10 SONGS: 12/25/2024

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 # 1265: The 26th Annual THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO Christmas Show.

JOHN AND YOKO: Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

From a previous post:

John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" was my favorite rock 'n' roll Christmas song for a long, long time, and it's still pretty far up there in my holiday music pantheon. I know that some folks don't like it or are sick of it, and that some even prefer that dishwater Paul McCartney thing (aka "The Cringe That Stole Christmas") when 'tis the season. 

I don't get that. Dig what you dig, of course, but man...I don't get that. To my ears, John and Yoko's Christmas single remains a stirring and engaging plea for peace on Earth, good will toward all. An obvious sentiment? I'm not looking for Proust here. "Happy Xmas" supplies the feels I want in my holiday music, its childlike hope (and children's chorus) never falling prey to the cynical or the overly earnest. It added an aching, awful sense of melancholy forty-four years ago this month. But I never get tired of hearing it.

I'm not one of those who blithely bash Paul McCartney, either. Seeing Macca perform live in 2017 was the highlight of my concert-goin' career, I listen to solo Paul more often than I listen to solo John, and they were equal partners in the greatest rock 'n' roll band this world will ever experience. Nonetheless: I can't stand "Wonderful Christmastime." I absolutely adore "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)."

(For my further thoughts on this subject, see my piece Yoko For Christmas.)

MIKE BROWNING: It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

We debuted our pal Mike Browning's most wonderful new cover of "It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year" on last week's show, and we use it again this week (after our John and Yoko intro) to open The 26th Annual THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO Christmas Show. This year, I'm especially grateful to Mike for his invaluable assistance in advising, amending, and improving my 2024 book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1); our Mike's efforts on behalf of that project should secure him a permanent berth on Santa's NICE! list. Thanks again, Mike! Wonderful is as wonderful does.

(And speakin' of wonderful: We'll hear Mike Browning again on our Countdown show this coming Sunday night.)

THE GRIP WEEDS: Christmas, Bring Us [acoustic]

We'll also hear the Grip Weeds again on the Countdown show--the Grip Weeds are a fairly safe bet to appear on our Countdown in any given year--but this Christmas show spin of "Christmas, Bring Us" serves the additional Oh HELL Yeah! of promoting The Very Best Of Hi-Fi Christmas Party. We ARE Santa's elves! This new digital compilation comes to us from the visionary Keith Klingensmith's Futureman Records label, and it gathers the best from our man Dan Pavelich's Yuletide essential various-artists Hi-Fi Christmas Party discs. 

The Grip Weeds' "Christmas, Bring Us" was on 2006's Hi-Fi Christmas Party Volume 2 (and on the group's on 2011 collection Under The Influence Of Christmas), but I think--I think--this acoustic take is new to the Hi-Fi Christmas Party universe, and otherwise only available on the expanded deluxe edition of Under The Influence Of Christmas. I'd verify that, but c'mon--who has time to check stuff this time of year? Unique or not, your stocking ain't properly stuffed without The Very Best Of Hi-Fi Christmas Party. 

THE FLESHTONES: Hurray For Santa Claus

For Pia Zadora, wherever she is. 

And anyone who sez Santa Claus Conquers The Martians is one of the all-time worst films deserves nuttin' for Christmas--not even coal. Call the big guy! 

We spell it S-A-N-T-A C-L-A-U-S, hurray for Santy Claus! 

I figure the difference between spelling and pronunciation can be attributed to Martian accents.

DAVID WOODARD: Around The Power Pop Tree

The title track from David Woodard's 2024 Kool Kat Musik album Around The Power Pop Tree celebrates the enduring kvell of discovering the gift of music stacked under the ol' trimmed 'n' tricked out Tannenbaum. As someone whose own prevailing and pervasive love of the Kinks began with a Christmas 1976 present of a 2-LP British Invasion compilation, I can relate and affirm with wide eyes and raised fist.

In 2017, I wrote about the ongoing glow of the memories of past Christmas gifts:

"Christmas still inspires a warm and comfy feeling in my mind. There have been Yuletime moments that were less than glittery--developing car trouble on a snowy trek to Missouri in 1970, spending Christmas alone with a stack of old comic books and a bottle of Jack Daniels in 1982, suddenly having to fly to Ohio for a funeral in the early '90s, stuck home with chicken pox at the age of 36 in 1996, the first Christmas after a devastating family tragedy in 2008, and after my Dad died in 2012--yet I retain an instinct to associate Christmas with a feeling of happiness. The sadness is there, too; I see the empty chairs at the dinner table, I feel the drag of sand falling in the hourglass, I sense the finite nature of all we love. This Christmas has offered its own unique set of challenges. Sometimes it seems as if there are challenges poised to attack from all directions.

"And nonetheless: I love Christmas. I hope I always will. I hope yours is merry and bright. The challenges will wait for us, at least for a little, little bit. A spin of Nat King Cole. A sip of eggnog. A tree that casts its glow into our hearts. Presents to exchange, fleeting moments to share, food to savor, company to enjoy. It will not last forever.

"Except that it does. I can still be seven years old, if only for one day. Maybe you can be, too."

Since the above was written, I've lost my Mom and my oldest brother. My daughter got married--that's a happy memory--and there was, y'know, a pandemic. I have aged more than the mere seven years that the calendar pages indicate. But I'm okay. I still know delight, I still know joy, and I still feel the gratitude for the good things I've enjoyed. I still love. I am still loved.

So let's all gather around the power pop tree. David Woodard will lead us in song. (And we'll hear him again on the Countdown show, too. Another chance to gather 'round.)

THE IDEA: It's About That Time

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE RAMONES: Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)

From a previous post:

The Ramones' "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)" is almost totally devoid of irony. It feels earnest, sincere. Honest. It really is a straightforward love song, Ramonesified by its pace and the deliberate quirk of its lyrical queries about the whereabouts of Santa, his sleigh, and his errant reindeer. Where is Rudolph, where is Blitzen, baby?

Merry Christmas. Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas.

No relationship is free of discord. Lovers, friends, siblings, other family members. Disagreements and arguments will occur, and no amount of love can alter that truth. Some relationships aren't worth saving. 

Some are.

I love you, and you love me
And that's the way it's got to be
I loved you from the start
'Cause Christmas ain't the time for breaking each other's heart.

No matter what Her Majesty's Ramones the Beatles insisted, it is not true that all you need is love. Nor is it a fact that love conquers all. But mutual love? Respect? Consideration? My friends, that can accomplish a lot. Love can change the world. It can't do it alone...but it can do it if love accompanies love. Love with love, together, side by side? 

It can happen.

It has to happen. 

Peace on Earth. Good will toward all. It's an elusive goal. 

But it's our only hope. 

Hope begins with love. Maybe the Ramones are unlikely avatars of hope and love. On "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)," they nail it nonetheless.

Merry Christmas. We don't want to fight tonight. As tonight becomes tomorrow, as tomorrow becomes today, we could do worse than listening to the Ramones. 

Like swords into ploughshares: Anyone up for decorating a baseball bat?

LIBRARIANS WITH HICKEYS: Listen, The Snow Is Falling

Another act we'll be hearing on the Countdown show, Librarians With Hickeys merit extra gravitas for forcing me to appreciate the splendor of Yoko Ono's "Listen, The Snow Is Falling." Yoko's original version was the B-side of "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," but I'm not sure I ever heard any version of it prior to Librarians With Hickeys' mesmerizing 2016 cover. The Librarians' cover was itself a B-side (of the group's original "Jingle Jangle Heart"); the A-side is terrific--a Grade-A prime example of why we adore Librarians With Hickeys--but we can't resist "Listen, The Snow Is Falling." It's become a TIRnRR Christmas season prerequisite, and it prompted me to seek out Yoko's also-mesmerizing rendition. Worth a listen, again and again.

(And yes, there will be original Librarians With Hickeys music on the Countdown show, but we're also really, really looking forward to hearing a new cover they're recording for a 2025 project. The hype for that project will fall like Syracuse snow when its own season arrives.)

THE MONKEES: Riu Chiu

From a previous post:

The Christmas episode of The Monkees aired at the end of 1967, a big year for the Monkees. Their biggest year, actually; they probably outsold the Beatles. Michael Nesmith once suggested that the Monkees outsold the Beatles and the Rolling Stones combined in '67, and later claimed that he was joking, and testing to see if anyone would take the claim seriously. But whether he made it up or whether it's true, it's plausible. The Monkees were really, really popular in 1967. It was all going to go away in 1968.

But when they did the Christmas episode, the Monkees--Nesmith, Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, and Peter Tork--were on top of the world. They had proven themselves to anyone willing to be sufficiently open-minded to accept, y'know, evidence. Granted, even as they started to play some of their own music, they were still managed, still part of a corporate machinery. But they had a hand in what they were doing.

In the Christmas episode, near the end of the show, the Monkees come on, just the four of them--Micky, Davy, Michael, and Peter--and do an a cappella performance of a 16th century Spanish folk song called "Riu Chiu." It's stunning. If you haven't seen it, you must. Talentless? Boy band? That's absurd. Watch the video. If you don't agree there's talent there, you aren't paying attention.

I'm a believer. Monkees fans are believers by definition. As we listen to the Monkees sing at Christmas, we acknowledge that Christmas itself invites belief. I am not religious by any stretch of the imagination. I don't belong to any church, and I'm not part of any organized faith. But I believe in the Golden Rule. I believe that we can be good, that we can be better than we are. That we can improve, and become the sort of souls we wish we could be. I believe that such belief transcends creed.

Belief is its own reward. Join us.

Believe.

GEORGE HARRISON: Ding Dong, Ding Dong

Ring out the old, ring in the new. But don't discard anything more than what should be consigned to the dustbin. There are good things, great things, we must retain and maintain, But we must remain open to new things, in hope that they can eventually become good old things for us to retain and maintain.

Here's to the old, and here's to the new. Happy Holidays from Dana and Carl.

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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, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.

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

10 SONGS: 10/27/2020

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 # 1048.

THE FLESHTONES: American Beat '84

A national treasure! I think I first heard The Fleshtones in the very early '80s, either via the live version of "Shadowline" on the 2-LP soundtrack of the film Urgh! A Music War, or via an MTV airing of "R-I-G-H-T-S." I had the Urgh! record, and the 1981 Roman Gods record became my first dedicated Fleshtones purchase. The Roman Gods track "Let's See The Sun" was my go-to 'Tones tune in short order. Super-Rock!

Within just a few years, though, the supremacy of "Let's See The Sun" was abruptly usurped by "American Beat '84." WBNY-FM in Buffalo hooked me on the track, and its appearance in an early scene in the Tom Hanks slob comedy Bachelor Party sealed the deal. I bought the 12" single at a used record store on Buffalo's Hertel Avenue, and it remains one of my all-time favorites.

ROBERT GORDON: Someday, Someway

I think Robert Gordon's rock-solid rendition of "Someday, Someway" was released prior to the song's author Marshall Crenshaw's version, but I definitely heard MC's version first. Both are great.

JOEY MOLLAND: Rainy Day Man

In last week's edition of my Greatest Record Ever Made! video series, I talked about how much Badfinger's "Baby Blue" meant to me. You can see the video here, you can read about it here, and you can read my GREM! book chapter about the song here. 

That's prologue. Now, Badfinger's beloved guitarist Joey Molland has a brand-new album out, Be True To Yourself. Working with producer Mark Hudson and such stalwarts as Micky Dolenz and Julian Lennon, Molland retains the essential These guys sound like The Beatles! promise that made me a Badfinger fan when I was in middle school. "Rainy Day Man" is an awesome single, ready-made for radio, a beguiling tease for a must-have album.

IRENE PEÑA: It Must Be Summer

Hey, congratulations to America's Sweetheart Irene Peña, as she assumes benevolent stewardship of Big Stir Records' essential digital singles series. The story of TIRnRR's blissful history as Peñamaniacs was told here, and we're delighted that the Big Stir singles will continue in such capable hands. To celebrate, we figured we'd serve up a repeat spin of Ms. Peña's own recent Big Stir single, her irresistible cover of Fountains Of Wayne's "It Must Be Summer." It must be Big Stir. Huzzah, Irene!

THE O'JAYS: Love Train

A message from The O'Jays. The message never goes out of style (which is good), and the need to repeat it never fades away (which is unfortunate). Get on board.

THE ROLLERS: Who'll Be My Keeper

Both this week's playlist and the CD reissue of the 1979 album Elevator credit this track to The Bay City Rollers, but the original LP and its little-heard follow-ups shortened the group's name to just The Rollers. I wrote about Elevator here, and elsewhere I also wrote this:

I adored The Bay City Rollers--"Rock 'n' Roll Love Letter,""Yesterday's Hero," and a superb album track called "Wouldn't You Like It" are sublime power pop nuggets that transcend the perceived limitations of teeny-bop pop--but this post-mania LP is the only full Rollers album that ever grabbed me. By this time, lead singer Les McKeown had split (replaced by Duncan Faure, late of the group Rabbitt), and the group had shortened its name and released this album as a desperate bid for a new audience. Desperate or not, it sounds fine, especially the fab "Who'll Be My Keeper."

There is some fabulous stuff to be found in this brief chapter of The Bay City Rollers' career, '79 to about '82 or so. I've still never heard the rare cassette-only release Burning Rubber, but both Voxx and Ricochet include a few stellar tracks, particularly "85," "God Save Rock And Roll," "Roxy Lady," and "Doors, Bars, Metal."

EVIE SANDS: Don't Look Back Don't Look Down

Singer. Songwriter. Producer. Musician. Evie Sands has been making records for more than five decades, but her music first came to my ears because of her association with SoCal musician (and expatriate Central New Yorker) Adam Marsland. In the first decade of our current sparkly century. Sands played guitar and sang as a member of Adam Marsland's Chaos Band, and I saw her when the AMCB did a club show in Syracuse circa...2005, maybe? They were on a bill with local combo Beauty Scene Outlaws, and it was the first night I ever heard BSO's song "Carl Cafarelli," about some crazy guy who later tried to maintain a daily blog. Weirdo. It was also the night I annoyed AMCB bassist Teresa Cowles by asking her if she played regularly in any bands back in L.A.; Yeah, I was just on stage here with my Danelectro bass, she replied, the you moron! unstated but clearly implied. Oops.

(In my defense, I did know who she was, but mistakenly believed she was just filling in on tour for Severo, whom I thought was the band's regular bassist; I didn't realize Severo had joined The Smithereens, and Cowles was now the AMCB's permanent four-string wizard. With my faux pas corrected, Teresa Cowles allowed me to live. I'm grateful for that.)

I didn't really speak with Evie Sands, but I bought some CDs of her old recordings, including her original '60s versions of songs like "I Can't Let Go" and "Angel Of The Morning." Evie Sands was the first artist to record and release those tunes, before they became hits for The Hollies and Merrilee Rush, respectively. Now, Evie has a brand-new album called Get Of Your Own Way, which was just released in Europe and is officially due out in the States in January. I joined the Kickstarter for that project, and the magnificent end result has been well worth the long wait. We'll be hearing another track from Get Out Of Your Own Way on next week's show.

THE TROGGS: I Can't Control Myself

Well, it's certainly been a minute or two since I've written an entry in The Everlasting First, my A-Z series of reminiscences about how I first encountered various musical acts and fictional characters. The most recent full entries were S Is For THE SEX PISTOLS in November of 2018 and S Is For THE SHADOW in August of 2019. T Is For TARZAN is waaaaay overdue, and that further delays its eventual successor, T Is For THE TROGGS. Wild Thing, you make my heart sing. But in the mean time, this week's show programmed a spin of my favorite Troggs track, "I Can't Control Myself." I had the 1966 Atco Records 45, albeit a little over a decade after the fact, intrigued by its then-scandalous description of a girl whose slacks were low and her hips were showin', ba-ba-bop-a-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Oh, no? Oh,YES!

WAR: Low Rider

As much as I loved War's big hit "Why Can't We Be Friends?" when I was 15 in 1975, it was the only War song that mattered to me at the time. War's earlier AM radio smash "The Cisco Kid" hadn't connected with me in '73, nor did I have much use for "Low Rider," the follow-up to "Why Can't We Be Friends?" I didn't really succumb to "Low Rider" until the early '90s, when a fantastic Syracuse group called L'il Georgie and the Shufflin' Hungarians used to include it in their raucous 'n' funky live sets. Then I got it, and suddenly found myself the willing slave to its Latin-derived rhythm and cobra-like groove. The Hungarians did a great cover, but nothing can match the original.

The whims and alchemy that combine to create each weekly TIRnRR playlist somehow led me to wanna program "Low Rider" this week. I don't think we ever played it on any previous show, and I didn't actually own a copy of the song. But ya can't argue with a DJ's whims--it's unhealthy and rude--so I purchased a two-CD War anthology just so I could play "Low Rider." The rest of the set sounds pretty damned good, too, so War will likely continue on future shows. My teenage self was such a clueless little pisser.

KIM WILDE: Kids In America

On This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, we tend to play The Muffs' willfully snarky and messy cover of "Kids In America" more often than we play the original 1981 version by British singer Kim Wilde. We love both versions. I recall that Kim Wilde's eponymous debut LP was once a fave on my turntable--mostly for "Kids In America," of course, but I remember playing and digging the album as a whole, or at least some of its tracks. I'm curious to re-investigate that sound, to see if it still holds up for me almost forty years later. But my copy of that album is long, long gone, a victim of one of the many periodic purges my vinyl collection has endured over the years. I'm not a kid anymore.

Kids in America. When the record came out in the summer of '81, I was 21 years old, already a year out of college, living with my girlfriend in a one-bedroom apartment. I was still a kid, emotionally and chronologically, though I was trying hard to pretend otherwise. 

I voted for the first time the preceding November. I wish I could say that I voted to re-elect Jimmy Carter, a fine man whom I did not appreciate until it was far too late. I can at least say that I did not vote for Reagan--God, no--but I wish that I hadn't wasted my vote on third-party candidate John Anderson. I was a kid. I didn't know any better...but I should have.

Forty years later, I can't necessarily claim that I've learned all that much. But I keep trying. I married the girlfriend. We voted on Sunday. We hope all the other kids in America will do the same. 

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10 SONGS: 8/26/2020

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 # 1039.

THE BEATLES: I've Just Seen A Face


In the '60s and '70s, kids in America--hey, where is Kim Wilde when we need her?--did not know most of The Beatles' albums in the way The Beatles intended them to be heard. The U.S. record label Capitol butchered the original  U.K. releases, chopping them up, making them shorter, playing with sequencing, cobbling together whole "new" Beatles product made up from tracks excised from other albums. That's not even considering how Capitol messed with the sound of the master tracks. You could call it a triumph of the Philistines, and I'd be hard-pressed to give you an intelligent counter-argument.

Well, except for this, as many of my fellow Americans have already said: whatever the faults of the Capitol releases, it's how we Yanks heard The Beatles. It's how we fell in love with the music of The Beatles. 

When I think of Rubber Soul, I think of the U.S. version of Rubber Soul. I have the Parlophone CDs. I get it. You'll never convince me that "I've Just Seen a Face" is an album track on Help! "I've Just Seen A Face" is the first track on Rubber Soul. That's how I heard it, and that's how it is.

Ah, THERE ya are, Kim! Me and the rest of the kids in America just wanna say hi.

THE DAVE CLARK FIVE: It Don't Feel Good



We don't think of The Dave Clark Five as album artists. The DC5's legacy was built on singles, compact 45 rpm blasts like "Glad All Over," "Bits And Pieces," "Do You Love Me," and "Any Way You Want It." The group's LPs generally surrounded the singles with mere filler, but there were exceptions. The U.S. release Having A Wild Weekend--my favorite DC5 album--includes the fab single "Catch Us If You Can" as its high point, but it also has some other certifiably solid cuts: the title track flat-out rocks, mid-tempo numbers "A New Kind Of Love" and "I Said I Was Sorry" display an agreeable maturity, and both "Don't Be Taken In" and the brooding "Don't You Realize" remain among my top Dave Clark Five choices. The Coast To Coast album contains a similarly contemplative classic called "When," which was featured in the group's underrated Having A Wild Weekend movie. 

"It Don't Feel Good" is a standout track from the 1966 Try Too Hard album. No, it's not as flat-out irresistible as the hit single that gave the album its name. But it is further evidence that there is such a thing as a decent DC5 album track. There are several of them, actually.  

THE FLESHTONES: It Is As It Was



Welcome to another edition of Because My iPod Said So!, where a song comes up on the ol' digital playback device and prompts me to say, Yeah, I oughtta play that on the show this week. The joy of radio! The best of The Fleshtones is ideal fare for TIRnRR, and it's worth noting that the group's best isn't limited to their late '70s and '80s material. "It Is As It Was" is from The Fleshtones' 2014 album Wheel Of Talent, which also contains one of my all-time top 'Tones picks "Just For A Smile." My delighted obsession with "Just For A Smile" tended to elbow aside other tracks on Wheel Of Talent, but while this certainly isn't the first time we've played "It Is As It Was" on TIRnRR, it's been a while. Good to have it back!

THE FOUR TOPS: Baby I Need Your Loving



The Four Tops are my favorite Motown act, which is a helluva compliment when you consider the storied competition. Here's part of a Four Tops testimonial I wrote for another project:

...British post-punk folk singer Billy Bragg would much later pay tribute to the emotional power of The Four Tops' lead singer in a song called "Levi Stubbs' Tears," a devastatingly stark tale that is markedly more downbeat than even the darkest seven rooms of gloom that Stubbs and company ever visited on record. It's an effective tribute nonetheless, its own harrowing narrative upping the ante of The Four Tops' 45 rpm melodramas into the realm of tragedy. As great as Bragg's track is, and as riveting its sad narrative, it still can't compare to the impact of Levi Stubbs' own tears, poured forth in every note of every Four Tops smash....

Of course I also love Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, The Marvelettes, The Contours, Martha and the Vandellas, and the rest of the best from Hitsville, USA. I love The Mynah Birds (with Rick James and Neil Young), and I wish the current corporate overlords at Motown would scrape together whatever can be found to make a Mynah Birds CD. But The Four Tops...! Levi Stubbs, man. Levi Stubbs.

JOHNNY & THE HURRICANES: The Beatnik Fly



This rock instrumental take on "The Blue Tailed Fly" was the first Johnny & the Hurricanes track I ever heard, one single among two little storage books of 45s left behind by a young woman named Nancy, who had been a friend of my brothers. Of that small cache of 7" treasures, Nancy's orphaned Buddy Holly single had the most pervasive impact upon young and impressionable me, but "The Beatnik Fly" means a lot to me, too. Most would consider the # 5 hit "Red River Rock" as Johnny & the Hurricanes' signature tune; in my personal pop world, the sound of Johnny & the Hurricanes is defined by "The Beatnik Fly."

THE KINKS: Muswell Hillbilly



I have a black t-shirt emblazoned in white letters with The Kinks' classic '60s logo. It's my favorite t-shirt. When I wear it, some random stranger will often notice it and express approval (even from a socially-distanced vantage point). I've had people insist I'm too young to even know who The Kinks are (which means I'm either older than I look, or that I wasted my money on those three Kinks concerts I attended; I enjoyed those shows, so I don't feel like I coulda been too young to know The Kinks at the time).

Yes, I DO wear this shirt all day and all of the night!

It's not unusual for the sight of my Kinks shirt to inspire strangers to want to chat, however briefly, about these well-respected men. Recently, a gentleman just over six feet away from me admired my shirt, and mentioned his favorite Kinks album: 1971's Muswell Hillbillies.

This is not the first Kinks record that most passers-by will cite in reaction to my dedicated follower of fashion choice of wardrobe. "Lola." "You Really Got Me." One guy said "Come Dancing." Muswell Hillbillies isn't exactly an obscure record, but it doesn't usually come up in casual conversation out in the real world, the vast playground beyond our own shared but insular rockin' pop universe. I was pleased. And I made sure to play the album's title track on this week's TIRnRR.

THE KNACK: I Want Ya



I was not quite as much into The Knack as many of my power-pop peers were (and are). Nor was I as much of a Knuke-The-Knack detractor as some others might be. I...like The Knack. Sometimes I love them. I don't think I've ever hated them, nor even really disliked them.

"I Want Ya" is a track from The Knack's second album, 1980's ...But The Little Girls Understand. It's been a long time since I've listened to the record in its entirety, but I don't recall it as anything extra special. The album's single was a "My Sharona" retread called "Baby Talks Dirty," and it did include a confident cover of The Kinks' "The Hard Way" that did not in any way threaten to eclipse the original.

The album's best selection was "I Want Ya," a fast-paced winner that sounds wonderful on the radio. It's not quite my toppermost-of-the-poppermost among Knack tracks--that would be "Your Number Or Your Name" from Get The Knack--but it's up there, probably above "My Sharona."

THE MONKEES: Gotta Give It Time



The Monkees' phenomenal album Good Times! was my # 1 record of 2016. Good Times! was quite well-received in general, but this originally-unfinished leftover from the sessions for 1966's More Of The Monkees was not among its most popular tracks, nor its most distinctive. Nonetheless, it strikes me as an intriguing suggestion of The Monkees as a Nuggets-approved garage band. I mean, it's a pop record, sure, but it's not far removed from the sort of pop record The Standells could have done in '66. If memory serves--I could check, but I'm not gettin' paid here--the basic backing track was done in '66, and enhanced by Good Times! producer Adam Schlesinger in 2016, with a new lead vocal by Micky Dolenz and a new backing vocal by Michael Nesmith. 

NEW MATH: Die Trying



Sometimes the giddy euphoria of pop music makes us fall in instant thrall to a new (or new-to-us) record upon first spin. Sometimes...it doesn't work out that way. I was underwhelmed by my initial exposures to the music of The Pretenders, Patti Smith, even Stevie Wonder. My reactions to all of these changed for the better upon further review. 

The "Die Trying" single wasn't quite my introduction to the sound of New Math. New Math was from Rochester, NY, friends of my hometown Syracuse Fave Raves The Flashcubes. I saw New Math on a bill with the 'Cubes in the summer of 1978, upstairs at hoppin' Syracuse nightspot The Firebarn. New Math was just terrific, energetic and invigorating. I was sure I was gonna be a New Math fan forevermore.

So, of course, I snapped up New Math's 1979 debut single "Die Trying" as soon as I saw it. By now, I'm sure context has already clued you into the fact that I didn't like the record. At all.

Why not? Damned if I could tell you. I adore it now, and I have no remaining recollection of why it disappointed me so much in the moment. The record didn't change. My perception of it did. 

Even though it takes me my whole life
It's not too much of a sacrifice
I'll die trying
Baby, die trying

Determination! I guess the record knew what it was doing.

IRENE PEÑA: I Won't Back Down


This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio loves Irene Peña. And for good reason: she has an effervescent and immediately likable personality, and she knows her way around a pop tune, whether it's a pop tune she wrote or a pop tune someone else did first. Of course we love Irene; what's not to love?

We definitely love Irene's new single. Here, she takes Tom Petty's well-known, well-loved "I Won't Back Down," speeds it up just an eensy little bit, and captures our hearts once again. The digital single is available right now from the good folks at Futureman Records, paired with previous TIRnRR Pick T' Click "Own Sweet Time." A portion of sales will benefit Rock The Vote, translating into good music for a good cause. Good? GREAT! This is why we love.



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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download
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Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
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Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 155 essays about 155 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).