POP-A-LOOZA: Didn't Hear THAT Coming! (Unexpected Covers In Concert): The Bangles Sing Love

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is a reprise of the most recent edition of Didn't See THAT Coming! (Unexpected Covers In Concert), this time recalling the night I saw The Bangles cover Love's "7 & 7 Is."

With this post yesterday, I began my second year as a contributor to Pop-A-Looza. Last January, Pop-A-Looza's Dan Pavelich asked me if I'd be willing to share some of my posts on his site. Okeydokey! I've been corresponding with Dan for years, playing his bands The Bradburys and The Click Beetles on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl, supporting his comic strip Just Say Uncle on Patreon, and cheering on behave of his varied efforts. It has been a blast for me to be a part of Pop-A-Looza.

I announced my affiliation with Pop-A-Looza on January 23rd, 2020. And here's a list of all of my shared Boppin' Pop-A-Loozas to date.

I'm In Love With A Sound

The 1966 Batman Paperback

10 Songs

The Everlasting First: Buddy Holly

The Blue Beetle # 6

The Everlasting First: The Jam

Comic Book Retroview: Superboy # 129

Michael & Micky: A Wish For A New Studio Album By The Monkees

Coffee

To Beat Or Not To Beat

The Greatest Record Ever Made! The Wonders, "That Thing You Do!"

MTV's Remote Control

The Other Side Of The Hit (B-Side Appreciation): Yoko Ono, "Kiss Kiss Kiss"

Justice Society Of America: The Movie

The Bands That Would Be Kinks

The Everlasting First: Star Wars, The Sandman, The Silver Surfer, The Spider, Spy Smasher, and The Seven Soldiers Of Victory

10 Songs

Read The Movie

The Monkees' Good Times!

Spider-Man, Spider-Man (My Marvel Comics Try-Out)

Unfinished And Abandoned: Catch Us If You Can, The Bay City Rollers Movie That Never Was

Dennis O'Neil

The Greatest Record Ever Made! The Kinks, "You Really Got Me"

The Archies: An American Band

Movies In My Mind: Jukebox Express

Hamilton

Badfinger, "Day After Day"

The Everlasting First: E-Man

The Greatest Record Ever Made! The Knickerbockers, "Lies"

Diamonds Are Forever

Guilt-Free Pleasures: The Monkees, "I Never Thought It Peculiar"

Red-Eyed And Ravenous: Brand Name Me

The Other Side Of The Hit: The Go-Go's, "Surfing And Spying"

Dear Superguys (or: I Was A Teenaged Comic Book Letterhack)

The Greatest Record Ever Made! Dusty Springfield, "I Only Want To Be With You"

Cereal Infidelity

The Everlasting First: Cheap Trick

The One That Got Away! The Dave Clark Five, Glad All Over Again

My First Freelance Writing Sale: A History of DC Comics' The Secret Six

5 Above: The Kinks In The '70s

Rejection Accepted: Trying (And Failing!) To Write For DC Comics In The '70s And '80s

My Illegal Records

Virtual Ticket Stub Gallery: The Beatles Live, 1976

The Way I Talk (brought to you by pop culture)

The Other Side Of The Hit: The Ramones, "Babysitter"

The Game Of The Name

Faces On The Wall

LP Cover Cavalcade # 1

Comic Book Cover Cavalcade # 1

The Greatest Record Ever Made! The Beatles, "Rain"

LP Cover Cavalcade # 2

The Everlasting First: Batman

Rescued From The Budget Bin! Heavy Metal (24 Electrifying Performances)

Pat Boone: The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame

The Greatest Record Ever Made! Baron Daemon and the Vampires, "The Transylvania Twist"

This Mask, This Candy Bar

The Greatest Record Ever Made! First Aid Kit, "America"

5 Great Movie Songs (from films I either didn't like or never saw)

The Everlasting First: The Sex Pistols

This Man, This Marvel: A Guy Named Stan

A Neil Young Story

All The World's A Stage

The Greatest Record Ever Made! Johnny Nash, "I Can See Clearly Now"

The Everlasting First: The Inferior Five

This Pen For Hire! My Guest Appearances In Other Writers' Books

The Everlasting First: The Ohio Express

The Everlasting First: Not Brand Echh

The Greatest Record Ever Made! The Ramones, "I Don't Want To Grow Up"

Well Hello There, Famous Person!

Yoko Ono For Christmas

The Greatest Record Ever Made! Eytan Mirsky, "This Year's Gonna Be Our Year"

Didn't Hear THAT Coming! The Flashcubes Sing Herman's Hermits

Jeopardy!

Didn't Hear THAT Coming! David Johansen Sings Donna Summer

Superpulp Paperbacks

The Greatest Record Ever Made! David Bowie, "Life On Mars?"

The Pulps

And that's my first year's worth of Boppin' Pop-A-Loozas. Year # 2 starts with The Bangles covering a '60s nugget by Love, the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

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.

POP-A-LOOZA: Didn't Hear THAT Coming! (David Johansen Sings Donna Summer)

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archive. The latest shared post is another installment of Didn't Hear THAT Coming! (Unexpected Covers In Concert), this time remembering when I saw David Johansen cover Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff."

I can't remember exactly how many Johansen shows I saw in the late '70s and early '80s. I think I saw him four times, but a nagging nit at the edge of my memory keeps trying to tell me I saw him a total of five times. I suspect my nagging nit has been drinking. My first David Jo show was the July 1979 set discussed in the above link, at The Slide-Inn with Syracuse's own power pop powerhouse The Flashcubes opening. It was the final time I saw the 'Cubes before the group's original and definitive line-up split; I'm delighted to note they reunited many times in later years. The Flashcubes will always be one of my all-time favorite groups, and it was my honor to induct them into The Syracuse Area Music Awards Hall Of Fame in 2014. There's roughly, oh, a zillion posts about the 'Cubes on this blog; to cherry pick but a few, I recommend the tales of my first Flashcubes show and then seeing The Flashcubes with The Ramones and The Runaways, my liner notes to their first CD collection Bright Lights, and my ambitious fantasy about a world where the 'Cubes became famous, A Brighter Light In My Mind.

Getting back to my first Johansen show: It was part of my introduction to his former group The New York Dolls, a story told here. That piece has since been very slightly rewritten to serve as a chapter about the Dolls' "Personality Crisis" in my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). My second Johansen show was in...1980? Give or take. It was at The Jab on the Syracuse University hill, with (then-) former Flashcubes guitarist Paul Armstrong's combo The Most opening. I subsequently saw Johansen at an outdoor show at University of Buffalo's Amherst campus and in the ballroom at my alma mater, the State University College at Brockport. By the time of the latter show, Johansen was beginning to morph into his less-interesting (to me) Buster Poindexter persona, making it my least favorite live Johansen experience. Those are the four Johansen shows I remember. And he only sang the Donna Summer song at the first one.

I haven't written much about disco. The GREM! book will include chapters about Donna Summer's "I Feel Love," The Trammps' "Disco Inferno," and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes' "Don't Leave Me This Way," and though all of those chapters have been completed they are not yet available for public perusal. I can only add this little bit I wrote elsewhere about Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff:"

Donna Summer was already the Queen of Disco in 1979, and she wanted to record a rock song. She succeeded, but everyone still thought of it as a disco song. Really, "Hot Stuff" was both, a dance number with a Big Rock posture, an AOR re-imagining of life under the flashing lights...No offense intended to my album-rock brethren, but I'd much rather see and hear Donna Summer yearning for hot stuff than listen to Foreigner brag about being hot-blooded. Your mileage may vary.

That leaves us with this concert memory of the former lead singer of a proto-punk group called The New York Dolls warblin' a song made famous by the Queen of Disco. David Johansen's cover of Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" provides the subject for the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

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.

POP-A-LOOZA: Didn't Hear THAT Coming! (The Flashcubes Sing Herman's Hermits)

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post comes from my series Didn't Hear THAT Coming! (Unexpected Covers In Concert), this time looking back at my favorite power pop group The Flashcubes covering the Herman's Hermits hit "Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter."

Well...sort of covering "Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter." See the piece for details.

Although it's been a while since I've written anything new in this series, I hope to return to Didn't Hear THAT Coming! with more concert memories starring Let's Active, The Rascals, The Ramones, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Smithereens, The Skeletons, Cheap Trick, and Paul Revere and the Raiders, with each act playing a cover song I did not anticipate ahead of time. The other previously-posted entries in the series will likely be reprised at Pop-A-Looza in the near future.

But for now, we turn our startled ears with delight and surprise as a raucous power-pop punk combo in Syracuse gets its Herman on. The Flashcubes singing "Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter?" Didn't hear THAT coming! And its story is the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

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.

Didn't Hear THAT Coming! (Unexpected Covers In Concert): THE BANGLES, "7 And 7 Is"

Didn't Hear THAT Coming! (Unexpected Covers In Concert) discusses songs I was surprised to hear covered in a live show by an act I'd gone to see.

Cover songs can add zip and spark to a rock 'n' roll group's live repertoire. In their earliest gigs, most groups start out playing covers, and integrate more of their own original material into their sets as they play more dates, develop more of an identity, and attract more fans with an interest beyond just hearing bar-band interpretations of songs associated with other acts. It's a basic long-term strategy for groups hoping to get noticed, to get somewhere; there's a reason The Rolling Stones cut back on Chuck Berry songs and started writing their own material.

Still, a well-placed cover tune can enhance a live set, while the wrong choice can result in irritating a fan who doesn't want to hear a fave rave act pandering to a lower common denominator. Whether it works or falls flat, the unexpected cover prompts us to say, "Wow--didn't hear THAT coming!"

THE BANGLES: 7 And 7 Is [Love]



The hit 1980s group The Bangles. The broad Nuggets niche of 1960s garage, punk, and psychedelia. Never the twain shall meet.



Those of us with even a perfunctory knowledge of pop history know the above statement is nonsense. The Bangles drew significant and obvious inspiration from the sounds of the ‘60s, notably from The Beatles and from the decade’s Laurel Canyon axis of SoCal pop music, from The Byrds to Buffalo Springfield to The Mamas and the Papas. The Bangles were originally part of L.A.’s Paisley Underground, one of many Los Angeles acts in the early ‘80s professing and practicing a devout, pervasive connection to a vibrant rock ‘n’ roll scene that came nearly two decades before them. Maybe much of the general public couldn’t automatically draw a line from ‘60s touchstones like Pandora’s Box or Riot On The Sunset Strip to this distaff Fab Four mugging through “Walk Like An Egyptian” on MTV. Fine. But you and me? We know better. The Bangles had more in common with The Standells and The Electric Prunes than with virtually any of their Reagan era Top 40 contemporaries.

 K

The Bangles’ eponymous 1982 EP included four originals, plus one cover, "How Is The Air Up There?," a '60s obscurity originally done by The Changin' Times in '65, and later recorded by The La De Das, for whom it was a hit in their native New Zealand in 1966. The Bangles at that time were guitarists Vicki Peterson and Susanna Hoffs, bassist Annette Zalinskas, and drummer Debbi Peterson, Vicki's sister. The Bangles wore their '60s loyalties like a badge of honor.




The EP was my introduction to The Bangles. I don’t recall if I read about them in the rock press or heard them on Buffalo’s WBNY-FM before I bought the record, but I was an instant fan. I remained a fan as Zalinskas moved on, as Michael Steele replaced her on the four-string, and as the group signed with Columbia Records for their first full-length album, 1984's All Over The Place.



My God, I loved All Over The Place. The original songs were fantastic, the two covers (of The Merry-Go-Round's "Live" and Katrina and the Waves' "Going Down To Liverpool) were sufficiently obscure that I thought they were both originals, and the album will always be among my all-time favorites. The group's tour in support of The Continental brought them to Buffalo for a show at left-of-the-dial nightclub All Over The Place, and I can testify that The Bangles were a solid live act. I don't remember a lot of specifics, but I know I enjoyed it, and I know they covered Mose Allison's "I'm Not Talking," with Michael Steele taking the lead vocal. I knew the song from The Yardbirds, and I guess that would qualify as an unexpected cover in concert.

But it wasn't as unexpected as hearing The Bangles cover "7 And 7 Is," a song written by Arthur Lee and originally recorded in 1966 by Lee's band Love.



I had discovered the music of Arthur Lee's group Love in the early '80s. I'd read about them somewhere, and snagged a used copy of their eponymous debut album literally off the floor at Brockport's Main Street Records around, I dunno, '82 or so. I picked up a greatest-hits set called Love Revisited after moving to Buffalo, and became enthralled by this furious, fascinating proto-punk tune called "7 And 7 Is." 



If I don't start cryin' it's because that I have got no eyes
My father's in the fireplace and my dog lies hypnotized
Through a crack of light I was unable to find my way
Trapped inside a night
But I'm a day and I go
Oop-ip-ip, oop-ip-ip
YEAH!

Yeah, I had no idea what the hell it was about, and I woulda sworn that list bit above was an eloquent Batman-inspired Boom-biff-biff, Boom-biff-biff YEAH! rather than some [chuckle] non-sensical "oop-ip-ip" jazz. Obviously. But it didn't matter what the words were or what the song meant. It was a freakin' force of nature, it demanded high volume, and I played that damned track with manic devotion. I wasn't using the phrase yet in the '80s, but damn, this was clearly The Greatest Record Ever Made.



And now, live in 1985, The Bangles were performing on stage, right before my eyes. My jaw dropped. My fist raised itself without needing me to will it so. The Bangles. Love. "7 And 7 Is." It was unexpected. And it was awesome!

Looking back, it shouldn't have been all that unexpected. I knew of The Bangles' roots in '60s nuggets, and I wasn't exactly shocked that they chose to cover Love. It was still a surprise, a pleasant surprise. That night, The Bangles said their version of "7 And 7 Is" would be on their next album. I regret that did not come to pass.



The Bangles' commercial status took a dramatic upturn with their second album, 1986's Different Light. The album's first single "Manic Monday," written by Prince (under the pseudonym "Christopher," I guess because "Bernard Webb" was already spoken for), became the group's first hit, a # 2 smash. Different Light is a very good record, but it seemed slicker and less exuberant than All Over The Place. It was an '80s album. All Over The Place had felt timeless. Nonetheless, I cheered as this band I loved invaded the pop charts and Top 40 radio. Their success was deserved.

When The Bangles' Different Light tour brought them back to Buffalo again, their higher profile had allowed them to graduate to a larger venue, The Rooftop in South Buffalo. Alas, I got my wires crossed about when The Bangles were scheduled to go on, and they had finished more than half of their set before I strolled in. Damn it.



The 2014 archival CD collection Ladies And Gentlemen...The Bangles! preserves concrete evidence that The Bangles covered "7 And 7 Is" in live shows, proof positive in the form of a 1984 live recording of Love via The Bangles. While most folks recall The Bangles as frothy '80s video divas, I remember them as music fans made good, playing songs they loved in whatever venue was available. Their 1987 cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "Hazy Shade Of Winter" was a bigger hit than the original. Even on New Year's Eve of 2000, when The Bangles appeared on Dick Clark's New Year's Eve TV bash, they still surprised by pulling out a cover of The Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting For The Man." The Bangles were nobody's empty-calorie cupcakes.



The Ramones also covered "7 And 7 Is," on their 1993 all-covers album Acid Eaters. When I interviewed The Ramones for Goldmine in 1994, I mentioned to C. J. Ramone that I'd seen The Bangles cover the song live in 1985, and that they'd intended to record it. He was surprised. "That's wild!," he said, clearly impressed with the notion that The Bangles did a song as cool as "7 And 7 Is."

They did indeed, C. J. And yeah, it was unexpected, but it shouldn't have been. The Bangles loved the '60s. The Bangles loved Love. 

Oop-ip-ip, oop-ip-ip, YEAH!



WHEN DIDN'T HEAR THAT COMING! RETURNS: The Dark Return Of LET'S ACTIVE



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 134 essays about 134 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).

Didn't Hear THAT Coming! (Unexpected Covers In Concert): DAVID JOHANSEN, "Hot Stuff"

Didn't Hear THAT Coming! (Unexpected Covers In Concert) discusses songs I was surprised to hear covered in a live show by an act I'd gone to see.

Cover songs can add zip and spark to a rock 'n' roll group's live repertoire. In their earliest gigs, most groups start out playing covers, and integrate more of their own original material into their sets as they play more dates, develop more of an identity, and attract more fans with an interest beyond just hearing bar-band interpretations of songs associated with other acts. It's a basic long-term strategy for groups hoping to get noticed, to get somewhere; there's a reason The Rolling Stones cut back on Chuck Berry songs and started writing their own material.

Still, a well-placed cover tune can enhance a live set, while the wrong choice can result in irritating a fan who doesn't want to hear a fave rave act pandering to a lower common denominator. Whether it works or falls flat, the unexpected cover prompts us to say, "Wow--didn't hear THAT coming!"



DAVID JOHANSEN: Hot Stuff [Donna Summer]

In the late '70s, disco and punk were supposed to be at war with each other. As a self-professed punk rocker in that era, I can attest that, yeah, punks didn't like disco, and the bumpin'-n-hustlin' set was appalled by the loud and fast noise my people favored. Hatfields and Capulets, meet McCoys and Montagues. Never mind the fact that the mainstream rock crowd held both punk and disco in nearly equal disdain; this was war!

Except that it wasn't. I'm skeptical of the notion that many of the Saturday Night Fevered ever took much interest in The Damned or The Dead Boys, but some among the new wave brigade did eventually allow their ears and minds to be a bit more open to non-pogo dance music, to the beat of dat ole debbil disco. Maybe it was just me, but I was a pop fan anyway; my intense dislike of disco music evolved into occasional tolerance, and tolerance evolved into a sporadic realization that some of the records weren't bad. Plus, Donna Summer was gorgeous. I feel love.




At the age of 19 in 1979, my belated discovery and embrace of early '70s proto-punks The New York Dolls was still at an early stage. My local Syracuse heroes The Flashcubes introduced me to the Dolls' classic "Personality Crisis" via their own Cubic live cover in '78. By the end of my spring '79 semester at college in Brockport, I think I may have heard former Dolls lead singer David Johansen's solo track "Funky But Chic" on the Brockport campus radio station WBSU. I had heard a handful of Dolls tracks, "Personality Crisis," "Who Are The Mystery Girls?," and probably "Babylon," and I was aware of the group's importance at Ground Zero of my cherished punk movement. Given an opportunity to see ex-Doll David Johansen live, with The Flashcubes opening the show, I had just enough basic familiarity with the headliner (and abundant enthusiasm for the opening act) to declare there was no way in Hell I was missing that show.



The show took place at The Slide Inn in Syracuse. A quick check of Pete Murray's Flashcubes timeline reveals that the date was 7/26/79. Prior to reconciliation and reunions in later years, it was the last time I saw the original line-up of the 'Cubes, just a few days before guitarist Paul Armstrong parted company with the group, ejected over musical differences. With no knowledge of the tension within The Flashcubes at the time, I just thoroughly enjoyed their set, a set which included my first exposure to a trio of 'Cubes originals: Paul's "You're Not The Liar," Gary Frenay's "I Wanna Stay All Night," and Arty Lenin's "Nothing Really Matters When You're Young."



The David Johansen Group were amazing. Johansen's fellow former Doll Sylvain Sylvain was no longer in David's group by the time I saw them, but it was an incredible show nonetheless. It didn't matter at all that I didn't know many of the songs; I knew 'em by the end of the show. "Frenchette," in particular, floored me, and I immediately adored "Cool Metro" and "I'm A Lover," all three of those gems turning out to be from Johansen's eponymous debut solo album, an LP I purchased not long after hearing it played live at the Slide.



Johansen and company also did a little bit of Dolls material: "Babylon" and their Bo Diddley cover, "Pills." The encore was "Personality Crisis."

If you're familiar with the Dolls' original recording of "Personality Crisis," you know there's a pause in the song just before its two-minute mark, followed by Johansen whooping And you're a prima ballerina on a spring afternoon!, the band returning as well with wolf-whistles and guitar grunge. In a live performance of the song, it's a natural spot to throw in a snippet of a different song as a willful non sequitur, illustrating the schizophrenic nature of a personality crisis. In '79, I think I'd read in Trouser Press that Johansen was doing "Personality Crisis" as an unlikely medley with Bonnie Tyler's "It's A Heartache" (a song which channeled Rod Stewart so effectively that I thought Bonnie was Rod; she was, in fact, bigger than Rod). That night at the Slide, I'm sure I half-expected to hear "It's A Heartache" in the middle of "Personality Crisis."

But...no. The song's pause came, and a familiar guitar riff suddenly filled the Slide, as patrons like me, with senses slowed by beer, struggled to mentally name that tune in...OH MY GOD, IT'S DONNA SUMMER!!



I guess the divine Miss S actually appearing at the Slide to duet with David Jo would have been a bigger surprise than just hearing him sing a Summer song, but maybe not by much. Sittin' here eatin' my heart out waitin', waitin' for some lover to call. "Hot Stuff." Donna Summer. One could argue that Summer's own version of "Hot Stuff" was already more of a rock song than it was a disco song. It certainly rocked in the capable hands of The David Johansen Group. 



The connection was monumental. We were punks and rockers, boppin' with unironic intent to a song--a great song--by the reigning queen of disco. Johansen's short cover was faithful and true, so we couldn't claim he'd somehow redeemed the song. The song was already great; our own closed ears may have made us deaf to its charm. Until that instant.



This wasn't my first realization that maybe some disco or disco-related music wasn't necessarily awful. I already liked Donna Summer's percolatin' hit "I Feel Love," and (as I've noted elsewhere) I'd already approved of "In The Navy" by The Village People, figuring that the sound of an openly gay group chanting They want you! They want you! They want you as a new recruit! on American Top 40 radio was more punk than The Sex Pistols.

But David Johansen singing Donna Summer, even if it was just an excerpt of one of her songs, performed and contained within a cantankerous classic by The New York Dolls, was an irresistible manifesto for a brokered peace between the battling factions of punk, disco, and rock 'n' roll. Cease fire. War is over if you want it.



Yeah, I know it wasn't really that simple. Schisms remained, and would remain. But I saw. I heard. I wasn't alone in that. By the '80s, as punk and new wave had slid into new (later alternative) music and disco's commercial day had passed for the time being, lines continued to blur. Much of the mainstream rock crowd still hated us, but that was okay. We were fighting the good fight. Looking for a lover who needs another, don't want another night on my own. Fall in, troops. No sleep 'til victory. A New York Doll says Donna Summer's here, and the time is right for dancing in the streets. 



WHEN DIDN'T HEAR THAT COMING! RETURNS: Love, The Bangles



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

Hey, Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 133 essays about 133 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).