10 SONGS: 8/9/2025

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.

Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes

Various Artists

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BIG STIR RECORDS and producer/curator Carl Cafarelli bring you a very special collection saluting – and featuring – Power Pop Hall Of Famers THE FLASHCUBES: the all-new new album MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN! A TRIBUTE TO THE Read more

This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1297.

PAUL COLLINS: Hang On To Yourself

Another ace new track from the forthcoming tribute album Jem Records Celebrates David Bowie, as Power Pop Hall of Famer Paul Collins takes on "Hang On To Yourself." The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars was my favorite David Bowie album during my misspent (but perfectly soundtracked) youth, and it's an absolute kick to hear Paul Collins bring his own American Beat to bear on one of my top Ziggy picks. As Paul's Bowie cover makes its TIRnRR debut this week, it's joined by another gem from Jem Records Celebrates David Bowie ("Can't Help Thinking About Me" by the Cynz) in its third straight week on our playlist. Both of these will return on our next show, and we'll also offer our first spin of the High Frequencies' Bowie tribute cover of "Modern Love." Hang on!

CAST FEATURING P.P. ARNOLD: Poison Vine

Apologies to fans of Oasis and Blue, but my favorite '90s Britpop combo was Cast. It didn't hurt that Cast included John Power, formerly of the La's, but I'm not sure I even knew that when I fell into the thrall of Cast's "Alright" and "Promised Land." When Rhino Records contracted me to write the liner notes for a compilation album called Poptopia! Power Pop Classics Of The '90s, I know the good folks at Rhino really wanted to include a track by Cast, but they were unable to clear the rights for it.

P. P. Arnold is one of my favorite singers, and possibly my very favorite among female soul singers. Her incredible rendition of "The First Cut Is The Deepest" is the song's definitive version, and it rightly earns its own chapter in my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). I'm delighted that she is still making music, and still unerringly excellent.

So: The combined forces of Cast and P. P. Arnold on a new single in 2025? I'm IN! "Poison Vine" is vintage Cast, grand, sweeping, and powerful, and P.P. Arnold is, y'know, P. P. ARNOLD!! Everyone sounds as great as ever. Its five-minute running time will make it difficult to squeeze into our short-attention-span format very often, but it is five minutes well spent. No power in the known or unknown universe could prevent us from playing it at least once. Cast AND the mighty P. P. Arnold. Most inviting poison vine ever.

RICHARD TURGEON: Signs

Ever-reliable rockin' pop performer Richard Turgeon has a supercool new album on the likewise-supercool Kool Kat Musik label. His new record Shungite is named after the radioactive element that's deadly to natives of the planet Shung, and...okay, that's not even remotely true. But I'm sticking with it! You'll BELIEVE a record can fly! Ain't nothing mild-mannered about Richard Turgeon. 

THE FLASHCUBES: The Sweet Spot

Awright. Go time! 

"The Sweet Spot" is the second of three new singles from Syracuse's own power pop powerhouses the Flashcubes. "The Sweet Spot" is available here, its rockin' predecessor "Reminisce" can still be scarfed up here, and the go'geous forthcoming single "If These Hands" can be preordered here. Everything's coming up Cubic!

All of the above serve as integral components of the September 12th release Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, as the three new Flashcubes tracks rub Rickenbackers with 21 great acts serving up 21 inspired covers of original tunes from the Flashcubes' songbook. Our Cubesmania participants include sparkle*jets u.k., Librarians With Hickeys, Chris von Sneidern, Graham Parker and Mike Gent, Joe Giddings, Ballzy Tomorrow, the Kennedys, the Verbs, Dolph Chaney, Pop Co-Op, the Peppermint Kicks, Tom Kenny & the Hi-Seas, the Choosers, Hamell On Trial, the Armoires Rob Moss and Skin-Tight Skin, the Mayflowers, Super 8 featuring Lisa Mychols, Callan Foster, Sorrows, and the Spongetones. It is indeed a tribute fit for the brilliance of the Flashcubes.

At long last, Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes is beginning to appear as available for preorder. It's already listed on Amazon, but c'mon, there are better options than that. You can get it directly from its visionary record label Big Stir Records. It's up on Bandcamp, complete with a first look at my liner notes for the album, plus its individual track credits. I imagine Kool Kat Musik will start accepting preorders soon, and we love Kool Kat. 

Bottom line: You have purchase options to enrich your music library with the addition of your own soon-to-be-cherished personal copy of Make Something Happen! We've done our part. Now it's YOUR turn to make something happen.

THE PEPPERMINT KICKS: Too Sweet (Oh Yeah!)

Oh Yeah! for SURE! Make Something Happen! superstars the Peppermint Kicks' new album Pop Rocks In My Chewing Gum is bad for you in all the best ways, risking potential damage to dentures while redeeming its dietary dangers with sweet, sweet confections that stick to your ribs and to the underside of your desk. My current Pick T'Click is "Too Sweet (Oh Yeah!)," but nine out of ten dentists will agree there's much to taste and savor on Pop Rocks In My Chewing Gum. (Nine out of ten dentists will also gang up to beat the livin' chicklets outta that stubborn tenth dentist. Irascible lot, those dentists.)

THE VIBEKE SAUGESTAD BAND: Hey Now Sunshine

"Hey Now Sunshine" is a thoroughly effervescent and endearing new track from the Vibeke Saugestad Band, an advance treat from a forthcoming EP called The Sun Sessions. Norwegian pop singer Vibeke, originally billed under just her first name, has been bringing the sunshine for quite some time now, and I'm mortified that I butchered the pronunciation of her name on-air during this week's broadcast. VEE-buh-kuh SAUWguh-stah. VEE-buh-kuh SAUWguh-stah. Although screwing up the names of musicians may continue in the tradition of Ed Sullivan introducing "Diane Warwick" on his really big show, I know that my own last name has been routinely mispronounced by many, so I'm further bummed when I screw up someone's name. The song's great, the singer and her band are great, and I'll get a little closer to announcing the band's name correctly when "Hey Now Sunshine" plays again on our next show this Sunday night.

THE JACKSON 5: I'll Be There

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

ELENA ROGERS: A Little Bit Of Lovely

The newest Elena Rogers EP Song About Me arrived a few days too late to be considered for this week's show. Unabashed, we played our familiar programming choice from Elena's previous EP Always Trying, with a vow to get something from Song About Me into the mix on the next available playlist. You'll hear that vow fulfilled on Sunday.

BALLZY TOMORROW: Five Personalities

We couldn't let 10 Songs play to its inner groove without one more track from Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes. Operating under his rockin' pop dba Ballzy Tomorrow, everyone's pal Robbie Rist gives us an interpretation of the Flashcubes' "Five Personalities" that our friends at Big Stir describe as "majestically Queen-like whimsy." We concur!

On our next show, we'll hear further evidence of Robbie Rist's interpretive ability, delivered in the form of another, different cover tune he also recorded as Ballzy Tomorrow. And it's one we ain't ever played here before. Well! We're gonna play it Sunday. We have that specific plan written on the back of my hand.

THE BEATLES: She Came In Through The Bathroom Window

And we're heading out the way she came in. Lend me your comb. It's time to go home.

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.

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

THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! The Jackson 5, "I'll Be There"

From my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1).

An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!

THE JACKSON 5: I'll Be There

Written by Berry Gordy, Bob West, Willie Hutch, and Hal Davis

Produced by Hal Davis

Single from the album Third Album, Motown Records, 1970

It may seem strange to begin a chapter about the Jackson 5 with a discussion of Milli Vanilli. It is strange to begin a chapter about the Jackson Five with a discussion of Milli Vanilli.

Nonetheless: Milli Vanilli.

First off, I have to say I'm not a fan. It's not a matter of guilty pleasures; I just never cared about Milli Vanilli's music. And that's okay; just as there's no reason for guilt with music you like, there's no reason for guilt with music you don't like.

But Milli Vanilla were huge, immensely popular. They must have had fans, a lot of fans. No one admits it anymore. Milli Vanilli has been expunged from the records, stricken from the collective consciousness, the pop music equivalent of being declared a non-person by the Soviets during the Cold War. Milli Vanilli's former fans are like Peter denying Jesus three times before the rooster crows. Milli Vanilli? I do not know them!

We all know the reason for this after-the-fact scrubbing of Milli Vanilli fandom: Milli Vanilli were frauds who had nothing whatsoever to do with the records released under their brand name. 

You can't compare the Milli Vanilli scandal to the Monkees (whose records always featured a lead vocal by Micky, Davy, Michael, and/or Peter), nor to obviously fictitious combos like the Archies or the Partridge Family. No, Milli Vanilli frontmen Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus were sold to the public under false pretenses, marketed as a duo of dancing, singing pretty boys when, in fact, they were dancing, lip-syncing-to-someone-else's-vocals pretty boys. Milli Vanilla's sins were not unique, nor even wholly their own fault; the bulk of the blame belongs to the puppeteers who pulled their strings and concocted the façade that sold a jillion records and made a bazillion dollars. 

But Milli Vanilli got caught, and Rob and Fab were the ones who paid the price for this chicanery. 

The price was steep: They were disgraced; they had to relinquish the Grammy they'd won as 1990's Best New Artist; attempts at a comeback, with Rob and Fab actually singing, fell far short of their previous success; Pilatus' personal issues consumed him, and he died from a drug and alcohol overdose in 1998. His death was ruled accidental.

The callous machinations and eventual tragedy behind the music overshadow Milli Vanilli's recorded legacy. I'm not a fan, so I'm not the one to speak on their behalf. But the question remains: If some people liked or loved Milli Vanilli's records, why wouldn't they still like them now? The records didn't change with the revelations of the men behind the curtain. The records sound the same. They are the same. Fans, you know it's true. 

That's the nature of context in our pop obsessions. It's not cancel culture; our favorite records don't exist in a vacuum. No disc is an island. We hear the songs, and we think of things we relate to that song. We can't help it, and maybe we shouldn't.

Which brings us to Michael Jackson.

I haven't seen Leaving Neverland, the 2019 HBO documentary detailing the allegation that Jackson was a serial child molester, a predator who got away with committing awful, awful crimes because he was a superstar, above the law, untouchable. I have no intention of investigating the evidence for or against him, so I can't render a verdict, even an unlicensed pundit's verdict. When the accusations first surfaced decades ago, my knee-jerk reaction was to believe they were true, and I still suspect they are true. But I can't say how much my opinion was and is affected by Jackson's prevailing oddities. 

It's not a crime to be weird; let your freak flag fly. It is a crime to hurt people. And it's a worse crime to hurt kids.

What if Jackson was innocent? But worse: What if was guilty? If the former, a beloved pop star's reputation has been sullied by accusations he denied when he was alive, accusations he can no longer answer in death. If the latter...that's just horrible. Horrible. All those kids, all that heartbreak and torment, and no one helped them. No one stopped the monster that was Michael Jackson...if he was indeed the monster these charges describe.

I liked some of Michael Jackson's music. Many of his records with the Jackson 5 are classic AM radio gems, and I enjoyed some of his early solo work. I'm not sure whether or not I want to listen to any of them again. Maybe. Probably? Maybe not. 

Context matters. Some say we should separate the art from the artist, and I agree. Ike Turner was abusive. Phil Spector was a murderer. Yet I still listen to them. Sometimes I can disconnect the record from the misdeeds of its creators; sometimes I cannot.

The summer of 1970 was when I really began paying attention to AM radio. It was an unsettled, intimidating season. I was trying to prepare myself mentally for my upcoming unwelcome jump from fourth grade to sixth grade (discussed elsewhere in this book), dealing with a sudden, unexpected death in the family, trying to come to terms with the idea that my sister was going off to college. Things were changing. 

I hated change.

Summer ended. School began. I listened to the radio every night, seeking comfort and melody. My parents objected to my preference for leaving the radio on as I fell asleep; over time, the practice became tacitly accepted. And among the many comforts the radio offered me, there was this distinctive harpsichord opening, this soulful sway of harmonies, this reassurance, and a voice singing, Whenever you need me, I'll be there.

At the time, I wasn't really conscious of the Jackson 5's earlier hits "I Want You Back," "ABC," and "The Love You Save." But "I'll Be There" was an integral component of my immersion in Top 40. It's an exquisitely constructed pop record. The young Michael Jackson sounds sweet, innocent, earnest, and steadfast. His brothers support him with a Heaven-sent vocal blend, and Jermaine Jackson nails it all in place with that unforgettable bridge, swearing he'll be there to comfort you, to build his world of dreams all around you. 

And Michael comes back in to carry the verse. Trust has been established. Everything will be okay.

It remains jarring to contrast that image with our knowledge of the charges against the adult Michael Jackson. 

I suspect I'll return to listening to some of the J5's stuff eventually, particularly "The Love You Save" and "I'll Be There." I think I will. Art [...] artist, unless context overcomes the separation. Such great music. Such horrendous allegations. Can we separate the two? I don't know. You and I must make a pact; we can bring salvation back.

And Milli Vanilli? I've never really listened to Milli Vanilli, and I'm not going to start now. But if you were a fan of Milli Vanilli, consider giving them a fresh spin. In the big picture, Milli Vanilli's crimes were pretty inconsequential. Blame it on the rain.

Songs on the radio. Comfort. Strength, to keep holding on. Salvation? If we can bring it back, well...I'll be there.

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.

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.

POP-A-LOOZA: The Monkees, "I Never Thought It Peculiar"

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is my pulpit-pounding on behalf of a song many others might describe as a guilty pleasure: "I Never Thought It Peculiar" by The Monkees.

There is really no such thing as a guilty pleasure in pop music. Unless you happen to love neo-Nazi ditties or glorifications of hatred or violence, I'd say it's okay for you to dig whatever you wanna dig. Yes, even the hits of The Eagles. Why? BECAUSE THEY'RE POP SONGS! Guilt-Free Pleasures (A Defense Against The Dark Arts) celebrates pop songs. The guilty need not apply.

The above paragraph is the boilerplate intro for my Guilt-Free Pleasures series, which was where the piece about "I Never Thought It Peculiar" first appeared. The inaugural Guilt-Free Pleasures was a 2019 celebration of "Freedom" by Wham! Pieces about KISS and Milli Vanilli followed (though the latter turned out to be as much about Michael Jackson as it was about Milli Vanilli). I'll be getting around to a Guilt-Free Pleasures spotlight on The Partridge Family...soon. Definitely soon. Two of the published pieces will reappear in revamped form in my eventual book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1).

Meanwhile, both Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) and This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl continue the good fight: dig what you wanna dig. We've even played The Eagles. And we've played an unhip, gawky-but-nifty little Monkees song called "I Never Thought It Peculiar." It's the subject of the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.



TIP THE BLOGGER: CC's Tip Jar!

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

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).

10 SONGS: 2/4/2020

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 # 1011.

THE B-52's: 52 Girls



When I was in college, there was a girl (whom I'll call Roxy) from somewhere downstate in the dorm room kitty-corner from mine. Roxy felt her musical taste was jarringly outta step with that of our peers at our school. I felt her pain; I was roughly as much of a musical oddball as she was. Roxy liked punk and its anti-mainstream ilk, and she had no use for the prevailing Deadheadedness that was the preferred soundtrack of our fellow students. We weren't exactly friends, but I was one of the very few sympathetics she encountered. I was impressed that she had seen Sid Vicious at Max's Kansas City. And she was one of the first people I met who liked The B-52's; in our dorm in 1979, before "Rock Lobster" became an alt-pop staple and long before "Love Shack" became a hit, Roxy, my roommate, and I seemed to be the only prospective members of any hypothetical Perry Hall B-52's Fan Club. 

Even more than "Rock Lobster," "52 Girls" was my early B-52's favorite, a chugging milkshake of catchy, spastic pop. Roxy's frustration with her four-cornered surroundings likely contributed to her decision to hightail it outta there; she didn't finish the semester, and may have been gone within the first month. The following spring, my roommate and I helped to put on a successful Punk Night at a bar in town. Maybe Roxy shoulda tried to stick it out?

For dramatic purposes, the role of Roxy shall be played by singer and actress Debbie Gibson

BLUE OYSTER CULT: This Ain't The Summer Of Love



BOC's best-known tracks are "Don't Fear The Reaper" and (later on) "Burnin' For You," with maybe an honorable mention for "Godzilla." My favorite remains "This Ain't The Summer Of Love," a lean and efficient LP track from Agents Of Fortune (the album that gave us "Don't Fear The Reaper"). I learned of the song through my doomed high school pal Tom, prompting me to purchase my own battered, used copy of the album in time for college. During my freshman year, Side One of Agents Of Fortune was as much a go-to slab of vinyl as my Sex Pistols and Monkees records, and "This Ain't The Summer Of Love" in particular fit well alongside my steady diet of Ramones, Television, Jam, and Dave Clark Five. My friend Ronnie Dark mentioned Agents Of Fortune last week, and that was sufficient motivation for me to play this great track once again.

THE DARLING BUDS: Let's Go Round There



The Darling Buds' 1989 debut Pop Said... is the only album I can recall buying just because Rolling Stone magazine told me to. A review of the record in RS name-checked The Ramones, The Buzzcocks, and Blondie in its attempt to describe the group's sound, and I was sold on it, unheard, right then and there. I think I made the purchase before hearing "Let's Go Round There" on MTV's 120 Minutes, a show I committed to VHS every Sunday night, and it certainly became my favorite Darling Buds track (edging out "The Other Night" and "Hit The Ground").

THE JACKSON FIVE: I'll Be There




Simply exquisite. This is such a magnificent pop single, and it rates a chapter in my (theoretically) eventual book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Enjoying the innocent sound of the young Michael Jackson requires a disconnect with the (credible, I think) accusations of his crimes as an adult. If we can make and maintain that separation of art and artist, The J5's "I'll Be There" offers sheer, sweet joy. A friend advised me last week that it's probably okay to make that separation, especially in this instance of records made decades before MJ's alleged misdeeds. He's probably right. Your mileage may vary.

THE KINKS: Dedicated Follower Of Fashion



When I was in the process of becoming a Kinks fan at the age of 16 and 17 (circa late '76 and into '77), "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion" was a mystery track. I had seen the title listed in reference works, but it wasn't a Kinks song I knew, like "Lola" or "You Really Got Me," "All Day And All Of The Night," "Tired Of Waiting For You," "A Well Respected Man," or even "No More Looking Back" from Schoolboys In Disgrace.  I recall hearing Status Quo's "Pictures Of Matchstick Men" on the radio, and wondering (with no real-world justification) if that might be "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion." I have no memory of where, when, or how I finally heard "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion," but I do remember that I was initially underwhelmed by it. 

Well, that reaction sure changed over time. In the summer of 1979, the first time I saw the fab local combo The Dead Ducks, my pal Joe Boudreau and I bellowed along with the Oh yes he IS! as the Ducks covered the song. Many, many years later, I have a specific memory of strolling through a shopping mall with my wife and daughter as "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion" came on the sound system. Just as I'd done as a teenager, I began to bellow along, Oh yes he IS! My then-teen daughter was mortified. Hmph. It's as if she didn't think her Dad was in fashion.

KISS: Anything For My Baby



"Anything For My Baby" is an LP track from the 1975 KISS album Dressed To Kill, the record that gave the world "Rock And Roll All Nite." The song was written and sung by Paul Stanley, but for some reason Stanley all but disowns the tune. I'm unashamed in my continuing affection for some of KISS's work, and "Anything For My Baby" would be a candidate for my all-time KISS Top 10.

THE MONKEES: For Pete's Sake



From The Monkees' 1967 album Headquarters, their third LP but the first where they were allowed to be the musicians in the studio. The song was co-written by Peter Tork and Joseph Richards, it was used as the closing theme during the second season of the group's TV series, and it shoulda been a single. At this year's GRAMMY telecast, a snippet of "For Pete's Sake" played when Tork's face appeared during the memorial segment honoring artists we lost during the previous year. We were born to love another, this is something we all need. Frankly, I'd expected the awards show to use a more familiar Monkees hit, either "I'm A Believer" or "Daydream Believer," and I'm delighted that the producers made the right choice instead.

THE SOFT BOYS: I Wanna Destroy You



If I had heard The Soft Boys' 1980 album Underwater Moonlight some time contemporary to its release, it would have been one of my favorite albums of that decade. Instead, I didn't hear it until its CD reissue on the Matador label in 2001. I did hear the group's classic Underwater Moonlight track "I Wanna Destroy You" somewhere in between, probably from Dana (who played it again on this week's show). But my introduction to the song itself predates that spin, and is about as weird as it gets. In the '90s, former teen pop star Debbie Gibson was said to be involved with the producer of Circle Jerks, the hardcore group perhaps best known for "Golden Shower Of Hits," their thrashing covers medley of cheeseball blechh like "You're Having My Baby." Realizing a match made in Perdition, Gibson sang backup on Circle Jerks' cover of "I Wanna Destroy You," and even joined them on stage to perform the song at CBGB's in 1995. Well, that all sounds ducky so far, right? I'm not sure if it was a one-off where she jumped on stage to join those Jerks in concert, or if it was staged as an MTV event, or what. But I learned about it in a report on MTV News, and I submit that no one else had a weirder introduction to this song than I had.



TIN TIN: Toast And Marmalade For Tea



A throwaway line in my Sunday hype for this week's TIRnRR inspired a need to include this on the show. Some time back, when Dana and I were attending an acoustic show by The Flashcubes' Gary Frenay and Arty Lenin, Gary and Arty performed a cover of "Toast And Marmalade For Tea," then defied us to name the original artist. In yet another stunning display of the boundless mastery of pop information that drives This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, we...yeah, we didn't have a freakin' clue. Heads will roll, my friends, heads will roll. Oops--eyes will roll. Sorry, I read that wrong. Man, it's good thing Dana and I have tenure.

The palpable Bee Gees vibe of "Toast And Marmalade For Tea" is partially attributable to the fact that the record was produced by Maurice Gibb, who also plays bass on the track. But I've retroactively decided that it wasn't Tin Tin at all; it was Debbie Gibson, using a time machine to go back and make a record before she was even born, disguising her voice so she sounds like two guys from Australia. Of course.

Toast and marmalade for tea...FROM THE FUTURE!

STEVIE WONDER: I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)



This song comes from Stevie Wonder's 1972 album Talking Book. My point of entry for this wonderful number comes via the 2000 film adaptation of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. The song is used so effectively in the movie's climactic scene, and it's been lodged in my consciousness ever since. My entry for this song in The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) likewise serves as the book's climactic chapter. I hope you get to read it someday.

DEBBIE GIBSON: Read his book? He's crazy!
TIFFANY: He IS crazy--but it's HIS BLOG...!

TIP THE BLOGGER: CC's Tip Jar!

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

Hey, Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 125 essays about 125 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).