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 # 1116.
THE FLASHCUBES FEATURING SHOES: Tomorrow Night
Yes, I already devoted the entirety of this week's playlist rant to the epic new power pop summit meeting between the Flashcubes and Shoes, performing a fresh rendition of the latter's late '70s gem "Tomorrow Night." It deserves MORE hype! This new "Tomorrow Night" opened Sunday night's show, and as the show ended and TIRnRR's Witching Hour encore broadcast began, wise 'n' wonderful TIRnRR listener Mike Browning commented, "I'm staying to hear the Flashcubes and Shoes again." Mike, you are a smart man. (And, of course, a talented recording artist your own self.)
The Flashcubes have been on a tear, with an archival 1979 live show being prepared for release, and a string of new recordings of power pop classics. The string began last year, with Cubic workouts of Pezband's "Baby It's Cold Outside" (recorded with Pezband's Mimi Betinis) and the Dwight Twilley Band's "Alone In My Room." The same string has continued into 2022, with the 'Cubes cover of the Posies' "Flavor Of The Month," and now this shiny collaboration with Shoes. We're told that more is on the way, including another power pop summit meeting with another legendary power pop combo. How can we wait? We will wait gladly, because it's gonna be worth the wait.
ALLAN KAPLON: Notes On A Napkin
My lovely wife Brenda keeps reminding me to stop selling myself short. This admonition may surprise those who hear or read my humility-challenged ranting and bravado. It applies anyway. I contain multitudes. Some of those multitudes have thinner skin than others.
There is an ongoing validation in the connection we make. When people express approval of whatever the hell it is that we do, when listeners respond to our efforts, when artists are delighted or grateful because we programmed one or more of their little ditties, it...well, it means the world to us. In a world of insults and disdain, it feels nice to matter.
I think we matter to singer-songwriter Allan Kaplon. Allan seems genuinely gratified when we play his music, but he also seems engaged and pleased when we can remind him of music by artists he already loves, and when we can introduce him (or sometimes re-introduce him) to artists he may come to love. Connection. Where would we be without connection?
That said, we have a radio show to put on. No matter how much we like Allan on a personal level, we wouldn't be able to play him on the show if we thought his work didn't meet our (admittedly mutant) standards. HA! No worries there! As a previous 10 Songs noted on its own napkin: "Some time back, our friend and listener Allan Kaplon sent us a track called 'Flesh And Blood,' recorded under the dba the Non Prophets. We dug it, and we played it on the radio. Now, Allen's recording under his own name, and his album Notes On A Napkin intrigues and delights. Jamie Hoover of the Spongetones produced six of the album's 11 tracks, Jamie's fellow Spongetone Steve Stoeckel pops up on one of those six, and Elena Rogers chips in some exquisite backing vocals. That Kaplon lad's pretty good, too."
The title tune from Notes From A Napkin has TIRnRR written all over it, with the guitars lending sheen to the weathered soul singing his pop songs like a match struck in the darkness. Glad to have you with us, Allan. And thanks for being there.
THE BANDWAGON: People Got To Be Free
One of the many, many tracks I considered deifying in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) was the Young Rascals' triumphant 1965 cover of the Olympics' "Good Lovin'." But I only managed to write one introductory paragraph before moving on to other songs:
"Little Steven says garage rock is 'white kids trying to play black rhythm and blues and failing--gloriously.' Fair enough. So what do we call it when a white group tries to play soul music, and succeeds? We could call that the Young Rascals."
Turnabout being fair play, here's an example of a soul group covering the Rascals. The Bandwagon, also billed later on as Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon and Johnny Johnson and his Bandwagon, were an American group in the late '60s and early '70s, but they never got much traction here in the good ol' U.S. of A. They enjoyed some success in England, and they recorded a ton of really great sides, from covers of Bob Dylan, the Monkees, and the Four Seasons to Bandwagon stalwarts like "Breakin' Down The Walls Of Heartache" (which is celebrated in my GREM! book) and the bubblesoul classic "(Blame It) On The Pony Express."
The Bandwagon's version of the Rascals' "People Got To Be Free" is part of the group's underappreciated brilliance. Is it even better than the Rascals' original? I'm gonna say it is.
THE AVENGERS: We Are The One
"We Are The One" is a fantastic slice of 1977 San Francisco punk, and it was also considered for inclusion in The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). It's not in the current plan, but this is what I started to write about the record:
"The Clash sang that anger could be power. Even before that line appeared in the Clash's London Calling album track 'Clampdown' in 1979, a San Francisco group called the Avengers was on stage at Winterland, opening for the Sex Pistols in that group's final appearance meltdown, and embodying the concept of cathartic fury. Anger. Power. Rock 'n' roll.
"I came to the Avengers' music well after the fact, and actually heard some of Avengers lead singer Penelope Houston's folkier solo work in the '90s--Houston's "Scratch" remains poised to strike at any shuffled moment on my iPod--long before I heard the anger and power of the Avengers. I think 'The American In Me' was my introduction, but 'We Are The One' is indeed The One. The Avengers recorded the song twice, both versions are aces, but I go with the earlier 45 version."
COKE BELDA: Renacerá
Oh, this is just fab. I don't think I'd even heard of the group Los Brincos until just over a week ago, but I'm informed they were Spain's answer to the Beatles in the swingin' '60s. Reliable rockin' pop guy Coke Belda has recorded new cover versions of a fistful of Los Brincos tunes for his own new album Coke Belda 6: A Tribute To Los Brincos. And it is indeed fab, muy fab. I've since sought out a few of the original versions, and I wish I'd heard them all years ago. But we can hear Coke Belda sing 'em right now. And you know that can't be bad!
CHEWY MARBLE: The Things You Do
The Flashcubes aren't the first group to cover a Shoes song. The earliest Shoes cover I recall at the moment was UK pop act Squire's 1984 rendition of "Boys Don't Lie"--it just so happens that we played Shoes' original version of that song on this week's show--and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some other band's effort at Shoesmania predates Squire's Shoes cover.
And in 2001, pop journalist and noted good guy John M. Borack was at the helm for an entire album of Shoes covers, the right swell Shoe Fetish: A Tribute To Shoes. This tribute album looms large in TIRnRR's legend for introducing us to the splendor of astroPuppees, but the damned thing's also loaded with compelling efforts by the Spongetones, Matthew Sweet, Lolas, DM3, and I'm gonna stop now before I wind up naming all of the album's contributors, because they're all good. If I had to guess, I'd say Chewy Marbles' ace take on "The Things You Do" (Dana's favorite Shoes song) has scored the most individual burn of Shoe Fetish tracks on TIRnRR playlists.
Now: we need a Flashcubes tribute CD!
IRENE PEÑA: In This Room
I don't remember when it was that we started referring to singer-songwriter Irene Peña as America's Sweetheart. We did call her a sweetie in this 2017 piece, which chronicled our path to discovering the sweet wonder of Irene's music. However the billing manifested, it's an ongoing testimony to the prevailing vibrance of the Irene Peña sound. "In This Room" is one of the eleven tracks on Irene's 2011 debut album Nothing To Do With You, each of which was issued as an individual digital single last year. Now we need a physical reissue of the entire album, right? Yeah! That would be sweet.
VERDELLE SMITH: Life Goes On
This week marks the second-ever appearance of '60s soul singer Verdelle Smith on TIRnRR, and her second-ever appearance in 10 Songs, both times with the obscure 1965 B-side "Life Goes On." SPOILER ALERT! We're playing it again next week; no word yet on if it'll make the next 10 Songs, too. But Lordy, this is such a great, great pop number. If it had been the hit it deserved to be, it would have been covered by everybody, from soul to jazz to country to pure show biz; it would have appeared in TV variety show performances by Raquel Welch and Barbara Eden, Sammy Davis Jr. would have belted it out on Jerry Lewis' Labor Day Telethon, and it woulda been seared into our collective pop consciousness alongside Stevie Wonder's "For Once In My Life" and Blood, Sweat & Tears' "Spinning Wheel."
And still: nothing would have eclipsed Verdelle Smith's smoking original. It should have been a hit. But...it wasn't. And life goes on.
THE BEATLES: Thank You, Girl
We played this as a birthday spin for our pal Sparky, but playing it was its own reward. 'Cuz it's The Greatest Record Ever Made!
CHRIS CHURCH: History
Here's another little peek at what's behind the curtain in our ongoing TIRnRR wizardry. As we continue to program and record the show from remote, Dana and I set the playlist via telephone conversation on Tuesday night, I gather the songs and record patter on Wednesday, and then Dana waggles his Philosopher's Stone to perform the alchemy that turns it all into radio gold. See? Wizardry!
Since we're not tracking or performing the show in real time, we're not certain how close (or how far over) we are to hitting our three-hour target. So we come up with a batch of eight bonus tracks, four each, that we can slot in together as a bonus set if it fits. Sometimes all eight fit, or sometimes just six, and those eight or six songs form our next-to-last set of the week. Sometimes we have to skip the bonus set; on those occasions, we may shuffle a few of those songs into an extended closing set, or (on weeks where we have too many four-minute songs) we may cut them out entirely.
"Pillar To Post," a track from Chris Church's recent Big Stir Records release Darling Please, was among my bonus tracks this week. Great song, of course, and we like to play Big Stir stuff anyway. But we didn't have room for it, so it was cut alongside other worthies by Neil Diamond, Wendi Dunlap, Herman's Hermits, the Kinks, Fats Domino, International Submarine Band, and more.
This leads to the jigsaw portion of show prep. I sift through options to see if there are shorter songs that might work in place of longer ones. At 3:29, Chris Church's "Pillar To Post" isn't all that long, but switching to the 2:42 track "History" from the same album gave us an eensy bit more elbow room to manipulate those pesky jigsaw pieces. Within a flurry of similar pruning and swapping, the bonus set was saved and Chris Church made it back on the playlist, albeit with a different song than the one I intended.
It's a cool tune, too. The happenstance of wizardry and alchemy put it on the radio. However it got there, we're glad it did.
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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
