10 SONGS: 11/15/2024

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 # 1259.

THE BINGS: Hold On

"Hold on?" Good advice, and I'm happy to take it out of context right now.

This week's show was programmed before the election results came in, when our sense of nauseous optimism deluded us into believing there was no way American voters could...well, do exactly what American voters wound up doing. The show was recorded in the aftermath of that awful mourning in America, but nearly all of the original song selections remained in place.

So we hold on, hope for the best, prepare for the worst. We'll play some music to comfort our battered, broken hearts. The Bings were an obscure but fantastic early '80s SoCal pop band, and their great stuff is gathered on a cool collection bearing the appropriate title Power Pop Planet (The Lost Tapes).

The Bings' "Hold On" has nothing to do with our current goal of trying to figure out ways to hold on. We will accept its advice nonetheless.

THE KENNEDYS: Waging Peace

A few days after the election, many from our local community of Syracuse music fans got together at The 443 Social Club & Lounge for an evening of companionship and commiseration. The Kennedys are an internationally-renowned coffeehouse pop duo, and while they're not headquartered in Syracuse, we regard them as a native daughter and native son. Maura Kennedy actually is from the 315 originally, a North Syracuse girl who came of age in the Syracuse music scene, but we likewise embrace Northern Virginia boy Pete Kennedy fully and wholeheartedly as one of us. No matter where the Kennedys go, they belong. When they're in Syracuse, though, we like to think that the Kennedys are home.

My God, we all needed this night of music. The Kennedys played and sang their songs of hope and harmony, of love and justice, of better days to keep us safe until tomorrow. Music can help us heal. And maybe it can help us wage some peace in these embattled times.

SLYBOOTS: If We Could Let Go

I'm trying. Honest, I'm trying.

Like the Bings' "Hold On," the title of Slyboots' luscious current single "If We Could Let Go" is only coincidentally related to my emotional miasma. Such a good track in any context, and "If We Could Let Go" returns to the TIRnRR airwaves on our next show.

LIBRARIANS WITH HICKEYS: Brand New Boyfriend

The new Librarians With Hickeys album How To Make Friends By Telephone is one of several 2024 releases from the esteemed Big Stir Records label that I would consider among this year's very best. This has been a great, great year for new rockin' pop music. The dichotomy between this lousy year and its invigorating soundtrack is off-putting. I wish 2024 could have been as good as the music it produced.

THE SMITHEREENS: Face The World With Pride

Face the world with PRIDE! We...tried that. Didn't seem to help. But the effort will continue.

THE DICKIES: Banana Splits

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE BANDWAGON: People Got To Be Free

This cover of the Rascals' "People Got To Be Free," recorded by underrated '60s/'70s soul group the Bandwagon (aka Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon), is even better than the original, and that (to quote the Velvelettes) is really sayin' somethin'. The Bandwagon should have been huge.

ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ATTRACTIONS: (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?

Other than the show-concluding Irene Peña track listed below, Elvis Costello and the Attractions' "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding" is the only selection we added to the playlist after learning that the country had chosen pain and hatred and misery over peace, love, and understanding. 

I fail to see anything funny in that.

WONDERBOY: Girl Songs

A championing of giddy delight can be among our most effective coping mechanisms. Comfort foods. A hand held. A popcorn flick. An escapist paperback novel. Trash TV.

Girl songs.

Robbie Rist understands that appeal and delivers on it. Robbie wrote "Girl Songs" back in the '90s, recorded it with his ace then-combo Wonderboy, and it's buoyed many a TIRnRR  playlist since we belatedly discovered the damned thing earlier this year. Giddy delight means a lot to me.

IRENE PEÑA: I Won't Back Down

We won't back down. Not now. Not ever. It's our country, too.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. 

My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my 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. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.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.

10 SONGS: 11/1/2024

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 # 1257.

LIBRARIANS WITH HICKEYS: Listening

We've been looking forward to the new Librarians With Hickeys album How To Make Friends By Telephone since...yeah, since their last album, 2022's Handclaps & Tambourines. The 2022 record gave us two full-on TIRnRR Fave Raves with "I Better Get Home" and "Can't Wait 'Till Summer," and the teaser singles from How To Make Friends By Telephone ("Hello Operator" and "No More Goodbyes") have likewise brightened our airwaves and compelled our volume controls to reach for magnetic North. We are indeed listening. 

And we like what we hear.

THE CYNZ: Woman Child

With this week's spin, "Woman Child" by the Cynz has scored its fourth consecutive appearance on the TIRnRR playlist. It will notch Week # 5 this Sunday. More to come. Let us be your "Woman Child" resource.

CARLA OLSON AND TALL POPPY SYNDROME: Is It True

With this week's spin, Carla Olson and Tall Poppy Syndrome's supergroovy cover of Brenda Lee's irresistible "Is It True" has scored its fourth consecutive appearance on the TIRnRR playlist. It will notch Week # 5 this Sunday. More to come? That's probably true. The Cynz, Carla Olson and Tall Poppy Syndrome, and all of the stars of our little Play-Tone galaxy. We play the hits.

SPANKY AND OUR GANG: Sunday Will Never Be The Same

It's hard to believe, but Spanky and Our Gang didn't make their TIRnRR debut until...wait, is this right? Last week?!  We've been running this rock 'n' roll radio dog and pony show since the end of 1998, which means it took us almost twenty-six years to get around to programming Spanky and Our Gang. It's a damned good thing we have tenure.

Now, the merry Spanksters notch up two weeks in a row on this little mutant radio show. Up and coming band! After spinning the group's cover of the Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing" last week, we move to one of their own hits this week: "Sunday Will Never Be The Same." I do remember playing the track on our old early '90s show We're You're Friends For Now (the precursor of whatever the hell it is we do on TIRnRR), and I woulda swore we played it here as well...

...but I woulda been wrong. Now we have played it on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. Better late than never! Sundays will chart their own independent path from here on out.

THE BINGS: Don't Stop Dancing

I am constantly amazed to discover great decades-old rockin' pop music I never knew about. The Bings are a case in point. I first heard of the Bings when the group's singer and guitarist David Chrenko left this comment on my exhaustive history of power pop:

"Excellent article. Greg Shaw would be proud. I was a staff member of Bomp! Records and Bomp! magazine in the late '70s. The Hollywood scene of which Bomp! was a mover 'n' shaker was not unlike Liverpool in 1962-64. I took all I'd learned from Greg and Suzy Shaw and in 1980 formed the Bings. We took the best music of the club scenes in London, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles and combined it with our own originals (what is now known as Power Pop) and unleashed it on the Southern California suburbs. In March 2024 Bachelor Records released a vinyl album of our studio and live recordings, which is getting airplay in America, Canada, Europe, Scandinavia, and Asia - 40 years after the Bings packed it in! ...Hope you can still POGO to it!"

The album is called Power Pop Planet (The Lost Tapes), and man, where has this record been all my life? Any record you ain't heard is a new record, and I'm dead chuffed to hear this now. Power Pop Planet has TIRnRR written all over it. Channeling my inner Bruce Brodeen: EXTREMELY highly recommended!

THE COWSILLS: She Said To Me

My favorite album of the 1990s remains the Cowsills' wonderful 1998 release Global. The record never got anywhere near the acclaim it deserves, and it's been difficult (and pricey) for those who missed it at the time to catch up with what they missed. I'm delighted that Omnivore Recordings will be remedying that situation in one week, with a deluxe reissue of Global due out on November 8th. If you're a rockin' pop fan, you've gotta get this. I've had (and loved!) the CD for decades, but I'm buying the reissue for its bonus tracks, and because I like buying Cowsills albums. A world with more Cowsills albums is a better world. (And I would very much like to see the Cowsills record a new album with Christian Nesmith producing; that would be a match made in Heaven.)

The Global track "She Said To Me" has been a frequent fixture on TIRnRR playlists, and the group allowed us to use the song on our 2006 compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 2. My book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) includes a chapter about "She Said To Me." I've heard that Bob Cowsill was tickled that "She Said To Me" was given the GREM! treatment, but man, this song absolutely deserves it. Global: My favorite album of the 1990s. And "She Said To Me" is a large part of the reason why that's so.

THE ARCHIES: Get On The Line

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

And I most certainly did get on the line: I voted

THE RAMONES: I Wanna Be Sedated

Given my anxiety about the election, yeah, sedation sounds GREAT, thanks

THE MONKEES: Terrifying

Will there ever be a deluxe edition of Good Times!, the superb 2016 album by the Monkees? The original album (subject of the only record review I've written since deciding I didn't want to write those things anymore) was accompanied by four scattered bonus tracks which have never been available in one package. "A Better World" was only issued on the FYE-exclusive version of Good Times!, "Love's What I Want" was on the Japanese release, and "Terrifying" and "Me & Magdalena [Version 2]" were digital-only. The four tracks were gathered on a Record Store Day vinyl edition, but have not yet appeared together as part of any legit issue of Good Times! "Love's What I Want" and "A Better World" aren't even available for streaming.

I don't buy or play vinyl. I have a CD-R of the whole thing, but I really want an official CD release that presents the entirety of the Good Times! experience, perhaps adding unreleased bonus material if any such thing exists.

Note to Rhino Records: Take my money, awready.

LESLEY GORE: You Don't Own Me

A sneak peek at our next show. Enough with chipping away at the glass ceiling. Let's breach that sucker.

Let's breach that sucker now. We're not going back.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. 

My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my 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. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.

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.