10 SONGS: 7/21/2023

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 # 1190. This show is available as a podcast.

THE FLASHCUBES: Forget About You

There's a great new video for the Flashcubes' absolutely ace cover of the Motors' "Forget About You." GO! WATCH IT! I'll be glad you did.

"Forget About You" is the latest single (released TODAY!) from the Flashcubes' forthcoming all-covers album Pop Masters, which is due August 11th and available for preorder right now. It's a magnificent album, and I do believe "Forget About You" is its most magnificent individual track.

I testified on behalf of Pop Masters here. I'm a fan, proudly so. Never forget that. If you're not already a Flashcubes fan, one spin of "Forget About You" just might make you one of us.

And it's about damned time.

DERRICK ANDERSON: When I Was Your Man

Vicki, Debbie, Derrick, Kim

Most of our weekly playlists include an appearance by the late Kim Shattuck, who passed away four years ago this October. Her work as Chief Rockin' Officer of the Muffs is our top go-to Shattuck stuff, and we also frequently program her a-singin' and a-playin' with the Coolies, the Beards, and the Pandoras. We also dig this fabulous, fabulous track by Derrick Anderson, which features the ever-effervescent Kim alongside Derek and his Bangles bandmates Debbie and Vickie Peterson, doot-doot-dooting with gleeful abandon. 

This past Monday would have been Kim Shattuck's 60th birthday. We play Kim almost every week. We'll celebrate her legacy in style on our next program.

MEN AT WORK: Be Good Johnny

Years ago, when I was attempting to concoct a façade of seeming more responsible than I've ever really been, I asked various friends to provide me with info on their birthdays so I could keep track of, I guess, potential birthday parties. Even then, I guess I knew I wasn't really going to be all that responsible, since my phrasing in the request always promised to add the many-happy-returns dates to a list of folks to whom I could send belated greeting cards. See? I know me!

And to prove it: I lost the list. Yeah, I admire my consistency.

You know whose birthday was among those on that list? TIRnRR's beloved stats man Fritz Van Leaven. I've known Fritz for almost 40 years, so I owe him a big ol' bunch of belated birthday cards. Fritz is the biggest Sex Pistols fan I know, and he also digs Men At Work. Fritz is a bass player, and while I've rarely seen him take a lead vocal with any of his bands, I do recall witnessing him execute a killer Colin Hay proxy when one of his combos performed a cover of Men At Work's "It's A Mistake."

But no mistake here: "Be Good Johnny" is my favorite Men At Work song, and we dedicate its spin this week to our man Fritz. Think of it as another belated virtual greeting card. It's too late to be good. But it's never too late to try being better.

HÜSKER DÜ: Eight Miles High

Dana played this on the show this week, and I wanna reach back to a previous 10 Songs to talk about it. Sherman! Set the WABAC Machine to May 20th, 2020. Let's hit cruising altitude....

Given my general affinity for melody and disdain for noise, Dana was surprised to discover how much I like Hüsker Dü's chaotic cover of the Byrds' "Eight Miles High." The Byrds' 1966 recording of "Eight Miles High" was probably the first Byrds record I ever owned, an oldies reissue 45 purchased when I was still a high school student in the mid '70s. I was (and remain) taken with the audacity and ambition the Byrds brought to the original, mixing their well-known vocal blend with an adventurous arrangement intended to adapt the free-form improvisational style of jazz saxophonist John Coltrane to a pop song played by an American folk-rock guitar band at the height of the British Invasion..

If there was a subtle embrace of cacophony inherent in the Byrds' creation of "Eight Miles High," Hüsker Dü grabs the noisier elements in a freakin' headlock, wringing out every bit of grunge and distortion to be found. On paper, I shouldn't dig this, and should probably hate it. But I've loved it for decades, ever since hearing it on Buffalo's WBNY-FM in the mid '80s and snappin' up my copy of the 45 from visionary rock writer Gary Sperrazza! at Apollo Records. As much as I still adore the Byrds' version, Hüsker Dü's cover has become my preferred take on "Eight Miles High."

And we're back in this far future world of 2023. The passing of centuries...er, the passing of more than three years since I wrote the above paragraphs has brought its own shift in attitude. Nowadays, I still adore Hüsker Dü's cover, but the Byrds' original version has reclaimed its status as my preferred take on "Eight Miles High." That version will serve as, at least, a tangent in tomorrow's blog post.

STEPPENWOLF: Born To Be Wild

Steppenwolf finally makes their TIRnRR debut. It sometimes takes us a bit to get around to stuff. We've played Wilson Pickett's version of "Born To Be Wild." I guess we've been an eensy bit slowpoked in programming Steppenwolf's original hit rendition.

I had this 45 when I was a kid. Or I should say my sister had the 45. But I played it a lot. I liked smoke and lightning! HEAVY METAL THUNDER!

[NOTE: Stats man Fritz says I'm crazy, and this is like the FIFTH time we've played Steppenwolf, and the third time we've played Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild." I really need to develop an understanding of how the alphabet works before I check our records.

AND! Coincidentally, ya wanna know when it was that we first played Steppenwolf? Yeah. It was on Fritz's birthday in 2010.

Now THAT's wild!]

JENSEN BELL: Possible Jane Situation

The lovely and talented Robbie Rist pointed us in the direction of Jensen Bell, basically telling us something along the lines of, HEY! WHY AREN'T YOU BOZOS PLAYING JENSEN BELL...?! Subtle but effective--that's our Robbie!

And Robbie is right to champion Jensen Bell's music. Bell recently sent us his 2005 album Modern Dating Tips, and I rue all that wasted time lost in not hearing the album until now. 

Curse our limited awareness! I blame the media. Never mind that I am part of the media. I'll find a hapless underling to take the fall for this one.

And I'm very happy to have the album now. I need to set aside some time to give it a proper A-Z listen, but even my initial hit 'n' run scan of Modern Dating Tips revealed a record I wanna get to know better. We played "Her City's Got A Train" last week, and followed with "Possible Jane Situation" this week. More to come. Even bozos like us can learn our lessons.

Eventually.

THE RUNAWAYS: Cherry Bomb

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE FLASHCUBES: The Summer Sun

Pop Masters began its path to the rockin' pop galleries as a series of digital singles for the good folks at Big Stir Records, as the 'Cubes remake the classics of power pop in their own Cubic image. The series kicked off in 2021, with a cover of Pezband's "Baby It's Cold Outside," with Pezband's own Mimi Betinis duly deputized as an auxiliary Flashcube for one night only. Hijinks ensued. 

And then, more singles ensued, too. We've played 'em all, and they're all included on Pop Masters. We've also played a bunch of Pop Masters gems that haven't been released yet. Hell, "Forget About You" officially came out today, and we've already played it at least three times pre-release, with another spin on tap this Sunday night.

Of the twelve tracks on Pop Masters, this little mutant radio show played eleven of them at least once prior to this week, including the as-yet-unreleased versions of Sparks' "Nothing To Do" and the Posies' "Flavor Of The Month." 

We've been saving the Flashcubes' triumphant occupation of Chris Stamey's "The Summer Sun," just 'cuz we wanted to have one more unheard track to play closer to Pop Masters' release date. We could wait no longer. The summer sun's here, and the time is right.

And ya can't get more righteous than Pop Masters.

THE 5TH DIMENSION: Carpet Man

THE ZOMBIES: She Does Everything For Me

We play the hits. How we define a hit may occasionally differ from the standard view.

The 5th Dimension had Billboard # 1 hits with "Aquarius" and "Wedding Bell Blues," a # 2 smash with "One Less Bell To Answer," Top 10 hits with "Up, Up And Away," "Stoned Soul Picnic," "Last Night (I Didn't Get To Sleep At All)," and "If I Could Reach You," came close to the Top 10 with the # 12 "Never My Love," the # 13 "Sweet Blindness," and the # 16 "Go Where You Wanna Go." The 5th Dimension sold some records, man, and they deserved to.

British Invasion stalwarts the Zombies didn't enjoy a level of Stateside success to rival contemporaries like the Rolling Stones, the Animals, Herman's Hermits, or that familiar Fab quartet outta Liverpool, but they had impact. The Zombies had three big hits in America--"She's Not There," "Tell Her No," and "Time Of The Season"--and their 1968 LP Odessey And Oracle is rightly considered a classic, the band's inability to spell odyssey notwithstanding.

So, two impressive bodies of work, with a number of recognized favorites contained within each. Is it weird that both my # 1 pick from the 5th Dimension and my top fave rave from the Zombies represent the groove less traveled?

"Carpet Man" was at least a 45 A-side for the 5th Dimension, and it scored a better'n respectable # 29 berth on The Hot 100. "She Does Everything For Me" was an obscure non-LP B-side, issued in England as the non-plug flip of "Goin' Out Of My Head;" neither side charted for the Zombies anywhere.

I love the 5th Dimension's hits, especially "Aquarius." I love the Zombies' hits, and I love Odessey And Oracle, especially its album track "This Will Be Our Year." With each of these two bands, I just happen to love a lesser-known song even more.

We play the hits. A record's a hit if we say it's a hit. Here, then, are couple of big, big hits, in our world if not in the real world. Still hits, my friends. In this dimension, we do everything for you.

More hits next time. Tune us in.

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Carl's new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is now available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. Gabba Gabba YAY!! https://rarebirdlit.com/gabba-gabba-hey-a-conversation-with-the-ramones-by-carl-cafarelli/

If it's true that one book leads to another, my next book will be The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Stay tuned. Your turn is coming.

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

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl

10 SONGS: 5/20/2020

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 is the second of two separate editions of 10 Songs this week, each drawing exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1025.

MICHAEL CARPENTER AND MICHAEL OLIVER: It Only Hurts When I Breathe



Both Michael Carpenter and Michael Oliver have been long-time Fave Raves on TIRnRR, so it makes perfect sense that we should fall so fully for their new collaboration "It Only Hurts When I Breathe." We've been playing these guys for years, as solo artists and under group titles (Carpenter singing lead for The Finkers as well as with a series of his own combos like Michael Carpenter and the Cuban Heels, Oliver fronting Michael Oliver and Go, Dog, Go!), and they really oughtta be household names already. They've appeared on TIRnRR compilations, and each of their contributions has been a stunning highlight; hell, when I heard Oliver's This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4 submission "You Won't Do," I immediately contacted Dana and Kool Kat Musik's Ray Gianchetti to tell them we'd just received a track that would single-handedly justify our project. Stunning stuff, and the Michaels offer rich catalogs of music that will delight you.  You can get "It Only Hurts When I Breathe" right here.

DAVE EDMUNDS: Queen Of Hearts



Even though I already owned Dave Edmunds' Repeat When Necessary album (purchased specifically to snag Edmunds' extraordinary cover of Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk") well before Juice Newton's "Queen Of Hearts" hit radio in 1981, I didn't immediately realize that this fabulous Juice Newton single was a cover of a song on Repeat When Necessary. Oops? That happens sometimes; I get preoccupied with one track--"Girls Talk" in this case--and forget about the rest of the album. I am as God made me. I admit the heresy of digging Juice Newton's version even more than the Edmunds original, but man, you can't go wrong with either version. 

THE FIRST CLASS: Beach Baby



I know that "Beach Baby" by The First Class occasionally shows up on some folks' lists of the all-time worst hit songs, but I must respectfully disagree. "Beach Baby" is an amazing evocation of the mythic California sound, executed by a British studio group, pulling the whole magic trick off without ever sounding like a Beach Boys imitation. Tony Burrows sings lead, and Dana and I like to refer to Burrows as the world's only five-time one-hit wonder, since he also lent his voice to the sole Billboard smashes credited to Edison Lighthouse ("Love Grows [Where My Rosemary Goes]"), White Plains ("My Baby Loves Lovin'"), The Brotherhood Of Man ("United We Stand"), and The Pipkins ("Gimme Dat Ding"). "Beach Baby" is Burrows' finest moment. One of the all-time worst? Please. "Beach Baby" earns its own chapter in my eventual book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1).

THE HEARTBREAKERS: Love Comes In Spurts


Although I was a teenage punk fan in 1977, I didn't have much enthusiasm for Richard Hell and the Voidoids. I loved The Sex Pistols and The Ramones, and I appreciated the naughtiness of a title like "Love Comes In Spurts," but even when I won a free copy of the Voidoids' debut album Blank Generation from my college campus radio station, I could find no reason to keep it in my collection.

Before the Voidoids, Hell had been bassist with The Heartbreakers, the legendarily disheveled group fronted by The New York Dolls' former guitarist Johnny Thunders. Hell was long gone from The Heartbreakers by the time of their lone studio album L.A.M.F., but Dana pulled out this 1975 demo of Hell 'n' Heartbreakers for airplay on this week's show. Musically, this earlier version of "Love Comes In Spurts" sounds a lot more like The Heartbreakers' subsequent L.A.M.F. track "One Track Mind"--one of my three favorite Heartbreakers cuts--than it does to the familiar Voidoids recording of the same song. And I like it a lot.

HÜSKER DÜ: Eight Miles High



Given my general affinity for melody and disdain for noise, Dana was surprised to discover how much I like Hüsker Dü's chaotic cover of The Byrds' "Eight Miles High." The Byrds' 1966 recording of "Eight Miles High" was probably the first Byrds record I ever owned, an oldies reissue 45 purchased when I was still a high school student in the mid '70s. I was (and remain) taken with the audacity and ambition The Byrds brought to the original, mixing their well-known vocal blend with an adventurous arrangement intended to adapt the free-form improvisational style of jazz saxophonist John Coltrane to a pop song played by an American folk-rock guitar band at the height of the British Invasion..

If there was a subtle embrace of cacophony inherent in The Byrds' creation of "Eight Miles High," Hüsker Dü grabs the noisier elements in a freakin' headlock, wringing out every bit of grunge and distortion to be found. On paper, I shouldn't dig this, and should probably hate it. But I've loved it for decades, ever since hearing it on Buffalo's WBNY-FM in the mid '80s and snappin' up my copy of the 45 from visionary rock writer Gary Sperrazza! at Apollo Records. As much as I still adore The Byrds' version, Hüsker Dü's cover has become my preferred take on "Eight Miles High."

THE MONKEES: The Door Into Summer



I like The Monkees. Their new live album The Mike & Micky Show is just fantastic, and this is its best track. Wonderfully played by a superb group of musicians (who, again, REALLY NEED TO RECORD A NEW MONKEES STUDIO ALBUM!), expertly and lovingly reproduced for your home enjoyment. Michael Nesmith is in fine voice, Micky Dolenz is always in fine voice, and I'm sorry, but I can't stop talking about how great their band sounds with them. New studio album. Now. Please?

MÖTORHEAD: RAMONES



I think I read about this song (from Mötorhead's 1991 album 1916) somewhere in the rock press, certainly long before I heard the track itself. My introduction to Mötorhead's music came back in the '70s, when their blistering track "Motorhead" was included on a sampler album called Geef Voor New Wave, a compilation that also included tracks by The Rubinoos, The Motors, Johnny Moped, Eddie and the Hot Rods, The Adverts, Generation X, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Jonathon Richman, The Sex Pistols, The Dwight Twilley Band, The Radiators From Space, Radio Stars, and Earth Quake. Geef Voor New Wave was one hell of a collection, and my copy of that LP has withstood every attempted purge of excess items in my vinyl collection. I still have that record, and it deserves a separate post of its own some day.

My Geef Voor New Wave and me. Evidence suggests this is a recent photo.

"Ace Of Spades" is probably the best-known Mötorhead track overall, and I heard that in the early '80s, probably not all that long after its 1980 release. I dug the idea of Mötorhead--grungy, unapologetic hard rock that was both punk and metal while violently shrugging off any attempt to categorize it--more than I really listened to them. But I loved the song "Motorhead," and I liked "Ace Of Spades" a lot.

I first heard Mötorhead's own original salute to The Ramones as a cover by--of course!--The Ramones themselves. The Carbona Quartet recorded two versions of the song, with bassist C. J. Ramone singing lead on their first released version (on 1995's ¡Adios Amigos!), and Joey Ramone resuming his usual place at the microphone for a studio cut on the 1996 album Greatest Hits Live. The Ramones included the song in their final live performance, August 6th of '96, with shared lead vocals by C.J. and Mötorhead's Lemmy (documented on the 1997 live album We're Outta Here!). I finally grabbed a copy of 1916 to hear the Mötorhead version after that. It's my favorite Mötorhead song. Duh.

THE MYNAH BIRDS: I Got You (In My Soul)



The Mynah Birds appear in 10 Songs for the second consecutive week. The historical hook for this lost 1966 Motown group is that it included both Rick James and Neil Young before they were famous, but honestly, I'm caring less and less about that curiosity. This stuff just cooks, and it's a shame it wasn't released in the '60s. A total of four tracks have been made available on digital compilations, and if there's still any more left in the vaults, I hope someone exhumes it all soon. I would buy a Mynah Birds CD right now, if only such a thing existed.

POPDUDES: Ridin' In My Car



Popdudes' ace cover of NRBQ's "Ridin' In My Car" returns to the playlist and to 10 Songs, as the track (previously available only as a digital single) is now available for the first time as a physical product. The occasion is the release of the brand-new compilation CD Big Stir Singles--The Sixth Wave, which collects virtual As and Bs from Popdudes, Librarians With Hickeys, Dolph Chaney, Jim Basnight, The Walker Brigade, Paula Carino, Joe Normal and the Anytown'rs, Trip Wire, The Corner Laughers, and Spygenius, a double A-side of XTC covers by Glowbox and Tom Curless and the 46%, plus The Well Wishers' fab "We Grow Up." 23 tracks! Good stuff! And a good cause, with 25% of the proceeds benefiting Sweet Relief's Musician Assistance Fund. Radio's job is to sell records; we've done our part, so now do yours: Big Stir Records compilations

THE STEMS: Never Be Friends



This week's playlist was dominated by our tribute to the late Little Richard. The pop world also lost Richard Lane, who had been a founding member of an absolutely incredible Australian pop group called The Stems. The Stems--Lane, Dom Mariani, Julian Matthews, and David Shaw--released one brilliant album, 1987's At First Sight Violets Are Blue before combusting. I can't get along with you/I can't can't get along with you/I can't get along with you/I can't get along with you. The album included this exuberant power pop kiss-off "Never Be Friends," and the song's verve and swagger shines on the radio, where it belongs.


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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.

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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).