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 # 1214: The 25th Anniversary Show. This show is available as a podcast.
All of this week's 10 Songs entries have either appeared here previously or are excerpted from existing unpublished works. A 25th Anniversary show demands some GREATEST HITS!!
THE RAMONES: Blitzkrieg Bop
From "Chewin' Out A Rhythm On My Bubblegum: My 25 Favorite Ramones Tracks:"
If we had to pick just one track to represent the legacy of the Ramones, it would have to be "Blitzkrieg Bop." You can argue on behalf of "I Wanna Be Sedated," and "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" was the most important one for me, but really: "Blitzkrieg Bop." The song is ubiquitous, deservedly so, and hearing it always gives me a sense of fist-pumpin' euphoria. Always. Hey-ho, ya know? Here's what I wrote about the song elsewhere:
"1-2-3-4.
"The Ramones set out to be the American Beatles. They succeeded, as long as we don't factor in extraneous things like fame, popularity, record sales, and money. But impact? Immortality? The buzz of irresistible pop perfection? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're forming in a straight line.
"It started here, with a fab four of misfits from Queens aimin' for the toppermost of the poppermost, plausibility be damned. What, the Bay City Rollers were already trying to be the next Beatles? Fine. The Ramones would be a faster and louder version, innately more fascinating, emphatically more American. Imagining a chant like S! A! T-U-R! D-A-Y! NIGHT!! to be a prerequisite for radio success, the Ramones revamped the Rollers' approach into their own HEY-HO, LET'S GO! Number one with a bullet? Not even close. Shoot 'em in the back now.
"Nonetheless....
"Failing to ship and sell the massive volume of hit platters they envisioned, the Ramones kept going anyway. The kids are losing their minds. All revved up and ready to go.
"The Ramones. The American Beatles. Yeah, that sounds about right to me.
THE MONKEES: Birth Of An Accidental Hipster
From "Once Upon A Once-In-A-While: My 25 Favorite Monkees Tracks:"
No one saw this one coming. The surprise announcement that surviving Monkees Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, and Michael Nesmith--Davy Jones passed away in 2012--would mark the group's 50th anniversary in 2016 with a new Monkees album called Good Times! was unexpected enough, and word that Noel Gallagher of Oasis and Paul Weller of the Jam and Style Council had collaborated on a new composition for this new Monkees record bordered on the flabbergasting. But the result? Lord! "Birth Of An Accidental Hipster" builds a rainbow bridge from the best of the Monkees circa 1968 into this far-future world of the 21st century, a track that sounds simultaneously classic and contemporary. If it had magically appeared on The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees or the Head soundtrack in '68, it would have been the greatest cut on the former and the second-greatest on the latter. Yet it doesn't sound retro at all, at least not to my ears. Nesmith sings this with a force and conviction that almost sounds like he's still that young maverick of fifty years ago, just a bit more seasoned, certainly wiser, but resolutely unbowed. Dolenz chimes in vocally to make it a pop song. Together, they make it a masterpiece. Listeners of the ultracool satellite radio station Little Steven's Underground Garage voted "Birth Of An Accidental Hipster" as The Coolest Song In The World for 2016.
THE FOUR TOPS: Reach Out I'll Be There
An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. That's the premise of my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Here's an excerpt from one of its chapters:
The Four Tops are my favorite Motown act. My first awareness of the group was post-Motown, though, when their single "Are You Man Enough?" (from the film Shaft In Africa) tore up the airwaves on Syracuse's WOLF-AM in 1973. The first Motor City Four Tops track I encountered was probably "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)" on oldies radio in the '70s. My Four Tops fandom manifested itself, bit by bit, over the next few years. I cringed at Rod Stewart's smarmy cover of "Standing In The Shadows Of Love" in the late '70s. "It's The Same Old Song" became my top Tops. It had to move over to make room for "Baby I Need Your Loving," and for "Bernadette."
"Reach Out I'll Be There" tops 'em all.
"Reach Out" is no less melodramatic than "Standing In The Shadows Of Love" or "It's The Same Old Song" or "Seven Rooms Of Gloom." But its sense of heightened emotion is put to a higher purpose: not just lamenting lost love, but planting feet firmly, chin set, and reaching out to help a loved one make a stand when the chips are down. It's pure, it's inspirational, and it's spine-chillingly convincing and uplifting.
I'll be there
With a love that will shelter you
I'll be there
With a love that will see you through
Trouble? Man, trouble better not even try to mess with Levi Stubbs. Reach out. When you feel lost and about to give up/'Cause your best ain't good enough. He'll be there. No power on Earth can stop the Four Tops.
KID GULLIVER: Forget About Him
THE FLASHCUBES: Alone In My Room
From two previous editions of 10 Songs. First, from 1/13/2022:
Oh, those Flashcubes. I tell ya, they're up to something. We know they're working on a new archival release called Flashcubes On Fire, preserving an incendiary 1979 live show for eventual consumption by an eager power pop public. And they did two new tracks in 2021--covers of Pezband's "Baby It's Cold Outside" (recorded with Pezband's Mimi Betinis) and the Dwight Twilley Band's "Alone In My Room"--both of which made the countdown of TIRnRR's most-played tracks of the year. The former was released as a Big Stir Records digital single, while the latter was officially unreleased as of this week's show (with a digital single release now due Friday). Comments from [source redacted] indicate cause for anticipation regarding these Cubic rockin' pop covers, and the arrival this week of a third newly-recorded pop cover by the Flashcubes further ratchets the anticipation up and up and up. That newest cover will open next week's show. In the mean time, here's another spin of the Flashcubes' version of "Alone In My Room."
And keep an eye (and ear) on those Flashcubes. They're up to something, they are.
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And from 11/17/2023:
As noted, Syracuse's own power pop powerhouse the Flashcubes were a big, big part of my teenage rock 'n' roll crucible. My first Flashcubes show occurred just after my 18th birthday in January of 1978, a life-changing event that remains an everyday touchstone for me, and it's a large part of why TIRnRR exists in the first place.
All these years later, it's gratifying to know that some of the artists that fanned the flames of my crucible are still making music that matters. Many have passed, some have retired. We've seen that Micky Dolenz--the last surviving Monkee--has an essential new EP. And the Flashcubes' current album Pop Masters is my most cherished, most celebrated, most played new album of 2023. Fitting that the album itself is a tribute to the Flashcubes' own crucibles, irresistible covers of material previously recorded by acts that influenced the 'Cubes, from Pilot to Slade to Pezband to Sparks. The Flashcubes' Pop Masters cover of the late Dwight Twilley's "Alone In My Room" is a loving evocation of the palpable thrill of pop music itself. It gives me chills, even as the crucible itself keeps me warm. Bright lights, my friends. Bright lights need never dim.
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(And one additional note: You can be damned certain that our big Countdown show on January 7th will have ample representation of the Flashcubes and Pop Masters.)
TIR'N'RR ALLSTARS: Waterloo Sunset
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From my liner notes for Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:
No, scratch that. Even though we've only met a few of our listeners and supporters over these last twenty years [25 YEARS!!], they're not strangers; they're our friends. As humility-challenged as Dana and I remain, there's no way we could have lasted more than two decades if we couldn't get by with a little help from our friends.
Waterloo Sunset is the latest manifestation of that help. Steve Stoeckel had an idea: gather some of this show's talented friends to record a stirring cover of the Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset," with proceeds from its sale benefiting SPARK!, the perpetually cash-strapped Syracuse community radio station that is home to TIRnRR. Out went the call, to one and to all, and Steve assembled his TIR'N'RR Allstars: Steve Stoeckel, Bruce Gordon, Joel Tinnel, Stacy Carson, Eytan Mirsky, Teresa Cowles, Irene Peña, Dan Pavelich, Keith Klingensmith, and Rich Firestone. Within a fast-paced timeline, these pop heroes crossed over the river, and we are in paradise. Keith Klingensmith suggested an expanded plan, and their "Waterloo Sunset" benefit single became this benefit compilation album Waterloo Sunset. Ray Gianchetti saw the digital release on Futureman Records, and also wanted to help out by releasing a CD version on his Kool Kat Musik label.
Everyone who was asked to help did so. Before Dana and I even knew about any of this, the Allstars had secured tracks from the Click Beetles, Pop Co-Op, Irene Peña, Vegas With Randolph, the Anderson Council, the Grip Weeds, Michael Slawter, the Armoires, Eytan Mirsky, Gretchen's Wheel, and Pacific Soul Ltd. We're so pleased, so grateful, and dammit, I think we may even be humbled.
THE BAY CITY ROLLERS: Wouldn't You Like It
By the end of the Me Decade, former teen idols the Bay City Rollers were persona non grata to the buying public, an embarrassing relic of adolescence for those (mostly female) fans who'd outgrown their puppy-eyed crushes on this Tartan-clad combo. And most music lovers who identified as older, male, hipper, and/or more mature just despised the Rollers all along.
But not me. Once I learned to ignore that ludicrous "next Beatles" notion, I found that I liked some of the Rollers' records just fine, thanks. I was especially taken with "Rock And Roll Love Letter" and "Yesterday's Hero." When I became aware of the notion of power pop, I was delighted to learn that the writers of Bomp! magazine included the Bay City Rollers as at least a tangent to that discussion.
So some time later, when I was chilling with mi amiga pequeña Jane as she did her radio show, I bugged Jane to play "Wouldn't You Like It." Bugged. Begged. Pestered. Pleaded. No, Carl!, she insisted, I'm not playing the freakin' Bay City Rollers on my show! She finally relented just to shut me up. The song played...and, to her surprise, she liked it, and said so on the radio. Gotta give her credit for that. She went so far as to say that if the Rollers had just come along a couple of years later than they did, they would have been considered part of the new wave.
THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS: All For Swinging You Around
The Greatest Record Ever Made!
EYTAN MIRSKY: This Year's Gonna Be Our Year
ALSO The Greatest Record Ever Made! An infinite number, man. I even supplemented that claim for this one with a video discussed here.
THE 13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS: You're Gonna Miss Me
One more excerpt from The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):
We are the weird.
We are damaged, disturbed, inadequate, unprepared. We don't fit in, couldn't if we tried, wouldn't if we could. We wake up wondering, find ourselves all alone. We live in a time of our own.
The late Roky Erickson is often remembered as a casualty, a fragile fallen angel, a flawed Icarus who flew too close to a merciless psychedelic sun. He sang of walking with zombies, of working in the Kremlin for a two-headed dog. Against type, he sang a beautiful ballad called "Starry Eyes," suddenly (if briefly) becoming a post-lysergic Buddy Holly. He warned ominously of the danger of slandering him. His mortal form was caged, in correctional facilities and sanitariums. His mind roamed where only wild things go.
With his '60s combo the 13th Floor Elevators, Roky Erickson sang of fire in the bones, of taking us to the empty places in his fire engine, of Easter everywhere. He was damaged. And with the 13th Floor Elevators, he gave us an incredible, unforgettable rock 'n' roll classic called "You're Gonna Miss Me."
"You're Gonna Miss Me" is acid made punk, as hallucinatory as Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, as badass as...anything, ever. It's the embodiment of the rock-critic concept of 1960s garage-built psychedelia, while sounding not quite like any of its peers...
...Chills. Chills. Message delivered, at as high a volume as my poor little stereo could stand. Otherworldy, pissed-off guitar. Harmonica. A percolating hiccup sound that turned out to be an electrified jug, fercrynoutloud. And the wail of a tortured demon freed temporarily from the pit of perdition. Roky Erickson. Hell's newest hitmaker.
Over time, the presumed frailty of Roky Erickson's bruised psyche became the stuff of rock 'n' roll legend. Drug busts and mental issues were the headlines that obscured the music, all of it detailed in the 2005 Erickson documentary You're Gonna Miss Me. Erickson survived, somehow, gaining (one hopes) some level of stability before his death in 2019.
And still we wake up wondering, find ourselves all alone. We are the weird. Damaged, disturbed, inadequate, unprepared. Roky Erickson sang on our behalf.
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Carl's new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is now available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. Gabba Gabba YAY!! https://rarebirdlit.com/gabba-gabba-hey-a-conversation-with-the-ramones-by-carl-cafarelli/
If it's true that one book leads to another, my next book will be The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Stay tuned. Your turn is coming.
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, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.
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