10 SONGS: 5/22/2026

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 # 1337

THE LEMON TWIGS: 2 Or 3

We are big fans of rockin' pop music, and we are delighted when the music we love is able to connect with a larger audience. The Lemon Twigs have garnered some buzz within our power pop world, and while they may not secure a TODAY'S HITS! radio berth alongside Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter, we hope they do. Hell, we hope they record a track with Taylor and/or Sabrina. It's pop music. It's supposed to be popular.

Our own little mutant radio program has not given the Lemon Twigs a ton of airplay; believe it or not, I think we may have played Taylor Swift more often than we've played the Lemon Twigs, though that would be just a function of our short attention span (and my determination to demonstrate that some of Swift's stuff can fit in just swell alongside the Ramones, the Four Tops, and the Muffs in our chosen format--it's ALL pop music). We're going to try to program the Lemon Twigs more often; it's a bandwagon well worth hoppin' on for the ride.

No better place to start than the Lemon Twigs' latest album Look For Your Mind! Our friends at The Spoon podcast recently hooked me on the exquisite Look For Your Mind! gem "2 Or 3," compelling us to open our own show with that track. We'll hear the new album's title tune on Sunday night. Let's get this bandwagon movin'!

MARSHALL CRENSHAW: What Time Is It

The Jive Five's 1962 doo-wop classic "What Time Is It?" is one of my all-time favorite individual tracks, and it earned a chapter in my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). I was introduced to the song via Marshall Crenshaw's sublime 'n' dreamy cover version, heard on MC's 1983 album Field Day. Crenshaw's rendition held me in instant thrall from the second I heard it, and if my heart's desire migrated to the Jive Five, I never stopped loving the version I heard first.

This week, Dana's spin of the Distractions' "Time Goes By So Slow" prompted me to follow with "What Time Is It?" I had the Jive Five in mind, but then reconsidered and programmed Marshall Crenshaw's (punctuation-free) cover instead. Couldn't go wrong either way.

(Later, when annotating track credits for the posted playlist, I realized this was the first-ever TIRnRR spin for Marshall Crenshaw's "What Time Is It." As The Spoon's Robbie Rist recently reminded me, time takes time. Tick, tock.)

GRAHAM PARKER AND THE GOLDTOPS: Black Lincoln Continental

Another advance peek at Quality Footware: Live At The Brook, the forthcoming new live album from the elemental forces of Graham Parker and the Goldtops. "Black Lincoln Continental" is already available as a single, as is "Soul Shoes," which we played a couple of weeks back. On our next show, we'll treat you to the Quality Footware live cut of the first Graham Parker song I heard (back when I was an impressionable teen surgically affixed to my radio). Grab your soul shoes and hop in your black Lincoln Continental; on Sunday night, we've got a date with a hotel chambermaid.

THE JIVE FIVE: My True Story

Having given the Jive Five's first-set spot to Marshall Crenshaw's "What Time Is It," it was only fair to give the doo-woppers their due with an airing of their only big hit, 1961's # 3 smash "My True Story." This solution spared us from having to cry CRY cry whoa-oh-oh our blues away. This story's ended. It was no lie!

BLONDIE: Little Girl Lies

My next book is a short story collection called Guitars Vs. Rayguns!! Short Stories And Other White Lies. It's my first full-length foray into fiction, following two nonfiction books about music, and it does incorporate a lot of musical influences into its gathering of deliberate lies. The book takes its title from a series of short stories I wrote about a group of rock 'n' roll musicians from Earth playing gigs on other planets, and it name-checks (mostly in passing) a whole bunch of artists, from Enrico Caruso to LL Cool J. I'll post a list of the book's musical name-checks in the very near future.

I don't think I got around to name-checking Blondie, but I do mention one of the group's individual members. Not the gorgeous one you'd automatically expect me to mention! Blondie's powerhouse drummer Clem Burke is cited in this sequence from a story that appears late in the book, as uttered by planet-hopping Guitar Vs. Rayguns drummer Leiko:

Leiko leaned in for emphasis. "I'm Keith fucking Moon. I'm Marky fucking Ramone. I'm Clem fucking Burke. I'm Dennis fucking Diken from the Smithereens, Tommy fucking Allen from the Flashcubes, Ringo fucking Starr if I wanna be Ringo fucking Starr.

"I'm fucking LEIKO, bitches!"

I'm...convinced. Also frightened.

Leiko's a big girl, and she's neither cryin' nor lyin'. As I prepare the publication of my new book of little boy lies, TIRnRR offers this celebratory spin of Blondie's "Little Girl Lies." We hope Leiko would approve. If it pisses her off, I'm pretty sure she won't allow her status as, y'know, fictional to prevent her from kicking our asses.

THE WELL WISHERS: Pox On Everything

Nowadays, "pox on everything" may serve as go-to mantra. It also serves as the title of a new treat from TIRnRR Fave Raves the Well Wishers. Along with "Back Of The Line," "Pox On Everything" is one of two advance tracks from the next Well Wishers album Expected Outcomes. The album is due in June, we played both of the advance tracks this week, and we're playing "Pox On Everything" again on our next show. Think of us as pox protection! Apply the pox only where it's warranted. No shortage of options there...

TOM KENNY & THE HI-SEAS: Welcome To The Working Class

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

MOTÖRHEAD: Motörhead

On our May 10th show, the weekly Greatest Record Ever Made! spot was occupied by "Please Don't Touch," an invigmoratin' 1981 cover of a Johnny Kidd and the Pirates classic, executed by Headgirl. Headgirl were the combined metal might of the boys in Motörhead and the girls in Girlschool, and that week's extravaganza also featured a spin of Girlschool's oomph-driven cover of T. Rex's "20th Century Boy." We figured we owed Motörhead their own reciprocal playlist representation this week. Hey, howzabout the first Motörhead track I ever heard? The eponymous li'l number "Motörhead" was on an absolutely ace 1977 various-artists borgasmord called Geef Voor New Wave, a record I snagged as a teen punk and proceeded to play over und over with the manic obsession (and commensurate volume) one should expect a proper teen punk would bring to such a thing. MOTÖRHEAD!

SPECTRAFLAME: Yesterday (Jane)

A couple of weeks ago, we offered our first spin of Spectraflame's nifty single "Yesterday (Jane)," but we played the wrong mix, an earlier version not considered the definitive version. This is because we're inept. Luckily, we have tenure, and we played the correct mix this week, righting (our own) wrongs and making the world safe for pop music. POP MUSIC IS SAVED! Just doin' our job.

THE BEATLES: Do You Want To Know A Secret

No secret: My book Guitars Vs. Rayguns!! Short Stories And Other White Lies includes a short story about a fictional 1976 Beatles reunion. While nearly all of the musical performers referenced in the book are just mentioned in passing, the Beatles appear as characters in their own story. Elsewhere in the book, one other real-life performer does actively participate in a very brief cameo role.

Which real-life performer? That's still a secret, told in a story that I have not yet shared with anyone. Leiko knows who the performer is, even though [redacted] isn't known as a drummer. But Leiko knows. 

And she approves. The book should be out in early June.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. You can also become a Boppin' booster on my Patreon page.

I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. 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. You can read about our history here.

10 SONGS: 4/19/2025

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 # 1281, offered in memory of the late, great Clem Burke.

BLONDIE: Dreaming

I never met drummer Clem Burke. I don't think I ever had any real communication with him, though I'm told he was aware of our radio show and approved of whatever the hell it is we do. The news of his passing was an unexpected punch in the gut. As we mourn the loss of one of our heroes, our hearts go out to his friends and family.

And we had to pay tribute, or at least we had to try to pay some sort of tribute to this man who provided the beat for Blondie, and for so many other fantastic artists. To kick off our salute to the flash and power of Clem Burke, in my head I knew there could be no other song choice besides "Dreaming." That intro! That over-the-top percussive intro that never seems excessive, even as it threatens (convincingly!) to spiral outta control into shambles and abyss. We all know--know--that Clem Burke's got it covered, and he will not cede command of the beat nor let it wander anywhere other than exactly where he wants it to be.

"Dreaming" is the opening track on Blondie's 1979 album Eat To The Beat. After we recorded our show but before it aired, I heard last week's episode of The Spoon, wherein overhost Robbie Rist chose Eat To The Beat's closing track "Living In The Real World" to represent Burke's legacy, and that's a damned fine pick as well. Clem Burke left us with a very, very long list of damned fine picks. We played just a few of them this week. 

JOHN EASDALE: Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress

Although we've obviously been Clem Burke fans for decades, our direct if tenuous connection to the man hisself came via Jigsaw Seen guitarist Jonathan Lea. We'll circle back to that subject a bit later in today's post. When our Clem Burke tribute included this fab Hollies cover by John Easdale playing with Clem and Jonathan (among others), Jonathan wrote:

"This track is from the first session I ever played with Clem (along with Mark Englert and Craig Ballam) and it was unlike any session I’d played before (very loose and carefree.) 

"Prior to the session, the executive producer (Greg Dwinnell) told me that this project was costing a fortune and there wasn’t room in the budget to feed everyone so he asked me not to mention anything about food. About fifteen minutes into the session (before we’d even played a note,) Clem says 'Let’s order some food, where’s the menus?' I then look at Greg and he just deflates. Within another couple of minutes, Clem is on the phone with a Chinese restaurant and it sounds like he’s literally ordering everything on the menu. Clem and I had immediately hit it off (birds of a feather?) so he says to me 'Jonathan, do you like orange chicken?' I reply 'Sure,' so he then tells the person taking the order 'Give us two more orders of orange chicken.' I’d only ever worked on indie sessions with shoestring budgets so for me, this was like recording Tusk.

"Thirty years later, I still remember it all vividly. At Clem’s request, we also recorded a version of the Who’s 'The Ox' for a Sub Pop Records project but I’m not sure whatever happened with it."

THE PLIMSOULS: Playing With Jack

The very first episode of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio aired on December 27th, 1998, and we did indeed include a Clem Burke performance in our inaugural playlist. But it wasn’t a Blondie track; we didn’t get around to playing Blondie for, I think, a couple of months. Let’s face it: We’re slackers.

No, Clem’s appearance on TIRnRR # 1 found him pounding out the beat for power pop luminaries the Plimsouls. Clem was a member of that group at the time of their 1998 album Kool Trash, and its heart-pumpin’ track “Playing With Jack” was a big early favorite on this little mutant radio show. We also wound up playing the Kool Trash track “Dangerous Book” a lot, but “Playing With Jack” was the first of many TIRnRR spins for the Plimsouls and Clem Burke alike.

KATHY VALENTINE: Retouch Me

Kathy Valentine is (deservedly!) in The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame as bassist for the Go-Go's. She's also a writer, author of the book All I Ever Wanted: A Rock 'n' Roll Memoir and a Substack soapbox called The Direction Of Motion. We're fans. Knowing that Clem Burke played on Kathy's 2005 album Light Years, it was imperative for us to return that album's old TIRnRR Fave Rave "Retouch Me" to this week's playlist. 

She also had a long and close relationship with Clem. She writes so movingly about him in this piece that my heart breaks again for those who mourn Clem not merely like we do, as fans from afar, but as people who've lost someone special in their own lives. 

Read. Cry. Then live like Clem did.

BLONDIE: (I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE ROMANTICS: Midnight To Six Man

I never got to see Blondie perform live. I saw Debbie Harry and Chris Stein on the Escape From New York tour in 1990 (with the Ramones, Tom Tom Club, and Jerry Harrison), but I don’t believe Clem Burke was playing with them at the time.

Given that, I’m grateful that I did get to witness one Clem Burke performance, and that was when he was with the Romantics in the ‘90s.

I’ve been a Romantics fan nearly as long as I’ve been a Blondie fan, starting with a purchase of the “Little White Lies” 45 in 1978. They used to play occasionally in Syracuse, on a bill with Syracuse’s own power pop powerhouse the Flashcubes, but their ‘Cuse shows always occurred after I was back in school and away from home. That’s what I didn’t like about them.

I guess it was kind of full circle that when I finally did get to see the Romantics, Flashcubes bassist Gary Frenay was also in attendance, and we thrilled as the Detroit rockers (propelled by the Burke beat) opened their show with a confident cover of the Pretty Things’ “Midnight To Six Man.” Oh, MAN! I knew this was gonna be good...!

BLONDIE: Accidents Never Happen

I am not a musician. I can neither play nor sing, but I consider myself fortunate that I'm able to play great records on the radio, and to write with conviction and (I hope) authority about the sounds that move me. A few years back, I posted a piece called "I've Got The Music In Me (And That's Where It's Gonna Stay)," discussing and coming to terms with my inability to create music. That piece included a reminiscence of playing bongos in college alongside a couple of, y'know, actual musicians in a two-thirds competent jazz trio called Bud Mackintaw & the Skeeters. At the point where the Skeeters went the way all bands from the Beatles to the Shaggs must one day go, I wrote:

"Nonetheless, Bud Mackintaw & the Skeeters parted as friends. How many bands can say that? Tom left Brockport after that semester, but I caught up with him again when he visited campus the following year. I saw Truck and his roommate Ray a few times in '79-'80, too. By then, I'd moved from bongos to dorm-room suite chairs; with my handy-dandy drumsticks, I pounded out a rhythm to accompany Blondie's recording of 'Accidents Never Happen,' just to prove I could keep time as a drummer."

Mind you, I couldn't really keep time as a drummer. But I did my best. I betcha Clem would have approved of the effort, if not the result.

TALL POPPY SYNDROME: Come Some Christmas Eve (Or Halloween)

Thanks to Jonathan Lea, I am able to say that Dana and I produced a compilation album that included work by the great Clem Burke. Both Jonathan and Clem were members of Tall Poppy Syndrome, a rockin' pop supergroup also featuring guitarist Vince Melouney of the Bee Gees, singer Paul Kopf from the latter-day edition of the Seeds, and bassist Alec Palao from Cream Puff War magazine and too many bands to list. Their 2021 cover of Robin Gibbs' "Come Some Christmas Eve (Or Halloween)" was intended as "Mod-era Who performing the Zombies' Odessey And Oracle-style." Mission accomplished! It caught our ears, and the lads allowed us to use the track on our 2022 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 5.

THE TEARAWAYS: Charlie, Keith And Ringo

And Clem. Heroes, meet hero.

BLONDIE: X Offender

All stories start somewhere. "X Offender" was the first Blondie song I ever heard, my aural introduction to Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Jimmy Destri, Gary Valentine, and an incredible drummer named Clem Burke. The song was part of my first teen attempt at rock journalism, and its impact still resonates. The stories and the music continue even when we are no longer able to keep up with them. The rhythm of the stories will not and will never surrender their enduring flash. Godspeed, Clem Burke. 

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.

THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE: (I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear

Drawn in part from previous posts, this is not part of my current book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). 

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!

BLONDIE: (I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear
Written by Gary Valentine
Produced by Richard Gottehrer
Single from the album Plastic Letters, Chrysalis Records, 1978

A love letter from Lois Lane, sent by Marilyn Monroe, delivered by the Dave Clark Five.

Blondie's lead singer Debbie Harry was sexy without any appearance of trying to be sexy. She didn't even seem to be conscious of her everyday allure, her natural beauty and glamour, her God-given possession of It. She just was. 

My first awareness of Blondie came via Phonograph Record Magazine in 1977. I've never forgotten writer Mark Shipper's description of the band's look as "like Marilyn Monroe backed by the Dave Clark Five," a blurb which (even more than Debbie Harry's attractive image) sold me on Blondie well before I ever heard a note of their music. When I got to college that fall, I immediately started carpet-bombing the school radio station with requests for all of the acts I'd read about in PRM, from Television to the Dictators, and certainly including constant (and urgent) petitions to hear Blondie's "X Offender." I loved the track on first spin, and I have never stopped loving it since. And they called it puppy love!

My first Blondie record purchase was the "Rip Her To Shreds" 12" single, acquired specifically as a budget approach to owning "X Offender" without springing for the cost of the whole LP. Efficient!  When I finally did buy a copy of Blondie's first album in the summer of '79, I was staying at my girlfriend's apartment and gave my newly-acquired record a spin on her turntable. One of the other girls living there heard the track "Little Girl Lies," and declared it the worst excuse for music she had ever experienced.

Heh. And you thought Blondie wasn't punk?

And Blondie was a group. Debbie Harry was always the focal point--how could she not be?--but don't underestimate the boys in the band: The guitar and arty vision of Chris Stein, the evocative keyboard stylings of Jimmy Destri, and the powerhouse pummeling of the late, great Clem Burke on drums. As the line-up of other players shifted over time, Debbie, Chris, and our Clem were the constants, and Jimmy Destri was still involved until 2004.

"X Offender" was written by Blondie bassist Gary Valentine. Valentine had ambitions of his own, and had already exited this group called Blondie by the time of their second album, 1978's Plastic Letters. He left even before that record's release, and I don't think he plays on the album. But he gave Blondie one sublime parting Valentine gift: A gorgeous Plastic Letters confection called "(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear."

Like their Bowery contemporaries the Ramones, the players in Blondie had some degree of fascination with what others might dismiss as junk culture. Their work was informed in part by pulp fiction, bubblegum, girl groups, sci-fi monsters, B-movies like Attack Of The Kung Fu Girls and Them!, cheesecake art, trashy chic, and comic books, all viewed with an aesthetic drawn impartially from both Andy Warhol and sheer fannish enthusiasm alike.

The lyrics of "(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear" bear a superficial resemblance to superhero comics, suggesting a girl who loves a boy with something extra, and our super boy feels the same way about her. The something extra? He can fly! He can read minds! He has conversations with his Super Friends! The girl and her boy with something extra are levitating lovers in the secret stratosphere!

In real life, Valentine has said the song was written for his girlfriend at the time, with whom he felt he had a psychic connection. Close enough to the Justice League for me! The music itself is an explosion of pure pop brilliance, a sensation both pristine and orgasmic at the same time. 

Gary Valentine's role in Blondie's history is too often overlooked, forgotten. That's a shame. One gets the sense that Debbie and Chris have basically tossed the group's first two albums into the dustbin, pretending that the success of 1978's Parallel Lines is the band's Ground Zero. In the 21st century, a Blondie concert setlist isn't going to include "X Offender" or "In The Flesh," no "In The Sun" nor even the European hit "Denis," and certainly not "(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear." Bands play the hits. I get that.

But as much as I love those hits, from the power-pop validation of their cover of the Nerves' "Hanging On The Telephone" and the audacious disco moves of  "Heart Of Glass" through the pop reggae of the cover of the Paragons' "The Tide Is High" and the incongruity of Blondie supplying the first-ever rap song ("Rapture") to top the Billboard Hot 100, and especially the pounding spectacle of Clem Burke being Clem Burke on "Dreaming," there isn't any of 'em that I would put above "(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear."

So look! Up in the sky! And listen while you're at it. Let's hear it for levitating lovers. And let's raise a glass to Debbie, Chris, Jimmy, dear Clem, and Gary. Here's to a group called Blondie. A super group, for sure.

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.

10 SONGS: 9/28/2024

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 # 1252.

THE RAMONES: Don't Come Close

Recently, I've been talking (a lot) about how, after decades as a first-three-Ramones-albums-RULE! guy, I'm now beginning to regard fourth album Road To Ruin as the Ramones' masterpiece. Joey Ramone's brother Mickey Leigh replied that maybe Road To Ruin is "the final component of a masterpiece quadrilogy." Y'know, I can't argue with that. Four perfect albums.

"I Wanna Be Sedated" is the album's signature tune, but Don't Come Close" was the first single off Road To Ruin. With its very, very slight country influence--an influence so slight as to be nearly imaginary--it seemed an outta-left-field choice for a focus track, even in 1978. But the song's bubbletwang virtues prevail. "Don't Come Close" is one of the key elements elevating Road To Ruin's claim to supremacy, a vital component of the Ramones' most successfully varied album, as record that branches out without surrendering the merest inch of its essential Ramonesness. 

Ramones. Leave Home. Rocket To Russia. Culminating in Road To Ruin. A masterpiece quadrilogy. You know it's generally known. Don't talk back to a brudder, man.

THE GRIP WEEDS: Strange Bird

Hey, a chance to hear a TIRnRR classic again for the first time! The Grip Weeds' original version of "Strange Bird" was the B-side of a single released in Germany, later re-recorded for the group's album The Sound Is In You. The Grip Weeds also gave us an exclusive remix/retweak of the original single for our 2017 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4 (a tale told here, and you can still get that CD here and its download edition here). 

And now, the Grip Weeds have recorded brand-new versions of both "Strange Bird" and its original A-side "She Brings The Rain," offered in a teaser EP in advance of their forthcoming album. We're told the tracks will not be on the album, so grab 'em now. Strange birds of the world, UNITE!

THE UGLY DUCKLINGS: Nothin'

Snarling, surly '60s punk from Ontario's answer to the Rolling Stones. If memory serves, the Ugly Ducklings were the subject of my second-ever feature article for Goldmine magazine, following a retrospective of the Bay City Rollers (the latter seen in a subsequent tweak here), both accomplished early in my 1986-2006 tenure as a GM freelancer. My awareness of the group began in the early '80s; I'm not sure if I read about the Ugly Ducklings in The Pig Paper before or after first hearing them via their track "She Ain't No Use To Me" on the various-artists LP Ear-Piercing Punk. Mid-'80s visits to Toronto scored an Ugly Ducklings Oldies 45 ("Gaslight"/"Nothin'"), a best-of LP, and even a (then-) latter-day reunion album called Off The Wall.  "Nothin'" is the Ugly Ducklings' defining moment, a track as Nuggets as Nuggets can be. 

DONNA SUMMER: Hot Stuff

My book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) includes a chapter about Donna Summer's "I Feel Love." If I do a Volume 2--presuming I can somehow stumble forth from the sting of the two-star Amazon rating Volume 1 received from a disappointed reader--I'll probably put a GREM! spotlight on "Hot Stuff." For the first book, I gave the nod to "I Feel Love" in recognition of its groundbreaking feel, its seismic status as a disco record that sounded like no disco record before it. It also happens to be a great rock record, and a harbinger of new wave.

"Hot Stuff" is a flat-out rock record, one of the best AOR tracks of the era, maybe the best. AOR snubbed it because it's Donna Summer. Too hot for ya? Not my problem, and I much prefer Donna Summer and "Hot Stuff" to a lot of what was getting album-rock FM play at the time. We'll get into this idea of ROCK 'N' ROLL DONNA SUMMER! as GREM! Vol. 2 starts to take shape.

And speaking of that still-hypothetical book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 2)....

SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY AND THE ASBURY JUKES: I Don't Want To Go Home

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

In our weekly editions of 10 Songs, the designated Greatest Record Ever Made! provides a link to a GREM! entry I've written and previously posted about the track at hand. This week...um, I haven't written my Southside Johnny GREM! piece yet. I'll get to it. Honest. For now? In the words of another noted singer from Jersey: One for my baby. And one more for the road.

THE ARMOIRES: Green Hellfire At The 7-11

Great. Now I want a Slurpee. A GREEN HELLFIRE Slurpee! They're surprisingly refreshing. The Armoires' imminent new album Octoberland is even more refreshing, and clearly one of this year's best. Thank heaven for "Green Hellfire At The 7-11." Sluuuurp!

JOAN ARMATRADING: Eating The Bear

They're eating the bears! I saw it on TV. They're eating the bears...!

BLONDIE: Nothing Is Real But The Girl

Illustration of the sometimes-prosaic way a great song can will itself into a TIRnRR playlist. My wife and I love TV game shows, specifically TV game shows that involve either quizzes or pop music. A couple of weeks ago, we were watching either Beat Shazam or Name That Tune, and I was surprised that Blondie's 1999 song "Maria" came up. 

Why was I surprised? Because shows like this deal in recognizable hit records, and "Maria" wasn't really a hit in America. Maybe that explains why the contestants whiffed on this one, but I was delighted to hear it. And hearing "Maria" in this unlikely setting prompted me to dig out the album it came from, Blondie's No Exit.

I've had the CD for years--decades--but haven't given it much thought in quite some time. Whether it was Beat That Tune or Name Shazam that we were watching, the quick as-heard-on-TV hint of "Maria" convinced me TIRnRR was long overdue to program a deeper track from No Exit.

The chosen one is "Nothing Is Real But The Girl," a sublime number that I can't believe we ain't played before. And we wouldn't have played it this week if not for an unintentional nudge from a cheesy TV game show. Must be alchemy. Cheese turns into gold.

THE HALF/CUBES: My Girl

A few weeks back, Dana proposed a fantastic idea for a theme show: Play the original versions of songs covered by the Flashcubes on their 2023 triumph Pop Masters, plus the original versions of gems covered by the Half/Cubes on their amazing new album Pop Treasures. Great concept for a special edition of TIRnRR, and I couldn't agree fast enough. We expanded the blueprint to include songs the Flashcubes covered on official releases that predate Pop Masters, and mandated that we also need to play a few tracks as performed by the Flashcubes and Half/Cubes themselves. The result of our effort is nothing short of stunning, as you'll be able to hear for yourself this Sunday night. Treasured masters!

One eligible song we won't hear in its original rendition on Sunday is Eric Carmen's "My Girl." Oh, we'll hear from Eric, mind you, both as a solo act and with the Raspberries. But we've been playing the Half/Cubes' version of "My Girl," and we're not about to stop playing it now. 

THE FLASHCUBES: Face In The Crowd

SPOILER ALERT! Sunday's TIRnRR tribute to the roots of the Flashcubes and the Half/Cubes will kick off with the Flashcubes playing live in 1979, singin' a Paul Armstrong original about chasing dreams of rock 'n' roll stardom. Cubic inspiration. We start as a face in the crowd. From there, well, we all do what we can to make something happen.

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.