10 SONGS: 2/24/2022

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 # 1117.

WRECKLESS ERIC: Whole Wide World

A classic gets its due! Or at least a payday, we hope. Wreckless Eric's new wave pop perennial "Whole Wide World" (aka "[I'd Go The] Whole Wide World") was first released in 1977. I didn't hear it until at least '79, on a fantastic various-artists soundtrack LP called That Summer! But it was a fave rave for me from that point on.

And I just figured everyone knew the track. How could they not? I always presumed it was a British hit, though I'm told it didn't actually chart. Shoulda. The Monkees covered it in 1987, and I was surprised to discover that many Monkees fans thought it was written for Micky, Davy, and Peter (not Mike; Michael Nesmith did not participate in the reunited Monkees' 1980s recordings). Even as a proud Monkees fan, I say Wreckless Eric's original version remains definitive.

And we're delighted that the track got a little bit of exposure on this year's Super Bowl. The song appeared at the climax of an Expedia commercial aired during the big game, prompting Eric to note, "A song I wrote, a record I made...just aired to somewhere in the region of 150 million people. I'm thrilled to bits and not a little scared, and right now I'm just a dot in the universe."

And in 2022, that dot has gone the whole wide world. A hit? It is now. But I say it always was.

PAUL DAVIE: Grow Old With Me

Local musician and promoter Paul Davie--you know him, you love him, you can't have a BeatleCuse without him--has just released his first solo album, Half And Half. Writer John Tierney has already pounded the console on behalf of Paul's record, and we played its opening track "Kiss Me Softly" a few weeks back. Half And Half is a not-quite 50-50 split of four covers (of the Rolling Stones, the Pretenders, Leonard Cohen, and the Alan Parsons Project) and six Davie originals, with a lovely cover of John Lennon's "Grow Old With Me" serving as a closing bonus track. Our Paul gets by with a little help from his friends, and he enlists none other than Joey Molland of Badfinger to lend a little help on "Grow Old With Me." See, that's the sort of friend to have. And growing older doesn't mean we have to grow up.

DOLPH CHANEY: I Wanted You

Offered here as evidence that TIRnRR can play a Dolph Chaney song that isn't "My Good Twin." Like a dog with a bone, we often become fixated on a single song by a given artist, playing that Chosen One over 'n' over with the manic fervor of...y'know, us. From Dolph's album This Is Dolph Chaney, "My Good Twin" was TIRnRR's # 3 most-played track in 2021, surpassed in our breathless thrall only by Kid Gulliver's "Forget About Him" and Kelley Ryan's "The Church Of Laundry." Listen, man: obsession is its own reward. 

Nonetheless, we broadened our righteous myopia to play a different Dolph Chaney number this week. Like "My Good Twin," "I Wanted You" also comes from This Is Dolph Chaney, and is also great. Will this be the start of a new beautiful obsession? Ya never know with us. We never know with us.

THE FOUR TOPS: If I Were A Carpenter

We've touched on the appeal of repeating certain songs from week to week. The process of assembling selections for each TIRnRR playlist also generally involves Dana and I separately trying to think of some cool songs we've never played before. We like to have new stuff, of course, and we also like to dig out older tracks, searching for worthy sides from artists both obscure and familiar. I've always loved Tim Hardin's "If I Were A Carpenter" in performances by a few different artists (particularly the familiar hit by Bobby Darin). It's possible I'd heard the Four Tops' compelling performance of "If I Were A Carpenter" prior to February of 2022, but I stumbled across the track while looking for something else last week. Magic. The Four Tops' "If I Were A Carpenter" is now THE "If I Were A Carpenter" for me.

LED ZEPPELIN: Good Times Bad Times

Is TIRnRR the only avowedly rock 'n' roll radio show where a spin of Led Zeppelin can be viewed by listeners as a radical departure from the expected? Probably not. But while we've certainly played the occasional Zep track in the past, der Zeppenwülff is hardly a staple of whatever it is we do. I've written elsewhere of my love-hate (or really sorta like-don't give a damn) relationship with Led Zeppelin:

"I was never much of a Led Zeppelin fan; they were just there, everywhere, like inflation or TV sitcoms or halter tops, symptoms of my 1970s. (I was, incidentally, in favor of halter tops.) In the days of my youth, there were good Led Zep times, and there were bad Led Zep times. Sometimes I liked them, sometimes I didn't. And some times I thought there okay, but that I just really didn't need to hear them anymore. Good times, bad times, I know I had my share.

