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 collects previously-posted entries about each of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio's 10 most-played tracks in 2021, as revealed on our countdown show 12/26/2021.
1. KELLEY RYAN: The Church Of Laundry
1/26/2021: This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio has been happily aboard the Kelley Ryan bandwagon since 2001, when Kelley (then recording under the boppin' dba astroPuppees) placed a track on Shoe Fetish, a fabulous tribute to the pop group Shoes. We began to correspond with Kelley, and astroPuppees' first TIRnRR spin was from Shoe Fetish, a cover of Shoes' "The Tube." Soon thereafter, we started playing a song called "Don't Be" (from astroPuppees' 1996 album You Win The Bride), which I recalled hearing in the 1997 TV movie Friends 'Til The End. Friends 'Til The End was a movie I originally wanted to see because our pals Cockeyed Ghost made a don't-BLINK! cameo appearance. And in the film, actress Shannen Doherty lip-syncs to a made-for-TV cover of astroPuppees' "Don't Be."
We've gone on to play many, many more astroPuppees and Kelley Ryan tracks many, many times over the course of these last two decades. We're pleased to continue playing Kelley's music, and we're delighted to serve up her new single "The Church Of Laundry" on this week's show. We're friends 'til the end.
2. KID GULLIVER: Forget About Him
11/17/2020: Red On Red Records is a new label operated by the divine Justine Covault, who is already known to the TIRnRR faithful as CRO (Chief Rockin' Officer) of the mighty Justine and the Unclean. And Red On Red fittingly sets our meters into the crimson zone with its first two single releases, "Half Life" by the Neighborhoods and "Forget About Him" by Kid Gulliver. "Half Life" was one of two tracks crowded out of this week's jam-packed show (and we hope the Neighborhoods will take comfort in sharing that distinction with "For Your Love" by the Yardbirds), but "Forget About Him" opened the broadcast with transcendent aplomb. We've already played Kid Gulliver's "I Wanna Be A Pop Star" a couple of times this year, and Kid Gulliver's Simone Berk also sings lead on WhistleStop Rock's TIRnRR Fave Rave "Queen Of The Drive-In." See? Simone Berk's established a proven record of quality tunemakin' for this little mutant radio show!
"Forget About Him" is even better. Justine Covault describes it with authority: Only one of the best power pop songs ever written, about the cad you need to lose. Awright, I'm sold. Here's to Simone. Here's to Justine. Here's to Kid Gulliver, and here's to Red On Red Records.
2/16/2021: We've been playing Kid Gulliver's current single "Beauty School Dropout" these past couple of weeks, but Valentine's Day made us feel like reaching back into Kid Gulliver's treasure trove o' hits. So we played an oldie. Some of you older people might remember it. It's from last year, and it's called "Forget About Him." Like Ian Hunter's "All Of The Good Ones Are Taken," "Forget About Him" is another anti-Valentine, this one told from the perspective of a concerned and compassionate friend and observer. Honey. You can do better than that loser, believe me.
3/23/2021: A spin of Kid Gulliver's fabulous "Forget About Him" on this week's show marks the 19th consecutive TIRnRR to include at least one track with a lead vocal by Simone Berk. It's not a TIRnRR record or anything--one presumes Ray Davies, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Joey Ramone could edge it--but it is evidence of our ongoing Berkmania. Simone made her TIRnRR debut on July 5th of 2020, fronting WhistleStop Rock's "Queen Of The Drive-In." We played that and a bit of Kid Gulliver over the course of subsequent weeks. But it was Kid Gulliver's "Forget About Him" that kicked off this current streak on November 15th, a Berk barrage also maintained by Kid Gulliver's recent single "Beauty School Dropout," WhistleStop Rock, Sugar Snow, and Berek/Lehane. "Forget About Him" is our favorite. Berkmania! Let's make it 20 in a row next week.
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| Carl's back! |
3. DOLPH CHANEY: My Good Twin
2/16/2021: Dolph Chaney's ultraswell new album This Is Dolph Chaney is out this week, courtesy of the good folks at Big Stir Records, and of course you need to own it if you have any hope of ever being one of the cool kids. As an added bonus: you'll like it! The album's first single is "Now I Am A Man," and it's a worthy candidate for saturation airplay. But my favorite is "My Good Twin," so we're gonna carpetbomb the ol' playlist with that one instead. We're all winners in that situation.
3/2/2021: We've discussed this before, but it bears repeating: This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl is built upon the stubborn, unshakeable delusion that it's an AM Top 40 radio show. We think we're Casey Kasem, Alan Freed, Cousin Brucie, Murray the K, and Syracuse legends Don Bombard and Dandy Dan Leonard all rolled together into a single three-hour spin-a-rama. The concept is mutated by the fiction conviction that the Ramones were as big as the Beatles, that it's ALL pop music. We play the hits. The real world may not recognize them all as hits. Which just means that the real world is wrong once again.
"My Good Twin" comes from Dolph Chaney's current album This Is Dolph Chaney. It has not been released as a single off that album, but it is indeed a hit single, in act if not in fact. We play the hits. We play Dolph Chaney. We know a hit when we hear one.
3/16/2021: East Coast kids like your intrepid Dana & Carl did not grow up listening to Rodney Bingenheimer on the radio. Nonetheless, I did know of Rodney via his column in Phonograph Record Magazine, which I absorbed with vigor when I was a 17-year-old high-school senior in 1977. I became aware of the importance of his weekly SoCal broadcast Rodney On The ROQ some time thereafter. To this day, I have never actually heard it; it currently airs on Sirius/XM's Underground Garage channel on Sunday nights, directly opposite This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. I acknowledge the fact that, whatever it is we do on our own little mutant radio show, Rodney was pursuing a similar rockin' pop format before we got around to doing it. TIRnRR predates Underground Garage, and its host Little Steven owes us a beer or two; Rodney On The ROQ predates us all. That said, we're kinda jazzed to realize that no less then four recent tracks that debuted on Rodney's show this week are tracks we've already been playing on TIRnRR: the Shang Hi Los' "Sway Little Player," the Gold Needles' "Billy Liar" and their cover of the Hollies' "Have You Ever Loved Somebody," and Dolph Chaney's "My Good Twin."
We're doing something right!
Yeah, first time for everything. Alert the media. We may have been the first show to recognize that "My Good Twin" is a natural-born radio hit. We're not the last. And Rodney Bingenheimer likewise knows a hit when he hears one.
4. THE LEGAL MATTERS: Light Up The Sky
2/23/2021: This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio's long 'n' harmonious history with the Legal Matters was detailed here, as part of the expanded supplemental liner notes to our 2017 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4. So! Word of a brand-new Legal Matters album perked up our ears and mandated a playlist spot for its advance single, "Light Up The Sky." The album, Chapter Three, is due from Futureman Records on April 30th, and it is a compulsory purchase for any breathing fan of rockin' pop music. Don't argue. Do what radio tells you to do.
5. HAYLEY AND THE CRUSHERS: Jacaranda
2/9/2021: Aw man, this pumps! A couple of weeks ago, I don't think I'd even heard of Hayley and the Crushers, a California trio that describes itself as "poolside glittertrash," "one part punk-pop, one part sunny surf," and "a tsunami of bold, bad girl fun." See, I love it when the hype looks like something I would have written. Now, I wanna start a lucrative new religion based on their peppy single "Jacaranda." It also makes me want a rum and Coke, but really, what doesn't? "Jacaranda" comes from Haley and the Crushers' forthcoming Rum Bar Records release Fun Sized, and I'm eagerly awaiting the sacrament of MORE!
8/10/2021: Another one of 2021's best tracks. You know how some great songs invade your consciousness at random moments? Hayley and the Crushers' "Jacaranda" (from their current release Fun Sized on Rum Bar Records) doesn't need to invade my consciousness; it's already there! Always! The jacarandas are blooming! Fantastic, fantastic track, conjuring both the allure of ditching small-town doldrums for merrymakin' fun in the tropical sun and the dull frustration of being stuck firmly in place, with not a jacaranda in sight. Screw the small town.
8/17/2021: An ongoing illustration of TIRnRR's symbiotic benevolence is that sometimes either Dana or I will obsess with playing a specific song, and then the other one of us starts playing it, too. It's happened many, many times over the course of--gulp--1090 shows and counting; I credit Dana with getting me hooked on Mannix, Anny Celsi, the Stallions, Mary Lou Lord, and many more. This week's playlist includes two examples of Dana running with a song that I'd been playing a lot. "Jacaranda" by Hayley and the Crushers is one of the two, and it remains a righteous blast of YEAH! on the radio, regardless of which one of us put it there.
6. LESLIE ODOM, JR.: Good Times
2/9/2021: If the account [in this video] portrays my teen self as a smug know-it-all, well...yeah. I really wish I'd grown out of that at some point. But I was never the only one of my peers who understood and appreciated pop music's larger picture. One such peer was a guy named Les Odom, whom I've previously mentioned in some detail here. Brenda and I were casual friends with Les and his girlfriend Yvette, and nowadays we're fans of their son, actor and singer Leslie Odom, Jr. Leslie the Younger (best known for playing Aaron Burr in the original Broadway cast of Hamilton) plays Sam Cooke in One Night In Miami, and he's just riveting in the role. Watching him play Cooke conjured a random memory from more than forty years ago, when his dad and I had a brief discussion about Sam Cooke. It was a kick to remember that while watching the film, watching Les and Yvette's son bring this legendary singer back to life. Good times.
4/27/2021: Since this year's Oscar telecast happened to fall on a Sunday night--y'know, like always--we used that as an excuse to open our counterprograming exercise with a set of songs from movies. I love movies, but I'm not a movie buff, and I rarely get around to seeing many (sometimes any) of a given year's Oscar nominees. This is observation, not criticism nor confession. As always: dig what you dig.
I did see One Night In Miami..., a fascinating film about a true-life evening in 1964 when Sam Cooke, Malcolm X, Jim Brown, and Muhammed Ali (then still called Cassius Clay) got together. We don't know what they did or discussed that night, so the movie itself is fiction, but it's compelling fiction. And it scored a few Oscar nominations, including a Best Supporting Actor nod for Leslie Odom, Jr., who plays Cooke to mesmerizing effect.
This week's TIRnRR kicked off with Odom as Cooke, covering Cooke's "Good Times," becoming Sam Cooke in a way that transcends mimicry. Magic. And an Oscar nomination well, well deserved.
7. EYTAN MIRSKY: This Year's Gonna Be Our Year
7/9/2020: How did singer, songwriter, and dashing man about town Eytan Mirsky first learn about This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl? Damned if I remember. But somehow he did hear about us, thought we might be interested in playing his stuff on the radio, and then sent us a copy of his second album, 1999's Get Ready For Eytan! We've been playing him ever since.
We've had a number of Eytan favorites over the years, but there is something just remarkable and special about "This Year's Gonna Be Our Year," a track from Eytan's 2012 album Year Of The Mouse. Like Big Star's "The Ballad Of El Goodo" and the Zombies' "This Will Be Our Year," even the Beatles' "Getting Better," it evokes an optimism that may not have any discernible grounding in the real world, but which still feels palpable and immediate. Eytan's song is considerably less starry-eyed than these other worthies, but its determined sense of one-foot-forward, what-the-hell ultimately makes it more plausible. The song knows we're gonna get kicked in the teeth again, that our individual Lucys are gonna pull the freakin' football away from us gullible Charlie Browns again, that the house has the deck stacked against us again and again and again...and it knows we're gonna keep hitting back for as long as our fists can form. Maybe this year? Well...why the hell not?
As a true zealot, I keep mentioning my concept of The Greatest Record Ever Made! An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. When I first began to seriously contemplate trying to turn this concept into a book, I knew a chapter on Eytan Mirsky's "This Year's Gonna Be Our Year" had to be in the book, and that it had to be employed in climactic fashion, something almost like a closing argument. In my eyes, the book would not make sense without that chapter near the end.
My book has been stuck in development, and COVID-19 has not helped its status. But I still believe in the project, and Eytan Mirsky's song is still at its core. This year? Next year? I'll have my year yet. One foot forward. What the hell.
12/16/2021: It's not ironic. It's not snarky or self-deprecating, it's not too-cool-for-school, nor any other nonsense that could detract from the purity of its message. Eytan Mirsky's "This Year's Gonna Be Our Year" is the audio equivalent of getting up in the morning, grabbing our coffee, and facing the day. Frequently, the day--the year--is gonna kick the livin' chicklets out of us. But we keep going. And we say to ourselves, "This year." We believe it in spite of all evidence to the contrary, and someday it may even be true. The year is what happens while we're busy making other plans. My Mom was proud of me. I intend to keep right on trying to justify that pride, in my own mind, year after year. Testify, Brother Eytan. Testify.
8. ARETHA FRANKLIN: Save Me
4/13/2021: Any record you ain't heard is a new record.
The recent National Geographic TV biopic mini-series Genius: Aretha Franklin introduced me to a 1967 Aretha album track called "Save Me." We all know the Queen of Soul's classic singles, but I don't really know many (if any) of her non-single LP cuts. Hearing the TV soundtrack cover of "Saved" compelled me to seek out and purchase Aretha's original. See, television's job is to sell records.
And it's a fantastic track. The riff is "Gloria." The horn part shares DNA with "Tell Mama" by Etta James. But it's Aretha becoming Aretha. The TV version's lyrical references to superheroes Superman, Batman, the Green Hornet, and Black Panther also caught my attention, though I figured the latter reference was an anachronism; Black Panther had been introduced as a supporting character in the Fantastic Four comic book in 1966, and wasn't likely to have been known by anyone except Marvel Comics devotees when "Save Me" was recorded in '67. (The actual lyric in "Save Me" refers to the Caped Crusader, the Green Hornet and Kato, each of whom was also a TV star in the '60s.)
"Save Me" is on I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You, Aretha Franklin's first album for Atlantic Records, following a disappointing stint with Columbia. And the above reference to "Aretha becoming Aretha" is not made lightly; where Columbia didn't seem to know what to do with the natural force of Aretha Franklin, she came into her own at Atlantic. Aretha becoming Aretha. Save me. The city is safe.
6/15/2021: Why does this lesser-known Aretha Franklin LP track from 1967 appear to be set on a collision course with our year-end countdown? Playlists are built on whatever groove we hear in our heads, regardless of whether or not anyone else can hear it as easily. "Save Me"'s mix of a "Gloria" riff with a casual lyrical reference to "the Caped Crusader, Green Hornet and Kato, too" establishes a groove that compels me to play it. Aretha's will. I am as Aretha made me.
9. THE COASTERS: Yakety Yak
1/19/2021: Is "Yakety Yak" by the Coasters the single best-ever song about the generation gap? Yes. Unequivocally. You can argue on behalf of the Who's "My Generation," but that track falls short of The Coasters' wiseass pinnacle. Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" is a very close second, but even You can't use the car 'cause you didn't work a lick can't quite match Tell your hoodlum friends outside you ain't got time to take no ride. "Yakety Yak." Don't talk back.
(And, in a minor bit of pop culture serendipity, this week's playlist was settled and the show recorded prior to the Friday premiere of the new Marvel Comics TV show WandaVision on Disney+. The first episode of WandaVision makes specific and effective use of "Yakety Yak," and if we were doing live shows instead of prerecorded remote shows, the song's appearance on WandaVision would have probably influenced me to include it on our show, too. Happy coincidence.)
10. THE LINDA LINDAS: Claudia Kishi
5/11/2021: Our appearance on The Spoon was mostly a talk show, a back-and-forth exchange fueled by giddy enthusiasm and (in my case) a cup of hot cocoa. But in addition to two examples of The Greatest Record You've Never Heard (tracks by the Flashcubes and Eytan Mirsky), the show opened and closed with songs also picked by us: an excerpt of the Bay City Rollers' "Wouldn't You Like It" at the top, and a complete spin of the Linda Lindas' "Claudia Kishi" at the sign-off spot. Whatta song! The Linda Lindas are a quartet of teen (and even preteen) musicmakers channeling the Muffs to engagingly lethal effect. Plus, they named their band after a song by Japan's Phenomenal Pop Combo the Blue Hearts! Acts that channel the Muffs and rip their noms du bop from the inspiration served up by other cool bands score automatic points on the TIRnRR WOW! scale. The Linda Lindas are a natural fit for whatever the hell it is we do.
(And, although my daughter Meghan was an avid fan of The Baby-Sitters Club books when she was younger, I did not recall that one of the series' main characters was named Claudia Kishi. So, add a literary reference to the many reasons why TIRnRR has just gotta play the Linda Lindas.)
BONUS TRACK!
11. THE FLASHCUBES WITH MIMI BETINIS: Baby It's Cold Outside
7/23/2021: We've been dyin' to tell folks about this for a while, and now the story's out: Syracuse's phenomenal pop combo the Flashcubes have recorded a brand-new single, covering Pezband's '70s power pop classic "Baby It's Cold Outside." And, like all true pop fans, the 'Cubes get by with a little help from their friends. In this case, the friend is Pezband's own Mimi Betinis, who wrote and originally recorded the song for his group's 1977 debut LP.
The Pezcubes! The Flashband! The Flashpez Cubesband, and the Pezflash Bandcubes! This new version of "Baby It's Cold Outside" kicks, serving further proof that our janglebuzz heroes can still detonate a jukebox with the best of them. The single is out July 30th, courtesy of the visionaries at Big Star Records, and available to preorder RIGHT NOW. Go! Don't be left out in the cold on this one, baby.
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| More music from the Flashcubes in 2021--stay tuned! |
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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.
The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:
Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio: CD or download
I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl.
