between two of its all-time greatest practitioners: Syracuse's own power pop powerhouse (and this week's Featured Performers) the Flashcubes and North Carolina's phenomenal pop combo the Spongetones. Their recent combined-force Big Stir Records single remake of the Spongetones' "Have You Ever Been Torn Apart?" has been a huge TIRnRR favorite this year, because we have simply impeccable rockin' pop taste.
THE BEATLES: Please Please Me
We are never going to collectively agree on a definition of power pop, and we're never going to agree on power pop's point of origin. Bomp! magazine's Greg Shaw and Gary Sperrazza! pinpointed the Who's pre-Tommy sides as power pop's Ground Zero, but many informed fans and pundits insist power pop can't start until the '70s. I strongly disagree with the latter view, and kinda think we can and should start power pop's stopwatch a little earlier than Bomp! decreed. We can make a case for power pop beginning with Eddie Cochran; I think power pop's introductory detonation came courtesy of the Beatles, specifically with "Please Please Me." Writer Gary Pig Gold and I debated the subject in this piece from 2007.
JESSE BRYSON: Come Back
When we decided to do this week's show as a celebration of classic power pop, pure pop, and the power pop periphery from the '60s, '70s, and '80s, I also wanted to bridge then and now by playing all of the Flashcubes' singles, 1978-2022. As a sidebar to that, we threw in Jesse Bryson's version of "Come Back," a song Jesse's dad Wally Bryson wrote and originally recorded with Fotomaker in the late '70s; Jesse's new version enlists Gary Frenay and Tommy Allen from the 'Cubes and Frankie Vinci and Lex Marchesi from Fotomaker, so its legacy aspect made it a natural addition to this week's retrovision. Jesse Bryson's "Come Back" joined the Flashcubes' 21st century singles as the only latter-day tracks on this week's show.
THE BANGLES: Tell Me
In the mid '90s, when I was freelancing for Goldmine magazine, I wrote a lengthy history of power pop. The piece was published in the January 5th, 1996 issue of GM, alongside separate best-of power pop annotations and recommendations from John M. Borack, a Bay City Rollers retrospective by Dave Thompson, my interview with Greg Kihn, and my liner notes to the Flashcubes' then-forthcoming anthology CD Bright Lights. It was an honor to be involved with creating the first-ever power pop issue of Goldmine, and editor Jeff Tamarkin told me the issue sold well and received a very positive reaction.
But...well, nobody's perfect. Gary Sperrazza! himself was miffed that I hadn't contacted him for his recollections of Bomp! and the power pop scene (an error I still and will always regret). And one reader wrote a letter complaining about the overwhelmingly male-dominated nature of my power pop history. Although I thought some of that reader's suggestions of female power pop artists bordered on the absurd (prompting my reply, "Toni Basil? Are you putting me on?"), I eventually found myself agreeing that he had a point.
So, when I eventually updated and revamped my power pop history into a new version for John Borack's 2005 book Shake Some Action, I acknowledged the oversight and tried to correct it a little bit. Looking back, I say it was still perfunctory--how did I fail to mention Holly and the Italians?--but I did at least expand my coverage a little bit. I hadn't yet heard the fabulous music of the Shivvers or the Expressos in 2005, but I included mention of the Pop Tarts, the Catholic Girls, Nikki and the Corvettes, the B-Girls, the Go-Go's, and the Bangles. I later dovetailed some of this (including the Shivvers) into a blog piece called "Power Pop 101."
Getting back to the Bangles: their eponymous debut EP and their first full-length album All Over The Place remain stirring, sterling examples of transcendent pop-rock, earning them the "She-Beatles" sobriquet bestowed upon them by intrepid TIRnRR listener Elma Tiran, aka Sparky. Subsequent records were good too, though my heart belongs to the earlier efforts.
Especially to All Over The Place. To my ears, that record is one track shy of being a perfect album, only kept from a complete Love At First Spin by my disinterest in "More Than Meets The Eye." The rest is as good as rockin' pop music gets. Mr. Goldmine letter-writer, wherever you are: in the words of the Monkees, I'm a little bit wrong, you're a little bit right.
(Not about Toni Basil, mind you. Still think you were putting me on with that.)
No one thinks of the Isley Brothers as a power pop band, and that's fair (the Isleys' enormous influence on the Beatles notwithstanding). But this song, 1966's "Got To Have You Back?" I tell ya, if the exact same recording had been credited to the Who on Brunswick instead of the Isley Brothers on Motown, it would garner wider recognition as an essential early power pop track. Whatever label you choose for it, it's an amazing track.
THE RAMONES: Sheena Is A Punk Rocker
Our above-mentioned Bomp! magazine visionaries Greg Shaw and Gary Sperrazza! recognized the power pop bona fides of the Ramones. I concur, and I made my case on their behalf when I wrote the Ramones' induction into The Power Pop Hall of Fame. "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" is, without exaggeration, the record that changed my life, an epiphany on a direct par with seeing the Beatles in A Hard Day's Night and the first time I witnessed the Flashcubes play. Punk can be pop; it can be as pop as the giddiest and catchiest stuff out there. To me, that's as simple as 1-2-3-4!
(And, um...I wrote a book about the Ramones. But it's a secret for now. Shhhhh. Don't tell anybody.)
STIV BATORS: It's Cold Outside
Just because punk can be pop doesn't mean all punk is pop. I love the Sex Pistols, and believe their intrinsic worth as an exciting rock 'n' roll band is undervalued because folks can't see past the anger and anarchy, but I can't plausibly consider the Pistols as power pop. Some punk and punk-adjacent bands--the Jam, the Buzzcocks, Generation X, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Rich Kids with ex-Pistol Glen Matlock--at least dabbled around the edge of power pop. The Sex Pistols and the Clash did not.
Nor did the Dead Boys, really, though the group's guitarist Jimmy Zero claimed that the Raspberries' Side 3 was his favorite album. There's no discernible power pop influence in the grooves of the Dead Boys' first album Young, Loud & Snotty, and while you can maybe hear a little bit of closeted janglebuzz in their second album We Have Come For Your Children, it still ain't quite a record that demands to be filed under Teen Beat Vocal.
Which makes it all the more remarkable that former Dead Boys lead singer Stiv Bators briefly became a full-on power pop performer with the singles he did immediately after the Dead Boys' dissolution in 1979. "Sonic Reducer" isn't power pop. "It's Cold Outside"/"The Last Year" is. Unmistakably. Undeniably. Follow-up 45 "Not That Way Anymore"/"Circumstantial Evidence" is, at the very least, pretty damned close. And the singles were released by Bomp Records! Of course!
Bators knew who he needed to form his power pop band: guitarist Frank Secich had been in the shoulda-been-famous '70s rockin' pop combo Blue Ash, and his presence imbued Bators' immediate post-Dead Boys work with power pop gravitas; I really, really hope the Flashcubes do some work with Secich, too.
"It's Cold Outside" was originally a 1966 regional hit by the Choir, a Cleveland group otherwise canonized in power pop history because it included three future members of the Raspberries, guitarist Wally Bryson, drummer Jim Bonfanti, and bassist Dave Smalley (though I don't think Smalley was on the Choir's recording of "It's Cold Outside").
The Choir's "It's Cold Outside" is a fabulous record. Stiv Bators' remake slays the original, and it's not even close. Credit one more notch to the punk and power pop alliance.
THE FLASHCUBES FEATURING RANDY KLAWON: Get The Message
To date, the Flashcubes have released a total of eight singles. The first two were 45s issued during the group's original run, "Christi Girl" in 1978 and "Wait Till Next Week" in '79. Since regrouping in the early '90s, the 'Cubes did one two-song CD single of Chris Spedding covers (later reissued as a 45 for Record Store Day in 2017), and commenced their current series of Big Stir digital singles in 2021.
The Big Stir singles have all been covers, with our 'Cubes usually aided and abetted by other stars of the glittering power pop sky. The first was their take on Pezband's "Baby It's Cold Outside" (with the song's author Mimi Betinis pitching in), followed by renditions of the Dwight Twilley Band's "Alone In My Room," a collaboration with Shoes on the latter's magnificent "Tomorrow Night," the above-mentioned Spongecubes mash-up, and Slade's "Gudbuy T' Jane," performed with Ed Conte. On this week's show, we played 'em all.
And we wanted more.
So the group allowed us an exclusive premiere of "Get The Message," a way-fab cover of a song originally written and recorded by Eric Carmen in 1969, with his pre-Raspberries combo Cyrus Erie. For this new version, the Flashcubes drafted Randy Klawon, who had been in Cyrus Erie (albeit after they recorded "Get The Message"), and he'd been in the Choir. Randy's brother Danny Klawon wrote "It's Cold Outside." SCORE!! I now regard this new version as definitive, and we thank the Flashcubes for letting us share it.
There's still a lot more to come in the Flashcubes-Big Stir LLC. I know a couple of specifics, and I know there's more that I don't really know about yet. I look forward to all of it. And I look forward to playing it all on the radio, where it belongs.
THE SMITHEREENS: Behind The Wall Of Sleep
The Greatest Record Ever Made!
THE FLASHCUBES: No Promise
Hey, speaking (yet again) of my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1): From 1979, this is the Flashcubes' single that should have been. I've written about it here, and again here. Love this record. Love this band. This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl would not exist if not for the Beatles, the Ramones, and the Flashcubes. Pop with power. It inspires us every day, and it fuels a fresh radio show every week. There is a promise after all.
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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