10 SONGS: 11/16/2021

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 # 1103.

THE MONKEES: You Just May Be The One

"You Just May Be The One" is a track from the Monkees' 1967 album Headquarters. It was produced by Chip Douglas (credited under his real name Douglas Farthing Hatlelid) and engineered by Hank Cicalo. Douglas also sang back-up on the track.

You know who else was on that session? The Monkees. And no one else.

The song was written by Michael Nesmith, who sang lead and played electric and acoustic guitars. Peter Tork played bass. Micky Dolenz played drums. Davy Jones played tambourine. Yes, the precise line-up and instrumentation we saw on their TV show. Peter, Micky, and Davy joined de facto deputy Monkee Chip Douglas to sing behind their wool-hatted prime mate Michael. It's the Monkees. For all the ill-informed crap we've heard about the Monkees not playing their own instruments, this is the Monkees. No slight to the amazing Chip Douglas, whose integral contributions made it all happen, but on "You Just May Be The One," it is effectively only the Monkees.

And it's fantastic. It shoulda been a single.

Both Davy and Peter have left us. On Sunday night, as This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio blared its mighty sound across the whole friggin' planet, surviving Monkees Mike and Micky took the stage in Los Angeles for the final date of the Monkees' farewell tour. There will still be a few more stand-alone shows--a cruise with the Beach Boys, and isolated make-up dates for previously-scheduled concerts postponed because of...well, you know--but this is the end of the road. 

We were lucky to have them. Thank you, Micky, Davy, Peter, and Michael. 

Oh, and a side note to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: #inductthemonkees

THE GRIP WEEDS: Porpoise Song

The Grip Weeds appreciate the Monkees. Smart folks, those Grip Weeds. And those very same smart folks have a new covers album called DiG, which is available in single-, double-, and triple-disc editions. You know how sometimes less is more? With the Grip Weeds, more is more, and the two- and three-disc versions of DiG include two Monkees covers, of "For Pete's Sake" and the sublime Gerry Goffin-Carole King number "Porpoise Song." The Monkees' "Porpoise Song" merits a chapter in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), and the Grip Weeds serve the song well. Dig?

SPYGENIUS: Paper Sun Love Is Only Sleeping

Spygenius appreciate the Monkees. And their fab new covers album Spygenius Blow Their Covers also includes two Monkees songs. Both the Grip Weeds and Spygenius cover "For Pete's Sake," and Spygenius deliver their rendition of the Monkees' "Love Is Only Sleeping" as a medley with their take on Traffic's "Paper Sun." This is a brilliant gathering of the tribes, mixing Traffic's classic rock perennial with a Monkees album track. For those of us who remember the condescension some FM radio rock fans used to ooze while smugly disdaining the Monkees, this medley demonstrates the prevailing silliness of that artificial divide, that arbitrary insistence that one thing is hip and one thing is not. In Spygenius' capable hands, the Monkees song is as heavy as the Traffic song, and the Traffic song as pop as the Monkees song. And since Spygenius accomplishes faithful covers of both, that even-handed compasrison applies equally to the originals. I spy genius at work here.

THE DOORS: Hello, I Love You

The Doors appreciated...man, I have no idea whether or not the Doors appreciated the Monkees. But they should have. Let's presume they did.

And my introduction to the Doors was no less (potentially) prosaic as my introduction to the Monkees via a weekly TV show: I first recall learning of the Doors in the pages of a superhero comic book.

In 1972, the 38th issue of the DC Comics title Teen Titans opened with a scene of clairvoyant Titan Lilith dancing to the Doors' "When The Music's Over." Since twelve-year-old me already had a little bit of a crush on our Lilith, her recommendation of what rock group I oughtta be listening to could not be taken lightly. The men didn't know. This little boy understood. Sort of.

Lilith's first appearance, Teen Titans # 25, drawn by Nick Cardy

I was old enough that I must have heard the Doors music before that, but it hadn't registered with me. I later discovered that my sister had the Doors' "Hello, I Love You"/"Love Street" 45, so I did hear the Doors in short order. I hope Lilith will forgive me for never becoming quite the Doors fan she was.

(And later, when I became a fan of the Kinks during my senior year in high school, I realized that "Hello, I Love You" was very heavily influenced by the Kinks' "All Day And All Of The Night." Lilith may have known. I'm sure she understood.) 

WENDI DUNLAP: Buildings

Pop music. Gorgeous, inviting pop music. What more do you need? Wendi Dunlap's new album Looking For Buildings offers your opportunity to fall heart-first into a dreamy, luxurious bed of pure radio-ready bliss. Wendi Dunlap has just the building you're looking for.

LITTLE RICHARD: Good Golly Miss Molly

I was born in 1960. Growing up in the '60s and early '70s, most of my introductions to 1950s rock 'n' roll came via proxy, and that proxy was usually your John, your Paul, your George, and your Ringo. I first heard the music of Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, and Larry Williams in cover versions by the Beatles on the American hodgepodge LPs Beatles '65 and Beatles VI. That's also how I first heard Little Richard.

For my money, the Beatles improved Berry's "Rock And Roll Music," Holly's "Words Of Love," and Williams' "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" and "Bad Boy," and drew a tie with Perkins on "Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby." Even the Beatles couldn't improve on the Georgia Peach. Little Richard's songs were done best by Little Richard. 

(And, ever the adolescent, I'd say Miss Molly sounds like a fun date if she sure likes to ball. No, you grow up.)

For dramatic purposes, the role of Miss Molly will be played by Lilith of the Teen Titans

HAYLEY MARY: Like A Woman Should

Intrepid TIRnRR listener Dave Murray introduced us to Australian singer Hayley Mary with a YouTube video of her 2020 single "Like A Woman Should," with Dave commenting, "I love everything about this song." We agree. Oh man, do we ever agree.

MANDY MOORE: Moonshadow

As I continue my current obsession with the TV series This Is Us, we welcome one of that show's stars, singer and actress Mandy Moore, back to the ol' playlist with a spin of her cover of the Cat Stevens hit "Moonshadow." The original was a big hit during the prolonged heyday of my '70s AM Top 40 thrall, but Moore gives the song a glossy shine that suits it well.

THE QUICK: It Won't Be Long

By the time of my senior year in high school, 1976-77, my radio allegiance had migrated from AM Top 40 to freer-form FM, specifically WOUR-FM, The Rock Of Central New York. OUR played Michael Nesmith, so I exempt the station and its jocks from the charge of anti-Monkees bias I leveled at other, lesser FM outlets a few paragraphs North of here. In that time frame, WOUR also introduced me to Graham Parker, the Rubinoos, Greg Kihn, Nick Lowe, and the Sex Pistols, and the station wasn't afraid to play oldies by the Yardbirds, the Animals, the Rascals, and the Dave Clark Five. 

And WOUR played the Quick. Or at least they played the Quick's cover of the Beatles' beloved Meet The Beatles LP track "It Won't Be Long," from the Quick's 1976 album Mondo Deco. I don't recall having heard anything by Sparks by this point in my time line, so I was oblivious to Sparks' influence on the Quick. And while the Quick's take on "It Won't Be Long" certainly didn't steal any of my affection away from the early Beatles, I did get its quirky pop appeal, then and now.

ANDY WILLIAMS: A Fool Never Learns

Something about following Dana's spin of the Velvet Underground's S & M ode "Venus In Furs" with Andy Williams' jaunty 1964 hit "A Fool Never Learns" was immediately appealing and irresistible. It's all pop music. 

"A Fool Never Learns" was written by Sonny Curtis, whose own rockin' pop c.v. spans working with Buddy Holly before the formation of the Crickets (a group Curtis himself later joined) and writing all-time touchstones "I Fought The Law" and "Love Is All Around," the latter used as the much-loved theme song for The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Andy Williams' "A Fool Never Learns" was yet another part of my cherished soundtrack as a kid. I have learned of no reason to forsake that foolish thing. I suspect it's not really foolish at all.

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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

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl.

10 SONGS: 3/30/2020

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.



A tech delay postpones the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio's record release party with Pop Co-Op. Once that's been resolved, I should be able to share the playlist as soon as tomorrow. In the mean time, let's do this week's 10 Songs a day early.

THE BEATLES: I Want To Hold Your Hand


It seemed such an innocent request in '63 and '64. Now? If a person's closer than six friggin' feet away, it's cause for alarm, even panic. There will be no hand-holding in the Coronaverse, no love in the time of pandemic. There will be music, and there actually will be love, as always. Just no physical contact. Now go wash your hands.

BIG HELLO: Action Now



I was going to tie this great track from Big Hello's 2000 effort The Orange Album with a demand for ACTION NOW!! in place of the usual clueless douchebaggery of our nation's Buffoon-In-Chief, but I guess I'll stick with the music. Trump's an asshole, by the way.

"Action Now" popped up a couple of times on my iPod recently, and it sounds great each and every time. Is it a call to action--Now's the time for supersonic action--or is it only rock 'n' roll? I know it's both, and I like it.

Since saying goodbye to Big Hello, the wife 'n' husband team of  Chloe Orwell and Brad Elvis have fronted The Handcuffs, another fab group worthy of large-sized salutation and celebration. The Handcuffs' Electroluv album has been in my CD carrying case for weeks, awaiting its overdue return to the This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio playlist. All the more reason for action now, to end this crisis and return The Handcuffs to their rightful place on the radio.



THE DOORS: Touch Me


Ew. Not because of the song--I've become more receptive to The Doors' music over the past few years--but because, y'know...touching. Ew.

THE FOUR TOPS: Reach Out I'll Be There


No. You. Won't. Jeez, keep your razzafrazzin' distance already!

THE GEORGIA SATELLITES: Keep Your Hands To Yourself


Yeah, that's more like it. 

The Georgia Satellites may have put on the loudest show I've ever survived, which is saying something when you consider that my first concert was KISS, that I saw The Ramones nine times, and that I just about put my head into the PA at one of The Flashcubes' gigs. My most vivid memories of the Satellites' circa '87 set at The Lost Horizon are the sheer volume and resultant lingering buzz in the ol' ears, and Dan Baird asking the audience, Y'all all right? You're awfully quiet. Are you gettin' enough to drink? It's a proven fact: the more you drink, the more we sound like the goddamned Beatles. It's true!

THE PANDORAS: It's About Time



The Pandoras' irresistible '80s garage-pop classic "It's About Time" was one of the tracks I included in last week's fake playlist This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio: Isolation Edition. I chose the song for its recurring line Ain't it about time we got together now, and placed it near the end of the playlist (segued into Ben E. King's "Stand By Me") as a totem of hope that this period of willful separation will pass. It won't pass anywhere near as quickly as we'd wish, but it will pass.

THE POLICE: Don't Stand So Close To Me



Okay, everyone else sick of this joke, of this hit by The Police serving as the unofficial Love Theme From Social Distancing? Me too, though that won't prevent me from using it just this once. These are not proud times.

I absolutely adored "Roxanne," and regarded it as the coolest song on the radio in 1979. I quite liked "Message In A Bottle" and probably a few other scattered tracks from the first two Police albums, but I found myself losing interest in the group after that. Mind you, I never relinquished my affection for "Roxanne" and "Message In A Bottle," but that affection did not extend to subsequent efforts. When I managed a record store in the '80s, one of my clerks was horrified--horrified--to learn of my indifference to The Police. I waived my right to his counsel on that matter (and I waived it kinda rudely).

POP CO-OP: Underworld




But in a similar matter to how my icy disregard for The Doors gradually thawed over time, so too did I slowly become less dismissive of The Police's music (though I doubt I'll ever be able to tolerate any of Sting's solo material, or that horrid stalker song "Every Breath You Take"). So this wonderful Police pastiche by Pop Co-Op came along at just the right time. "Underworld" is on the brand-new Pop Co-Op album Factory Settings, but it was originally released on a 2018 collection called Back In Time--Lost Hits Of The 80's Vol. 2, the second of two various-artists collections that gather contemporary artists to salute the '80s with original songs that sound like they could have been on MTV during the heyday of Reaganomics and Miami Vice. The Back In Time sets are the brainchild of Dan Pavelich, and they succeed in re-writing and expanding pop history to accommodate the paradox of brand-new records from the 1980s.

The acts on Back In Time take on phony noms du bop for their concoctions, so "Underworld" was originally credited to "PCPD," as in "Pop Co-Op Police Department." It's an effective theft and rehabilitation of The Police's sound, and it first reached me right around the same time that I decided to add a Police best-of CD to my home library. I kinda like The Police now, but if you surreptitiously slipped "Underworld" onto any Police record (see what I did there?), it would be among the best tracks on that record. I hope my former record store clerk would approve.

(And more about the new Pop Co-Op album Factory Settings--Your Favorite Record Of 2020--on tomorrow's exciting edition of Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do).



STEVE STOECKEL & HIS THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO ALL-STARS: I Could Be Good For You



The Pop Co-Op story has its roots in a virtual combo I called Steve Stoeckel & his This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio All-Stars. I had no right to name this group, but somehow I got away with it. "I Could Be Good For You" began as a songwriting exercise, as the ever-intrepid and ever-inventive Stoeckel decided he wanted to experiment with an attempt to craft lyrics by committee. He solicited ideas from various on-line acquaintances, and this new song was written line-by-line by a collection of pop fans, some of whom had previous experience, and some of whom didn't have much experience at all. 

So "I Could Be Good For You" was written by Stoeckel with Dan Pavelich, Kathy Jackson Firestone, Loyd Dillon, Brenda Trent Dillon, Elizabeth Racz, and Joel Tinnel, each of whom shared songwriting credit. Steve recorded the track, with a guitar break by Joel Tinnel and a backing vocal by long-time TIRnRR pal Rich Firestone, and let me affix the TIRnRR brand name to its spurious billing. It appeared on our 2013 CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 3, and it was our show's single most-played track that year.

But its most important and lasting legacy is laying the first brick on the pathway to what came later, as Steve and Joel eventually recruited Bruce Gordon and Stacy Carson to form Pop Co-Op. The story of Pop Co-Op started here. 

UTOPIA: I Just Want To Touch You



Right. I'm calling' a cop.

C'mon, you're gonna have to stay farther apart from each other than that!

TIP THE BLOGGER: CC's Tip Jar!

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

Barring pandemics, 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 124 essays about 124 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).