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 (mostly) previously-posted entries about each of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio's 10 most-played tracks in 2022, as heard on our countdown show This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1162. The countdown show is available as a podcast.
1. THE SMITHEREENS: Face The World With Pride
10/27/2022: Some years back, a fan familiar with This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio commented that Little Steven at the very least owes us a beer. The format of Little Steven's Underground Garage (both the syndicated show itself and the fab satellite radio channel that followed) is similar to TIRnRR's approach, and if I understand the math, our December 1998 debut predates the April 2002 launch of the original Underground Garage by...I can't count that high. But, like, by more than a few weeks. Or months. Or years.
Which is not to suggest that Little Steven stole the idea from us. That's possible, in the same sense that it's possible the Beatles could have reunited to play at CBGB's in 1977, but it's not terribly plausible. We weren't all that well-known, and there were other great shows who came even before us anyway, mixing old and new rock 'n' roll and pop music much like Dana and I and Little Steven and company do, and we didn't copy them either. Great ideas aren't always unique. They're still great ideas, and we're all lucky to have so many resources available to us if we wanna hear the Ramones, the Supremes, and the Shang Hi Los on the same radio show.
That said, we're tickled by the notion that the Bablers' wonderful single "You Are The One For Me" was last week's honoree as The Underground Garage's Coolest Song In The World. We love the song, and we've been playing it quite a bit since its release at the end of April. The track is an absolute lock for the year-end countdown of our most-played tracks in 2022, and we're glad Underground Garage agrees with us: Coolest song in the world!
5/12/2022: Rockin' pop resumé! Perilous includes our pals Paul Dougherty of the Trend and Bob Cat Rawks of Hurtin' Units, plus Pauline Digati from early '80s Buffalo stalwarts Pauline and the Perils and Renee Rettie from Screaming Meemies. Their debut single "Rock & Roll Kiss" honors and expands their collective legacy, and makes us wanna dance to rock 'n' roll radio played at really loud volume. We know just the radio show to do that.
10/27/2022: Man, this is such an exhilarating track, and we're lucky to have it on our new compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 5. The force of rockin' pop nature called Perilous combines the lead vocals from Pauline and the Perils with the guitar from Hurtin' Units, the bass from Screaming Meemies, and the pummelin' drums from Syracuse sensations the Trend, and makes 'em all even louder and catchier. Sing, you Perilous peeps. Sing.
Hey, TIRnRR's # 1 most-played track in 2021, and now also a proud part of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 5.
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.
Given our oft-stated endorsement of his masterpiece "This Year's Gonna Be Our Year" as The Greatest Record Ever Made!, Eytan Mirsky wasn't surprised that song once again made our countdown (# 43). But he didn't expect the fab "Watching From The Balcony" (from his 2022 album Lord, Have Mirsky!) to also make the countdown, let alone make our Top 10. See, saturation airplay can sneak up on ya.
3/10/2022: We opened last week's show with a track from Brother Eytan Mirsky's debut album, 1996's Songs About Girls (And Other Painful Subjects), in memory of drummer Chris Garges. This week, we open with Eytan for a happier reason: the release of his brand-new album Lord, Have Mirsky! Eytan's eighth album is another straight-up winner, and its closing track "Watching The Balcony" secures a berth on this week's playlist, and again on next week's playlist. I betcha we'll play more of its tracks in the coming weeks, too.
And we're thrilled that the lads (and marketing overlord lass Laura Sessions Tinnel) chose TIRnRR as the platform to announce their forthcoming new album Suspension. We've heard it, and YOU, my friend, are gonna love it. We selected "I Just Love To Watch Her Dance" as the on-air introduction to our belief in Suspension, and we'll premiere three more tracks over the next three weeks. We'll have details on ordering the album as soon as we can, and you'll have that grand opportunity to further immerse yourself in the magic of these guys and their music.
Their music? Our music? Listen: Pop Co-Op should be your music, too. Pride is infectious. Investment is fulfilling. Your mileage may not vary. Check your Suspension.
5/26/2022: And, as duly appointed DJs, we know a friggin' hit record when we hear a friggin' hit record. It's our super power. And we've known about this particular hit, a dynamic summit meeting between power pop legends the Flashcubes and, y'know, power pop legends the Spongetones, for quite some time. We hadn't heard it, mind you, and we weren't told which Spongetones classic these combined forces would be remaking. But we guessed correctly--see above comments re: DJs, know what we're doing--and have been dying to hear it.
And PLAY IT!
A lot of radio shows jumped on "Have You Ever Been Torn Apart?" as soon as it was available, from The Rodney Bingenheimer Show on SiriusXM to Mike Murray's Whole Lotta Shakin' in Rochester, Michael McCartney's The Time Machine in Maui (the latter with Rich Firestone, host of Radio Deer Camp right here on TIRnRR's home SPARK!), and an apparent zillion others. Awright! A lot of DJs seem to know what they're doing right now. We are legion! We are LOUD! And we for damned sure know a hit when we hear it.
(Oh, and bonus kudos to the Flashcubes and Spongetones themselves for the neat little opening Beatles homage that kicks the track directly into its frenzied Fabmania flight path. See, one gets to pop music by turning left at Greenland, after all.)
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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.
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