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 # 1244.
This three-in-a-row half-set picked by Dana offers an appreciative tribute to a unique experience he witnessed a couple of weeks ago at the Grip Weeds' Syracuse show. Before the doors opened that night at The Lost Horizon, the mighty Grip Weeds treated Dana to an exclusive three-song unplugged set, performed on the nightclub's stoop.
The acoustic shindig commenced with a cover of the Byrds' "Lady Friend," a David Crosby song that the Grips Weeds also recorded for their superswell covers album DiG. The Grip Weeds' "Lady Friend" has become a TIRnRR Fave Rave, in both its official DiG version and a vocals-only mix on A Deeper DiG, a bonus disc included with the three-CD DiG Super Deluxe Edition.
Then it was time for a Grip Weeds original. "Strange Bird" is one of my many favorite Grip Weeds tracks, and the group allowed us to use an irresistible remix of the original single on our 2017 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4. Of the three songs the Grip Weeds performed on the stoop, "Strange Bird" was the only one reprised in their actual live set inside the Lost (dedicated to Dana and Carl!). They also said they're working on a brand-new recording of "Strange Bird," and we can't wait to hear it.
Finally, we have a spin of the Monkees' "For Pete's Sake." In this generation, in this lovin' time...! Along with "You Just May Be The One," "For Pete's Sake" is my pick for what should have been the double A-Side single off the Monkees' 1967 hey-hey-we're-a-real band album Headquarters, and the song is well-known as the closing theme from the second season of the Monkees' TV series. The Grip Weeds' version is on DiG, and it was also a single during the pandemic (under the title "For Pete's Sake [Stay At Home At Home!]").
So Dana played all three songs, the Grip Weeds themselves bookended by a couple of their inspirations. Go, you Grip Weeds. Go.
CYNDI LAUPER: I Drove All Night
This week, Dana again played Cyndi Lauper's epic "I Drove All Night," renewing my ongoing state of delighted thralldom when it comes to this track. From a previous edition of 10 Songs:
Is 1989's "I Drove All Night" my favorite Cyndi Lauper track? Yeah, I believe it is. And that's not faint praise; I think Cyndi's great, and I love her big smash hit records, including "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," and especially "Time After Time." I think the first time I heard the latter was when she appeared on The Tonight Show in 1984, delivering an electrifying performance of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and then topping it with a dramatic rendition of "Time After Time." Watching it on my little black and white TV, my jaw dropped. I was impressed, and I believe Johnny Carson also approved. Smart guy, that Carson. Robert Klein seemed to agree, too. Another smart guy!
Memory suggests The Tonight Show also introduced me to "I Drove All Night" a few years later. Hey, who needs radio when ya got Johnny Carson? Whether my first exposure or a reinforcement of established bias, Lauper's "I Drove All Night" knocked me out. Songwriters Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly originally crafted the song for Roy Orbison, and that intent is evident in the song's only-the-lonely DNA even if you've never heard Orbison's own splendid, posthumously-released version. Lauper owns it anyway; can't say that about many Orbison numbers performed by artists who weren't Roy razzafrazzin' Orbison.
In both the Lauper and Orbison performances, "I Drove All Night" just simmers with controlled desire, an earthly passion--burning up inside--accompanying a pristine love, impossible to resist, even if one were foolish enough to want to resist in the first place. Its consummation is sweet and well-earned.
Lauper's best track? Yes. Don't argue with the driver.
THE BAY CITY ROLLERS: Wouldn't It Be Nice
The Greatest Record Ever Made!
BADFINGER: Baby Blue
My all-time favorite individual track, the subject of the first Greatest Record Ever Made! I ever wrote, and--of course!--a part of my new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Guess that's all I have to say? Nah. The conversation continues.
sparkle*jets u.k.: Hey Grandma
We've established the fact that I regard the current sparkle*jets u.k. album Box Of Letters as one of this year's very best releases. Box Of Letters includes this great cover of Moby Grape's "Hey Grandma," featuring Special Guest Bat Villain Robbie Rist poundin' on them pagan skins (aka, drumming). We discovered Mr. Rist's involvement on this track when the members of sparkle*jets u.k. appeared on a recent episode of The Spoon podcast. Oddly enough, that's also when Robbie discovered his involvement on this track. See, the boy's forgotten more of his work than most other musicians accomplish to begin with. Great track, great album.
THE RUBINOOS: Rock And Roll Is Dead
About a week ago, I finally got to see my first-ever live performance by the Rubinoos, and it was the realization of a 47-year-old dream come true. One Saturday afternoon in (I think) the spring of 1977, I was in my room when my mom called to me: "Carl! I think KISS is on TV!"
But it was the Rubinoos, on American Bandstand, guitarist Tommy Dunbar all done up in mock rock regalia for the group's epic hard rock send-up "Rock And Roll Is Dead." Host Dick Clark joked about Tommy looking like one of the guys from KISS (hence Mom's confusion), but I recognized the Rubinoos. I was already a fan, and their Bandstand appearance was my first glimpse of them on television.
(I don't remember for sure, but I may have already been watching them on my bedroom TV when Mom called me to the living room. It seems to me I did see the Rubinoos lip-sync the first of their two American Bandstand songs--their hit cover of Tommy James and the Shondells' "I Think We're Alone Now"--and I then witnessed "Rock And Roll Is Dead" on the main family TV.)
Either way, "Rock And Roll Is Dead" sizzled. It still does, and it for damned sure sizzled in live performance last week. It belies its title. It lives. It breathes. It moves.
And it transcends.
Turn it DOWN...?! Nope. Ain't happening. Ain't happening at all.
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My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available for order; you can see details here. My 2023 book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is also still available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books.
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.
I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl
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