THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE: He'd Be A Diamond

Adapted from a couple of  earlier pieces, I prepped this as a chapter for my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). It's not in the book's current blueprint; I've tweaked it a bit here, and I may return to it at some future point.

An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!

THE BEVIS FROND: He'd Be A Diamond
Written by Nick Saloman
Produced by Nick Saloman
From the album New River Head, Woronzow Records [UK], 1991

What a truly awful feeling: that sick, twisted ache inside when we realize we've messed things up beyond any possible hope of redemption.

And we know every last miserable bit of it is our own stupid fault.

I discovered the music of British singer, musician, and songwriter Nick Saloman (dba the Bevis Frond) through the Dana half of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. The Bevis Frond did a benefit for our overlords Syracuse Community Radio in the '90s, and the Frond's been a perennial TIRnRR pick over the two decades and change of whatever the hell it is we do. 

"He'd Be A Diamond" is the most powerful post-breakup song I know. Its heartbroken storyline is devastating, delivered casually in the third person, but no less harrowing, no less desperate, no less striking in its depiction of a faithless ex-lover who has seen the error of his ways far too late to make one damned bit of difference.

As an observer of the human condition, Saloman writes and sings with wry, weary understanding of this guy we all know (and have occasionally been), the schmuck who fell from grace because he screwed up, screwed around, or otherwise just thwarted his own best interests in scorched-earth fashion. No woman in her right mind would take that guy back again.

And yet still he pleads, and he swears by all the saints, that if he had his chance again, he'd be a diamond. You wanna feel sorry for him...but he has no one to blame except his own chuckleheaded self.

When you turn your back
You still see what's behind you
And when you start afresh
You still think of days gone by
And when a heart is broken
It still goes on pumping
And he told me just last night
That if he had his chance again
He'd be a diamond

The lyrics. Y'know, I'm primarily a melody guy, a song and dance man, slave to the rhythm and the feel and the hook. I generally sing along with snappy tunes as if all lyrics were la la la showaddywaddy shamalama ping pong. But these lyrics? I wish to God I had written them. I can't imagine a more eloquent expression of longing and regret. A diamond indeed.

But diamond or not: it's too late.

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Carl's new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is now available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. Gabba Gabba YAY!! https://rarebirdlit.com/gabba-gabba-hey-a-conversation-with-the-ramones-by-carl-cafarelli/

If it's true that one book leads to another, my next book will be The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Stay tuned. Your turn is coming.

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

10 SONGS: 7/9/2021

10 Songs is a weekly list of ten songs that happen to be on my mind at the moment. Given my intention to usually write these on Mondays, the lists are often dominated by songs played on the previous 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.

For this week's epic July 4th blowout, we presented a countdown of TIRnRR's 55 all-time most played artists, with each artist's all-time # 1 most-played track. Thanks again to the mighty Fritz Van Leaven for programming the countdown. And in the spirit of the countdown, we'll have three editions of 10 Songs this week, celebrating our 30 most-played acts with their most-played songs. As befits a greatest-hits revue, most of the individual song entries have been seen before on this blog, with maybe a couple of previously-unreleased selections as needed.

You can read the first and second parts of this trilogy here and here respectively. This third and final of this week's three celebratory 10 Songs presents TIRnRR's 10 all-time most-played artists.

10. THE BEACH BOYS: Don't Worry Baby

When I was a teenager, I never would have predicted that the Beach Boys could ever become one of my favorite bands. Although I liked some of their '60s hits even then--"Good Vibrations," "Help Me Rhonda," "I Get Around," "Fun, Fun, Fun"--I could not or would not reconcile my perception of them as dorky and uncool with my own pursuit of hip. Although I would never actually be hip at any point in my life--let's not get crazy--I also couldn't accept the preposterous idea of the Beach Boys being anything other than fully four-cornered. Go be true to your own school, ya hopeless squares!

I was wrong. Totally, totally wrong. I learned in time. I got Endless Summer when I was still in high school. I got Pet Sounds in college, drawn in by "Sloop John B." If my embrace of punk and power pop--that's power pop, dig?--made me reluctant to accept the Beach Boys, I was also aware of their influence on my beloved Ramones. The owner of Main Street Records in my college town of Brockport vowed that he would make a Beach Boys fans out of me, just as I have said that I remain intent on making TIRnRR listeners into Flashcubes fans. That is one of the most consistently rewarding experiences we can have with the music we love: our ability to share that music with our friends.

Friends. 20/20. Smiley Smile. Wild Honey. I built my Beach Boys library in brief bursts of expanded interest, not quite there yet, but surfing in the right direction. In the late '80s, a library loan of the two-fer The Beach Boys Today!/Summer Days (And Summer Nights!) CD got through to me in a big way, and I went about scarfing up all of those Capitol Records two-fer reissues. When Pet Sounds came out on CD, I finally, belatedly realized its greatness. Many years later, I had an opportunity to witness Brian Wilson and his band perform Pet Sounds live.

In December of 1998, on the very first edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Dana played "Don't Worry Baby," and I followed it with "'Til I Die" from Surf's Up. I was about three weeks shy of my 39th birthday. My teen self wouldn't have recognized me. The Beatles. the Beach Boys. The Ramones and the Flashcubes, the Monkees and the Kinks and the Who, and more. The Bevis Frond. Big Star. Eytan Mirsky. So much music out there, so much to discover and embrace, from Stax to Not Lame, Motown, Futureman, Rhino, all around the world, all over the place. The countdown continues. The beat goes on. 

Surf's up.

9. THE BEVIS FROND: Lights Are Changing

The Bevis Frond's "He'd Be A Diamond" is simply one of the sharpest, most affecting post-breakup chronicles you will ever find in a pop song. As an observer of the human condition, Nick Saloman (the Bevis himself) writes and sings with wry, weary understanding of this guy we all know (and have occasionally been), the schmuck who fell from grace because he screwed up, screwed around, or otherwise just thwarted his own best interests in scorched-earth fashion. No woman in her right mind would take that guy back again.

Dream on, schmuck--it ain't happening.

And yet still he pleads, and he swears by all the saints, that if he had his chance again, he'd be a diamond. You wanna feel sorry for him...but it was his own damned fault.

For all that, though, "He'd Be A Diamond" is not our most-played Bevis track. We've been playing the Bevis Frond since our very first show, with a spin of "Now You Know" on 12/27/98, TIRnRR Numero Uno. That first show also included Mary Lou Lord's rendition of Saloman's "Lights Are Changing," and the Bevis Frond's original version of that song would go on to be our top spin among Bevis recordings. See, so many diamonds to choose from.

8. THE WHO: I Can't Explain

The Who's Pete Townshend coined the phrase "power pop" in an interview in 1967, and Bomp!'s '78 power pop issue certainly regarded the Who as the definitive power pop band. During the early '70s, my primary exposure to the Who was via Tommy and Meaty Beaty Big & Bouncy, the former getting AM radio airplay with "Pinball Wizard" and "See Me Feel Me," the latter an LP that my sister owned. I'm sure I heard at least the truncated single version of "Won't Get Fooled Again" from Who's Next, and the (to me) less interesting "Squeeze Box" a little later. I liked some of it, but I could not have been described as an active resident of Whoville. Hell, in 1975, I preferred Elton John's "Pinball Wizard" to the Who's, and I was mystified by the fact that some of my peers liked the Who (or worse, Led Zeppelin!) more than they liked the Beatles. 

My opinion of the Who changed instantly when I saw a video presentation called Rock Of The '60s put on at Syracuse University in 1977. A clip of the Who performing "I Can't Explain" on Shindig! just caused something to click in my brain. I told my companion for the evening that I had never respected or understood the Who before, but that now, now, I got it. I'm sure she was happy for me. I went home and started listening more attentively to my sister's copy of Meaty Beaty Big & Bouncy, to "I Can See For Miles," "My Generation," "The Kids Are Alright," and "I Can't Explain." Power pop. I didn't know the term yet. But I was about to learn. 

7. EYTAN MIRSKY: This Year's Gonna Be Our Year

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 songs 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? The year after that? I'll have my year yet. One foot forward. What the hell.

6. BIG STAR: September Gurls

I had never heard of Big Star prior to Bomp! magazine's epic power pop issue in 1978. To put my power pop timeline into perspective, lemme point out that this issue was published in between my first Flashcubes show and my first Ramones show, and it built upon my already-intense interest in the British Invasion and the Raspberries, linking it to the Ramones and (by inference) the Flashcubes, and hanging a convenient label upon it. Power pop? Awright. Where do I sign up?

A live cover by the Flashcubes introduced me to Big Star's enduring classic "September Gurls," but it would be quite some time before I got to know the original, or anything else by Big Star. To me, Big Star's Alex Chilton was the guy who sang the Box Tops' awesome hit "The Letter;" by the end of the '80s, I was a Big Star convert.

I think Big Star's "September Gurls" was the first song I ever referred to as The Greatest Record Ever Made, and it is the all-time # 1 most-played track over the long and storied history of TIRnRR. From its chapter in The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):

"The heart is often incapable of speaking its own mind. Please forgive the mixed metaphor, because it's true: on an emotional level, the thing that is most important to us is the most difficult to articulate. If you were ever a teenager in love, you know this first-hand; and if, at any age, you have watched a love slip away--casually or cruelly, by accident or design, temporarily or irrevocably--then you still remember the ache of your tongue-tied efforts to somehow express the poetry inside you, to give voice to the exact words that, when spoken, will make True Love prevail against unbelievable odds. So many words, so much to say. And all we can do as she walks away is mumble, 'I loved you, well...never mind.'

"With that phrase, Alex Chilton turned even our seeming helplessness into art. A teenaged hitmaker with the Box Tops, a cult-pop legend with Big Star, and a fiercely (and frustratingly) independent solo artist, Alex Chilton was dismissive of his own legacy.  But he was a brilliant songwriter, responsible in whole or in part for a handful of what I believe to be among the most affecting, beautiful pop songs ever done.  With his Big Star partner Chris Bell, Chilton co-wrote 'The Ballad Of El Goodo,' the single most transcendent expression of triumphant hope that I am ever likely to hear; their song 'Thirteen' found the elusive words to articulate adolescence as no other song before or since.  And Chilton's 'September Gurls,' perhaps the greatest record ever made, is with me every day of my life, its haunting mix of longing and possibility providing a constant reminder of the heart's struggle to speak its mind, and of the artist's ability to turn the struggle itself into unforgettable, eloquent elegance."

5. THE FLASHCUBES: No Promise

Syracuse's own power pop powerhouse. I am not fibbin' when I say that I have three favorite bands: the Beatles, the Ramones, and the Flashcubes. When I saw my first Flashcubes show in January of 1978, I knew that I had found something that would have a pervasive meaning to me throughout my life. I had just turned 18. But I knew. I knew.

I have written a lot about the Flashcubes. I've written liner notes and blog pieces, articles in Goldmine and The Syracuse New Times, and even a speech inducting the Flashcubes into the Syracuse Area Music Awards Hall of Fame. I am a fan. I will preach my Cubic Gospel whenever and wherever I can.

"No Promise" is my favorite Flashcubes song. It was included in our magnificent 2017 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4 (as discussed in this section of the collection's expanded liner notes), and OF COURSE it has a chapter in The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). If you don't know the Flashcubes, I humbly invite you to listen to This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. We'll make a 'Cubes fan outta you yet.

4. THE KINKS: You Really Got Me

The Kinks have come to be known as TIRnRR's house band, perhaps for no real reason other than we all think it's cool to celebrate the splendor of the Kinks whenever possible. The Kinks remain the only act to ever take over an entire episode of our radio show; in fact, we've done two all-Kinks shows. God save the house band!

And, although I knew the Kinks from hearing "Lola" on the radio in the early '70s, my appreciation of Muswell Hill's finest manifested during my senior year in high school.

In retrospect, I realize that my path through 1977 was paved with dominoes, each falling in its proper place. The path began in December of 1976, when I saw my first rock concert: KISS with Uriah Heep at the Onondaga County War Memorial. It wound its way through Christmas gifts that deepened my appreciation of the mid '60s British Invasion, through increased attention to freer-form FM radio as I left AM Top 40 (partially) behind, through a tabloid rock rag that introduced me to something called punk rock, and a friend in high school who intensified my appreciation of the Monkees. Each domino fell with its own melodious thud. I turned 17 in January. I would graduate from high school in June, and begin college in late August. 1977. The dominoes never knew what hit them.

My Christmas gifts in 1976 included a pair of double-LP sets, The Best Of The Animals and The History Of British Rock, Vol. 2. I was already a fan of the Animals, so the former just reaffirmed preexisting obsessions; the latter made me a fan of the Kinks. I've told that story elsewhere; for now, suffice it to say that I quickly went from being a kid who loved the Kinks' single "Lola" into a full-on dedicated follower of well-respected men. The set included "All Day And All Of The Night," my sister pointed me toward "You Really Got Me." 

And that really got me goin'.

3. THE RAMONES: Blitzkrieg Bop

The American Beatles, the greatest American band of all time. And the Ramones are second only to the Beatles in terms of the sheer magnitude of impact their music had upon me. I read about them in Phonograph Record Magazine as a high school senior in 1977, and I was simultaneously frightened and intrigued by them well before hearing a note of their loud and fast sound. When I finally heard it later that year, my life changed. It's no coincidence that this radio show is named after a line in a Ramones song. If not for the Ramones' influence on us as young men and beardless youth, I doubt that Dana or I would have ever gotten around to a serious notion of being rockin' pop DJs.

Wait. "Serious?" Us...?! Well...yeah, to the extent that we are. I mean, we show up (whether in person or now virtually) every Sunday to do the show. Barring things that physically prevent us from carrying out our duties as The Best Three Hours Of Radio On the Whole Friggin' Planet, we rarely miss a week's show; if one of us ain't there, the other represents. That's a working play ethic derived from the piledriving example of the Ramones, who played, toured, recorded, fought, won, lost, suffered, died, transcended, and did. The Ramones just did. No time for second guesses. 1-2-3-4! Song. 1-2-3-4! Song. 1-2-3-4! Song. 1-2-3-4! 

Immortality.

"Blitzkrieg Bop" was the first Ramones record I ever heard. It was late August or early September in 1977, the fall semester of my freshman year college. In high school, reading Phonograph Record Magazine had primed me for the idea of punk rock, and hearing "God Save The Queen" by the Sex Pistols on commercial FM radio that summer had redefined my expectations of what rockin' pop music could be. 

So I pestered the jocks at my campus radio station for more punk (in its broader circa '77 parameters). Blondie. Television. The Dictators. Talking Heads. The Runaways. And--oh God, yes!!--the Ramones.

Hey-ho, let's go!

In '77, I was unashamed to like the Bay City Rollers--I'm still unashamed to like the Bay City Rollers--but I didn't pick up on the intentional similarity between the Rollers' familiar S! A! T-U-R! D-A-Y! NIGHT!! chant and the Ramones' own leather-clad call to arms until it was spelled out for me much later. Beneath the implied violence of the band's sonic assault, the Ramones' pop sense was steadfast and undeniable. I was about to become a fan. I had no idea just how much of a fan I was about to become.

2. THE MONKEES: Sometime In The Morning

Between my twenty years freelancing for Goldmine, my decades of on-line pop proselytizing, the radio show, and this blog, I think I've written more about the Monkees than I've written about any other act. My sister hooked me on the TV show when I was six in 1966, reruns in the '70s reinforced that prevailing interest, but it was the music itself that moved me the most. A prefabricated band? A manufactured image? Man, I do not care. Many of the records are fantastic, so the circumstances of their genesis are irrelevant. For further study in my acts as a Believer, see this, this, this, this, and this. GO! I'll wait here.

The Carole King-Gerry Goffin song "Sometime In The Morning" may be the prettiest pure pop chronicle in the Monkees' canon. "Sometime In The Morning" is understated and elegant, and embellished by more simply gorgeous Micky Dolenz vocals.

1. THE BEATLES: Revolution

As pop fans, as rock 'n' roll fans, as fans of the joy of radio and all that it can be, Dana and I owe everything to the Beatles. There are, of course, many other essential influences, from both before and after John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr took that all-important left turn at Greenland. But none of it happens for us, not with any sort of similar intensity, without the moptopped music of the Beatles first prompting us to chant in enthusiastic accord, Yeah Yeah YEAH!

Sass, pizazz, and razzmatazz. Hooks and Harmony. A sense of deeper meaning, whether it's lodged in a simple love song about wanting to hold her hand, in a plea to help us if you can we're filling down, or in some tantalizing glimpse across the universe. I read the news today, oh boy. The connection may be illusory, but...no, it's not. It's one-sided--the artist creates, we absorb--yet no less palpable and vital than the sensory experience of everything around us: the sights, the sounds, the seasons, the warmth, the cold, the rain, the sun, the affection for people and things that went before. Nothing is real. That's real, too. 

Imagine. What can be imagined can be experienced. That's why we have art. That's why we have dreams. That's why the dream isn't over.

I was born in 1960. I'm old enough to remember Beatlemania, even though I was only four years old in '64. For those of us who still can recall the contemporaneous spark of the Beatles, the British Invasion, the American reaction, the impact on everything going forward (including punk in the '70s), an impact extending well beyond music, there is only one word that adequately describes the legacy of the Beatles:

Revolution. 

And you can count me in.

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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.

10 SONGS: 12/29/2020: THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO's 10 Most-Played Tracks In 2020

10 Songs is a weekly list of ten songs that happen to be on my mind at the moment. Given my intention to usually write these on Mondays, the lists are often dominated by songs played on the previous 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 edition of 10 Songs is devoted to TIRnRR's 10 most-played tracks in 2020, as detailed in our year-end countdown show.

1. THE MUFFS: On My Own

The Muffs' eponymous debut album was released in 1993, the year after the short-lived first Dana & Carl radio series We're Your Friends For Now completed its rapid Vini, Vidi, Vacuum into the abyss. By the time we returned on even more modest terms as Radio Peace in 1994, The Muffs' "Saying Goodbye" had already established itself as my favorite track of the '90s, and I'm pretty sure we played it on the very first Radio Peace. And I'm positive we played both "Saying Goodbye" and The Muffs' "Sad Tomorrow" on the inaugural edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio on December 27th, 1998. 22 years ago this week. TIRnRR has lasted a tiny bit longer than any of our previous series.

And we've played The Muffs all along the way. Before The Muffs formed, we were already fans of various incarnations of The Pandoras, and it was The Pandoras that introduced us to the talents of Kim Shattuck. Kim was an essential player during her stint as a Pandora, aiding and abetting the late, great Paula Pierce; in The Muffs, Kim Shattuck was the star.

The news of Kim's death in 2019 stunned us. This is what I wrote at the time:

Tonight we share our broken hearts.

I did not know Kim Shattuck. I've been a fan for decades, but we were, at best, casual friends on Facebook. I don't think we ever had a conversation or shared message. Yet news of her death this week at the age of 56--56!--prompted a sadness within me apart from the all-too-familiar ache of having to say goodbye to another one of our heroes.

Why? I guess because she felt to me like someone who was close to all of us, even though she wasn't really. She was an actual part of the lives of a bunch of people I do know--a friend, a loved one--and our sense of loss can't compare to what they're going through. But man, this one hurts. I didn't know her, and it hurts anyway.

You wanna see an illustration of why we love Kim Shattuck? Go to YouTube and watch the video for Derrick Anderson's "When I Was Your Man." Anderson's ably supported here by Vicki and Debbie Peterson (his bandmates in The Bangles) and our Kim. The song and video are irresistible, but Kim especially? She's a bundle of goofy, guileless energy, a nerd and a rock star at the same time, naturally, unconsciously, absolutely. She's not exactly one of us, but she understands us. I refuse to change that into the past tense, at least for tonight.

The Pandoras. The Muffs. The Beards. The Coolies. And one of the greatest screams in all of  rock 'n' roll. All heart, all fire, all go! Kim Shattuck made her indelible mark on this rockin' pop scene we so cherish. Anyone who didn't love her simply wasn't paying attention.

56 years old. Damn you, ALS. Damn you.

The Muffs' farewell album No Holiday was released shortly after Kim passed. Both Dana and I were especially struck by the track "On My Own," its inherent haunting sensation heightened in our ears by the knowledge that Kim was nearing the end of her life when she sang it. 

I can't even.

TIRnRR started playing "On My Own" upon its release in late '19. We continued to play it throughout this year, more often than we played any other song. There was never any question of what would be our # 1 most-played track for 2020. It wasn't even close. God love ya, Kim. We'll always love you, too.

2. BILL BERRY: 1-800-Colonoscopy

I saw the wonderful British pop group The Records at a club show in East Syracuse in 1979. "Starry Eyes." "Teenarama." "Hearts In Her Eyes." "Hearts Will Be Broken." SOLD! I got to meet lead singer John Wicks in 2009, when he was touring with Paul Collins. John was one of the nicest, most gracious pop stars you could imagine, and he remained friendly and good-natured in all of our subsequent communications. We were gutted when John succumbed to cancer in 2018.

Our mutual friend Richard Rossi gets the credit for connecting John (and Paul) with TIRnRR. Back in 2006, Richard secured permission for us to use "Edges Of A Dream" by John Wicks and the Records for our compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 2, and he arranged for John and Paul to visit our mutant little radio show in 2009; it was a thrill for Dana and I to meet these artists who made so much music we love, and a righteous OH YEAH! to find out they were both good guys, to boot. 

John Wicks, CC, Paul Collins, Dana Bonn at the TIRnRR studio complex in 2009. 

After John's death, Richard oversaw a unique project in tribute to his departed friend. The 2020 collection For The Record--A Tribute To John Wicks gathers various artists to perform songs that John had written but never got around to recording. It's a simply sublime set, and we recommend it in unabashedly gushing tones. We played nearly all of its tracks on TIRnRR this year.

We played Bill Berry's "1-800-Colonoscopy" the most. The song was co-written by John Wicks and Richard Rossi, and it appears on For The Record as an endlessly engaging track sung by Bill Berry and produced by Jamie Hoover of The Spongetones. In an earlier 10 Songs, I wrote: 

Awright, the category of "Best Songs With 'Colonoscopy' In The Title" may be a wee bit limited, but man, this track from the recent John Wicks tribute album For The Record just rollicks and rolls. Bill Berry's performance infuses the song with all the venom and resentment it requires, delivering a bitter and vindictive kiss-off that's simultaneously as pop and as catchy as something, I dunno, more pleasant than its titular concern....

Given the general yuchh of 2020, it's fitting that my favorite new song of the year is something called "1-800-Colonoscopy." Am I bitter? Yeah, you bet your ass.

3. MARY LOU LORD: Right On 'Till Dawn

"Right On 'Till Dawn" is a kickin' duet between Mary Lou Lord and the song's author, Nick Saloman of The Bevis Frond. It's a demo, released as one of two B-side tracks on Mary Lou's 2001 "Speeding Motorcycle" single. (The other B-side, "Driven Away," also made this year's countdown at # 27.) 

4. MARYKATE O'NEIL: I'm Ready For My Luck To Turn Around

Belief feeds hope.

That's the opening line to a chapter about Marykate O'Neil's lovely 2006 gem "I'm Ready For My Luck To Turn Around." I'm writing that chapter for my book in progress The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), and the song's entry appears near the end of the book, nestled between Stevie Wonder's "I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)" and Eytan Mirsky's "This Year's Gonna Be Our Year." "I'm Ready For My Luck To Turn Around." That's a sentiment we can all understand, especially this year.

5. BASH AND POP: Anything Could Happen

Tommy Stinson formed Bash And Pop after his previous group The Replacements combusted into charred earth. A whompin' stompin' 22 years passed between Bash And Pop's debut album in 1993 and second album, 2017's Anything Could Happen. Man, and The Replacements always used to be so punctual.

6. JUSTINE AND THE UNCLEAN: Vengeance

Rock 'n' roll at a honky tonk kegger. I don't think I was at all familiar with the kickass charm of singer/songwriter/guitarist/suspected superhero Justine Covault prior to this year. Hey, something good about 2020! The mighty Rum Bar Records sent us new tracks from two of Justine's combos, Justine's Black Threads and Justine and the Unclean. BAM! Instant fan here. "Vengeance" is particularly irresistible, so I played it a lot. That's the giddy sense of power one enjoys if one co-hosts a radio show. 

7. THE WHO: I Can't Explain

From The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):

When it came to crafting The Greatest Record Ever Made, The Who didn't waste any time. The lads nailed it on their debut single.

Well, "I Can't Explain" was at least technically The Who's first single. The group was billed as The High Numbers when their very first single "I'm The Face"/"Zoot Suit" was released in 1964. Either way, The High-Numbered Who got it right pretty quickly. "I Can't Explain" was released at the beginning of 1965, effectively helping to kick off pop music's best year ever...

Before The Who became iconic, rivaling Led Zeppelin as the embodiment of classic rock, they were already an odd quartet. Drummer Keith Moon was a flamboyant freakin' lunatic, a strange visitor from another planet, a Beach Boys fanatic who played faster--and louder!--than a speeding bullet. Bassist John Entwistle could have found employment as a statue, a sculpted objet d'art, his deep booms resonating from a somber figure as still as stone, except for the blinding flash of his fingers upon the fretboard of an instrument no one ever convinced him wasn't meant to play lead, not rhythm. Singer Roger Daltrey, eventually to assume the persona of a presumed Rock God parading before mere mortals, seemed initially like he'd just as soon abandon his mic stand to pick a fight with some punter mid-song, just cuz he didn't like the guy's face. And guitarist/songwriter Pete Townshend was the squarest of square pegs, a nose emerging from a face topped by straight Mod hair, propped atop a skinny form that should have been incapable of remaining upright under the weight of that head, tossing off a surly bravado to camouflage insecurity, playing power-chord noise to give sheer volume to thought and poetry, smashing things to combine chaos with ambition, combustion with creation, destruction with inspiration. Together, they formed a rhetorical question that served as its own authoritative answer. Who? The Who. The fucking Who, man....

8. THE ISLEY BROTHERS: It's Your Thing

I wrote here about my introduction to the music of The Isley Brothers. Although my nascent Isleys awareness began with "Who's That Lady (Part 1)" on the radio in '73, I don't remember precisely when I went back to discover earlier Isley Brothers hits like "This Old Heart Of Mine," "Shout," or 1969's "It's Your Thing." It took a while, and it took a while for my appreciation to grow. But it did! 

9. BIG STAR: September Gurls

I think Big Star's "September Gurls" was the first song I ever referred to as The Greatest Record Ever Made, and it is the all-time # 1 most-played track over TIRnRR's first 22 years. From its chapter in the GREM! book:

The heart is often incapable of speaking its own mind. Please forgive the mixed metaphor, because it's true: on an emotional level, the thing that is most important to us is the most difficult to articulate.  If  you were ever a teenager in love, you know this first-hand; and if, at any age, you have watched a love slip away--casually or cruelly, by accident or design, temporarily or irrevocably--then you still remember the ache of your tongue-tied efforts to somehow express the poetry inside you, to give voice to the exact words that, when spoken, will make True Love prevail against unbelievable odds.  So many words, so much to say.  And all we can do as she walks away is mumble, "I loved you, well...never mind."

With that phrase, Alex Chilton turned even our seeming helplessness into art.  A teenaged hitmaker with The Box Tops, a cult-pop legend with Big Star, and a fiercely (and frustratingly) independent solo artist, Alex Chilton was dismissive of his own legacy.  But he was a brilliant songwriter, responsible in whole or in part for a handful of what I believe to be among the most affecting, beautiful pop songs ever done.  With his Big Star partner Chris Bell, Chilton co-wrote "The Ballad Of El Goodo," the single most transcendent expression of triumphant hope that I am ever likely to hear; their song "Thirteen" found the elusive words to articulate adolescence as no other song before or since.  And Chilton's "September Gurls," perhaps the greatest record ever made, is with me every day of my life, its haunting mix of longing and possibility providing a constant reminder of the heart's struggle to speak its mind, and of the artist's ability to turn the struggle itself into unforgettable, eloquent elegance.  

10. THE BEVIS FROND: He'd Be A Diamond

And this week's 10 Songs concludes with one more shot from that GREM! book I keep pounding:

What a truly awful feeling: that sick, twisted ache inside when we realize we've screwed things up beyond any possible hope of redemption...

And we know every last miserable bit of it is our own stupid fault.

I discovered the music of British singer, musician, and songwriter Nick Saloman (dba The Bevis Frond) through the Dana half of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. The Bevis Frond did a benefit for our overlords Syracuse Community Radio in the '90s, and the Frond's been a perennial TIRnRR pick over the two decades and change of whatever the hell it is we do. 

"He'd Be A Diamond" is the most powerful post-breakup song I know. Its heartbroken storyline is devastating, delivered casually in the third person, but no less harrowing, no less desperate, no less striking in its depiction of a faithless ex-lover who has seen the error of his ways far too late to make one damned bit of difference....

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Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1)will contain 165 essays about 165 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1). My weekly Greatest Record Ever Made! video rants can be seen in my GREM! YouTube playlist. And I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl.