10 SONGS: 10/25/2025

10 Songs is a weekly list of ten songs that happen to be on my mind at the moment. The lists are usually dominated by songs played on the previous Sunday night's edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. The idea was inspired by Don Valentine of the essential blog I Don't Hear A Single.

This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1307

THE HALF/CUBES: Hard To Get

Ever since we first heard the entirety of the Half/Cubes' then-unreleased new album Found Pearls this summer, we've been jonesin' for an opportunity to share it with listeners. We started programming its advance single "I'll Be Taking Her Out Tonight" (with Peter Noone hisself helping the Half/Cubes remake this fab tune Noone first did with the Tremblers) as soon as it was cleared for airplay, and the release of the album prompts us to proclaim the Half/Cubes as this week's Featured Performers. No half measures for us!

We gathered tracks from both of the Half/Cubes' albums (Found Pearls and debut long-player Pop Treasures), added a few single releases, and a full-on Half/Cubes feature was achieved. We even threw in their unreleased cover of the Guess Who's "Hand Me Down World" as a bonus track at show's end. 

Our first Half/Cubes track this week was the Found Pearls gem "Hard To Get," a sublime cover of Starclub's epic 'n' atmospheric  MTV classic. I have worshiped this song for decades, and it is so fulfilling to hear the Half/Cubes deliver the oomph the track requires.

THE COWSILLS: The Next In Line

The general record-buying public has no freakin' clue about the sheer wonder of the Cowsills. Some folks remember the group's big 1960s hits, "The Rain, The Park & Other Things," "Indian Lake," and "Hair," some may recall their non-hit but definitive cover of the theme from TV's Love American Style, and some will think of the Cowsills' real-life status as the inspiration for the fictional Partridge Family. A few will be aware of the heartbreak revealed in the sobering documentary Family Band: The Cowsills Story.

But all of the above merely scratches the surface of how much greatness can be found in the Cowsills' catalog. I'm not kidding when I say the Cowsills' 1998 record Global is my favorite album of the '90s. All phases of the Cowsills' long recording career have produced many, many moments of absolute pop magic, from the boppin' garage-folk splendor of 1965 debut single "All I Really Want To Be Is Me" through their 2022 album Rhythm Of The World. 

The visionary Omnivore Recordings label's recent release of the 1978 Cowsills sessions known as The "Cocaine Drain" Album offers another clear glimpse of the durable through-line of the Cowsills' brilliance. I wish I could have heard this in the '70s; I'm grateful and gratified to hear it now. 

RICK SPRINGFIELD: Go All The Way

Rick Springfield's girlfriend tells him to go all the way. I don't know if this was before or after she was Jessie's girl. I feel so dirty when they start talkin' cute.

Our friend Ken Sharp is the primary director of Think Like A Key Music's outstanding new collection Play On: A Raspberries Tribute, and I tell ya, the boy done good. Ken is one of the biggest Raspberries fans I know, and he did his idols justice with this compilation. Rick Springfield's cover of "Go All The Way" opens Play On with nearly nonpareil rockin' pop panache, and the earnest urgency never lets up from that point forward. Great, great tribute to one of power pop's defining groups, and the material Ken has assembled lives up to that legacy. We'll hear another fine example of Play On's exuberant accomplishment on our next show. You need this. You'll love this. You want this.

(In addition to his above-mentioned status as a Raspberries fan, Ken Sharp is also one of the biggest KISS fans I know, maybe THE biggest. Sunday night's TIRnRR will spotlight the late Ace Frehley as our Featured Performer, and that feature will include a track from Ken's 2018 album Beauty In The Backseat, a nugget Ken recorded with Half/Cubes stalwart Fernando Perdomo AND special guest guitarist Ace Frehley. We know some people who know some people.)

CROSSWORD SMILES: Black Cats & Broken Mirrors

It has been our great pleasure to debut a track from Big Stir Records' amazing compilation Chilling, Thrilling Hooks And Haunted Harmonies in each of our last six shows. This week's spin of Crossword Smiles' Chilling, Thrilling Hooks And Haunted Harmonies track "Black Cats & Broken Mirrors" makes seven weeks in a row to serve up at least one previously-unplayed cut from this spookeriffic collection, and we're gonna add two more on our next show. Even as Halloween 2025 folds its candy bags, stashes its costumes, and smashes its pumpkins, don't be surprised if additional Chilling, Thrilling Hooks And Haunted Harmonies treats still turn up on future shows. Seasons change, sure. But candy is perennial!

THE TAMS: I've Been Hurt

I don't have any recollection of any version of the song "I've Been Hurt" from when I was a kid in the '60s. I discovered Bill Deal and the Rhondells' 1969 hit (# 35) rendition waaaay after the fact, when the early '80s merging of my record collection with my then-girlfriend (and eventual wife)'s record collection brought that Rhondells 45 into our community property. 

Bill Deal's "I've Been Hurt" was resolutely adequate, but belated exposure to the 1965 original by Southern soul combo the Tams rendered all subsequent cover versions irrelevant. I insist that 1965 was pop music's best year ever. The Tams' "I've Been Hurt" is yet another piece of compelling evidence on behalf of that belief.

MONOGROOVE: Take You Anywhere

Our go-to selection from Monogroove's current album Popsicle Drivethru has been "That Girl," an amiably radio-ready that seems pretty damned likely to score a berth on our 2025 year-end countdown show. Diversifying our good-natured sense of manic obsession, the same album also gives us the equally nifty "Take You Anywhere," so...let's play that one, too! See? It turns out you CAN take us anywhere.

THE FLASHCUBES: No Promise [4-track]

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

TODD RUNDGREN: Couldn't I Just Tell You

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

"This is an example of the latest musical trend. It's called power pop.

It was 1978. The band Utopia was appearing on The Mike Douglas Show. The song that Utopia's front man Todd Rundgren introduced as 'the latest musical trend' was practically a golden oldie, a track Rundgren had recorded and released much earlier in the decade, on his 1972 album Something/Anything? The song 'Couldn't I Just Tell You' had not been a hit, its 1972 single release barely making it into the Hot 100, peaking at # 93 with an anchor. For Rundgren to refer to this six-year-old song as the latest...anything could have only been an example of the prickly performer sneering haughtily at trendy hipsters, hip trendsters, and, one supposes, anyone who liked pop music. Yeah, screw them.

Wait, wait! 'Anyone who liked pop music?' That's me he was sneering at, damn it! Oh, the humanity...!

But I didn't care. God, it was such a great song. Seeing it performed on TV asserted the song's hold on me, a hold that was already there, but which tightened its grip securely and permanently with this televised faux embrace of the latest musical trend. Power pop. Suits me just fine...."

THE VERBS: I Need Glue

YEAH! Big thanks to fabulous Underground Garage DJ Palmyra Delran for spinning "I Need Glue," the Verbs' essential contribution to the various-artists blockbuster Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes. And not only did Palmyra afford spinnage to "I Need Glue" on her superlative satellite radio show Palmyra's Trash Pop Shindig, she named it as her pick for the week's official Tomorrow's Treasure Today. HuzZAH! 

THE HALF/CUBES FEATURING PETER NOONE: I'll Be Taking Her Out Tonight

The first single from Found Pearls. The second single is their ace cover of Crabby Appleton's "Go Back." We also played that one this week, and we'll play it again on Sunday night. A true pearl. It's well worth going back to that.

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

I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. You can read about our history here.

10 SONGS: 8/18/2022

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 # 1142.

THE SEEKERS: Georgy Girl

THE SEEKERS: I'll Never Find Another You

The commentary accompanying this week's posted playlist mourned the passing of Olivia Newton-John, but please also spare a kind thought in memory of Judith Durham, lead singer of '60s Australian folk-pop hitmakers the Seekers. 

Though hailing from down under, the Seekers were based in the UK at the time of their pop chart ascension, and were generally considered part of the British Invasion. Both Dana and I wanted to play our own favorite Seekers tune in Durham's honor; Dana chose the iconic Swingin' '60s soundtrack song "Georgy Girl" in the first set (immediately following my opening spin of Olivia Newton-John's "If Not For You"), and I saved the Seekers' unforgettable "I'll Never Find Another You" to play in our closing set. We'll never find another. Rest in peace, Judith.

HELIUM ANGEL: Georgie

The British Invasion remains a huge influence on everything (and whatever it is) we do on TIRnRR. The influence manifests in more than just continued airplay for the Beatles, the Kinks, the Dave Clark Five, and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, and shapes so much more of our ongoing identity. Acts that influenced the Beatles? Check! American reaction to the invading Brits? Check! Connections from Merseybeat, Muswell Hill, and the Tottenham Sound to punk and power pop? Check! Songs that reference (a little bit) the Seekers' salute to a girl walking down the street so fancy-free? My Fab ladies and gentlemen, please check out "Georgie" by San Francisco group Helium Angel.

"Georgie" is a a track from Helium Angel's 1998 album An Early Clue To The New Direction, an album title that wears its Heart Day's Night on its proverbial sleeve. The song was an early and irresistible Fave Rave on our show. This week, given the track's direct lyrical references to the Seekers' biggest hit, Dana felt (rightly so) that Helium Angel's "Georgie" was the only viable choice to follow "Georgy Girl." Always window shopping, but never stopping to buy. Wake up, Helium Angel; it's time for jumping off of the shelf. 

THE RAMONES: California Sun

It is possible that the Ramones' 1977 cover of the Rivieras' "California Sun" was the very first Ramones record I ever heard. If that's true, though, I didn't realize it (or, I guess, actually hear it) at the time. 

My freshman year at college in Brockport, NY commenced with the Fall '77 semester. Reading Phonograph Record Magazine when I was in high school, and hearing the Sex Pistols, Nick Lowe, and Graham Parker on commercial FM radio, had primed me to become a nascent fan of punk/new wave/what-have-you, and made me eager to hear more. Most especially, I wanted to hear the Ramones.

"Blitzkrieg Bop" was the first Ramones track to register in my ears, thanks to airplay on the campus radio station WBSU-AM. In November, "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" became the record that changed my life. It wouldn't be all that long before I began thinking of the Ramones as the American Beatles, the greatest American rock 'n' roll band of all time. "Sheena" set me on the path of wanting to write about rock 'n' roll music, eventually leading me to write a book about the Ramones. Like my pal Rich Firestone says about the beneficial effect the Monkees have had upon his life, the Ramones have been good to me.

This is NOT the Ramones book I wrote. Would that it were. Todd Alcott is a genius.

But, before "Blitzkrieg" and "Sheena," before writing essays and magazine articles and books about Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Tommy, Marky, Richie, and C.J., before any of that:  "California Sun?"

Yeah. It's possible. My uncontrollable urge to hear the sounds I'd read about in PRM drove me to make phone call after phone call after phone call to WBSU, requesting chances to hear Blondie, Television, the Dictators, and others, all alongside my other requests for DC5, Monkees, Paul Revere and the Raiders, et al. British Invasion, American reaction, and punk. At the top of my list of requests: I wanted to hear the Ramones.

That opportunity was deferred, whether by design or circumstance. My earliest Ramones requests were met with situations where either the DJ didn't have any Ramones records on hand, or (maybe more likely) wasn't gonna play the razzafrazzin' Ramones, no way, no how. Some DJs were sympathetic to my interests. Some were not.

I think it was one of the sympathetic jocks who answered my Ramones request by saying, "I just played 'California Sun' in the last set."

Really? Yeah, it's possible. I may have even heard it play. But even if he did play it, and even if I did hear it, it didn't register in my mind, and it certainly didn't register as THE RAMONES! The revelation was therefore deferred.

But revelation came in its time. 1-2-3-4! The chant of Hey Ho, Let's Go! eventually blasted out of my AM radio, courtesy of WBSU. A 45 of "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" was waiting for me at the local record store, and...yes. YES!! Even Yeah Yeah Yeah! We love you Ramones, oh yes we do. 

JUDAS PRIEST: Heading Out To The Highway

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

CROSSWORD SMILES: Parellel Lines

Crossword Smiles is a new partnership between familiar rockin' pop purveyors Tom Curless and Chip Saam, with minty-fresh single "Parallel Lines" teasing the release of a full-length album due for fall release. Our above-cited debt to the British Invasion prompts us to compare this to the Zombies circa "Time Of The Season," but the overall effect is less Odessey And Oracle and more singer-songwriter by way of indie pop. Chad and Jeremy could have recorded "Parallel Lines," and there are echoes that suggest Squeeze. It's amiable, it's agreeable, and we look forward to hearing more. Smile! You're in the crosshairs of Crossword Smiles.

BALLZY TOMORROW: Out There

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

LAURIE BIAGINI: Hey Mr. DJ

The master disc for our new compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 5 has been approved by Kool Kat Musik Grand Poobah Ray Gianchetti. Kurt Reil did an absolutely outstanding job of making the album sound Awesome to the Nth at his House Of Vibes studio, and I do believe it's gonna make your head dance in precisely the way you'd like your head to dance. The art director is putting the package together, and we're still hoping for a September release for you, the enthusiastic record-buyin' public.

For this week's show, we plucked the federally-mandated maximum of three songs from TIRnRR # 5 to offer for your listening pleasure. Ballzy Tomorrow is piloted by the ever-effervescent (evervescent?) Robbie Rist, aided und abetted by Jeremy Cohen and Karen Bassett in servin' up the masterful snark-pop of "Out There." Tall Poppy Syndrome unites Jonathan Lea, Paul Kopf, Vince Melouney, Alec Palao, and Clem Burke to reimagine "Come Some Christmas Eve (Or Halloween)"--a track originally done by Melouney's former cohorts the Bee Gees--as if it were (to quote the dead-accurate hype) "Mod-era Who performing the Zombies Odessey And Oracle-style." Yeah, British Invasion again. We are as bigger-than-God made us.

We saved the compilation's opening for fresh play near the show's end: my daughter Meghan Jean Cafarelli marveling how some people never grow up, introducing Laurie Biagini's incredible tribute to the transcendent power of radio, "Hey Mr. DJ." 

And then we closed the show proper with a song by the Beatles. Really, what else could follow Laurie Biagini?

ARTHUR CONLEY: Sweet Soul Music

It's time! Get set for next week's TIRnRR extravaganza, as we turn the entire three-hour affair over to begging, shouting, and screaming, to shots of R & B, to funk, to the Sound of Young America, to Stax, and anything else Dana feels like fitting in. It's what Arthur Conley promised us: sweet soul music. Put your hands together! And prepare yourself for THE 11th ANNUAL DANA'S FUNKY SOUL PIT!! Do you like good music? You've come to the right place.

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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.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl