10 SONGS (1200th Show Edition): 9/29/2023

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 # 1200. This show is available as a podcast.

THE STALLIONS: Why

We subtitled this week's blowout 1200th show as "Some Fave Raves From Our First 1199." Milestone shows present the challenge of trying to figure out which among many, many key tracks we wanna spin as representation of whatever the hell it is we do. But the result is always invigmoratin', and even though we had to omit a ton of epic greatness, I think this is one of the best milestone playlists we've done; and over the course of 1200 efforts, we've hit upon some pretty good ones along the way.

I determined weeks ago that I wanted to open this 1200th show with "Why," a cover of a '60s nugget originally done by an obscure group called the Dirty Wurds. The Pandoras covered "Why" in the '80s, but a version recorded in the '90s by NYC punk combo the Stallions just friggin' rules in all its chaotic splendor. For a very long time, the Stallions'"Why" was the all-time most-played track on TIRnRR, almost entirely on the strength of how often we played it in our first few years on the air. Big Star's "September Gurls" snatched the most-played title away from the Stallions quite some time ago, but "Why" is still an integral part of this show's DNA (even though we don't play it much anymore).

I used to introduce this song with a scream, a silly move that maybe two of our fans liked and half of our DJ team abhorred. But I tried to introduce it again in that rambunctious manner for this special show: It's not just any song! It's not just any band! It's...THE STALLIONS WITH "WHY"ON SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK!!!!!!!

Tried it. Recorded it that way. It was...almost adequate, but not quite. I can't do the scream anymore, so I redid it without the scream. Time waits for no one, Stallion or otherwise. Ours is not to reason....

MANNIX: Highway Lines

When I opened with "Why," Dana immediately followed it with "Highway Lines" by Mannix. Good choice. After two years with the Stallions at the top of our season-ending countdowns, this track from Mannix's album Come To California was our # 1 track in 2001, and it has been a TIRnRR staple ever since. Even more than "Why" or "September Gurls," I regard "Highway Lines" as the single defining track of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. It later appeared on our compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 3, and it will have a chapter in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1).

Another saga 'bout another love gone wrong

And the DJ knows what I'm goin' through

In "Highway Lines," the radio playing in the car serves as sympathetic companion to our lovelorn hero as he drives across the country to make one last stand to salvage a doomed relationship. For TIRnRR # 1200, "Highway Lines" seemed like an ideal lead-in to Laurie Biagini's "Hey Mr. DJ." 

LAURIE BIAGINI: Hey Mr. DJ

Hey Mr. DJ, play me a song

As much as we've loved pret' near everything Laurie has crafted over the years, "Hey Mr. DJ" stands at the pinnacle. We realize it's not about us--the song's titular DJ is Laurie's beacon on a Saturday night, the evening before our own declaration that the weekend stops here--but man, it resonates in a way that's just magic to anyone who ever loved the radio. The track was on her 2022 album Stranger In The Mirror; when we started putting together This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 5 last year, "Hey Mr. DJ" was the only thing we considered for that compilation's opening track. It initiates TIRnRR Volume 5's girl-and-boy song cycle (an idea that was a sort-of reimagining of this song cycle). "Hey Mr. DJ" is absolutely essential to the concept for TIRnRR Volume 5. 

Hey Mr. DJ; play us some songs.

THE RAMONES: Sheena Is A Punk Rocker

For three years in a row--2009 through 2011--we undertook three year-long gimmicks on the show. And when I say we, I mean me. Dana's not really one for the gimmicks. Our first gimmick was The 50 KISS Strategy, a straightforward vow to play 50 different KISS tracks within a single calendar year. The following year offered the expanded ambition of The Hundred Hollies Initiative, with a vicious penalty for failure: if we didn't accomplish our goal of playing 100 different Hollies tracks before the year was up, we would have to play Bob Seger's awful "Old Time Rock & Roll" as penance.

Our audience shuddered. Cringed. We played 101 Hollies tracks, just to be sure. Crisis averted!

And 2011 brought us 301 Songs About 301 Girls, an effort to program 301 songs with a girl's name in each title. It started with a goal of 200 songs, grew to 300, and then I added one more because Dana played a 300th qualifying track before I could get to my intended 300th, "Christi Girl" by the Flashcubes. Dana may not be one for gimmicks, but he knows what records to play. 301 Songs About 301 Girls was a lot of fun, and it received the best sustained reaction of any crazy scheme we've ever executed. 

And the scheme started with Girl # 1: Sheena. AKA: The record that changed my life, performed by the American Beatles, the greatest American rock 'n' roll band of all time, the Ramones. I could write a book about 'em. New York City really has it all.

THE FLASHCUBES: Forget About You

Although we play a lot of new music nearly every week, a 1200th show should be about legacy. We determined that this week's playlist should only include tracks that accrued some previous TIRnRR airplay. We'll start to address the growing backlog of brand-new releases on our next show. On to # 1201!

But nor did we want to only play older tracks. So this week, in addition to some of the relatively recent individual gems that have already established themselves among our Fave Raves (treats by Kid Gulliver, the Linda Lindas, Dolph Chaney, Circe Link and Christian Nesmith, the Brothers Steve, Pop Co-Op, the Half Cubes, Harmonic Dirt, and the Gold Needles), some of our designated legacy acts are represented by pure gold from the 2020s rather than from previous decades. The Grip Weeds are here with "Lady Friend" instead of "Every Minute," Kelley Ryan with "The Church Of Laundry" instead of something by her old rockin' pop DBA astroPuppees, etc. If we'd gotten around to playing the Catholic Girls, it woulda been their current single "Hear My Prayer" in place of "Someone New" or "Should Have Been Mine."

A track from Syracuse's own power pop powerhouse the Flashcubes should be considered a given for any TIRnRR milestone. Hell, the 'Cubes are a given for us on most weeks. The Flashcubes have classic tracks from their original run in the '70s, reunion tracks from the '90s, and a treasure trove of fresh goodies since the dawn of this 21st century. They even wrote and recorded a song about us, a track which led off This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 1 in 2005.

The Flashcubes have a new album out, an all-covers set called Pop Masters. It will surprise absolutely no one to hear that it's my top album of 2023. Its current single is an ace cover of the Motors' "Forget About You." 

For our 1200th show, we played that one. Legacy grows. Don't forget to smile everybody! It's the Flashcubes.

TIRnRR ALLSTARS: Waterloo Sunset

TIRnRR first went on the air on December 27th, 1998. You can read up on our weird history here, from the first Dana & Carl radio series We're Your Friends For Now in 1992 through the various limited projects that occupied us during the bulk of the '90s, the debut of TIRnRR, and hijinks that ensued thereafter.

As TIRnRR approaches its 25th anniversary, our stubborn refusal to just go away already is enabled, at least in part, by our seamless mimicry of both Blanche DuBois and Billy Shears: we have always relied on the kindness of strangers, and we get by with a little help from our friends.

This strange kindness and friendly help saved the show (and the station itself) when we were all about to be kicked to the curb at the end of 2006. I'm not exaggerating; we were done, kaput, bereft of life, breathing our last gasps, about to transition from -ing to -ed. Our supporters dictated otherwise. Earlier this year, America's Sweetheart Irene Peña invited us to an interview on her Twitch channel, Irene Peña Music, and then surprised us by presenting a donation on behalf of Irene herself and a number of our other talented pals; you see that moment here. We are blessed with kind, strange, helpful friends.

Another example of this is the 2019 release Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. Available as a Futureman Records digital download or a Kool Kat Musik CD, Waterloo Sunset collects tracks by the Click Beetles, Eytan Mirsky, Vegas With Randolph, Pop Co-Op, Michael Slawter, Gretchen's Wheel, the Grip Weeds, the Armoires, the Anderson Council, Pacific Soul Ltd., and Ms. Irene Peña. It was assembled in secret, and presented to us as a fait accompli. I added liner notes (already stressing the Blanche DuBois angle), but otherwise? We had nothing to do with it. It was all the work of our friends. All of it.

The compilation is toplined by a fresh cover of the Kinks' sublime "Waterloo Sunset," performed by TIRnRR Allstars. Our assembled avengers include all of Pop Co-Op--Steve Stoeckel, Bruce Gordon (the track's studio wunderkind), Joel Tinnel, and Stacy Carson--plus Keith Klingensmith (who masterminded the project), Eytan Mirsky, Teresa Cowles, Dan Pavelich, Rich Firestone, and, of course, Irene Peña. The Allstars deliver a stunning rendition of a much-loved classic, and we continue to play it with some frequency. It certainly had to be a part of our 1200th show.

1200 shows. See our friends? They got us here. And as long as we gaze on all of this, all of this...

...we are in paradise.

THE BOB SEGER SYSTEM: 2 + 2 = ?

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

We still ain't playin' "Old Time Rock & Roll."

THE POPTARTS: I Won't Let You Let Me Go

The very first song played on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1, December 27, 1998. It wouldn't have been a proper 1200th show without a spin of the Poptarts.

EYTAN MIRSKY: This Year's Gonna Be Our Year

Maybe it will be, Brother Eytan. Maybe it will.

CHUCK BERRY: Promised Land

Is there a promised land? I don't know. But Chuck Berry wrote and recorded an irresistible song about that prospect, that possibility. We may as well keep headin' on down that road. Here's to the promise. Here's to the road that brought us this far. Here's to what we hope we'll find if we get to wherever it is we're going. Tell the folks back home: Dana & Carl are on the line.

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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: 9/9/2021

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.

This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1093.

THE BROTHERS STEVE: We Got The Hits

The Brothers Steve say, "We got the hits!" Yes we do, friends. Yes we do. Lemme tell ya 'bout a few of them....

THE CHELSEA CURVE: Inconceivable

Are the gal and guys of the Chelsea Curve really releasing a new single every month? Man, I hate overachievers, mainly because I'm jealous of, y'know, ambition. I forgive 'em quickly because each of these singles has been pretty damned swell, which is why we play them all on the radio. "A Better Way" has been my fave of the lot to date, but "Inconceivable" may give "A Better Way" a run for its overachieving money. Awright. Keep 'em coming, you lot.

GREAT BUILDINGS: Hold On To Something

They'll be there for you. Long before Danny Wilde and Phil Solem found fame as the Rembrandts, they were (wait for it!) friends in an ace early '80s combo called Great Buildings. Their lone major-label LP Apart From The Crowd was released by Columbia in 1981, and it did not ship 'n' sell the units it deserved. I bought the album (prompted by a rave mention in either CREEM or Trouser Press), but didn't really appreciate it until a year or two later. "Hold On To Something" is the album's lead-off track, and it remains a peer to any and all of the greatest rockin' pop tracks from that decade.

KISS: Detroit Rock City

My first KISS record was the Rock And Roll Over album, a high school graduation gift from my sister in 1977. I'm not exactly sure of the subsequent chronology of my KISS acquisitions. Both Love Gun and Destroyer likely came to me via record club purchases, Alive II was a Christmas present from Mom and Dad in December '77, and a beat-up copy of Alive! came from The Record Exchange in Cleveland Heights. I also picked up a very used copy of Hotter Than Hell somewhere in this '77-'78 time frame, establishing my KISS collection through my first year at college. Dressed To Kill came later, a free-with-purchase, get-this-OUTTA-here! used copy scarfed up at Brockport's Main Street Records. Other than Ace Frehley's "New York Groove" 45 and (maybe) a used copy of Dynasty, this was the totality of my personal KISS library until I decided to go back and get 'em all circa 1989.