"It's not a band's fault when their music gets overplayed. I can't imagine ever getting sick of the Beatles, but I do sort of comprehend the feeling of those who hear 'Yeah Yeah Yeah!' and answer 'No! No! NO!!!' I don't have much affinity for most of the tracks favored by classic rock radio formats; I wonder if I would have retained a greater appreciation of the music of Led Zeppelin, the Doors, Pink Floyd, or later Rolling Stones (each of whom I do like to some degree) or even Lynyrd Skynrd or Eagles (whom I generally do not) if they were all obscurities I discovered in the vinyl underground, rather than ubiquitous fixtures on every stereo except mine."

For all that, Led Zeppelin's "Communication Breakout" is part of the blueprint for my long-threatened (and possibly stillborn) book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), and a positive passing mention of "Good Times Bad Times" was part of my first attempt at rock journalism when I was 17. Even during the times when I didn't care much about Led Zeppelin, I thought "Good Times Bad Times" was a monster. In a good way.

WENDI DUNLAP: Season Of Loss

With this week's spin, Wendi Dunlap's irresistible "Season Of Loss" (from her album Looking For Buildings) is one of TIRnRR's most played tracks in 2022. Given that we're only eight shows into the year, that stat is meaningless in the long run. BUT! I really, really like this song, and you can bet on hearing it reprised in at least some of our upcoming shows. Obsession rewards itself again.

LINNEA'S GARDEN: Looking

The Red On Red Records label has been a reliable resource for new thrills and fresh kicks, and our Red On Red fascination has manifested in a mess o' airplay for Kid Gulliver, Justine and the Unclean, the Chelsea Curve, Andrea Gillis, Cold Expectations, and other stars of the Red On Red galaxy. 

Linnea's Garden is for damned sure a part of that galaxy, and new single "Looking" is a pumpin' li'l pressure cooker that somehow manages to gaze at its shoes while heading down the highway to the new wave dance spot across town. Look all you want. But get out of the damed way--Linnea's Garden is comin' through!

THE FLASHCUBES FEATURING SHOES: Tomorrow Night

It's a HIT! We like hits. Buy it here.

THE MONKEES: Nine Times Blue

My favorite version of Michael Nesmith's "Nine Times Blue" is an unfinished one, or rather one not properly recorded for commercial release. Before we talk about that, some history of "Nine Times Blue" is in order. It was first recorded (but originally unreleased) a few times under the Monkees aegis, including a version with Davy Jones singing lead, but none of these versions was made public until decades after the fact. One of those missing links Monkees renditions is what we played on this week's show.

The song's first appearance at retail was on The Wichita Train Whistle Sings, a 1968 LP of instrumentals produced by and credited to Nesmith. Nesmith later re-recorded and released "Nine Times Blue" on his 1970 album Michael Nesmith and the First National Band. More recently, Nesmith's prime mate Micky Dolenz included his own take of "Nine Times Blue" on the 2021 album Dolenz Sings Nesmith.

That's the basic history. My favorite "Nine Times Blue" is a 1969 TV appearance by the Monkees, Micky, Davy, and Michael (not Peter; Peter Tork had left the Monkees by then). The Monkees Three were guests on The Johnny Cash Show, their spot introduced by the Man in Black hisself singing a snippet of the made-for-TV combo's first hit "Last Train To Clarksville" before ceding the spotlight to the Monkees themselves. Our heroes did some schtick about how old and moldy that 1966 song was in the far-future era of 1969, and how it would be better for them to perform something new instead: "Nine Times Blue."

They introduced the unnamed (and still then-unreleased) song as something from their new album; maybe they thought it was. Whatever they thought is eclipsed by what they did, which was a stunning, simple, and breathtaking live performance of "Nine Times Blue," just the three of them, Nesmith on acoustic guitar and lead vocal, Dolenz and Jones providing exquisite harmonies. After the song was done, Cash joined them for more schtick, and a collective run-through of Cash's novelty number "Everybody Loves A Nut."

But...dang, that song, that performance. "Nine Times Blue." Gooseflesh. Whenever some nimrods try to demonstrate their own chuckleheaded cluelessness and insist that the Monkees didn't have talent, you should place said nimrods in front of YouTube to watch this video that proves them wrong, baby, wrong. Man, get me the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the phone. NOW!!

I wish this version of "Nine Times Blue," this arrangement, had been given a proper studio treatment. Michael, Micky, and Davy, their voices, Michael's acoustic guitar, nothing else. But it was just a TV gig. It should have been on a then-new Monkees album in 1969. 

And it should have been a hit.

THE BANDWAGON: On The Day We Fall In Love

And just to prove that I don't love everything the Monkees did, lemme tell ya that the 1967 More Of The Monkees LP track "The Day We Fall In Love" is all YUCK! all the time. Hey, if you like it, well, dig what you dig, always dig what you dig. I can't stand it. Its sickly-sweet morass isn't even real sugary syrup; it reminds me of what happened on an episode of the Batman TV show, when the Joker turned Gotham City's water supply into strawberry jelly. Taste-testing the Clown Prince of Crown's sinister handiwork, Robin the Boy Wonder declared, "It looks like strawberry jelly! But it tastes like strawberry axle grease!"

The Monkees' "The Day We Fall In Love" is like the Joker's strawberry axle grease. Except not as good.

A year later, the wonderful, underrated soul group the Bandwagon (aka Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon) executed the unlikely alchemy of remaking the song into something shiny and gold. Eschewing the smarmy teen puppy-love pandering of the original, the Bandwagon's slightly retitled "On The Day We Fall In Love" is chirpy and still a bit juvenile, but far less cloying and much, much more satisfying. To paraphrase the four kings of EMI: the Bandwagon took a bad song and made it better. It served as a B-side to the Bandwagon's non-hit "Baby Make Your Own Sweet Music." Syrup need not apply.

Mind you: I still believe the Monkees should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I'm not holding "The Day We Fall In Love" against them. But I tell ya, Johnny Johnson and his Bandwagon clearly did the better version here.

Your mileage may vary. Your mechanic should not recommend the use of strawberry axle grease.

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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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10 SONGS: 9/15/2020

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.

Chuck Berry, Teri Garr, The T.A.M.I. Show

This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1042.

THE BEACH BOYS: God Only Knows



My book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is dedicated to the idea that an infinite number of songs can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. It's about individual songs, not albums, but its chapter celebrating the grandeur of The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" also pays proper tribute to the greatest album ever made, Pet Sounds:

Ambivalence and certainty can sometimes go hand in hand. It's incongruous, a paradox, but it's true in the sublime case of "God Only Knows." The track is emblematic of the classic album that gave it life: Brian Wilson's 1966 masterpiece Pet Sounds.

Pet Sounds is pop music's greatest contradiction: fragile but indestructible, delicate but strong, frail but immortal. Gossamer and granite. It is a wisp of emotion, heartbreak, love, and hope, a precarious house of cards that will still stand long after we're all dust. It is pop, and it is art, but it is not pop art. It is mature, and it as giddy as a teenager in love with the unattainable...

..."God Only Knows" is the most beautiful song that has ever graced our human experience. It is as close to the divine as our mortal ears can receive and relay, as near to celestial presence as man or woman could ever imagine while still tethered to this physical realm. Its music lifts us even as its lyrics remind us of the limits to our flawed perception, our finite grasp, but reinforces our faith all the same....

CHUCK BERRY: Nadine (Is It You?)



TCM ran the 1964 concert flick The T.A.M.I. Show as one of its Labor Day weekend offerings this year. The fact that I have the film on Blu-ray and have already seen it many times over the years didn't stop me from recording it on my DVR to watch again. It's my favorite concert film, and it has no real competition for that title.



Following the opening montage and introduction by emcees Jan & Dean, the first live performer to appear in The T.A.M.I. Show is the one and only Chuck Berry. And he kinda gets short shrift, having to share his time with the British Invasion, embodied in this spot by Gerry and the Pacemakers. The Pacemakers are fine, and that's not meant as faint praise at all. But he's Chuck Berry, and even with his limited screen time, he shines.

Teri Garr dancing to The Supremes on The T.A.M.I. Show

(A then-unknown Teri Garr also shines as one of the dancers in The T.A.M.I. Show. I didn't know her until falling in love with her on a Star Trek rerun. Man, she was cute.)

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



I've written many times about my friend Tom, who killed himself in 1979. The other day, the random thought occurred to me that, if he had lived, Tom and I probably would have parted company somewhere along the line. It was an unsettling, sobering thought. As much as we had been friends, our paths were already starting to diverge when he carried out that final act. He is frozen at a point in time when we were friends. It's been more than forty years, and the memory still aches. Losing a friend is difficult. Losing a friend to suicide leaves a wound that never quite goes away. That mental scar inevitably dominates my recollection of a former friend. 

There are specific songs that always remind me of Tom, songs I first heard when Tom played them. Both David Bowie's "All The Madmen" and The Runaways' cover of The Velvet Underground's "Rock And Roll" are superglued to Tom's memory. And that is likewise true of "This Ain't The Summer Of Love," a track from Blue Öyster Cult's 1976 album Agents Of Fortune. I only knew the band from radio play of "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," but Tom had the LP, and played it for me. Tom was particularly fond of "This Ain't The Summer Of Love," and his enthusiasm was infectious. 

In a previous 10 Songs, I wrote: BÖC'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.

For me, 1979 was the summer of love. I had met Brenda the preceding fall, and we were getting increasingly serious about committing our hearts to each other. She was with me the night I saw Tom for the last time, and she was with me the next morning when a phone call delivered the news of his death. She tried to comfort as best she could. It was a summer of love, no matter what a song said. It was also a summer marked by the start of a lingering sadness that's not ever going to go away. Friendships end. That's the nature of all things in this physical world. 

Friendships shouldn't end like that one did.

SHAUN CASSIDY: So Sad About Us



'70s teen idol Shaun Cassidy's 1980 album Wasp was, I guess, his attempt to transition from that aforementioned teen idol gig into something more serious and mature. Before he attempted that move, he recorded some pop material that is very much underrated; I can do without his covers of The Crystals and The Lovin' Spoonful, but his Eric Carmen-penned hits "That's Rock 'n' Roll" and "Hey Deanie" are simply stellar, and his own composition "Teen Dream" mines a similar vein with giddily successful results. The Flashcubes used to cover "Hey Deanie" (albeit a charged-up read of Carmen's version rather than Cassidy's), and 'Cubes bassist Gary Frenay wrote a song called "Boy Scout Pinup," about a girl's Shaun Cassidy and her wish that it would come to life and do serious, mature things with her. But I digress.

For dramatic purposes, the parts of boy scout pinup Cassidy and his fantasizing fan shall be played by Micky Dolenz and Teri Garr respectively

Cassidy's overt pop (even power pop) was the stuff of his first two albums, Shaun Cassidy and Born Late, both issued in 1977. 1978's Under Wraps was an attempted step toward leaving that behind. Being (or trying to sound) grown-up isn't necessarily a good thing, though Under Wraps does include Cassidy's capable take on Brian Wilson's "It's Like Heaven"). It was not as big a hit as Cassidy's previous records. 1979's Shaun Cassidy Live was his farewell to the screamin' girls and boy-scout pinup stardom. It didn't sell. 

So, for fifth and final album Wasp, Cassidy enlisted Todd Rundgren to produce something edgier, something new wave. It was a ballsy move; some thought it desperate, I suppose, but it seems sincere. Wasp includes three songs written by Rundgren, and a fourth written by Rundgren, Cassidy, Roger Powell, and John Wilcox. The rest of the album is filled with covers of songs by David Bowie, Talking Heads, The Four Tops, The Animals, The Who, and Ian Hunter. 

I didn't like it much at the time, but I haven't listened to it in...gosh, it's been ages. I still have it, and I need to give it a fresh spin. I do recall cringing at the version of Hunter's "Once Bitten, Twice Shy" on Wasp, but Cassidy's cover of The Who's "So Sad About Us" is pretty good, and well worth a slot on the radio.

CHICAGO: Feelin' Stronger Every Day



Chicago's music was certainly a fixture of my prime AM radio-listening days in the '70s. I grew to actively dislike the group in the '80s. I don't remember whether or not that dislike prompted me to forsake the older stuff in an unwise disposal of baby and bath water; if so, I've since regained my earlier affection for "Saturday In The Park." And I can't imagine how I could have ever turned away from "Feelin' Stronger Every Day," a dynamic track that's as rich and invigorating as pop music oughtta be. I like "Saturday In The Park;" I love "Feelin' Stronger Every Day." 

(And I'm bummed that when I saw the 21st century version of Chicago just a few years ago, they did only an abbreviated rendition of "Feelin' Stronger Every Day." Oh, but sure, they had plenty of time for all those '80s hits. Yechh.)

THE DAHLMANNS: Shake Me Up Tonight


The Dahlmanns! Man, this song rocks, and we haven't played it in far, far too long. I received a note from Lindsay Hutton of the venerable rockin' fanzine The Next Big Thing, mentioning some vinyl releases he'd done of this fab Norwegian combo. That mention was enough to send me scurryin' to pull out the group's 2011 All Dahled Up CD and return "Shake Me Up Tonight" to the airwaves. Where it belongs! More Dahlmanns in future weeks. 

JOEY MOLLAND: You Make Me Sick



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 REVELATIONS: Why When Love Has Gone



I come back to this statement time and time again: any record you ain't heard is a new record. I don't think I had even heard of The Revelations until a few weeks ago, when intrepid TIRnRR listener Dave Murray recommended I treat myself to a spin of their 2014 cover of The Isley Brothers' "Why When Love Is Gone." Six years old, but a new record to me. Make that a great new record to me, as The Revelations ace the difficult task of doing an Isleys song even better than the Isleys did it. 

THE SMALL FACES: You Need Lovin'

Willie Dixon wrote "You Need Love" for Muddy Waters. The Small Faces appropriated it for their own "You Need Lovin'." Led Zeppelin appropriated "You Need Lovin'" for their own "Whole Lotta Love." The Small Faces were fantastic and influential, but not really a superstar mega-selling record company cash cow. Led Zeppelin, on the other hand...well, let's just say that Willie Dixon knew which act it made more financial sense to sue. Dixon and Zep settled out of court in 1987.

Oh, go squeeze your own lemon.

THE VELVELETTES: He Was Really Sayin' Somethin'



In 1982, the combined forces of Bananarama and Fun Boy Three introduced me to the song "Really Saying Something," a bubbly girl-group number that was immediately catchy and radio-ready. I don't remember when I found out it was a cover of a 1965 Motown single, nor when I finally heard that original version by The Velvelettes. Those British chicks and fellows did a fine job with their cover; The Velvelettes blow 'em away. And that's sayin' somethin'.




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10 SONGS: 4/28/2020

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 # 1022.

BADFINGER: Baby Blue



My favorite song on the radio in the '70s, possibly my favorite radio song of all time. Badfinger's "Baby Blue" was the very first song written up for my series The Greatest Record Ever Made!, which celebrates the durable notion that an infinite number of songs can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. As I move forward with my intent to turn this notion into a big book called The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), that Badfinger entry follows an Overture of The Ramones' "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?" to get the party started. I really, really love this song.


THE BEATLES: I Should Have Known Better



One weekend when I was in high school (probably in '76- '77, my senior year), one of the NYC TV stations we received via cable in suburban North Syracuse played The Beatles' 1964 movie A Hard Day's Night. I don't remember how many times I had already seen it by that point. Four-year-old me saw it at The North Drive-In in Cicero during its first run, I saw it at least once on TV, on the night of the 1968 presidential election, and probably another time or two after that. I may have also seen it at The Hollywood Theatre in Mattydale at some '70s matinee; I know I saw Let It Be and Magical Mystery Tour on a Hollywood double bill, so it's plausible that A Hard Day's Night played there too, maybe with Yellow Submarine? I don't know. (I do know that I had only seen their 1965 movie Help! on TV. I think. Or maybe it was Help! instead of Yellow Submarine on a double bill with A Hard Day's Night at the Hollywood. I should have kept better notes as a teenager.)

Anyway, my point is that I had certainly seen A Hard Day's Night a few times prior to its screening on WPIX or WOR or WNEW or whatever on that Saturday night in the late '70s. I'm pretty sure I already regarded it as my all-time favorite movie, edging past Duck Soup and What's Up, Doc? and Batman and any of my other most cherished cinematic treasures when I was in my teens. I'd inherited a copy of the film's paperback novelization when my sister moved out, allowing me to re-live A Hard Day's Night at will, even in those days before home video became commonplace. I loved the film without reservation, and was delighted with the opportunity to see it again.



I watched the movie at home, alone. As it ran, right after the scene where the Fab Four sing "I Should Have Known Better" to Paul McCartney's very clean grandfather and some girls (including George Harrison's future wife Patti Boyd) in the train's luggage compartment, my phone rang. It was my friend Tom, also watching the movie (possibly for the first time) over at his house. That song, he said. Do you have it? I replied in the affirmative, and he said, I'm borrowing it, and hung up. Back to the movie. On Monday, I brought my family copy of the film's soundtrack LP to school for Tom to borrow, and he returned it to me shortly thereafter, presumably having now added it to his cassette library.

All these decades later, "I Should Have Known Better" is one of a few songs that still immediately bring Tom to my mind. It's a good memory, even given its tragic aftermath. I've written many times of how Tom's suicide in 1979 devastated me, haunted me, and I don't intend to use a title like "I Should Have Known Better" as a rueful commentary on that. No. I hang on to the good memories, too. 

And it is a good memory: a memory of watching my favorite movie, and a memory of its connection to one of my best friends. It's a good thing, a great thing, in spite of all that came afterward. Should I have known better? That's not for me to say.



COTTON MATHER: The Book Of Too Late Changes



Cotton Mather has been a TIRnRR Fave Rave for nearly as long as there has been a TIRnRR. Our show made its debut on December 27th 1998, and we played "Homefront Cameo" from Cotton Mather's 1997 album Kontiki three weeks later on our 1/17/99 show (my 39th birthday). "My Before And After" from Kontiki became a top favorite during our first year on the air, and it remains one of our all-time most-played tracks. "Payday," from Cotton Mather's 1994 album Cotton Is King, also received significant TIRnRR airplay over the years, and we've loved and played a number of other Cotton Mather tracks over the course of our...my God, we've done 1022 shows...? What?! Man, that explains why I'm not 39 years old anymore!

Through it all, "My Before And After" has been our defining, go-to Cotton Mather track, with "Payday" serving ably in its role as stalwart understudy, with a number of other worthies from "Ivanhoe" to "Better Than A Hit" always poised at the ready. And I guess it borders on heresy to suggest now that "The Book Of Too Late Changes" (from their 2016 album Death Of The Cool) has become my favorite Cotton Mather track. "The Book Of Too Late Changes" is just...everything, an over-the-top pop assault, with drumming that channels Keith Moon and a vocal tag that evokes classical influences while remaining wholly, unerringly rooted in classic, hyperbolic AM radio oomph. Heresy be damned. I am as Cotton Mather made me.

RICH FIRESTONE: If The Sun Doesn't Shine



Rich Firestone and his wife Kathy Firestone (collectively aka Reechie and Frodis) are among my longest-standing online pals. Our cyber-paths first crossed in the early '90s on Prodigy, probably on a board devoted to The Monkees. They've been good friends and dedicated supporters of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. We're proud to spin Reechie's solo debut, a cover of The Smithereens' "If The Sun Doesn't Shine," taken from The TM Collective's salute to The Smithereens' Green Thoughts album.

Rich is, of course, a long-time fan of The Smithereens; his heartfelt eulogy for the group's late frontman Pat DiNizio is one of this blog's most-read pieces, and the connection he and Kathy had with them forms the core of the Smithereens chapter in my book. If Rich's solo debut wasn't gonna be a Monkees song, it made perfect sense that it would be a Smithereens song.

(I say solo debut, because TIRnRR has indeed played Rich before, in other incarnations. Rich sings back-up on "I Could Be Good For You" by Steve Stoeckel and his This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio All-Stars on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 3, and he's one of the lead vocal participants in TIR'N'RR Allstars' "Waterloo Sunset" on Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio (available on CD or as a download); "Waterloo Sunset" even has a video to prove its Reechie content. And Mr. Firestone was the lead singer of The Tweakers, a legendarily obscure combo whose obscure legend should begin any minute now, and whose sole released work was "Super Secret Mystery Track" on the expanded This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 3. We played that track once on TIRnRR. I would tell you more about it, but then it wouldn't be a secret.)

And now, Rich Firestone takes the spotlight, covering a song from an album that meant an awful lot to him. He's backed up here by 3/4 of Pop Co-Op: Steve Stoeckel, Joel Tinnel, and Stacy Carson, with keyboard work by Alex Tinnel. (The fourth member of Pop Co-Op, Bruce Gordon, was unavailable when the track was recorded, busy in Gotham City helping Batman thwart another evil plan by the insidious Eclipso. A grateful world thanks Bruce for his service.) 



And Reechie? Reechie shines, man. More please, Reechie. More.


THE ISLEY BROTHERS: It's Your Thing



There seem to be at least three distinct, separate periods in The Isley Brothers' recording career (more if you wanna split up the period from 1969 on). There was their classic early period commencing just before the dawn of the 1960s, influencing The Beatles with "Shout" and "Twist And Shout." There was their Tamla-Motown period circa '66-'67, which yielded the hit "This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak For You)" and the shoulda-been hit "Got To Have You Back." And there was the period beginning in 1969, when The Isley Brothers started releasing work on their own label, T-Neck Records. "It's Your Thing" was the group's first hit on T-Neck.

"It's Your Thing" doesn't sound materially different from The Isleys' Tamla output, containing just the merest hint of some funkier underpinnings to follow in the '70s. But it was the start of something big. With their own label, The Isley Brothers had their thing, and did what they wanted to to do.

THE KINKS: See My Friends



I'm not 100% sure where I first heard The Kinks' 1965 single "See My Friends." I initially knew "See My Friends" from the great British group The Records, who included their version in an all-covers EP that came with the purchase of The Records' debut LP in 1979. My first exposure to The Kinks' original must have been Golden Hour Of The Kinks, a 1977 compilation I picked up as a budget cassette release in the mid '80s. With the possible exception of my bootleg live Flashcubes tape, Golden Hour Of The Kinks was my favorite cassette, even more so than the (then-) contemporary garage sampler Garage Sale. I listened to Golden Hour Of The Kinks over and over on the boom box my Uncle Carl gave Brenda and I as a wedding gift in 1984, with only a couple of Beatles tapes (Help! and Beatles For Sale) challenging its boom-box sovereignty. Golden Hour Of The Kinks hooked me on "Animal Farm," reinforced my adoration of "Days," "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion," "Till The End Of The Day," "Waterloo Sunset," "Dead End Street," "Shangri-La," and "You Really Got Me," and it introduced me to the original "See My Friends." Best cassette ever? A contender at the very least.

KISS: Shout It Out Loud



Another fond memory of my friend Tom is going to see KISS in 1976, my first rock concert. And yeah, "Shout It Out Loud" merits a chapter in The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1).

JUSTINE'S BLACK THREADS: Needles And Pins


"Vengeance" by Justine and the Unclean knocks me out, so we played it last week and again this week, and it was featured in last week's 10 Songs. A perfectly-clean Justine Covault also fronts Justine's Black Threads, whose debut album Cheap Vacation is due in June from Rum Bar Records. Their cover of "Needles And Pins" is available right now, a lovely alt-country take on this classic, a version that would make Jackie DeShannon, The Searchers, and The Ramones all say, "AWRIGHT!" I say it, too. 

LED ZEPPELIN: Communication Breakdown


I've never had quite the level of interest in Led Zeppelin as many of my peers. I don't think I ever actually disliked them, and I have occasionally cranked something from my modest Led Zep collection with the vim and vigor of those about to have their lemons squeezed. I don't listen to them often, but I do listen, and I do dig. As my book's chapter on "Communication Breakdown" explains:

I was never much of a Led Zeppelin fan; they were just there, everywhere, like inflation or TV sitcoms or halter tops, symptoms of my 1970s. (I was, incidentally, in favor of halter tops.) In the days of my youth, there were good Led Zep times, and there were bad Led Zep times. Sometimes I liked them, sometimes I didn't. And some times I thought there okay, but that I just really didn't need to hear them anymore. Good times, bad times, I know I had my share.

It's not a band's fault when their music gets overplayed. I can't imagine ever getting sick of The Beatles, but I do sort of comprehend the feeling of those who hear "Yeah Yeah Yeah!" and answer "No! No! NO!!!" I don't have much affinity for most of the tracks favored by classic rock radio formats; I wonder if I would have retained a greater appreciation of the music of Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Pink Floyd, or later Rolling Stones (each of whom I do like to some degree) or even Lynyrd Skynrd or The Eagles (whom I generally do not) if they were all obscurities I discovered in the vinyl underground, rather than ubiquitous fixtures on every stereo except mine.

But I like 'em when I like 'em. And I like "Communication Breakdown" a lot.

MARYKATE O'NEIL: I'm Ready For My Luck To Turn Around

Yeah, we've been playing this one a few times lately. Terrific track co-written by Marykate O'Neil and Jill Sobule, and an appropriate sentiment for the current landscape. On Monday morning I added the song to my Greatest Record Ever Made! book. It occupies a climactic spot near the book's end, nestled naturally between Stevie Wonder's "I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)" and Eytan Mirsky's "This Year Will Be Our Year." Belief feeds hope. 

If you're ready.


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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.

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 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).