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.
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This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1276
About two weeks ago, I received an email from my long-time pal Beth informing me of the death of David Johansen. As a solo artist and as the lead singer of the New York Dolls, Johansen's work was of enormous importance to me. Beth had a reasonable (and correct) expectation that TIRnRR would be paying tribute to Johansen at our earliest opportunity, and I immediately set to work sketching out a blueprint for that very thing.
The next day, we learned that Badfinger guitarist Joey Molland had also passed. Badfinger's "Baby Blue" is THE # 1 song on my all-time Hot 100; it was the subject of my very first Greatest Record Ever Made! essay, which was subsequently an important early chapter in my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Given this radio show's affectionate debt to the Dolls and Badfinger, it seemed imperative for us to attempt proper tributes to both Johansen and Molland.
We opened this week's program with "Cool Metro," a track from Johansen's first solo album. The song was co-written by David Jo and former Dolls guitarist Sylvain Sylvain, it sounds like it could have been a Dolls song, and it was also the designated opening salvo in the David Johansen Group's live shows in the late '70s. There could be no other selection to kick things off for us here.
We made an early decision to place less emphasis on Badfinger's best-known material. Molland had not yet joined Badfinger when they recorded their first hit (the Paul McCartney-penned "Come And Get It"), and the other hits--"Baby Blue," "No Matter What," and "Day After Day," plus the oft-covered LP track "Without You"--were all written by the group's other guitarist, Pete Ham. We threw in one of the hits at show's end, but our other three Badfinger picks--"Got To Get Out Of Here," "Love Is Easy," and "Love Is Gonna Come At Last"--were written by Molland. "Got To Get Out Of Here" (from the group's 1974 album Wish You Were Here) was the first such track to pop into my mind, and it's a good one. I didn't score a copy of Wish You Were Here until many years after the fact, so my introduction to "Got To Get Out Of Here" came via Rhino Records' 1990 compilation The Best Of Badfinger Volume II. Very cool track, regardless of how one gets to it.
Joey Molland's final solo album Be True To Yourself was released in 2020, and it was and remains such an agreeably pop record, Beatley and Badfingery without pandering or nostalgia-mongering. We were immediately drawn to its track "Rainy Day Man," and if that wasn't the single it should have been. Gorgeous.
DAVID JOHANSEN: Frenchette
The Greatest Record Ever Made!
JOEY MOLLAND: You Make Me Sick
"You Make Me Sick" was a track on Joey Molland's 1992 album The Pilgrim, which I reviewed an approximate million years ago when I was a freelance writer for Goldmine magazine:
"While the world waits for the remainder of the Badfinger catalog to finally see reissue, former 'Finger Joey Molland returns with his first solo album in ages. Casual Badfinger fans may not be blown away by The Pilgrim, but more serious fans will take cautious delight in this long-awaited work.
"The album opens with its most aggressive track, the anti-Gulf War 'You Make Me Sick.' Subsequent tracks vary stylistically from the ballad 'No One Likes The Rain' to 'Your Eyes,' a rocker reminiscent of Nick Lowe. 'Vampire Wedding' dips into Anne Rice territory, while 'All The Way' (the album's original title track) simply drones on for too long.
"It's somewhat surprising to note that each track retains an indefinable but unmistakable Apple flavor--the songs sound of a piece, not only with Badfinger's now-classic recordings for the Apple label, but also with work by former label mate Jackie Lomax. This may be attributed to a critic's overactive imagination, but the Apple sound (if there is such a thing) is definitely still in the grooves for Molland.
"We'd like to say that the material here rivals Badfinger hits like 'Baby Blue' and 'No Matter What,' but that would be stretching the truth to the point of, well, outright lying. Molland is not the late Pete Ham, and we wouldn't even bother with the comparison if the Rock Critics' Code didn't specifically require that the current work of former Apple artists be constantly contrasted with their work of over 20 years ago. Sorry, but them's union rules.
"Really, Molland shouldn't need to rely on past glories. The fact that he didn't go for the easy name recognition and release this as an album by Joey Molland's Badfinger (the name under which he tours) is admirable, and makes the point that it's time to treat Molland as the solo artist he is. For Badfinger fans, The Pilgrim builds successfully upon Molland's previous work. For novices, this is as good a place as any to start. Come and get it."
Shortly before the release of Be True To Yourself in 2020, Dana pulled out "You Make Me Sick" for a spin, prompting me to write:
"We're looking forward to former Badfinger guitarist Joey Molland's new album Be True To Yourself, which is due out in October, and which features support from the likes of Micky Dolenz, Julian Lennon, Mark Hudson, and more. While we're waiting, Dana programmed this antiwar track from Molland's 1992 album The Pilgrim for our listening pleasure. I reviewed The Pilgrim for Goldmine when it was released, but I hadn't heard the song in years. It holds up, and I'm eager to hear Joey's new stuff."
THE DAVID JOHANSEN GROUP: Babylon
As noted somewhere up above, David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain continued to work together for a bit after the demise of the Dolls. Sylvain was an early member of the David Johansen Group; he had moved on from that band before I got to see them in the summer of '79, but he's on this 1978 live recording, which was finally released in 1993 as The David Johansen Group Live.
And you know who else is on it? The Dolls' other guitarist, Johnny Thunders, called up from the audience by Johansen (Hey, JT! Why don'tcha come up an' do a number wid us?) in what was presumably a planned reunion but feels as gloriously chaotic as it woulda felt as mere happenstance. So we have 3/5 of the Dolls--a quorum!--assembled like grungy Avengers for a run-through of the Dolls' "Babylon." Come ON, boys!
Like Johansen's "Frenchette," the Dolls' "Personality Crisis" is also The Greatest Record Ever Made! An infinite number, man, and TIRnRR has been qualifying the absolute since 1998. If I ever do another Greatest Record Ever Made! book, it will probably include my "Personality Crisis" and "Frenchette" chapters placed together in sequence.
The natural pause in "Personality Crisis" invites the addition of some other song smack dab in its middle, inserted right before Johansen cries, And yo' a prima ballerina on a spring afternoon! The first time I saw the David Johansen Group in '79, they performed "Personality Crisis" as a medley with Donna Summer's rock number "Hot Stuff." For TIRnRR's tribute to DJ, I wanted to edit in "Hot Hot Hot," the signature tune by Johansen's swingin' alter ego Buster Poindexter. A personality crisis!
BADFINGER: No Matter What
Our salute to David Johansen gathered four tracks apiece by the Dolls and DJ solo, two by the David Johansen Group, Johansen's duet with Robin Johnson for the soundtrack of Times Square, and Buster Poindexter's "Hot Hot Hot." For our Joey, we offered four apiece by Badfinger and Joey Molland solo, one by Natural Gas, examples of his guest appearances with John and Mary, George Harrison, and John Lennon, and we threw in Paranoid Lovesick's cover of Joey's Badfinger composition "Icicles."
And at last, we closed the main portion of show with one of Badfinger's hits. We went with the popular choice "No Matter What" (from No Dice, the only Badfinger LP I owned in the '70s). Could have been "Baby Blue." Coulda been "Day After Day." We couldn't go wrong any way, no matter what. For our encore, we circled back to a live performance of "Baby Blue" by Joey Molland's Badfinger.
Godspeed, Joey Molland, and Godspeed David Johansen. We'll see you again when our time comes. But we'll hear you again right now.
And always.
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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. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.
