10 SONGS: 7/5/2024 [THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!, Part 3]

 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 will really be 40 Songs, presented in four parts. The selections draw from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1240, presenting a few of the tracks featured in my new book THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (VOLUME 1).

We played 48 tracks on this week's show; for ten of those, I read on-air excerpts from the book's chapter about that track. This four-part collection of 10 Songs columns will offer snippets on behalf of the other 38 tracks, with two bonus tracks at the end.

You can read Part 1 here, and Part 2 here.

BIG BROTHER AND THE HOLDING COMPANY: Piece Of My Heart

I'm gonna show you, baby, that a woman can be tough.

There was this girl who sang the blues.

In the 1975 film That's the Way Of the World (starring Harvey Keitel and Earth, Wind and Fire), actress Cynthia Bostick plays Velour Page, an ambitious and amoral singer with a squeaky-clean public image. In one scene, Velour mentions Janis Joplin. "I saw her once," Velour says between swigs from her bottle. "God, what an ugly bitch. You know, on the outside. Inside she was beautiful. She was me turned inside out."

Of course, Velour Page was fictional. Maybe we can forgive her for having her head up her ass....

THE FLAMIN' GROOVIES: Shake Some Action

...By the spring of 1979, a friend who shared my fondness of punk and new wave allowed me to borrow his copy of an import sampler LP called New Wave. This New Wave compilation had tracks by the New York Dolls, the Damned, the Dead Boys, the Ramones, the Runaways, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Talking Heads…and a Flamin' Groovies song.

"Shake Some Action."

I’m the sort of wide-eyed pop fan that can fall in love with a song or a band instantly. It's like a communion with an ethereal, ultimate radio station beamin' directly to me. It's magic, and there's no other word that applies. It was magic when I first heard "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" by the Ramones. It was magic when I first saw the Flashcubes live. And it was magic when I discovered "Shake Some Action."

The song was just...hypnotic. There were so many little elements combining and clashing within that track, bits of the Byrds and Phil Spector, a brooding, booming bass, guitars that seemed to snarl and jangle at the same time, punk swagger, pop yearning, and an insistent instrumental hook that whispered silkily in my ear, You're with us now, son. It was a recipe for cacophony, a surefire roadmap to a sonic mess...except that it wasn't. It was precise. It was perfect. 

I wanted this record....

MATERIAL ISSUE: Kim The Waitress

...Material Issue's version of "Kim the Waitress" was made for radio, a brooding, simmering cautionary tale, teeming with melancholy, delivered with peerless pop panache. It turned out to be a cover of a song written by Jeff Kelly, originally recorded by Kelly's group the Green Pajamas. Fans of the Green Pajamas have routinely referred to "Kim the Waitress" as "that song Material Issue ruined." As if. To my ears, Material Issue took a quirky left-of-the-dial ditty and transformed it into a potential hit single, perhaps even a pop classic.

Maybe things would have gone differently if it had been the hit it deserved to be. Maybe not. Hit records didn't save Kurt Cobain. No one can save us. Material Issue frontman Jim Ellison killed himself on June 20th, 1996. Because commercial success had eluded Material Issue? Because he'd broken up with his girlfriend? Some other reason entirely? We'll never have any real clue. We only know one thing, again and again: 

No one can save us....

THE SPONGETONES: (My Girl) Maryanne

The early Beatles reborn, or an incredible simulation?

Taking inspiration from the Fab Four, Charlotte, North Carolina's phenomenal pop combo the Spongetones have delighted discerning pop fans with avowedly Beatlesque hooks and harmonies. The group's earliest efforts are engaging pastiches of Beatles '65--much like the Rutles played straight--with each tune a familiar-sounding rummage through the British Invasion songbook. The appeal transcends mere mimicry; its magic lies not in where the group nicked its initial tricks, but in the self-assured manner in which such thefts became irresistible new pop confections. The greatness of the Spongetones has always been their ability to make all of this their own....

THE TRAAMPS: Disco Inferno

...Later on, as the know-nothing Disco Sucks movement built its flammable foundation upon a bedrock of racism and homophobia, I began to realize I'd chosen the wrong side. The loudest parties chortling at the notion of smashing mirrored disco balls and stoking a bonfire of Saturday Night Fever soundtrack LPs were often just chuckleheads, the advance guard of reactionaries commencing the implementation of mourning in America. 

Me? I was a power-poppin' punk, and the Disco Sucks fascists hated me, too. Fuck them. I'd rather hear "Disco Inferno" than "Cat Scratch Fever" any freakin' day of the week. Burn those records instead. I heard somebody say, "Burn baby burn!" Yeah, I'd rather hear the Trammps....

HAROLD MELVIN AND THE BLUE NOTES: Don't Leave Me This Way

...Is this a disco record? Don't know, don't care. It's got that beat, plus genuine passion, real soul, bred in both the clubs and the church, drawing upon Gospel and dance mix alike. It's the sexual pursuit that played out so often beneath flashing disco lights, yet it seems sincere, earnest. Only your good lovin' can set me free. I look back on those few times I did set foot in discos, only to hightail it outta there at my first opportunity. Maybe I should have stayed and talked to some of those disco girls after all. 

THE KINKS: Waterloo Sunset

It's one of the most beautiful depictions of burgeoning romance ever committed to song. And it's told, not from the perspective of the young lovers themselves, but from the viewpoint of a benevolent onlooker, wishing them well as they cross over the river, where they feel safe and sound. Dirty old river, must you keep rolling, flowing into the night?....

HOLLY GOLIGHTLY: Time Will Tell

..."Holly Golightly" may seem as if it must be a stage name, and I guess you could say it is, but no more so than that of Paul Revere of the Raiders. Unconsciously following in the synchronized footsteps of the former Paul Revere Dick, British-born singer and guitarist Holly Golightly Smith likewise shed her surname to settle on a shorter and snazzier DBA. Dream-maker, you heartbreaker....

THE COWSILLS: She Said To Me

A family band. 

The ongoing reference to the Cowsills as the real-life inspiration for TV's fictional Partridge Family is tiresome but unavoidable. The true story is so much more than what was fabricated for prime time.

Because the Cowsills were a real band, initially a band of brothers who--like so many others in the '60s--wanted to be the Beatles....

LULU: To Sir, With Love [museum outings montage]

Here, we must make an important distinction. Lulu's familiar hit single of "To Sir, With Love" is fabulous and unforgettable. This different version, the "Museum Outings Montage" from the soundtrack of the film To Sir, With Love, is even better.

"To Sir, With Love" is one of my wife's favorite songs, perhaps even her all-time # 1. Brenda was surprised to discover some years back that I also love it, and more surprised to learn that my This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio co-host Dana loves it, too. I dunno, maybe she thought we thought we were too cool for the song.

As if anyone could possibly be too cool for Lulu....

TOMORROW: Part 4!

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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.

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10 SONGS: 9/24/2020

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 # 1043.

EDDIE COCHRAN: Somethin' Else

Power pop's point of origin remains a point of contention for many of its fans. Some insist that power pop was a reaction against prevailing musical trends in the '70s, and therefore nothing recorded before The Beatles' 1970 break-up can be called power pop. I don't agree with that at all. Power pop is a genre, a sound; claiming that sound can't exist prior to a specific date reduces it to nostalgia, some kind of retro move, and I reject that notion. Power pop existed in the '60s. Pete Townshend coined the phrase around 1967, and The Who's early records embody the power pop ideal. The Kinks. The Creation. The Nazz. I think the label also applies to some of The Beatles' singles, and I pinpoint "Please Please Me" as power pop's Ground Zero. Writer Gary Pig Gold, in turn, disagrees with me and places power pop's starting line with The Crickets back in the '50s. Gary and I had a very enjoyable debate about the subject, and you can read all about it here.

While I still don't think that the great rockin' pop stuff from Buddy Holly, Phil Spector, or The Beach Boys quite qualifies as power pop--it all strolls amiably, but doesn't LEAN FORWARD with the urgency I expect from power pop--it's difficult to dismiss the power pop bona fides of Eddie Cochran. Cochran's "Summertime Blues" is really close, its stroll balanced by legit power chords and seething teen frustration. The fantastic party anthem "C'mon Everybody" is maybe a further half-step removed, but "Nervous Breakdown" and especially "Somethin' Else" provide concrete evidence of pre-Beatles power pop.

THE HONEY CONE: One Monkey Don't Stop No Show

I don't know if pundits consider bubblesoul to be a proper sub-genre. Unlike power pop, I do think bubblesoul is tied to a specific timeframe: late '60s/early '70s, AM radio music, performed (mostly) by black artists but with an unabashed ambition for crossover success. Think of The Jackson Five's earliest hits, the music of The Foundations, "Band Of Gold" by Freda Payne, the shoulda-been-hits of Josie and the Pussycats, and of course, The Honey Cone. The Honey Cone's lead singer Edna Wright passed away recently. We played the group's biggest hit "Want Ads" not long ago, and we chose to pay tribute to Wright this week with a spin of the lesser hit "One Monkey Don't Stop No Show," an effervescent number with both bubble and soul to spare.

KID GULLIVER: Carousel

Simone Berk first came to my attention as one of the musical architects of WhistleStop Rock, whose single "Queen Of The Drive-In" would seem to be on a likely collision course with TIRnRR's year-end countdown show. Meanwhile, her own combo Kid Gulliver has a new single, "Carousel," which longs for the simple pleasures of childhood while settin' off the sort of sonic pyrotechnics that requires adult supervision. The song's accompanying video is likewise blessed with phantasmagoric splendor, and that video premieres this weekend. Your brass ring awaits.

HAROLD MELVIN AND THE BLUE NOTES: Don't Leave Me This Way

As much as I once loathed disco, it's become clear that I do indeed appreciate some of it, like some of it, and even love some of it. My book-in-progress The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will include entries about Donna Summer's "I Feel Love," The Trammps' "Disco Inferno," and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes' original version of "Don't Leave Me This Way," which was later a (quite wonderful) hit for Thelma Houston. From the book:

At the height of its popularity, disco was anathema to me. I had, at best, a superficial familiarity with soul and R & B to begin with, and little appreciation for it anyway. I don't know if an embrace of dance-oriented pop and Philly soul a bit earlier in my timeline might have made me more receptive to the throb of dat ole debbil disco, but the scene turned me off immediately. I liked The Bee Gees before "Jive Talkin'" and not after; I loathed KC and the Sunshine Band. And I despised discos; my few visits to those places were unpleasant and uncomfortable. It wasn't even just the music that turned me off; it was the whole atmosphere, the artificial vibe, the mix of the smug and smarmy, an insincere mating ritual without substance. I wouldn't have minded dancing, making out, maybe accompanying a dance partner elsewhere, but it all felt so...empty. Fake. I didn't even stick around long enough to try to talk to any girls. I just hated being there...

..."Don't Leave Me This Way" was originally recorded by Philly soul legends Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes in 1975. Like previous Blue Notes hits "If You Don't Know Me By Now," "The Love I Lost," and "Bad Luck," "Don't Leave Me This Way" featured a commanding lead vocal performance by Teddy Pendergrass; unlike those, however, "Don't Leave Me This Way" was not a pop hit for Melvin, Pendergrass, and company, missing Billboard's Hot 100 entirely when released as a single. It was a # 5 hit in England, and it made it to # 3 on Billboard's Disco chart.

And it's flippin' fantastic. As a punk-pop fan with a notoriously short attention span, I generally favor the 3:22 single edit to the 6:04 album track, but I would do that, wouldn't I? It's a simply transcendent record at either length, Pendergrass slipping with silky, slender ease from the seductive coo of the verse to the demonstrative Ohhhhhhhhhhhh BABY! that signals the triumphant pleading of the chorus. Hell, even as I write this, I'm listening to the long version for the first time in forever, and damn if my short attention span isn't waiving a white flag and succumbing to the sweet sway of Philadelphia soul at its finest. "A broken man with empty hands/Oh baby please, please don't leave me this way"....

THE MONKEES: Birth Of An Accidental Hipster

The Monkees' 2016 album Good Times! was eagerly anticipated, and it lived up to desperately sky-high expectations. It is indeed a pretty damned good album, and I still listen to it often. And I still think of "Birth Of An Accidental Hipster" as THE one track that just kicks the whole thing to the next level. Here's what I wrote about the track in a discussion of my 25 all-time favorite Monkees tracks:

No one saw this one coming. The surprise announcement that surviving Monkees Dolenz, Tork, and Nesmith--Jones passed away in 2012--would mark the group's 50th anniversary in 2016 with a new Monkees album called Good Times! was unexpected enough, and word that Noel Gallagher of Oasis and Paul Weller of The Jam and Style Council had collaborated on a new composition for this new Monkees record bordered on the flabbergasting. But the result? Lord! "Birth Of An Accidental Hipster" builds a rainbow bridge from the best of The Monkees circa 1968 into this far-future world of the 21st century, a track that sounds simultaneously classic and contemporary. If it had magically appeared on The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees or the Head soundtrack in '68, it would have been the greatest cut on the former and the second-greatest on the latter. Yet it doesn't sound retro at all, at least not to my ears. Nesmith sings this with a force and conviction that almost sounds like he's still that young maverick of fifty years ago, just a bit more seasoned, certainly wiser, but resolutely unbowed. Dolenz chimes in vocally to make it a pop song. Together, they make it a masterpiece. Listeners of the ultracool satellite radio station Little Steven's Underground Garage voted "Birth Of An Accidental Hipster" as The Coolest Song In The World for 2016.

THE ROYAL GUARDSMEN: The Return Of The Red Baron

While the Hanna-Barbera TV cartoon tie-in Secret Squirrel was probably the first LP I ever owned, my first pop music album was Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron by The Royal Guardsmen. I also had the Laurie Records 45 of its first sequel, "The Return Of The Red Baron." I played the single often, probably drawn in part by the illicit thrill of the group almost cursing on record (The German shook his fist, you could hear him swearing/"Ach Du Lieber!" and the closing refrain of One of these days he's gonna make you pay/And you'll go straight to...Well, watch out, Red Baron!). I was seven years old, and I felt like a rebel. My first punk record? I was on the highway to Well.

JIMMY SILVA: Weight Of The Wind

The Beau Brummels' lead singer Sal Valentino lent his magnificently earthy folk-rock voice to this world-weary Heartland shrug from 1986. The late singer-songwriter Jimmy Silva was an amazing talent, and it's a shame he never achieved the recognition he deserved. "Weight Of The Wind" is my favorite Silva track, a song enriched to such an unforgettable degree by that voice, the Sal Valentino who sang "Laugh, Laugh" and "Just A Little" and "You Tell Me Why" and "Don't Talk To Strangers." In my head, I hear "Weight Of The Wind" as one with the best of The Beau Brummels, even though our Sal is the only Brummel in sight here. God, such a great song.

TELEVISION: Elevation

From Television's debut album Marquee Moon, the track "Elevation" just fascinated me when I was 17. Fall of 1977, freshman in college, trying to finally hear all these punk or new wave or whaddayacallit bands I'd read so much about in the pages of Phonograph Record Magazine. I asked the campus radio station for help, and was rewarded with the sounds of The Ramones, Blondie, The Dictators, The Adverts, The Jam, Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band, The Runaways, and oh yeah!, Television. I could never get enough of this jagged, loping, serpentine noise, so mesmerizing, so different, so gratifyingly dizzying in its willful application of elevation going to my head. And staying there. Marquee Moon was among my earliest LP purchases in this broad category of NEW MUSIC circa '77 and '78. It would not be the last. Oh no, not even close to the last.

THE TEXTONES: Vacation

An illustration of how much a song can change. The Textones' original version of "Vacation" was a left-of-the-dial DIY number written by one of the group's co-founders, Kathy Valentine. Valentine took the song with her when she became bassist for The Go-Go's, and her new bandmates Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin helped to revamp it into an almost-new pop ditty, sharing DNA with The Textones' tune but markedly glossier, catchier, more vibrant and exciting. Both versions are cool, but they're different songs. Sisters, maybe?

TOOTS AND THE MAYTALS: Reggae Got Soul

The late reggae great Toots Hibbert transcended genre. "Reggae Got Soul" and "Funky Kingston" were the first two Maytals songs I ever heard of, while "54-46 Was My Number" was the first I ever actually heard, many years later. "Pressure Drop" ultimately became my favorite, and it's vying for position with "54 46, That's My Number" (the earlier version of "54-46 Was My Number") for a spot in The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). But kudos also to "Reggae Got Soul," a sublime record that states its case with rock-steady eloquence and authority.

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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).