10 SONGS: 12/8/2020

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 # 1054.

THE BEACH BOYS: Girl Don't Tell Me

"Girl Don't Tell Me" occupies an incongruous but significant slot in my story of belatedly becoming a fan of The Beach Boys. I've previously written (principally here and here) of my slower'n slow path from thinking The Beach Boys were uncool to regarding them as one of my favorites. 

But I don't think I've mentioned the specific importance of "Girl Don't Tell Me" in that evolution. It was almost incidental; I knew the song from my old copy of the Endless Summer compilation, so it wasn't anything new to me when I heard it again in, I guess, the late '80s. I had borrowed a copy of the Capitol Records two-fer CD reissue of Beach Boys albums Today! and Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), a loan courtesy of the local library. 

My interest in The Beach Boys at this point was slightly more than perfunctory, considerably less than devoted. But something clicked for me this time. I was enjoying the CD, but for some reason that familiar 17th track stood out, and hooked me in a way it hadn't before. "Girl Don't Tell Me." It had a Beatles aura about it, yet it sounded uniquely American, Californian, Beach Boys '65. It was roughly contemporary to my favorite Beatles albums. It was fantastic, just inviting and all-encompassing. 

And it set me on the better-late-than-never path to discover and eventually adore this Beach Boys music I'd mostly ignored for so long. I bought all the Capitol two-fers. I bought the Pet Sounds CD reissue as soon as it hit the stores. Later, I bought the Pet Sounds boxed set, the first of a few occasions where I shelled out cash for a multi-disc collection of what had originally been a single LP. All worth it, though. And for me, a proper appreciation of The Beach Boys began with "Girl Don't Tell Me." 

BOW WOW WOW: C30 C60 C90 ANDA!

Bow Wow Wow singing in Spanish? ¡Me gusta esta!

DEAR STELLA: Time Machine

I can't get enough of this track. In a previous 10 Songs, I compared Dear Stella's "Time Machine" to Olivia Newton-John fronting Cheap Trick. That first impression reinforces itself every time I listen. Like, what if Cheap Trick had replaced Electric Light Orchestra in collaborating with Newton-John for the music in her 1980 flick Xanadu? No, I didn't see the movie either, but that's beside the point. The sound woulda been awesome, and it would have sounded at least a bit like "Time Machine." This is absolutely one of my favorite tracks of the year.

THE DIXIE CUPS: Iko Iko

Like Mary Poppins and The Ramones, The Dixie Cups' "Iko Iko" is practically perfect in every way. I considered playing the originally-unreleased a cappella version (which refers to a boy as "a sex machine," and probably wouldn't have made it to the radio in 1965), but nothing compares to the well-known hit rendition. The Greatest Record Ever Made? Well...yeah.

THE FOUR TOPS: Baby I Need Your Loving

It is possible for a pop song to be both smooth and powerful at the same time. I mean, The Righteous Brothers demonstrated it with their version of "Unchained Melody," and The Four Tops owned the concept on their break-through 1964 hit "Baby I Need Your Loving." 

THE KINKS: (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman

Bert Parks' greatest hit. Sort of.

The Kinks' 1979 album Low Budget brought the group a commercial resurgence in America, moving them from modest concert halls to arenas. Its release was preceded by the single "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman," which was a seemingly incongruous mix of our dedicated followers of fashion with a disco beat. Faster than a speeding leisure suit, more powerful than a mirrored ball, able to leap over tall velvet ropes in a single bound, the record is flush with Ray Davies' characteristic cantankerousness, and it was accepted by rockers who would not have been caught dead with any kind of Saturday night fever. Disco? The Rolling Stones did it. KISS did it. Blondie had their first U.S. hit by doin' it. Even the razzafrazzin' Grateful Dead did it with "Shakedown Street," though every Deadhead I knew denied the fact and the beat. So why shouldn't The Kinks make a disco record? The Kinks pulled it off, and The Kinks got bigger.

And then...Bert Parks.

1979 was the final year that Parks would host the annual Miss America beauty pageant. He had been that show's host since about, oh, the dawn of time, and he was about to be kicked aside and replaced by someone younger, if not exactly hipper. "Hipper" and "Miss America beauty pageant" were definitely not two great tastes that taste great together. Actor (and former TV Tarzan) Ron Ely took over the job in 1980 and '81.

By '79, I was not in the habit of watching the Miss America broadcast. Whatever interest I could have derived from seeing pretty girls on my TV screen was overshadowed by the sheer hokiness of such an emphatically four-cornered spectacle. But that year, my girlfriend asked me to be her plus-one at the wedding of one of her dearest friends, so I accompanied her out of town for the event. We had some down time one evening, and we found ourselves watching TV. 

Miss America.

Bert Parks.

The...Kinks...?!

No, Muswell Hill's finest didn't show up to warble "Theeeere she is, Miss America...!" That would have been odd, but interesting. Instead, Bert Parks himself lent his golden throat to a never-before, never-again, why-in-God's-name-in-the-first-place performance of "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman." Parks concluded the brief songlet by ripping open his shirt to reveal the Superman shield on his chest.

I was horrified. Transfixed, car-crash hypmotized, unable to turn away, scarred for life, damaged beyond repair, a gas-strike, oil-strike, lorry-strike, bread-strike pinned-in-place deer in the disco lights. Hey, girl. We gotta get out of this place.

You don't believe me? Lord, I wish it had only been the hallucination it seemed. But no! It was real. Check out this YouTube clip, and go directly to the 38:08 mark...IF YOU DARE!          

So. Bert Parks' final gig as Miss America pageant host. Coincidence? Maybe. Or further evidence that you don't tug on Superman's cape. And, for God's sake, you don't mess with The Kinks.

THE LAST: Lies

When I was in college, my favorite rock magazine was Bomp!, which I adored even more than I adored CREEM and Trouser Press. I read about The Last in Bomp! circa 1979, and I was sufficiently intrigued by the write-up (without having heard the music) to make a mail order purchase of The Last's debut single "She Don't Know Why I'm Here." It arrived alongside its partner purchases (The Romantics' "Tell It To Carrie" 45 and The Sex Pistols' Spunk bootleg), and it did not disappoint. I remember telling Flashcubes guitarist Paul Armstrong about "She Don't Know Why I'm Here," describing it as a cross between the Pistols and The Castaways (of "Liar, Liar" fame). The Last and The Flashcubes were both on a Bomp! compilation album called Waves. I bought The Last's debut album L.A. Explosion!, and eagerly awaited more from this fab combo.

"More" did come eventually from The Last, but the specific follow-up to L.A. Explosion!--1980's Look Again--was not released at the time. It has just finally seen the light of day, proving that even 2020 is good for something. I'm very, very happy.

IRENE PEÑA: It Must Be Summer

Willful denial as winter approaches. Though this cover of the Fountains Of Wayne gem (performed by America's Sweetheart Irene Peña) retains the original's sense of a bummer of a summer, which is certainly fitting for 2020.

THE SPINNERS: I'll Be Around

From my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):

Heartbreak, capitulation and acceptance--and that's all apparently taken place before the song's even started. The ultimate stiff-upper-lip ditty, as the ex-lover bows out gracefully, but leaves the girl with his card...just in case things change.

VAN HALEN: Dance The Night Away

The death of a popular performer can strike one in surprising ways. This can be true even when it's a performer you were never really into to begin with. Sudden, overdue perspective can strike from anywhere. I was never a Van Halen fan, and guitarist Eddie Van Halen's unexpected passing this year isn't going to change that. But I've always liked (and occasionally loved) VH's 1979 hit "Dance The Night Away," and its eventual addition to TIRnRR's little Play-Tone Galaxy O' Stars was inevitable. With this week's show, we've now played the song twice, and odds are we'll play it again.

What wasn't inevitable--and, in fact, I woulda thought you flat-out loco if you suggested it--was for me to ever consider adding a Van Halen entry to my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Crazy. Absurd! And yet...yeah, it's there, in the updated Table of Contents: Van Halen, "Dance The Night Away," currently nestled in between The Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer In The City" and a piece about The Tottenham Sound of The Beatles. Didn't see that coming, but it feels undeniable now. DANCE!

Just, like...y'know, keep Bert Parks out of it.

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You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

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

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.

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

TIP THE BLOGGER: CC's Tip Jar!

You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

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

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.

10 SONGS: 11/17/2020

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 # 1051.

BOW WOW WOW: Do You Wanna Hold Me?

It's likely that I had read about British group Bow Wow Wow in the pages of Trouser Press prior to snagging an import copy of their debut single "C30 C60 C90 GO!" at Brockport's Main Street Records in the early '80s, but I had not yet heard the music itself. I think I bought that on the same record store visit that netted me the "Older Women" 45 by Rochester new wave aces New Math, and possibly at the same time that I also scored a used copy of The Velvet Underground's first album. Productive day. I associate all three platters with a trip to see friends in Albany, a time spent partying and playing records with my high school pals Jay and Beth. The Bow Wow Wow single was definitely a part of that.

A bit later, Bow Wow Wow scored in America with a hit cover of The Strangeloves' "I Want Candy," prompting me to buy another Bow Wow Wow 45. I like that version, but I regret that so few Americans seem aware of any of the group's other work. "Do You Wanna Hold Me?" did gather some recognition, via a little bit of radio play and a little more MTV play.

SOLOMON BURKE: Everybody Needs Somebody To Love

Solomon Burke's soul nugget "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love" was at the heart of one of the many weird moments in the long and storied history of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. I don't remember when exactly it was--probably somewhere during our first few years on the air, say from 1999 to 2001, 2002, maybe 2003, whatever. One Sunday night in the studio, Dana played The Nails' left-of-the-dial stalwart "88 Lines About 44 Women." And I had an epiphany. Yeah, another one. I'm just full of epiphanies.

Then, as now, TIRnRR playlists were generally concocted on the fly, as Dana would react to whatever track I played and vice versa, that essential rockin' pop volley hammering out the framework for whatever the hell it is we do on the radio. But that night, as I listened to The Nails rattling off their 88 lines about their 44 women, I suddenly realized that only one song could possibly follow it.

Solomon Burke. "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love." Of course.

And I was convinced that if I didn't play Solomon Burke's testimonial of everybody needing somebody to love immediately--IMMEDIATELY!--after The Nails' record ended, some cosmic force would strike me dead right then and there. I quickly rummaged through my shoebox of CDs. Did I even have the song with me? I thought I did, and...YES! There it was! I fumbled the CD case into Dana's hands, his disinterested demeanor never changing as he popped the disc into the player and segued smoothly from the fading Nails into King Sol. I was saved!

As were we all. Testify, Brother Solomon. Testify.

DEAR STELLA: Time Machine

Dear Stella is the DBA of Stefanie Drexler, a singer, songwriter, and producer originally from Austria. Dear Stella's just-released debut EP Time Zones finds Drexler working with such pop luminaries as Bleu, Eric Barao, David Myhr, and Kai Danzberg to craft a sextet of scrumptious confections that call to mind everyone from Klaatu to Mandy Moore, ELO to Idina Menzel, everywhere from Broadway to the beach. It's modern pop music, potentially capable of connecting with a mainstream audience, and simultaneously imbued with an innate sense and command of pop history. 

Billed as the record's overture, "Time Machine" (co-written by Drexler and Bleu) summons all influences in an over-the-top kitchen-sink approach that's captivating and agreeable. Ambitious, sweeping, and confident, "Time Machine" sets the WABAC for some imaginary era where Olivia Newton-John fronts Cheap Trick. And it accomplishes all of this without resorting to pilferage, building upon influences to generate something new. Man, when the guitars and vocals go all seismic at about the 2:05 mark? Magic. Magic. More!

THE FOUR TOPS: Something About You

Dumplin'! Dumplin'!

My memory insists that I first became aware of "Something About You" via Dave Edmunds' cover version on his 1984 album Riff Raff. My memory is probably correct in this case, but I did own a copy of The Four Tops' Greatest Hits album by then, and that LP includes The Four Tops' original version of the song. Looking back, I guess my interest in Tops classics "It's The Same Old Song," "Reach Out I'll Be There," "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)," "Baby I Need Your Loving," "Standing In The Shadows Of Love," and "Bernadette" just overshadowed "Something About You" to an extent sufficient to cloud my mind so I couldn't notice it. 

But it's a fantastic track. Edmunds did a swell job with it, but ya can't compete with the Tops' Levi Stubbs. The choice of opening the song with cries of "Dumplin'" as a term of endearment is...unique. On-line lyric sites insist the line is Darlin'! Darlin'!, but Stubbs is clearly singing Dumplin' on at least the second word (though it probably is Darlin' on the first). DUMPLIN'! Well. The girl he loves must indeed be the apple of his eye, then.

GRETCHEN'S WHEEL: You Should Know

When it comes to the music of Lindsay Murray and her nom du bop Gretchen's Wheel, I was late to the party, and I still have a lot of catching up to do. I was floored by the song "Plans" on the 2018 Gretchen's Wheel album Black Box Theory, and Murray's newest GW effort Such Open Sky does not disappoint in the slightest. "You Should Know" is the Such Open Sky track selected for airplay this week, but we could just as well have gone with "Sharp Relief" or "Infernal Machine" or "Can't Shake The Feeling" or "Interloper" or...yeah, the whole record. You can't go wrong with Gretchen's Wheel.

KID GULLIVER: Forget About Him

Red On Red Records is a new label operated by the divine Justine Covault, who is already known to the TIRnRR faithful as CRO (Chief Rockin' Officer) of the mighty Justine and the Unclean. And Red On Red fittingly sets our meters into the crimson zone with its first two single releases, "Half Life" by The Neighborhoods and "Forget About Him" by Kid Gulliver. "Half Life" was one of two tracks crowded out of this week's jam-packed show (and we hope The Neighborhoods will take comfort in sharing that distinction with "For Your Love" by The Yardbirds), but "Forget About Him" opened the broadcast with transcendent aplomb. We've already played Kid Gulliver's "I Wanna Be A Pop Star" a couple of times this year, and Kid Gulliver's Simone Berk also sings lead on WhistleStop Rock's TIRnRR Fave Rave "Queen Of The Drive-In." See? Simone Berk's established a proven record of quality tunemakin' for this little mutant radio show!

"Forget About Him" is even better. Justine Covault describes it with authority: Only one of the best power pop songs ever written, about the cad you need to lose. Awright, I'm sold. Here's to Simone. Here's to Justine. Here's to Kid Gulliver, and here's to Red On Red Records.

THE MONKEES: Words

Written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, "Words" has been one of my favorite Monkees tracks since the mid '70s, when I discovered there were Monkees songs above and beyond the handful I'd known since the previous decade. I've told the story elsewhere--notably, in pieces about discovering The Monkees, a girl I knew somewhere, Headquarters and The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees, and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd.--so suffice it to say that cable TV reruns of The Monkees led me to the bulk of my most cherished Monkees cuts.

"Words" was one of the kingpins, along with "The Door Into Summer," "Daily Nightly," "Love Is Only Sleeping," and "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?," all from the Pisces album. I loved the way the bass line seems to coil like a cobra poised to strike, the shimmering, mesmerizing vibe, the pounding throb as it heads near the chorus, the sheer majesty of Micky Dolenz's vocal, and...and...

...and Peter Tork.

Tork did not take many lead vocal turns in the official Monkees canon. Vault raids in subsequent decades would exhume a few additional Tork-sung artifacts, and our Peter would much later deliver his best-ever vocal on "Wasn't Born To Follow," contained on the group's 2016 triumph Good Times! But in the midst of original Monkeemania, producers deemed his singing pitchy, and didn't use him. Tork's voice is really heard but four times on that era's records: warbling the silly novelty number "Your Auntie Grizelda" on More Of The Monkees, rocking his own "Long Title: Do I Have To Do This All Over Again" on the Head soundtrack, sharing a back-and-forth lead with Davy Jones on the Headquarters track "Shades Of Grey," and doing the same thing with Dolenz on "Words."

"Words" was and remains my pick of the bunch.

ORBIS MAX WITH EMPEROR PENGUIN: Talk To Me

Orbis Max is one prolific pop act, a hands-across-the-land-and-water combo that's been collaborating from remote locations since long before pandemic cooties introduced the rest of us to such things. Orbis Max is no stranger to the TIRnRR playlist. "Talk To Me," a joint venture between Orbis Max and Emperor Penguin, is their best yet. And by "best" I mean THIS IS FRIGGIN' AWESOME...!!

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD: I Only Want To Be With You

The Greatest Record Ever Made! Settled law. Evidence presented here, video testimonial here.

THE SWING SET: Trying To Get You Out Of My Mind

I don't really know anything at all about the Rochester, NY group The Swing Set or their 1985 single "You That I'm Thinking Of"/"Trying To Get You Out Of My Mind." The tracks were brought to my attention by Mike Murray, host of the fabulous radio show Whole Lotta Shakin', heard Saturdays from 4 to 6 pm Eastern at WRUR-FM in Rochester, WITH-FM in Ithaca, and webmorized at https://www.wrur.org/ If you like TIRnRR, you'll like Whole Lotta Shakin'. 

And Mike figured--correctly--that I would dig The Swing Set. Both tracks are jangly, catchy examples of '60s-influenced pop music, but "Trying To Get You Out Of My Mind" is particularly boppin' and sprightly, and appropriately impossible to get out of your mind once you've heard it. I can imagine unique covers of the song by The Knack, Any Trouble, The Go-Go's, The Bangles, or even The Supremes, although The Swing Set's original doesn't really sound like any of those acts. Somebody oughtta play this stuff on the radio.

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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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