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 # 1220. This show is available as a podcast.
WONDERBOY: Girl Songs
Back in the '90s, Wonderboy was a fantastic SoCal rockin' pop combo fronted by our old pal Robbie Rist. I've never even seen a copy of Wonderboy's eponymous 1992 debut album, but follow-ups Abbey Road To Ruin (1994) and Napoleon Blown Apart (1997) have been in my CD library since the proverbial ever. We've played Wonderboy on TIRnRR, we've played the esteemed Mr. Rist singin' with Popdudes, Quint, Ballzy Tomorrow, the Test Pressings, and solo, and we've played our Robbie working as an integral component of a number of other acts. The official record demonstrates that we, y'know, like Robbie Rist records.
But we did not know that Wonderboy recorded another album after Napoleon Blow Apart.
The revelation came to us via The Spoon, the weekly podcast this Rist guy co-hosts with Chris Jackson and Thom Bowers. A recent Spooncast closed with a taste of "Girl Songs," a friggin' magnificent li'l gem from Wonderboy's originally unreleased album Hero Isle. Wonderboy recorded Hero Isle in (I think) the late '90s, working with studio magician Christian Nesmith; Christian and his wife Circe Link have also been fixtures on this little mutant radio show's playlists. Alas, Hero Isle was never released. Never released at all...
...wait.
What?
WHAT THE ACTUAL...?!!
Robbie did a digital self-release of Hero Isle. Well, that's good! Finally! Musta just been released, right? Right...?
It came out in 2018.
We need better minions. Or, I guess, some minions. A minion. The buck stops somewhere over there. WAY over there.
Better late than...dammit, I wish we'd gotten to this sooner. But we're on it NOW! "Girl Songs" is a picture-perfect embrace of essential non-essentialness, eschewing weightier lyrical topics in favor of writin' catchy pop tunes about girls. 'Cause girls mean a lot to me!
We get the meaning, Robbie, and we agree. "Girl Songs" at long last makes its TIRnRR debut this week. We'll hear another Hero Isle track this Sunday night.
AND we'll hear "Girl Songs" again on Sunday, too. We have a big stack of time to overcompensate for. Girl songs? We're in.
[NOTE: Since this was posted, we have learned that Hero Isle was recorded before Napoleon Blown Apart, not after.]
BO DIDDLEY: Ooh Baby
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It might not be strictly accurate to say I've been on a Bo Diddley kick, but it's true that a spin of the Diddley Daddy's incongruous (but swell!) bubblegum single "Bo Diddley 1969" on January 15th led to more Bo on each succeeding week. It's BO time!
Other than a spin of Diddley's "Background To A Music" (a song I learned from Cub Koda), all of the rest of my Bo picks in January and February have come from my 2-CD Bo Diddley compilation The Chess Box. From The Chess Box, we've heard "Bo Diddley 1969," "Pills," "Diddy Wah Diddy," and this week's bodacious Bo cut "Ooh Baby." We'll go back to The Chess Box for another relatively obscure Bo Diddley treat on our next show.
And people say we don't know Diddley. Liars!
THE MC5: High School
In fact, I was a high school student when I first heard the MC5. The introduction occurred some time around my senior year, seven or eight years after the 1969 release of the group's incendiary classic "Kick Out The Jams." The track was included on a weird 2-LP various-artists set called Heavy Metal. I wrote about that album here. In that piece, I gave specific praise for the MC5:
"The album opens with 'Kick Out The Jams.' That was the revelation for me. I'd never heard the MC5 before, never heard of the MC5 before. This was the censored version, with brothers and sisters standing in for the unexpurgated original incitement to kick out the jams, muthafuckas. I knew nothing about any of that; I just knew this track rocked, and I discovered its raucous, ragged splendor just before I discovered the concept of punk rock. Within less than a year, I would be an enthusiastic punk fan."
"High School" was my second MC5 track, delivered to my eager ears on July 6, 1979, as I witnessed the Ramones' irresistible film Rock 'n' Roll High School. "High School" was on the movie's soundtrack, but not on the movie's soundtrack album. Within the next two or three years, I tracked down used copies of each of the MC5's three albums, Kick Out The Jams, Back In The USA, and High Time. The Back In The USA track "Shakin' Street" scored a lot--a lot--of turntable time in my apartment in the early '80s.
MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer left our mortal Shakin' Street behind at the beginning of this month. There was no doubt that we would close this week's show with "Kick Out The Jams," and I confess I was tempted to program the uncensored version for play during the safe harbor period, then sub in the cleaner-language edit for replay. But: Too much work. We kick out the jams in the fashion we choose.
And during our opening set, we chose the MC5's "High School" to salute the late, great Wayne Kramer. The kids want a little action. The kids want a little fun. The kids all have to get their kicks before the evening's done.
It's been a long, long time since high school. The lesson was learned, and it remains in place. Rah rah rah. Sis boom bah.
BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: Godzilla
I associate Blue Öyster Cult's song "Godzilla" with a specific memory of someone I knew decades ago. We were friends, but we did not part as friends. Our eventual estrangement had nothing whatsoever to do with either "Godzilla" or the band that performed it, but my mind tethers the track to a former friend, and my recollection of that friend playing the song and dedicating it to a former flame, someone I didn't really know.
They also did not part as friends.
Music is larger than its intrinsic details, and it can affect us in ways far beyond the artists' intentions. For all that, I don't hate the song at all. I do still dig it, and it makes a welcome addition to the TIRnRR playlist. I was amazed to look at our all-time stats and discover we'd never played the damned thing before. Well! There goes Tokyo! Go, go Godzilla!
MAD MONSTER PARTY: No Matter What I Do
When Dana programmed the Blue Öyster Cult song, I couldn't resist following that mad monster Godzilla with Mad Monster Party. Categorical imperative, people. Mad Monster Party included Gwynne Kahn and (at times) Bambi Conway, both of whom had been in the Pandoras, whose way fab 1984 track "It's About Time" merits a chapter in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1).
Mad Monster Party released one single and recorded an album's worth of absolutely ace material in the '80s; if the album had come out, it would have been one of my tippy-top records of the decade, probably Top Three (challenging On Fyre by Lyres, falling just short of my # 1 pick Drop Out With The Barracudas). One of its tracks, "Can't Stop Loving You," appeared on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 3 in 2013, and the whole album (or at least an approximation of it) was briefly available as an authorized digital download. It is no longer available in any legit form.
And that's a shame. I have wav masters of the album, provided to me by the band when we were putting together the above-mentioned TIRnRR compilation. This stuff cries out for wider attention, wider release, and I hope some visionary record label will strike a deal to put Mad Monster Party on the shelves in physical form.
"No Matter What I Do" is from that album, and it rocks. Hey, Godzilla! Wanna party? Mad monsters gotta stick together.
SLADE: Do We Still Do It
Before radio playlists became so numbingly homogenized across the breadth of everywheresville, it was possible--common, even--for Top 40 stations in different parts of the USA to play records not being played in other markets.
For example:
1970s stompmeisters Slade were huge in their native UK, largely unknown (or at least underappreciated) here in the colonies. But I knew 'em, because Syracuse's WOLF-AM decided Slade's "Gudbye T' Jane" was a goddamned hit, and played the track accordingly. Over time, I eventually snagged the Slade best-of LP Sladest, and sniffed imperiously at Johnnys-come-lately who discovered Slade material through Quiet Riot's meatball covers in the '80s. Poseurs.
For all that, I have to concede that it was an '80s cover version that hooked me on Slade's "Do We Still Do It." Slade's original version appeared on their 1974 album Old New Borrowed And Blue. In 1988, Flashcubes guitarist Paul Armstrong covered the song with his group 1.4.5. on their album Rhythm n' Booze. Thus indoctrinated, I kept ears open for Slade's OG rendition, and finally grabbed a copy of Old New Borrowed And Blue at a record show. We have played the Slade and the 1.4.5. records at various times on this show over the years.
And we still do it.
THE COCKTAIL SLIPPERS: St. Valentine's Day Massacre
The Greatest Record Ever Made!
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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.
