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 # 1168. This show is available as a podcast.
THE HALFCUBES: The Weakest Shade Of Blue
Well, this is how ya start a superior rockin' pop radio program. The Halfcubes, of course, are two members of the Flashcubes--drummer/producer Tommy Allen and bassist Gary Frenay--working with guitarist Randy Klawon and the occasional Special Guest Bat Villain. This is the third different Halfcubes track we've played, following their covers of the Guess Who's "Hand Me Down World" and Jason Falkner's "I Live." As Gary tells us, "Half a 'Cubes is better than none!"
And as today's Special Guest Bat Villain, the Halfcubes welcome Bob Pernice for a new (and wonderful) version of the Pernice Brothers' sublime gem "The Weakest Shade Of Blue." None of the Halfcubes' works have been released yet. We should all hope that changes very, very soon.
THE RAMONES: I Need Your Love
FIRST, THE PLUG! My new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is due out in early May, and I humbly invite you to preorder it here. Feel free to regard the "humbly" thing as a joke.
I like the Ramones' 1983 album Subterranean Jungle album more than some other folks seem to like it. To my ears, it was, if not quite a peer to the transcendent oomph of the first four Ramones albums, at least a return to form after the relatively less compelling End Of The Century and Pleasant Dreams.
Subterranean Jungle includes this cover of '80s NYC combo the Boyfriends' "I Need Your Love," a sprightly but mostly unknown pop ditty. When I interviewed Johnny Ramone in 1994, Johnny said "I heard the Boyfriends do the song. They did it great, and then we tried to do it and didn't do it very well."
Me? I love the Ramones' version of "I Need Your Love." We must agree to disagree on this one, Johnny.
THE SHIRTS: Tell Me Your Plans
My enthusiastic immersion in punk, new wave, and other assorted rock 'n' roll labels in the late '70s did not include the music of the Shirts. It wasn't a rejection of the Shirts; I just wasn't exposed to their recordings until many years later. Lack of opportunity? I guess. The only thing I remember hearing from them at the time was a track on the various-artists LP Live At CBGB's, wherein singer and actress Annie Golden's greeting to the Bowery audience was something like, We're the Shoits, from Brooklyn. She exaggerated the accent deliberately.
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| Nice Shoit, Annie |
(I don't remember whether or not I've ever seen any of Golden's performances as an actress. I have never watched Orange Is The New Black. I do remember reading a letter she wrote to CREEM magazine in the late '80s, dismissing the artistic validity of the Monkees. Her opinion of the Monkees did not match mine. I'M a believer!)
Still, I didn't really hear the Shirts until a very long time after the fact. I snapped up a used CD reissue of their 1979 eponymous album in, I dunno, the early '00s? I was immediately and overwhelmingly taken by that album's opening track "Reduced To A Whisper," hypnotized by a guitar sound that reminded me of the Shirts' CBGB's contemporaries Television.
As a whole, the Shirts didn't really sound at all like Television; the comparison was based almost entirely on a similarly serpentine six-string thrum and the two groups' shared stomping grounds. The Shirts were...well, I don't wanna call them more mainstream than Television, 'cause that ain't exactly it either. But there were hints of connection to some things beyond the Bowery, to, say, the progressive-folk mix aura of Renaissance, or maybe even post-Woodstock FM radio, but at least a little more aggressive. It all still felt like part of Television's world, the Ramones' world, the world of Blondie, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Max's Kansas City. CBGB's. New York City really has it all.
From that first album, the track "Tell Me Your Plans" just clicked with me recently. Its simmering blend of regret, resignation, yearning, and unmeasured dollops of uncertainty suggests a love affair approaching a crossroads without benefit of a map. Or a plan. There is, at best, a bumpy road ahead. There may not even be a road at all.
What's the plan, then? It's hard to tell.
THE CYNZ: Tell That Girl To Shut Up
We've been hittin' hard on "Tell That Girl To Shut Up," the current single by the Cynz. Holly and the Italians' original version of the song is nonpareil, and attempting to cover it is a daunting task indeed. The Cynz acquit themselves well, looking Holly square in the eye, not flinching, not ceding ground, and succeeding on their own confident 'n' groovin' merit. This track seems likely to score a berth on our 2023 year-end Countdown show.
But it's taking a break next week. Our February 19th playlist will give a different act a shot at channeling Holly and her Italians, but we're not forsaking our Cynz. We'll program an older Cynz track instead, one we've never played before. Tell that girl to STEP UP! Let's hear it for the Cynz.
THE EXCITERS: If You Want My Love
As Cheap Trick would later say (in a different song): If you want my love, you got it.
Man, the Exciters were such a great recording act. Until recently, I only knew them from their sole big pop hit ("Tell Him" in 1962), their 1964 Forgotten Original of "Do-Wah-Diddy" (a song that entered the public consciousness later the same year when covered [with an extraneous "Diddy" added to its title] by Manfred Mann), and 1963's "He's Got The Power" (from its inclusion on Rhino's girl group boxed set One Kiss Can Lead To Another).
But Dana's been on an Exciters kick lately, and that's been good news for all of us. Such good material, and it's been a pleasure to hear Dana's Exciters pick each week. "If You Want My Love" is an A1 pop track.
Next week's Exciters track is even better.
RONNIE SPECTOR & THE E STREET BAND: Say Goodbye To Hollywood
The Greatest Record Ever Made!
THE BAY CITY ROLLERS: Honey Don't Leave L.A.
My CD reissue of the 1980 album Voxx credits the artist as the Bay City Rollers, but it's really just the Rollers, the post-Tartan, post-teenbeat incarnation of our erstwhile S! A! T-U-R! D-A-Y! chanters. Make no mistake: I loved a lot of the Bay City Rollers' stuff (particularly "Rock And Roll Love Letter"), but the latter-day Rollers were almost a different band.
Er, not literally a different band. The Rollers did include 4/5 of the Bay City Rollers lineup that hit big in America as a one-band Scottish Invasion in '75. But it was a different vibe, as former lead singer Les McKeown split and the "Bay City" was dropped from the marquee; bassist Woody Wood, drummer Derek Longmuir, and guitarists Eric Faulkner and Alan Longmuir remained, and new recruit Duncan Faure brought his John Lennon-influenced vocals to this valiant effort to shuck the group's old image and continue as a more mature new wave pop band.
The Rollers' records didn't sell, but they should have. 1979's Elevator is quite good, and 1981's Richochet has its own irresistible moments. In between, Voxx was a contract-breaker, the kiss-off fulfillment of the group's commitment to Arista Records. It's the greatest contract-breaking kiss-off in pop history. If you dig great groups like the Records, then ya gotta hear what the Rollers did in their brief lifespan. The Voxx track "Honey Don't Leave L.A." is evidence of a worthy combo the world decided not to notice.
And it was the world's loss.
POPSICKO: Same Old Me
Our friends at Big Stir Records are going all-in on Popsicko. See, I like when Big Stir goes all-in on something. This '90s alt-rock combo appears to be a specific passion for Big Stir, and we'll be hearing the fruits of that passion in due time. For now, I direct you to S.W. Lauden's oral history of Popsicko for a little bit of background, and invite you to brace yourself for more from the legacy of Popsicko in 2023.
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Carl's new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is now available for preorder, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. Gabba Gabba YAY!!
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.
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