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 # 1145.
THE HALFCUBES: Hand Me Down World
Guess who? It's the Halfcubes! And that would be Gary Frenay and Tommy Allen (precisely one-half of Syracuse's power pop powerhouse quartet the Flashcubes), aided und abetted by Randy Klawon (of the Choir), Mike Kallet, and Nick Frenay for this absolutely ace cover of the Guess Who's 1970 hit "Hand Me Down." Listen: I love the Guess Who's original; this is even better. And it's a de facto teaser track for a forthcoming various-artists project that I don't know all that much about yet, and about which I suspect I'm not even supposed to tell you what little I do know. Guess who? Guess WHAT...!
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OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN: A Little More Love
"A Little More Love" was one of my favorites among Olivia Newton-John's hits, probably second only to "If Not For You." Its late 1978 release came about a year into my full-throttle embrace of punk rock, so ya might not expect me to also love such an unabashed middle-of-the-road radio pop tune.
But "A Little More Love" isn't as MOR as many/most of her preceding hits, your "I Honestly Love You"s or your "Please Mister Please"s. A pal at the time described "A Little More Love" as like ON-J backed by the Kinks; I don't quite buy into that, but it does have a more tangible rock feel than one finds in our Olivia's lighter fare.
(Its release also coincided with a burgeoning new relationship that began that same fall of '78, a meeting-of-hearts that would lead to a marriage that still survives decades later. Will a little more love make it right? Eh. Couldn't hurt. Thanks, Olivia!)
DAVID RUFFIN: It's Gonna Take A Whole Lot Of Doin'
I continue to be mystified about why Motown Records didn't release David Ruffin's proposed album David in the early '70s. It's such a fantastic record, and I wish we'd been able to experience it fifty years ago. From that album's sessions, we played Ruffin's "It's Gonna Take A Whole Lot Of Doin'" on this week's show. My iPod just treated me to Ruffin's cover of Brook Benton's "Rainy Night In Georgia," also from David. Sublime stuff. It borders on heresy, but I may even prefer the tracks on David to Ruffin's classic work with the Temptations.
IRENE PEÑA: Come And Get It
America's Sweetheart Irene Peña covers Badfinger's McCartney-scribed 1970 hit "Come And Get It," from the WAY fab various-artists musicfest We All Shine On: Celebrating The Music Of 1970. Yeah, 1970 was a pretty swell year for pop music, wasn't it? Lotta great songs to cover from that year, more than even a great single album like this can include.
For now. At least, that's what I would guess.
THE COWSILLS: She Said To Me
Before we talk about this great '90s track by the Cowsills, we have to pause and shout at you for a second. Ahem. THE COWSILLS HAVE A NEW ALBUM OUT THIS MONTH!! Rhythm Of The World is scheduled for release on September 30th, and I for damned sure preordered my copy. For this week's show, we reached back, not to the Cowsills' superfine '60s hits, but to their incredible Global album, which is my favorite album of the 1990s. The Global track "She Said To Me" has its own chapter in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), and the Cowsills were nice enough to also grant us its use a few years back on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 2.
In the present day: we've heard the new teaser single from Rhythm Of The World, and we're very much looking forward to programming it into future TIRnRR broadcasts. NEW COWSILLS! Oh, man....!!
SQUEEZE: Tempted
The Greatest Record Ever Made!
THE MONKEES: I Never Thought It Peculiar
And ya wanna know what this gawky, clunky, basically unloved little deep cut has in common with two of the Monkees' biggest hits, "I'm A Believer" and "Daydream Believer?" Like those two perennial smashes, "I Never Thought It Peculiar" did not make the list of my 25 favorite Monkees tracks. And you know what separates it from those? "I Never Thought It Peculiar" is one of the 53 Monkees tracks on my iPod; "Daydream Believer" and "I'm A Believer" are not.
I know. Peculiar, right?
THE DONNAS: Living After Midnight
Metal chicks! Sort of. It would be more than a little stretch to refer to the Donnas as a metal band, even when they pull off such a capable and credible (and invigmoratin'!) cover of the Judas Priest juggernaut "Living After Midnight." We've been playing the Donnas since our earliest days here, and I initially thought of them as successors to the Runaways (who also weren't metal) rather than, say, Girlschool (who were metal). One could also compare the Donnas to the Pandoras, if we can imagine a version of the Pandoras less beholden to '60s garage/punk and more influenced by the Ramones. And the Runaways.
(And, come to think of it, the Pandoras themselves took a turn toward hard rock toward the end of the career. Maybe that is the comparison we should be making, if we're gonna make a comparison.)
This all speaks only of image and approach; I don't believe the Donnas ever really sounded much like the Runaways, Girlschool, or the Pandoras, and we fall into a trap when the emergence of an all-female rock band prompts us to automatically look for similarities/differences in relation to other all-female rock bands. People still compare/contrast the Go-Go's and the Bangles ferchrissakes, two groups I absolutely love but who share very little in common beyond gender and a love of the '60s.
The Donnas have developed a side career in bludgeoning their way through covers of everything from Billy Idol to Bachman Turner Overdrive. They're quite good at it, though we're overdue to give some fresh spins to some Donnas originals one of these weeks. Meanwhile, my favorite among Donnas covers is this righteous steamroll through "Living After Midnight." Metal? Close enough.
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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
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