I'm pretty sure Destroyer was my second KISS album, my first after Rock And Roll Over. I confess that there was never really a KISS album that I loved; with KISS (as with many other acts), I was an individual song guy rather than a whole LP guy. Side Two of Destroyer had "Shout It Out Loud," a track I loved and have proclaimed The Greatest Record Ever Made! But in the '70s, my primary Destroyer go-tos were the first two tracks on Side One, "Detroit Rock City" and "King Of The Night Time World," and then "Shout It Out Loud" on Side Two. I tried to get into the rest of the album, and I would have probably liked "God Of Thunder" without its special effects, but I likely would have been just as good with a four-song Destroyer EP of "Detroit Rock City," "King Of The Night Time World," "Shout It Out Loud," and the hit AM ballad "Beth." I am as a god of thunder made me.

"Detroit Rock City" remains a favorite. Get up, everybody's gonna move their feet, get down, everybody's gonna leave their seat. I avoid getting sucked into arguments about whether or not KISS is power pop; they're not, but honestly, I think some of their songs come closer to my idea of power pop than, say, 20/20 does. 

Your mileage may vary. But look out for that truck ahead.

THE MIRACLES: Going To A Go-Go

I wish. I miss live music, but I'm generally not in any big hurry to mix with crowds nowadays, since crowds almost always include at least some people who are--what's the word?--stupid. I've only attended two live music events since the shutdowns, with a third coming up soon; I'm masked and fully Moderna'd, but...people. I look forward to seeing more shows when it feels appropriate to see more shows. In the mean time, the Miracles have a song to rev us up for our eventual return to that exciting, vibrant environment. Live music! Oh, I wanna go. 

NICK PIUNTI: Heart Inside Your Head

So much fantastic new pop music being released, and so little time to squeeze it into a mere three-hour weekly showcase. Dana and I would start our own radio station, but we've already established that we hate overachievers. Wouldn't wanna contradict ourselves. Nonetheless, Nick Piunti and the Complicated Men are no strangers to TIRnRR airplay--their track "Upper Hand" scored significant spins in 2020--and new single "Heart Inside Your Head" merits attention from all ears, minds, and attention spans. This is a hit record.

OTIS REDDING: You Left The Water Running

I had no idea that Otis Redding's 1967 gem "You Left The Water Running" was originally unreleased, appearing only on an unauthorized 45 in the '70s and finally seeing legit issue in the late '80s. Well, some things are worth waiting for. I knew the song from Rhino Records' Redding box Otis!, which my lovely wife Brenda gave me as a Christmas gift a couple of decades ago. Thanks again, darlin'!

THE ROLLING STONES: Get Off Of My Cloud

"Get Off Of My Cloud" is the first Rolling Stones song I remember hearing, a hit on the radio in 1965, when I was five years old. In memory of the late Charlie Watts (whose distinctive drum intro to this song means Charlie was the first individual Rolling Stone I ever heard), this is The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE BOB SEGER SYSTEM: 2 + 2 = ?

An infinite number of songs can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Even with an infinite number, though, some turns are perhaps less likely than others.

Some may be surprised that Bob Seger gets two chapters in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). I have given frequent public testimonial regarding how much I despise much of Seger's most popular work, and indeed a GREM! chapter about "Old Time Rock & Roll" is mostly about how much I hate that goddamned song. 

But for all that, a lot of Seger's earlier work is fantastic. Let's have a peek at a little bit of the book's chapter about "2 + 2 = ?"

"Maybe you never knew that Bob Seger made a punk record. If you didn't know, it's not your fault; neither music history nor Seger himself has seemed interested in the secret revelation of a dynamic, furious 1968 record called '2 + 2 = ?'

"It's a difficult dichotomy to reconcile. Seger's mass-market reputation is built largely upon a series of popular mid-tempo heartland ballads and MOR rockers, beloved by many, despised by others. They are soundtracks for truck commercials, banal and inoffensive radio fare with the bland personality of margarine. Even as I type that, I really don't mean any disrespect to those who love 'Like A Rock' or 'Against The Wind' or even--shudder--'We've Got Tonight' and 'Old Time Rock & Roll.' There are no guilty pleasures in pop music. If you like something, a guy writing dismissively about your familiar favorites is unlikely to alter your tastes, nor should it. Dig what you wanna dig. Just, y'know, forgive me for cringing when I hear any of that stuff. I have to dig what I wanna dig, too...

"...It can be galling to admit when you've been wrong. In this case, I comfort myself with a reminder that I still loathe the songs that made me critical of Seger's work to begin with, and (more importantly) that it's good to discover a redemptive portion of an artist's body of work. Seger's supposed to be a good guy; I'm happy to find concrete evidence that he made some records that I can love without reservation. Some of this has since been reissued on a 2018 collection called Heavy Music: The Complete Cameo Recordings 1966-1967. All of it remains relatively obscure.

"...'Get Out Of Denver' had been far and away my favorite among Seger's records. I also kinda liked 'Hollywood Nights' among the more famous choices. But this fresh treasure trove of archival nuggets introduced me to new favorites, recorded and originally released under the names Bob Seger & the Last Heard, the Bob Seger System, and Bob Seger solo. 'Noah.' 'Rosalie.' 'Lucifer.' Renewed spins of the still-great 'Get Out Of Denver' and the now-welcome 'Heavy Music (Part 1).' Rockin', man. And there was the immense, irresistible 'East Side Story,' a triumphant appropriation of Van Morrison's 'Gloria' riff in service of a tenement tragedy that was absolutely The Greatest Record Ever Made for the approximately two and a half minutes of my first spin of its cantankerous glory.

"'2 + 2 = ?' is even greater...

"...How did this happen? How could the Bob Seger of the wretched peacenik-baiting diatribe 'Ballad Of The Yellow Beret' also be responsible for the gooseflesh-raising intensity of the antiwar '2 + 2 = ?' And how did that guy go on to produce such mundane background noise to such numbingly popular effect? Seger's large. He contains multitudes. 

"But the multitudes need to hear '2 + 2 = ?' It's at least as savage as the Sex Pistols, as angry as the Clash, as explosive as the Stooges or the MC5. Never mind the bollocks, here's Bob Seger. Seger is a punk rocker."

THE SPEED OF SOUND: Tomorrow's World

Museum Of Tomorrow, the new album from Manchester's phenomenal pop combo the Speed of Sound, will be released by Big Stir Records on September 17th. It's very, very good. Very good. Find out more here, and get your wallet out. They got the hits. Tomorrow is coming atcha at the speed of sound.

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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: 12/4/2020

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 week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1053.

BOW WOW WOW: Go Wild In The Country

TIRnRR is on a modest Bow Wow Wow kick, with this week's spin of "Go Wild In The Country" preceded by "Do You Wanna Hold Me?" a couple of weeks back, another ***SPOILER ALERT!*** BWW track planned for this coming Sunday, and more to follow in future weeks. During this week's show, "Go Wild In The Country" inspired our friend and fellow SPARK! DJ Rich Firestone to note, "Somehow at the time, I didn't realize how much fun Bow Wow Wow was!" Well, we're here to help, Rich. We're here to help.

DESMOND CHILD AND ROUGE: The Night Was Not

The 1980 film Times Square is better known for its soundtrack than for the movie itself. In the fabulous rock 'n' roll movie book Hollywood Rock (which was edited by Marshall Crenshaw), Andy Langer wrote, "Even mentioning this movie seems to dignify it unnecessarily." Oof. 

I finally saw this unmentionable flick for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and I actually enjoyed it on its own misshapen terms. It's not a good film by any means, not even in the sense of being so bad it's good. It's...just not good. Yet I'm glad I watched it; I wish I'd had an opportunity to see it when it was new, and I wonder what my twenty-year-old self would have thought of it at the time. In 1980, I lived in a small college town with not all that much to do if you didn't have a car to get somewhere else. I mean, there was drinking, but other than that. So I saw just about every non-horror movie that played in the village, from The Muppet Movie to The Gong Show Movie, Superman II to Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, Hollywood Knights to Goodbye Emmanuelle, For Your Eyes Only to Breaking Away. Times Square would have fit right in. 

Seeing Times Square forty years after the fact is a jarringly out-of-context experience. I am most assuredly not twenty years old anymore. But I was able to turn off my brain and ride the mild surf of its undemanding melodrama. Plus Tim Curry's in it. 

The soundtrack requires no qualification; it's as essential now as it was then, and I'll surrender my copy of it when it's pried from my cold dead hands. Suzi Quatro. The Pretenders. Roxy Music. Gary Numan. Talking Heads. Joe Jackson. XTC. THE RAMONES! And those are just the highlights of the first record in this two-LP set, and not even counting "Flowers In The City" by David Johansen and Robin Johnson, a cut I've previously described as one of five great movies songs from films I either didn't like or never saw.

The soundtrack album also includes "The Night Was Not" by Desmond Child and Rouge, a track that never moved me and which my memory cast aside. Hearing it play during the movie made something click, and I suddenly connected with the song for the first time. And that was sufficient motivation for Desmond Child and Rouge to make their TIRnRR debut. These things take time.

GENERATION X: Dancing With Myself

Beware the would-be hipster who whines, "I liked [insert artist's name here] before anyone else did, but then [applicable personal pronoun] sold out, got popular, and started to suck!" Humph. Worst would-be hipster ever. So yeah, take it with a grain of salt when I say I never cared for Billy Idol's successful solo career, but I loved him when he was fronting Generation X in the late '70s and very early '80s. Hipster? Me? It's you who say I am.

I really wanted to like Idol. Listen, I'm in favor of artists achieving success and recognition, getting paid, and being able to continue the divine art of creating. But "Eyes Without A Face," "Rebel Yell," "Flesh For Fantasy," "Hot In The City," and his meatball cover of Tommy James and the Shondells' "Mony Mony" mostly left me cold. I liked "White Wedding" a little bit, especially the guitar hook. The only one of Idol's solo successes that I really liked--loved--was "Dancing With Myself." 

Of course, when I first loved it, it was a Generation X single.

Technically, it was "Gen X," the truncated nom du bop used for the final material credited to the soon-to-disappear UK punk pop combo previously known as Generation X. Under whatever name, "Dancing With Myself" rocks, pops, 'n' percolates, a right worthy successor to earlier Generation X triumphs "Ready Steady Go," "Your Generation," and "King Rocker." The Billy Idol "Dancing With Myself" sounds the same to my ears, so if Idol re-recorded the Gen X track, he stuck with the blueprint with stunning fidelity. But what do I know anyway? Never trust a hipster.

THE KINKS: War Is Over

Last week on his SPARK! radio show Radio Deer Camp, the above-cited Rich Firestone played The Kinks' "To The Bone," a cut that has never been played on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. And we've played a lot of Kinks songs over the past 22 years! The song is the title track from a 1996 2-CD US version of a live Kinks album released as a single disc in the UK in '94. The US version adds several tracks, but omits "Waterloo Sunset" and "Autumn Almanac," forcing fans (like me) to buy both versions. The US set also adds the two studio tracks that are the final Kinks recordings issued to date; Rich just played "To The Bone" on Radio Deer Camp, and we played the other studio track ("Animal") on TIRnRR some time ago.

We still haven't played "To The Bone," but we did want to try to program a Kinks song that we hadn't played before. We picked "War Is Over," from 1989's UK Jive, which is my least favorite Kinks album. The song's fine. The album....

I was able to see The Kinks on the UK Jive tour. It was the third and final time I saw The Kinks in concert, and oddly enough the show occurred in the same week that I saw my first Rolling Stones concert. Kinks and Stones in a single week? Awrighty! 

My first Kinks show was in 1978, and it was awesome; I told that story here. Seeing them a second time at a mid '80s arena show in Buffalo was less special, but still The Kinks. The 1989 show was weird. It was staged in a gym at the State University of New York at Oswego; the arena show felt impersonal, and this felt, I dunno, somewhere in between, but still almost haphazardly disconnected. 

The show was sparsely attended, so lovely wife Brenda and I were able to get THISCLOSE to the stage where The Kinks--THE KINKS!!!--were playing. But it was the UK Jive tour. I have little memory of it. I can't believe I saw The Kinks at such close proximity, but that a combination of off-putting venue and a set list emphasizing a lesser album made the whole event seem so forgettable.

But it was THE KINKS...!

SUZI QUATRO: I May Be Too Young

Hey, have ya heard about Suzi from Baton Rouge?

Why, yes. Yes I have. Suzi herself was from Michigan rather than Louisiana, but the line quoted above was the first thing I ever heard her sing or say.

After Suzi Quatro had already cast teen me in her irresistible thrall via a glimpse of her image on the cover of Rolling Stone, "I May Be Too Young" was the first Suzi Q song I ever heard, an introduction made sweeter by the fact that it was a video performance on the British lip-synced pop music TV showcase Supersonic. Love at first sight, then swoon at first sight and sound.

THE RAMONES: I Wanna Be Sedated

The above-mentioned Times Square movie was produced by Robert Stigwood, who had managed Cream and The Bee Gees and had previously produced the hit films Saturday Night Fever and Grease, among others. One of the presumed goals of Times Square and its soundtrack was to do for punk and new wave what Saturday Night Fever had done for disco: ship a lot of units, annex a lot of radio playlists, sell a lot of records, and, y'know, make a buck or two million. It didn't happen. But I tell ya, watching the movie, and hearing "I Wanna Be Sedated" by my rockin' pop heroes The Ramones blastin' outta one of the main character's boom box a few times, I could only imagine what could have been. The Ramones with a hit record in 1980? I wanna live in that world.

THE BOB SEGER SYSTEM: 2 + 2 = ?

My eventual book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain an interlude about how much I loathe Bob Seger's hideous smash "Old Time Rock & Roll," followed immediately by a chapter extolling the GREM! virtues of Seger's (far) lesser-known 1968 punk snarler "2 + 2 = ?":

Maybe you never knew that Bob Seger made a punk record. If you didn't know, it's not your fault; neither music history nor Seger himself has seemed interested in the secret revelation of a dynamic, furious 1968 record called "2 + 2 = ?"

It's a difficult dichotomy to reconcile. Seger's mass-market reputation is built largely upon a series of popular mid-tempo heartland ballads and MOR rockers, beloved by many, despised by others. They are soundtracks for truck commercials, banal and inoffensive radio fare with the bland personality of margarine. Even as I type that, I really don't mean any disrespect to those who love "Like A Rock" or "Against The Wind" or even--shudder--"We've Got Tonight" and "Old Time Rock & Roll." There are no guilty pleasures in pop music. If you like something, a guy writing dismissively about your familiar favorites is unlikely to alter your tastes, nor should it. Dig what you wanna dig. Just, y'know, forgive me for cringing when I hear any of that stuff. I have to dig what I wanna dig, too...

...(And just in case you wonder, the title is pronounced "two plus two equals what." As in your likely answer when you hear it for the first time:  WHAT...?!)

TAVARES: It Only Takes A Minute

"It Only Takes A Minute" was a # 10 hit for Tavares in 1975, the soul group's biggest pop hit. I'd like to say that I forgot how simply sublime this track is, but frankly I don't think I ever fully appreciated it in the first place. For me, as a teenage AM Top 40 listener, Tavares was just another sound on the radio, not, like, repulsive or something, but not particularly noteworthy. I don't know what the hell kind of crap I had muffling my ears when I was 15, but whatever it was, I'm happy it finally flushed out somewhere along the way. Sure, I was aware of "It Only Takes A Minute," "Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel" (Billboard # 15), and "More Than A Woman" (a mere # 32, but omnipresent because of its connection to Saturday Night Fever), but they didn't mean anything to me.

It was the late great Dick Clark who got the ball rolling in my belated discovery of Tavares. In (I think?) the '90s, VH1 was running selected, edited archival episodes of American Bandstand, and one such episode included Tavares lip-syncing their 1975 cover of The Edgar Winter Group's "Free Ride." I always liked EWG's original, and I'd never before heard Tavares' take on it, but that cover instantly became the definitive version for me. I bought a Tavares best-of CD just to get that song, and didn't even bother listening to the rest of the collection.

I pulled it out on a whim last week, just before Dana and I were set to discuss the week's TIRnRR playlist. And "It Only Takes A Minute" hit me, as it shoulda hit me--repeatedly!--when I was 15. Man, something sure shoulda hit me when I was 15. What an amazing track. What took me so long to realize it? IT'S ONLY SUPPOSED TO TAKE A MINUTE...!

THE TRAMMPS: Disco Inferno

The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack executed the retail alchemy of transmogrifying The Trammps' failed 1976 single "Disco Inferno" into a # 11 hit single in 1978. Yes, exactly the sort of scenario I wished Times Square could have done for The Ramones, except that "I Wanna Be Sedated" would gone all the way to # 1, the first of a string of chart-toppers for everyone's favorite Carbona-huffers. In, y'know, the world I wanna live in. 

But "Disco Inferno" is a great record, well deserving of its success. It was one of a handful of disco tracks at the time to break through my own anti-disco bias, and it also rates its own entry in The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):

At the height of its popularity, disco was anathema to me. I had, at best, a superficial familiarity with soul and R & B to begin with, and little appreciation for it anyway. I don't know if an embrace of dance-oriented pop and Philly soul a bit earlier in my timeline might have made me more receptive to the throb of dat ole debbil disco, but the scene turned me off immediately. I liked The Bee Gees before "Jive Talkin'" and not after; I loathed KC and the Sunshine Band. And I despised discos; my few visits to those places were unpleasant and uncomfortable. It wasn't even just the music that turned me off; it was the whole atmosphere, the artificial vibe, the mix of the smug and smarmy, an insincere mating ritual without substance. I wouldn't have minded dancing, making out, maybe accompanying a dance partner elsewhere, but it all felt so...empty. Fake. I didn't even stick around long enough to try to talk to any girls. I just hated being there.

Later on, as the know-nothing Disco Sucks movement built its flammable foundation upon a bedrock of racism and homophobia, I began to wonder if I'd chosen the wrong side. The loudest parties chortling at the notion of smashing mirrored disco balls and stoking a bonfire of Saturday Night Fever soundtrack LPs were often just meatheads, the advance guard of reactionaries commencing the implementation of mourning in America. Me? I was a power-poppin' punk, and the Disco Sucks fascists hated me, too. Fuck them. I'd rather hear "Disco Inferno" than "Hotel California" or "Cat Scratch Fever" any freakin' day of the week. Burn those records instead. I heard somebody say, "Burn baby burn!" Yeah, I'd rather hear The Trammps....

DANNY WILKERSON AND LANNIE FLOWERS WITH ORBIS MAX: One Of A Kind

Turn. It. UP!!

Dana, Carl, Lannie Flowers, and Danny Wilkerson at SPARK! studio on 9/10/2019

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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:

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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.