10 SONGS: 1/17/2026

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 # 1319

THE BARRACUDAS: I Wish It Could Be 1965 Again

I love 1965. I regard '65 as pop music's best year ever: The best stuff was popular and the popular stuff was best. I don't actually wish it could be 1965 again--if nothing else, I'd rather consume hemlock or even Diet Pepsi than have to relive the random tsuris experienced over the course of six subsequent decades--but certainly the miserable state of current events feeds a longing for a return to better times.

Nostalgia is tricky. Still, as long as we're able to recognize that rose-colored glasses (and, I guess, rose-filtered headphones) can taint the accuracy of what we think we remember, recollections of cherished moments lend strength and conviction to steps we take on the path before us. Catch us if you can.

Moving ahead on the ol' timeline, Drop Out With The Barracudas was and remains my favorite album of the 1980s. The album's own sense of nostalgia is tempered by snark and self-awareness, a fun-in-the-sun jaunt that understands mortality and impermanence yet chooses to barrel through anyway, whether by stubborn determination or death wish. The album closes with "I Wish It Could Be 1965 Again," a full-throttle evocation of the legend (or myth) of my favorite year.

From the dystopian POV of our far-future world of 2026, Drop Out With The Barracudas is considerably farther away in time than 1965 was from the album's release in 1981. The legend perseveres. Drop out? Fall in. Those who forget the past are condemned to the Orwellian all-of-this of all of...this. We can do better. Doing better starts with a wish.

RIHANNA: Shut Up And Drive

From a previous 10 Songs, celebrating this eventual addition to the annals of The Greatest Record Ever Made!:

"I remember hearing Rihanna's hit 'Umbrella' in 2007, and not being especially taken with it. In 2008, the updated version of her Good Girl Gone Bad (Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded) landed into my consciousness via my then-teen daughter, whose interest in 'Take A Bow' and 'Disturbia' brought those songs to my attention as well. I was a little surprised to discover I liked them (especially 'Disturbia'), but I did indeed like them.

"I missed out on the track 'Shut Up And Drive.' I've heard it, but I never noticed it until a random search for playlist ideas brought me to it again. It was like a brand new song to me, and I loved it.

"(How did I know I loved it? The fact that I played it on obsessive repeat would be a pretty clear clue to that.)

"Wikipedia describes 'Shut Up And Drive' as a new wave song--no, really!--based on 'Blue Monday' by New Order. No offense to the mopey British guys, but I prefer it the way Rihanna did it."

GLENN ERB: Fine Day

"Fine Day" is a very fine new single from North Carolina popmeister Glenn Erb, and it's a righteously radio-ready shot of sure-footed swagger. Ooh, and it's produced by long-time TIRnRR Fave Rave Jamie Hoover, adding even more READY! to its established radio-ready status. This radio show is ready to play it again this Sunday. Nothing could be finer.

THE HUMAN LEAGUE: Mirror Man

DIANA ROSS AND THE SUPREMES: Reflections

In the radio biz, sometimes the segues just write themselves.

SPECTRAFLAME: Love Don't Live Here No More

Second week in a row for a spin of Spectraflame's ace current single "Love Don't Live Here No More," and the first time it's listed correctly on the posted playlist; last week's playlist claimed the song's title was "Love Don't Lived Here Any More." And I ain't even no grammarian. Of course, I screwed up the title again in my on-air announcements, but I finally--FINALLY--get it right in time for the track's third TIRnRR spin this coming Sunday night. See? I actually CAN learn from my mistakes!

Sometimes.

THE LITTLE GIRLS: I Really Want To Be With You

What do 1980s SoCal rockin' poppers the Little Girls have in common with the Beatles, the Ramones, the Cynz, the Grip Weeds, Mike Browning, Monogroove, and the above-cited Spectraflame? Counting our next program, all of these fine acts have graced each of TIRnRR's first three shows this year. I see no reason to stop now, and I've really been digging the Little Girls' Thank Heaven For ValleyPop compilation. More to come. If the Little Girls really wanna be with you, we are only too happy to provide the means.

ELVIS PRESLEY: Kentucky Rain

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

MONOGROOVE: Back To School

We mentioned Monogroove a couple of spots north of here. I've been a fan of Monogroove's Rin Lennon since hearing her former group On The Air's contribution to the 1984 Rhino Records (then-) contemporary girl group compilation The Girls Can't Help It. My pal Andrea Ogarrio included an On The Air track in a mixtape she sent me in the early '90s, and I snagged my very own copy of On The Air's 1987 eponymous six-song EP during a Florida vacation in 1994. More recently, we've been delighted to add Monogroove to our little Play-Tone galaxy o' stars, and "That Girl" (from Monogroove's recent album Popsicle Drivethru) was TIRnRR's # 35 most-played track in 2025. Yep: ON THE AIR! It's what we do.

In 2026, our on-the-air Monogroove presence has been established by the group's recent single "Back To School," and that's been a perfectly peppy rah rah siss boom bop in its own right. Pencils? Books? Teacher's dirty looks? It's all writ in # 2 graphite. "Back To School" pushes against the scornful demands of high school's cliques and ninnies, on behalf of all of us who lurked in the nooks and crannies instead. School is in.

THE RAMONES: I Don't Want To Grow Up

I'm looking at today's date. And once again I say:

Don't wanna. Won't need to. Ain't gonna.

I DON'T WANT TO GROW UP

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: 7/27/2024

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 # 1243.

THE MAVERICKS: True Love Ways

THE VILLAS: Someone To Hold On To

THE HALF CUBES: The Girl

July 21st. 

This week's show fell on the 40th anniversary of the day Brenda and I got married. We are still together, and together will shall remain. Happy Anniversary, Brenda!

Our wedding song was the lovely Buddy Holly ballad "True Love Ways." So we open this week's rockin' pop proceedings with the Mavericks' ace cover of "True Love Ways," segued into "Someone To Hold On To," the Villas' irresistible ode to finding the love of one's life (as heard on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 5), and wrappin' up our opening true-love tribute trifecta with the Half Cubes' remake of the Rubinoos' "The Girl," a track which recruits Rubinoos Jon Rubin and Tommy Dunbar to assist in establishing a beach head to hold on to true love ways. The girl. As a boy, that's all I ever want. My girl is Brenda.

It just so happens that Sunday was also Half Cubes singer and bassist Gary Frenay's 40th anniversary. HuzZAH, Gary and Jackie! See, now I understand why Brenda and I couldn't hire Gary to play at our wedding in '84. Priorities. I can dig that. And Dana and I will open our next TIRnRR with a brand-new single by the Half Cubes.

Meanwhile....

THE RUBINOOS: Nowhereseville

By the time you read this, I expect to be enjoying the afterbuzz of my first-ever Rubinoos show. I've been a fan since I was 17; 47 years is a long time to wait to see one of my favorite bands, but I betcha it was well worth the wait.

On this week's TIRnRR, I wanted to prep for last night's Rubinoos club show by playing some Rubinoos, and supplementing with a number of other tracks featuring Rubes guitarist Tommy Dunbar. The latter category included the Half Cubes number in our opening set, plus tracks by Duncan Faure, Vox Pop, Ken Sharp, Marty Rudnick, Scott McCarl, Kyle Vincent, and Suzy and Los Quattro. 

And for the evening's first Rubinoos spin, we opted for "Nowheresville," the track the Rubinoos allowed us to use on our 2017 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4. Here's what I wrote about "Nowhereseville" at the time:

...The music we listen to as teens can resonate throughout our lives, etched in memory alongside every eternal snub and accolade. In 1977, I was a seventeen-year-old senior at a high school in Syracuse's northern suburbs. I liked oldies better than most then-current music--the Beatles, the Monkees, the Dave Clark Five, the Animals, and my recent discovery, the Kinks--but I was also looking for new. I liked KISS. I liked "Cherry Baby" by Starz, and "Isn't It Time" by the Babys, "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas, Boston's debut LP, Sweet's Desolation Boulevard, and Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. Spurred by intriguing things I read in Phonograph Record Magazine, I would become a fan of the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and Blondie before the end of the year, as this high school senior transformed into college freshman. But before the Ramones, or the Pistols, or my nascent hormonal devotion to Blondie's Debbie Harry, one group stood as the great teen hope. That group was the Rubinoos.

The Rubinoos were young, not much older than I was. They were on the radio, with a hit cover of Tommy James and the Shondells' "I Think We're Alone Now," and (on freer-form WOUR-FM) with a delectable album track called "Wouldn't It Be Nice." They were on TV, lip-syncing "I Think We're Alone Now" and "Rock And Roll Is Dead" on American Bandstand. They were revered in the pages of Phonograph Record Magazine, and they were one of the subjects of My First Rock Journalism. Their eponymous debut album was an absolutely essential purchase for me. God, I loved this band. That has never changed over the ensuing crashing and passing of four freakin' decades. I love the Rubinoos. I will always love the Rubinoos...

...[For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4], we initially selected a track called "This Is Good," a frothy li'l pop tune whose title provides its own spot-on review. But another song on the [This Is The Rubinoos] EP kept haunting the ol' consciousness. "Nowheresville" can best be described as pop noir, a shotgun marriage--well, more like a .45 automatic marriage--between a hardboiled crime paperback and Tiger Beat, Mickey Spillane meets Shaun Cassidy. And even that sells it short. It is a fully-realized slice of pure pulp, made pretty in spite of itself by the talent of the Rubinoos. Jon Rubin's unmistakable, irresistible voice soars, Tommy Dunbar's guitar twirls tastefully, while the lyrics could serve as a summary of something published by Gold Medal Books in the '50s or Hard Case Crime today. The one they call Honey was slurring her words/"Oh, why should we have to cut this thing in thirds?/I know the perfect patsy/Yeah, a pretty little bird/Who better to take the fall in Nowheresville?" Man, I would read that book, battered cover to battered cover, right now.

The juxtaposition of these extremes is somehow natural and flawless. How did the Rubinoos pull this off? In the words of Mike Hammer in Spillane's I, The Jury: It was easy.... 

KISS: Calling Dr. Love

Speaking of how the music we listen to as teens can resonate throughout our lives....

GLENN ERB: I Never Said Goodbye

The new Glenn Erb album Category Four comes to us courtesy of Friend To The Show Rich Rossi, who worked on the record and co-wrote all of the originals (not counting the cover of the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter"). The album was produced by Jamie Hoover--THERE'S your pop pedigree!--and Rich thought we might wanna consider its opening track "Baby Is A Hurricane" for airplay on our little mutant radio show.

Instead, I was drawn to the closing track, "I Never Said Goodbye," a solid tale of a relationship reaching the end of its road. It makes its TIRnRR debut this week. It spins again on our next show. Say hello to Glenn Erb.

DEADLIGHTS: For Free

New single from Deadlights? Instant airplay, guaranteed. Good stuff, as always.

THE RUBINOOS: Wouldn't It Be Nice

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE RUBINOOS: I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend

ALSO The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE GRIP WEEDS: Lady Friend [vocals only mix]

Wow. Rubinoos playing in Rochester this week, the Grip Weeds in Syracuse last week. People should envy us. I envy us. The Grip Weeds put on a fantastic show at the Lost Horizon, and their cover of the Byrds' "Lady Friend" has become a perennial TIRnRR Fave Rave.

The Grip Weeds' full recording of "Lady Friend" is on their sublime 2021 covers album DiG. This lovely a cappella mix can be found on A Deeper DiG, the bonus third disc packaged with the DiG Super Deluxe Edition. That is, of course, the edition any self-respecting Grip Weeds fan will get.

So: Respect yourself! Here it comes again. Dig?

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. 

My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available for order; you can see details here. My 2023 book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is also still available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. 

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.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl