10 SONGS: 2/10/2022

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 # 1115.

CHEAP STAR: Flower Girl

Man, ya gotta appreciate a band that creates its name by mashing up the monikers of power pop touchstones Cheap Trick and Big Star. Playin' directly into the ol' TIRnRR demographic. Rather than bludgeoning the idea by calling their new album Heaven City or Radio Tonight, Cheap Star's latest is Wish I Could See, and we opened this week's extravaganza with a spin of "Flower Girl." Intrepid TIRnRR listener Mike Browning found the track pleasantly reminiscent of Nada Surf, and we approve of that message. 

BALLZY TOMORROW: Double Our Numbers

Everyone's musical pal Robbie Rist is a big fan of Parthenon Huxley. That's a right worthy thing to be, and our own story of falling under the delightful thrall of P. Hux was told way back here. My favorite among Parthenon Huxley favorites is the sublime "Double Our Numbers," an absolutely irresistible little--no, BIG!!--number that appeared on Parthenon's 1988 album Sunny Nights. We know Robbie also loves the song; he's said so more than once, and several years ago he posted a video of himself performing an acoustic cover of the song. More recently, Robbie recorded a new version of "Double Your Numbers" under his nom du pummel Ballzy Tomorrow. It's a wonderful cover of a wonderful song. I wish some sort of Powers That Be would return Sunny Nights to proper retail availability, and I really wish more and more people recognized "Double Our Numbers" as the rockin' pop classic it is. In the mean time: take it, Robbie! 

THE LINDA LINDAS: Growing Up

All last year, we routinely referred to the young quartet called the Linda Lindas as "the buzz band of 2021." It looks like Bela, Eloise, Lucia, and Mila have their eye on claiming 2022 as well, with the forthcoming release of their first album, Growing Up. The album's due in April, but available for preorder right now. The preorder gets you the title track (and previous single tracks "Oh!" and "Nina") in that very same right-now time frame. GO! Get it! Buzz waits for no one.

PALMYRA DELRAN AND THE DOPPEL GANG: Lucky In Love

For someone who is--in theory!--wired into the phantasmagoric splendor of today's now sound, it's appalling how much stuff I just miss. Y'know, if I could afford to pay attention, I would pay attention. Will attention accept an IOU?

Case in point: this yummy digital single from Palmyra Delran and the Doppel Gang. "Lucky In Love" (virtually backed by a cover of Tuff Darts' tres pop "Who's Been Sleeping Here?") came out a freakin' year ago, and I just managed to hear it in this far-future world of 2022. I need better minions. Or maybe some minions. A minion. Or at least something resembling peripheral awareness.

Ah, but any track you ain't heard is a new track, and "Lucky In Love" is for damned sure worth waiting for anyway. Famed rocker and Underground Garage personality Palmyra's gang o' doppels includes the one 'n' only Michael Lynch, and both tracks are as fab as fab can be. Fabber, even. I wish we'd played 'em last year. We're happy to play 'em now.

TONY VALENTINO: Barracuda

Like many of my fellow Americans, my first exposure to the Standells was when the group guest-starred as domestic ersatz Beatles on a 1964 episode of TV's The Munsters, wherein unassailable pop pundit Herman Munster indicated he would sleep easier knowing the future of our country was in the hands of fine young men like the Standells. They would go on to become one-hit wonders for "Dirty Water" in 1966, but they also had a number of lesser chart hits that deserved wider notoriety. The rise of the Nuggets critical aesthetic in the '70s and '80s brought an embrace of '60s garage and punk, and that embrace proudly acclaimed Standells perennials like "Riot On The Sunset Strip," "Why Pick On Me," the pounding "Dirty Water" B-side "Rari," and (my favorite) "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White."

Guitarist Tony Valentino was a founding member of the mighty Standells, and he's still active as a recording artist for Big Stir Records. Tony made his post-Standells TIRnRR debut as a guest of the Forty Nineteens, playing on that group's single "Late Night Radio" (which then appeared on the Forty Nineteens' 2021 album New Roaring Twenties). Now, Tony returns with a new single, offering a new version of the Standells' "Barracuda." Somewhere, Herman Munster is smiling. Right here, we're smiling, too.

THE JIVE FIVE: Hully Gully Callin' Time

While the Jive Five's biggest hit was the 1961 doo-wop gem "My True Story," TIRnRR's go-to Jive Five track has generally been "What Time Is It?," a dreamy recording that earns a place in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). We've played a couple of other Jive Five selections over the years, but this week offers the first-ever TIRnRR spin of "Hully Gully Callin' Time." And it makes its way to the playlist because I discovered that one of the song's credited songwriters was one Joyce Cafarelli. I have no idea whether or not this Joyce Cafarelli was any distant relation to my family--Third Cousin Joyce? Honorary Aunt Joyce? Jivin' Sister Joyce, who never writes, never calls, never shows up at weddings or funerals?--but I can state with some authority that we have yet to see any royalties. Hey! Joyce! What about your family...?!

(Oddly enough, though I'm actually pretty sure I'm not really kin to Joyce Cafarelli, the song's title does make me remember something about my Dad. Dad wasn't really a rock 'n' roll fan, saying he preferred "pre-Pearl Harbor music" to the bangin' and twangin' that captured his youngest son's fancy. In our sporadic and amiable conversations about the rock and the roll, Daddy almost always made some reference to the Hully Gully. Like, many times, over the course of decades. Coincidence? I think so. But...maybe not? It would be a cool connection if true.

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD: I Only Want To Be With You

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE MONKEES: Listen To The Band

No, it was not a surprise when the Monkees were once again snubbed by this year's list of nominations for The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Just because the RnRHOF nominating board is clueless doesn't mean we have to be. Listen to the band.

THE BLUSTERFIELDS: Insomnia

Let's talk about the Blusterfields. The North Carolina lads' debut album The Vicious Afterglow opens with all the bluster 'n' aggro of an arena show, but all in service to a higher pop calling. You've got your sway. You've got your hooks. You've got your volume, and you've got your sweet, anthemic-sounding singalong vocals. The Blusterfields do not seem to be lacking in confidence, and their confidence is justified. Let's talk about the Blusterfields. And let's say those three little words we need to say: Turn. It. UP.

TODD RUNDGREN: Couldn't I Just Tell You

Todd Rundgren's essential double album Something/Anything? just turned an ever-spry 50 freakin' years old. I'm not quite the Todd fan that many of my peers are, but I am very fond of a number of individual things he did, including his '60s days with the Nazz and his '80s Fab Four pastiche Deface The Music. I've owned a copy of Something/Anything? for more than 40 years, a set secured when I traded a gift of Eagles' Greatest Hits for this sprawling 2-LP magnum opus. 

I got it specifically for "Couldn't I Just Tell You." I had seen Rundgren perform the song 

with Utopia on a 1978 TV appearance on The Mike Douglas Show. Our Todd introduced it as "an example of the latest musical trend. It's called power pop." I knew the song before that, but this was when it really grabbed my attention. Here's an excerpt from the song's entry in The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):

"Even though 'Couldn't I Just Tell You' wasn't a hit, I knew the song from somewhere. Maybe it got some play on WOLF-AM, falling into the airwaves in between our Todd's big hits 'I Saw The Light' and 'Hello It's Me' [both from Something/Anything?]. Maybe I picked up on it some time later, perhaps as an older track dusted off for a fresh spin by an FM radio DJ after I switched preferred frequencies.

"I wasn't necessarily a Todd Rundgren fan, at least not specifically. He was fine, but aside from hearing "Hello It's Me" and later his remake of the Beach Boys' 'Good Vibrations,' he wasn't really part of my conscious pop thought. I knew him more as a guy who (I'd read somewhere) sported multi-colored hair, and whose ladyfriend was Playboy centerfold Bebe Buell. I liked him, but didn't think much about him.

"But that song....

"'Couldn't I Just Tell You' lurked within the gauzy borders of my subconscious, a welcome guest however it was that it got there. It settled comfortably in my mind's terra incognita, itself a phrase I picked up from a girl I fancied. I could have sung the song to her if I'd thought of it.

"The tentative dance of teen infatuation, captured in microcosm, made pretty with the sound of (apparently) the latest musical trend.

"Seeing and hearing Utopia perform 'Couldn't I Just Tell You' on The Mike Douglas Show in '78 brought all of this subconscious thought to the surface, elevating the song immediately and forever thereafter to my own Top of the Pops. Immediately after the show was over, I phoned another girl I knew, just to say, Did you see THAT...?!

"By 1978, my eighteen-year-old self had already suffered and--damn me--inflicted some broken hearts. I had also discovered a name for my favorite sounds: power pop. The latest musical trend. Todd Rundgren may not have thought much of it. I sure did. And on this song, Todd Rundgren accomplished it, fully and with great authority. Why don't you lend me an ear, I'll make it perfectly clear, I love you. Harmonies and guitars. A crush can lead to more. And it can sound magnificent, regardless of whether or not it ever starts to trend."

You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon, or by visiting CC's Tip Jar. Additional products and projects are listed 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, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl

10 SONGS: 1/27/2022

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 # 1113.

RONNIE SPECTOR AND THE E STREET BAND: Say Goodbye To Hollywood

A listener once joked that the only way Billy Joel would get airplay on TIRnRR would be via Ronnie Spector and the E Street Band's fantastic cover of our Billy's "Say Goodbye To Hollywood." We actually have played Billy Joel a few times, and I wouldn't rule out playing him again when the whim strikes. 

But yeah, we clearly have played Ronnie's version of "Say Goodbye To Hollywood" more than we've played all other Billy Joel songs combined. As the pop world mourns her passing, it seemed a given that we should close this week's show with the Ronettes' "Be My Baby," open with "Say Goodbye To Hollywood," and thread more Ronnie Spector performances throughout the playlist. 

THE BLUSTERFIELDS: January Jones

It's no shade against the music of the Blusterfields--whose new album The Vicious Afterglow is really good--to confess that their song "January Jones" appears on this week's 10 Songs in part because it gives me an excuse to post a picture of the actress who shares that name.

What was Don Draper thinking? Anyway, the song's great, too. More Blusterfields to come on future playlists.

CHRIS CHURCH: We're Going Downtown

Chris Church's 2011 album Darling Please was originally kind of a stealth release, but it's just been given a fresh shine and a factory-fresh spotlight. Yes, it's another public service from Big Stir Records, bless 'em. More! Please?

RONNIE SPECTOR [with JOEY RAMONE]: You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory

The combined forces of the Ramones and producer Phil Spector did not create a match in Heaven. On the other hand, Ronnie Spector and Joey Ramone were a good fit. Ronnie had covered Joey's Ramones ballad "Here Today Gone Tomorrow" on her 1980 album Siren, and Joey produced her 1999 EP She Talks To Rainbows. The EP's title tune was one of two more Ramones covers on the record (along with "Bye Bye Baby"), which also featured Ronnie's version of the Beach Boys' "Don't Worry Baby" and a remake of the Ronettes' "I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine." Joey provided backing vocals for a cover of Johnny Thunders' tough/tender lament "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory." Perfect match all around. 

WENDI DUNLAP: Baby Blue

As often as I talk (sincerely!) about an infinite number of tracks each being THE greatest record ever made as long as they take turns, my own all-time # 1 favorite is probably Badfinger's "Baby Blue." I mean, on the days that it's not something by the Beatles or the Kinks or...skip it. It ain't easy for an artist to cover a song that's already perfect, but Wendi Dunlap manages a rendition of "Baby Blue" that's compelling on its own merit. The track is available on this free-for-nothing-gratis compilation album, a gift from the good folks at Futureman Records.

RONNIE SPECTOR: Something's Gonna Happen

Ah, curse whatever random mix of personal cluelessness and general obscurity kept this release outside of my awareness for so damned long. In the very late '80s, maybe into the early '90s, Ronnie Spector recorded a handful of tracks with every pop fan's pal Marshall Crenshaw. Working with Crenshaw and his combo, Spector cut five Crenshaw songs--"Something's Gonna Happen," "Favorite Waste Of Time," "For His Love," "Whenever You're On My Mind," and "Communication"--but the world at large wasn't interested. The tracks remained unreleased until 2003. 

Stupid, stupid world at large.

This is a magnificent little treasure trove of stirring pop music. If only this had gotten some traction at the time, prompting a full-length album by Ronnie, MC and company, we would all have a cherished memory of what would have been one of the best albums of the '90s. But it wasn't to be.

Nonetheless: it should have been. If you don't have the eventual Something's Gonna Happen EP, I must humbly recommend you remedy that ASAP. What a record. And what a missed opportunity.

LANNIE FLOWERS: Don't Make Me Wait

A new collection of tunes from Lannie Flowers! The partnership between Big Stir Records and SpyderPop Records has already yielded a wealth of maximumYEAH! for rockin' pop fans. Big Stir has given wider release for previous SpyderPop albums (like Danny Wilkerson's TIRnRR Fave Rave Wilkerson, represented on this week's radio extravaganza by the irresistible "Let It Go Tonight"), and BSR and SPR have pooled resources on behalf of new stuff, too.

Lannie's long-awaited new album Flavor Of The Month gathers remixed versions of the digital-only singles Lannie released prior to his 2019 album Home. The new album was cleared for airplay just in time for this week's shindig, so over the wireless it went. Fantastic stuff, and another invigmoratin' product of the partnership between SypderPop and Big Stir.

THE RONETTES: He Did It

With "Be My Baby" set as this week's finale, and with spins of the Ronettes' "Walking In The Rain" and "Baby, I Love You" programmed elsewhere in the playlist, we still wanted to include one more Ronettes track. We opted for "He Did It," a 1965 release on the Colpix label. I'm pretty sure the track is older than its release date, presumably recorded before Ronnie, Estelle Bennett, and Nedra Talley got involved with, y'know...that guy. The murderer. Good enough for us! Who needs a wall of sound when you've got Ronnie Spector?

RONNIE SPECTOR: I'll Follow The Sun

Former hitmakers forsaken by the record biz often find themselves recording remakes of their own material and/or covers of other hitmakers' material. Ronnie Spector's 2016 album English Heart offers the fabulous Veronica interpreting some 1960s sides previously done by British acts the Dave Clark Five, the Zombies, Lulu, Sandie Shaw, the Kinks, the Fortunes, the Animals, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and the Bee Gees, plus the lesser-known "I'd Much Rather Be With The Girls," a song the Rolling Stones gave away. My initial impression of the record wasn't terribly enthusiastic, but I owe it another spin to see if it rings in better with repetition. 

I do like Ronnie's English Heart cover of the Beatles' "I'll Follow The Sun." Maybe it was just because I heard it for the first time shortly after Ronnie had passed, but it seems a sad and touching moment, a moving farewell as we bid her goodbye. 

THE RONETTES: Be My Baby

Boom-boomboom-chuk-boom-boomboom-chuck Godspeed, Ronnie Spector.

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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

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I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl