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 # 1339
THE SPONGETONES: (I Really) Need To Kiss You
Hey, goal-oriented pop music! Whenever the Spongetones release new music, This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio's operating protocol mandates that we play this new music immediately. Mission accomplished! "(I Really) Need To Kiss You" debuts this week, and osculates its way back for a second TIRnRR kiss this coming Sunday night. Pucker power is the power of the hour. Minty fresh!
BIG MAMA THORNTON: Hound Dog
From my 2024 book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):
Where and when did rock 'n' roll start? There are a few key artifacts to consider in seeking to ID the first rock 'n' roll record. "Rocket ‘88’ " by Jackie Brentson and his Delta Cats (1951, and really Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm) is the closest we have to a consensus choice. Some would point to "The Fat Man" by Fats Domino (1950). I would at least add Amos Milburn's "Down the Road Apiece" (1947) to the discussion, and no less an authority than Lenny and Squiggy (on TV's Laverne and Shirley) spoke on behalf of "Call the Police," a 1941 single Nat King Cole made with the King Cole Trio. There are other progenitors and trailblazers from across the heady mingling of jump blues, R & B, country, and swing that birthed this bastard child we call rock 'n' roll. What was the daddy of them all? Not even a blood test is going to make that determination.
"Hound Dog" is not the first rock 'n' roll record. But its original release does predate the Rock 'n' Roll Era. It was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller specifically for rhythm and blues singer Big Mama Thornton. Thornton's "Hound Dog" single topped the R & B chart in 1953. Fittingly, her performance of the song is as much a growl as it is anything else, a snarling dismissal of a worthless cur who can wag his tail, but she ain't gonna feed him no more.
THE NUMBERS: Deception
A previous edition of 10 Songs noted that "the Numbers were an early '80s combo whose lone album Anthology '64-'67 presented them as if they were a long-lost band from the '60s rather than Reagan-era garage pop kings besotted with the sounds that flourished a decade and a half before them. The LP's liner notes even claim that the Numbers passed on the opportunity to star as the Monkees, leaving the prospect of televised Monkeeshines for, y'know, the actual Monkees. All in good (clean) fun. Anyone who refers to this as a hoax isn't paying attention. It's not a hoax if the intended audience is fully aware of the put on."
The Numbers made a triumphant return to rockin' pop retail with the 2025 album Mad Day Out, and now they're back again with another new long-player, My Beautiful Distance, courtesy of our friends at the mighty Kool Kat Musik. And the Numbers don't lie, even as they're singing a radio-ready tune called "Deception." And it's likewise no lie when we say the Numbers' "Deception" spins again on our next show. We have Numbers on our side.
THE BEE GEES: I Can't See Nobody
In the late '70s, I was as anti-disco as anybody. The militance of my stance mellowed as I came to realize that so much of the knuckle-dragging Disco Sucks Army hated my preferred punk and power pop almost as much as they hated the rhythmic thumpety-thump of dat ole debbil disco. Screw 'em. I never developed any interest in the disco scene, but I absolutely liked the Trammps, Thelma Houston, and Donna Summer way more than I was willing to tolerate Southern rock, prog, and most then-contemporary so-called hard rock. Burn baby burn.
That said, I never developed any interest in the disco-era Bee Gees, and I still haven't. As a younger fan, I'd adored much of the Bee Gees' Beatles-influenced work in the '60s and very early '70s, from "New York Mining Disaster 1941" through "Lonely Days, Lonely Nights," but stopping cold when I heard and actively disliked "Jive Talkin'." I've also mellowed a little bit on some of that stuff ("Nights On Broadway"), but the polyester years will never be my go-to era of Bee Gees records.
The Bee Gees' '60s material? Loved it then, love it now. 1967's "I Can't See Nobody." is my favorite.
THE CYNZ: You Wreck Me
On their ace current album Confess, the Cynz deliver a quite able take on Tom Petty's "You Wreck Me." and it's one of the very few successful Petty covers I can call to mind. I do like Def Leppard's seemingly incongruous (but masterful) rendition of "American Girl," and if we're talkin' Petty tributes, we must also give proper Hell YEAHs! to Amy Rigby's sublime, sublime original song "Tom Petty Karaoke" (as heard on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 5). The Cynz are in pretty good select company.
Mentioned before, worth mentioning again: The Cynz are also in good company among a slew of musical acts mentioned in passing within the pages of my new book Guitars Vs. Rayguns!! Short Stories And Other White Lies. Our June 14th radio show will be devoted to the musicmakers of Guitars Vs. Rayguns!, and you can bet your last guitar AND your last raygun we'll be playing the Cynz.
BUT! Given the context in which the group is mentioned in the book, we can't play any of the covers the Cynz have recorded; we've gotta play a Cynz original. I know just the one to play. And it's SO lovely....
THE WHO: The Kids Are Alright
The Greatest Record Ever Made!
THE MONKEES: When Love Comes Knockin' (At You Door)
Like the Cynz, the Monkees are mentioned in Guitars Vs. Rayguns!! Short Stories And Other White Lies. In addition to a scene where the book's titular fictional rock 'n' roll group is rehearsing a cover of the Monkees' "(I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone)," another story later in the book lifts a plot device directly from The Monkees. As one of my characters admits, "I stole the idea from Michael Nesmith in the pilot episode of the Monkees' TV show."
So yeah: We'll hear the Monkees in TIRnRR's Guitars Vs. Rayguns!! special on June 14th, our June 7th show will have two tracks from the sessions that produced the Monkees' 2016 triumph Good Times!, and this week's program brings us Davy Jones singin' a Neil Sedaka-Carole Bayer song from 1967's More Of The Monkees. THIS is why people say we Monkee around.
Guilty as charged. And unrepentant. Hey, hey.
As we bid farewell to May 2026, we close this week's edition of our little shindig with a replay of the big finish from a club show that took place just over 47 years ago.
In May of 1979, Syracuse's own power pop powerhouse the Flashcubes were one of the best live rock 'n' roll bands on the whole friggin' planet. A 5/26/79 'Cubes gig at The Firebarn was captured on multitrack, preserving a document of this incendiary act at the zenith of their irresistible prowess. The show was eventually released to retail as the 2022 album Flashcubes On Fire. From my liner notes for Flashcubes On Fire:
"At its best, live music is alchemy in action, capable of transforming the air around us into pure gold. This mystic process is fueled by so many ingredients, both physical and phantasmic. Sweat. Love. Lust. Hate. Alcohol. Hunger. Ambition. Greed. Generosity. Divine inspiration. Betrayal. Heartbreak. Laughter. Tears. One pill that makes you larger, one pill that makes you small. Amplifiers, power chords, the beat of the bass and drums. Voices rising in anger or exultation. Taking a sad song and making it better. One for the money, two for the show. NOISE. Beautiful, transcendent noise. The sound of gold.
"In 1979, I was 19 years old. I reveled in this golden sound. My preferred alchemists were a fantastic rock 'n' roll group called the Flashcubes. My go-to goldmine was the Firebarn...
"...That's where you'd find the Flashcubes, bending air into gold. They were gonna be the biggest stars in the whole goddamned world. I knew it. If history contradicted me, I regret nothing. I wasn't wrong. The world was wrong...."
This week's TIRnRR bids farewell to May with the last three tracks from Flashcubes On Fire: One Cubic original (the anthemic punk raving of the late Paul Armstrong's "Got No Mind") and two covers (the Larry Williams [via the Beatles] classic "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" and Link Wray's invigmoratin' instrumental victory lap "Rawhide"). We prefaced the three-fer with an edited-for-FCC-compliance clip of the late Ducky Carlisle introducing our heroes:
One day, very soon from now, all you people are going to be able to say 'I saw this band before they were famous.' Here they are, the best fuckin' rock band in New York, THE FLASHCUBES!!
Bright lights, man. The brightest lights ever.
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I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. My new book of short stories Guitars Vs. Rayguns!! Short Stories And Other White Lies is due out soon; meanwhile, you can get an autographed copy of my previous book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) here, and you can still get my previous previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.
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. You can read about our history here.
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