10 SONGS: 12/6/2025

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.

This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1313

THE FLASHCUBES: The Sweet Spot

While I didn't get any books published in 2025, I'm insanely proud of the one major project I did manage to complete this year: Compiling and curating the various-artists blockbuster Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes for the mighty Big Stir Records label. The release of this salute to my all-time favorite power pop group was a dream come true, fulfilling my long-standing wish that some of the Flashcubes' outstanding original songs needed to be recognized and celebrated, in this case via fresh interpretations by a number of other rockin' pop bright lights, from Graham Parker and Mike Gent through Tom Kenny and the Hi-Seas. We even got the Flashcubes themselves to contribute three stellar new tracks, and each of those seems certain to be among TIRnRR's most-played tracks of 2025. (We'll find out for sure when we get to our COUNTDOWN! show on December 28th.)

Meanwhile, the good folks at Big Stir are doing their own well-deserved end of year victory lap with the release of the budget compilation 25 For '25: The Big Stir Records Hit Machine. With the CD priced at a mere $5 American, it presents a unique opportunity to program 2025 Big Stir winners by Sorrows, 20/20, Chris Church, the Bablers, Crossword Smiles, Nelson Bragg, Splitsville, the Spongetones, Maple Mars, Shplang, the Jack Rubies, Strawberry Alarm Clock, the Armoires, Hungrytown, Dolph Chaney featuring the Speed of Sound, the Pepper's Ghost Players, the Gold Needles, Lady Darkevyl, the Corner Laughers, Michael Simmons, and the Legal Matters in one swell foop. In one glorious, low-priced swell foop!

Since the above listing only presents 21 for '25, you would be correct in presuming the other four tracks are from the Flashcubes tribute: "Make Something Happen" by sparkle*jets u.k., "Gone Too Far" by Librarians With Hickeys. the Graham Parker-Mike Gent triumph "Pathetic," and the Flashcubes' "The Sweet Spot."

In my ongoing capacity as the world's most-insistent Flashcubes fan, I purchased my very own copy for my burgeoning collection of compilation albums that include a little sumpin by Syracuse's own power pop powerhouse. From Waves Vol. 1 in 1979 through 2025's I Wanna Be A Teen Again--American Power Pop 1980-1989, Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and now 25 For '25: The Big Stir Records Hit Machine, the lights remain bright and glow even brighter still. Smile everyone! It's the Flashcubes.

THE RAMONES: I'm Affected

The 2023 publication of my first book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones prompted me to reassess my feelings toward each of the Ramones' studio albums. I'd always regarded the first four albums--Ramones, Leave Home, Rocket To Russia, and Road To Ruin--as bedrock, while still thinking Road To Ruin was a slight step down from the essential Ramonesness of its three predecessors. Now, I regard Road To Ruin as the Ramones' masterpiece, but ya can't go wrong with any of that nonpareil set of 1-2-3-4!!

I'm still disappointed with the fifth album, 1980's End Of The Century, which has moments of promise, even brilliance, but just ain't in the same league as Ramones through Road To Ruin. As I wrote in my second book, 2024's The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):

"...By this point, legendary record producer Phil Spector viewed himself as the Ramones' anointed savior, and he wanted the chance to prove it. "Do you want to make a good record," he asked them, "or do you wanna make a great one?" His resumé of 45 rpm success was impressive, his early '60s Wall of Sound production responsible for the Ronettes and Crystals hits that were integral parts of the AM pop world during the formative years of the young Ramones-to-be. A perfect match?

"No. It was not a perfect match.

"Sure, the Spector-produced End Of The Century would be the Ramones' highest-charting album (albeit still with no radio hits), but his painstaking, glossy technique diluted the Ramones' power rather than enhancing it. Joey and Phil got along well--it's been said that Spector really wanted to produce a Joey Ramone solo LP--while Johnny despised Spector, and Spector pulled a gun on Dee Dee during the making of the album. End Of The Century has its moments, but it is nowhere near the equal of the four Ramones albums that preceded it. Spector delivered the opposite of what he'd promised: With Spector at the helm, the Ramones had made a good album rather than a great one...."

The album's lead-off track "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?" is perfect--there's a reason we named our little mutant radio show after a line in that song--and second track "I'm Affected" sure does rock, even with Spector's ham-handed weakening of its power. It would have been something to hear it as, y'know, a purer Ramones track.

(For the record: I'm also way fonder of the Ramones' sixth album Pleasant Dreams than I was before, and it now rivals its follow-up Subterranean Jungle for the # 5 spot on my Ramones Albums Hit Parade. I remain one of the few Ramones fans who thinks Too Tough To Die is merely...okay. The Ramones never made a bad studio album, and they only made one bad live album [Loco Live]. But yeah, some of the albums were better than others.)

THE HIGH FREQUENCIES: Cleanup Time

"Cleanup Time" is my fave among faves on the High Frequencies ace new album Get High, and that's a statement of Hell, YEAH! when you're dealing with an album as good as this. I wish I'd jumped on the track a tiny bit sooner than I did--mathematically, it's too late for "Cleanup Time" to accrue sufficient spins to secure a berth on the countdown show--but I betcha it would have otherwise cleaned up nicely.

JIMMY SILVA AND THE EMPTY SET FEATURING KIM WONDERLY: Train Crossing

Always steal from the best. When friend to TIRnRR Rich Firestone played this wonderful Jimmy Silva track on his fab Spark Radio show Radio Deer Camp last week, I immediately realized it was a programming idea well worth swiping outright. Thanks, Reechie! I've owned the track for many years, but sometimes you need a good DJ to remind you of what ya should have already known. Always, always steal from the best.

JIMMY CLIFF: Miss Jamaica

This week's show included a few spins in memory of reggae music icon Jimmy Cliff. From a previous 10 Songs:

As I think back, I can't remember where I first heard the music of Jimmy Cliff. I've never seen the film The Harder They Come, and I don't know when I was first exposed to Cliff's classic tracks "Many Rivers To Cross" and "You Can Get It If You Really Want It." The latter was included on the mix tapes I made for my daughter Meghan when she was little. My first vicarious contact with Cliff was likely the Animals' cover of "Many Rivers To Cross" on their 1977 reunion album Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted.

But I do know that I first heard Cliff's 1962 ska tune "Miss Jamaica" in 1992, when Dana played it one week on our old TIRnRR precursor We're Your Friends For Now on WNMA. The song is certainly unlike Cliff's subsequent and better-known reggae sides; it's agreeably goofy, and I immediately found the difference between early Jimmy Cliff and later Jimmy Cliff noteworthy and fascinating. 

THE OHMS: License To Kill

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

POPDUDES: Drivin' Around

This intrepid radio show has been carpet-bombing our playlists with selections from Play On: A Raspberries Tribute. This week's ritual Play On spin belongs to the always-reliable Popdudes, who give us an effervescently cruisin' take on Raspberrries' beach-bound classic "Drivin' Around." We have a lengthy and way cool history with Popdudes principals John M. Borack and Michael Simmons, and we're delighted to program their fine, fine music. Popdudes have appeared on several of the This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation CDs, John was a colleague when I was freelancing for Goldmine magazine (for whom John still writes), and Michael Simmons was the magic maestro masterin' the magnificent music on Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes. We're fans!!

We're also big fans of Michael's own music, both with his group sparkle*jets u.k. (whose most recent album Box Of Letters was one of the tippety-top best records of 2024) and as a solo guy. Our Michael has released a simply splendid new covers album called Fun Where You Can Find It, and it is an absolutely essential purchase. We've already played the album's cover of the Beach Boys' "Sail On, Sailor" back when it was a pre-release teaser, and we will open our next show with another fine shot of Fun Where You Can Find It.

Meanwhile: PLAY ON! Long hot days, we'll be catchin' the rays. Popdudes at the wheel. Let's cruise.

THE SLAPBACKS: Make Something Happen

THE LEGAL MATTERS: Everybody Knows

Speaking of John M. Borack, he was also the drummer on the world's first Flashcubes cover, the Slapbacks' "Make Something Happen." Man, that title is familiar. The Slapbacks provided this treat for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4 in 2017, and you can read that track's back story right here.

The Slapbacks were fronted by Keith Klingensmith, whose Futureman Records label is the digital home of most of the TIRnRR compilations. Keith's main rockin' pop recording gig is with indie sooperstars the Legal Matters, and that combo has a new album (Lost At Sea) due out on Big Stir in 2026. We started playing the advance single "Everybody Knows" last week, we played it again this week, it will spin again on our next show, and it's out in physical form on the 25 For '25 comp we extolled at the top of today's blog. Everybody knows? Everybody WINS!

JIMMY CLIFF: The Harder They Come

We will all fall. We are defined by how we stand before that inevitable fall. Across all rivers, Jimmy Cliff stood tall. Godspeed to one of reggae's enduring legends. 

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.

I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. 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.

10 SONGS: 12/1/2023

10 Songs is a weekly list of ten songs that happen to be on my mind at the moment. The lists are usually dominated by songs played on the previous Sunday night's edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. The idea was inspired by Don Valentine of the essential blog I Don't Hear A Single.

This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1209. This show is available as a podcast.

POPDUDES: She's An Obsession

I was chatting recently with my friend and fellow pop journalist John M. Borack. John's power pop bona fides meet the dictionary definition of "unassailable," and he and I agree on much, disagree on a little, and we're fans of each other's informed punditry even when our POVs diverge.

John's also a drummer, and he has a new album with the Armoires due out in the not-quite-near-enough future. One of John's other DBAs is Popdudes, a revolving-member aggregation that usually finds our John working with Michael Simmons of sparkle*jets u.k. Popdudes have just released a new covers collection, gathering sundry swell Popdudifications of material previously done by NRBQ, Paul McCartney, the Five Stairsteps, Elvis Costello, the Guess Who, Roy Orbison, Ringo Starr, and more.

The album's called Number Two, but it's # 1 on our playlist this week, as we open this week's show with Popdudes' rendition of 20/20's "She's An Obsession." You know the old saying: Starve a cold, feed an obsession. Happy to do our part here on TIRnRR.

HEY! Speaking of the Armoires, the group has a lovely and brand-new track called "Music & Animals," available on the new benefit compilation Embers Of Aloha: A Maui Wildfire Benefit Project. Let's cut-n-paste a little something about this album, courtesy of Eddie Van Finley:

"All proceeds of this special digital BENEFIT project will go to directly help the victims of the Maui Wildfires, which resulted in loss of property, homes, pets and loved ones. Your generous donation will help to provide immediate relief for the people of Lahaina and West Maui communities in the wake of this horrible disaster.

"Mahalo for the kind contributions of every artist on this compilation that have given of their time and talents to make this project possible. Please consider supporting these artists who have selflessly supported this cause. Artist information is contained in each track's info section.

"I'd like to thank Big Stir Records, JAM Records, JEM Records, Kool Kat Musik, David Beard (Endless Summer Quarterly) for their immeasurable guidance, kind encouragement and advice.

"Special thanks to Lisa Mychols (my tireless co-chair) and Nadja Dee (Artwork) for the constant forward momentum and positivity. And thank you to Michael McCartney, for being our catalyst, positive reinforcement and for Inspiring this project to come together with purpose, meaning and aloha.

"On behalf of everyone involved, "Mahalo nui loa" for supporting such a worthy cause and for making this an amazing compilation of songs!

"May EMBERS of ALOHA live in your heart. Always."

Embers Of Aloha is out TODAY. I bought it. You shoulda oughta buy it, too. Mahalo to the great Michael McCartney, radio's best friend. Mahalo to the island and its spirit. Mahalo to the Armoires. Mahalo to you for doing your part to help the wonderful people of Maui.

LOU RAWLS: Bring It On Home

From a previous edition of 10 Songs (2/23/2021):

"When I was an oldies-obsessed college student in the late '70s, there was one time when I sang an impromptu duet with a woman working at the campus snack bar, me doing most of the warbling on a snippet of Sam Cooke's 'Bring It On Home To Me.' She was surprised someone so young was familiar with the song to begin with, but, y'know, see above reference to oldies-obsessed. Truth to tell, I mostly knew the song from the Animals' cover version, but I knew Cooke's original, too. It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that I learned the secondary vocal on Cooke's recording was performed by a then-unknown Lou Rawls. You'll never find (dum dum dumdee dum) another secondary vocal like his (dum dum dumdee dum). Bring it on home, Lou."

I didn't realize that Rawls also released his own version of the song in 1970. Cool! I discovered it on a Lou Rawls best-of CD that I just picked up, and figured it would make a more'n appropriate TIRnRR spin. Lou Rawls covers Sam Cooke!

And yeah, I forgot Rawls sang on the original. Intrepid TIRnRR listener Mike Browning pointed out that Rawls' "Bring It On Home" was as much a remake as it was a cover (much like my own oft-cited instance of Merry Clayton's remake of "Gimme Shelter," seeing as how she's the one wailin' WAR, children! on the original Rolling Stones release). Good catch, Mike! Nice to have someone who can bring it when we need it.

THE RONSON HANGUP: Waxes & Wanes

This is stunning. From their new album Centaurus, the Ronson Hangup effectively channel the Hollies in an original song called "Waxes & Wanes." It's not an imitation or an homage; the vocals echo the Hollies without sounding like them, and for all I know I'm just imagining the comparison. But to my ears, this sounds like someone covering an undiscovered, previously unheard Hollies gem, and covering it well enough that I expect one or another Ronson Hangupper to break up the band so he can go hang with David Crosby and Stephen Stills instead. Irresistible.

MICKY DOLENZ: Radio Free Europe

Of the four tracks on Micky Dolenz's new EP Dolenz Sings R.E.M., "Radio Free Europe" is the only one where I don't flat-out prefer Micky's cover to the Athens-bred original. I didn't know R.E.M.'s "Leaving New York," but everyone with a radio and/or MTV knew "Shiny Happy People" and "Man On The Moon." It's a true credit to Dolenz and his musical director Christian Nesmith that they were able to stake ballsy dibs on such familiar work, and emerge with what I think are now the definitive versions.

"Radio Free Europe" presents a tougher challenge, if only because it's probably my favorite R.E.M. track. That specific, emotional tether to a beloved record is difficult to challenge...

...which makes it all the more amazing that Micky does challenge R.E.M.'s primacy on "Radio Free Europe." Dolenz and company manage a convincing, compelling, damned near magical remake of a song I've adored for decades, reimagining it, reinventing it, and giving me pause to consider the sheer audacity and accomplishment of what they've done. I can't quite let go of my entrenched and established affection for R.E.M.'s own "Radio Free Europe," and this shouldn't even be a close choice.

But it is. Damn, this Dolenz guy is good.

JACKIE BRENTSON AND HIS DELTA CATS: Rocket "88"

Jackie Brentson's seminal rock 'n' roll single "Rocket '88' " doesn't have an entry in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), but the track is mentioned within the chapters for two other songs. Let's mash 'em up here, from GREM! pieces about Big Mama Thornton and Ike and Tina Turner:

Where and when did rock 'n' roll start? There are a few key records that one could name as possibilities for the first rock 'n' roll record. "Rocket '88' " by Jackie Brentson and his Delta Cats (1951, and really Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm) is the closest we have to a consensus choice, though some would point to "The Fat Man" by Fats Domino (1950). I would at least add Amos Milburn's "Down The Road Apiece" (1947) to the discussion, and no less an authority than Lenny and Squiggy (on TV's Laverne And Shirley) spoke on behalf of "Call The Police," a 1941 single Nat King Cole made with the King Cole Trio. There are other progenitors and trailblazers from across the heady mingling of jump blues, R & B, country, and swing that birthed this bastard child we call rock 'n' roll. What was the daddy of them all? Not even a blood test is going to make that determination.

"Rocket '88' " can lay plausible claim to being the first rock 'n' roll record (though I still say it was Amos Milburn's "Down The Road Apiece"). On merit, Ike Turner should be celebrated as one of popular music's most important most artists. 

History does not remember him that way. He had only himself to blame for that. Revelation of his ongoing abuse of Tina Turner when they were married effectively reduced Ike Turner from headliner to deplorable footnote. 

Charles Manson was a frustrated musician and songwriter. O.J. Simpson was a celebrated athlete. Joe Meek. Gary Glitter. Bill Cosby. It's a long list of the famous and infamous. We celebrate the art. The artist may disappoint us.

Or worse.

KID GULLIVER: Forget About Him

We play favorites. With pop music, there's no sensible justification for objectivity. Pop music exists for the express purpose of getting into our ears, into our pores, into our vibratin' corpuscles, and into whatever else is ripe for gettin' into. Failure to play favorites would be as dumb as dumb can be.

Kid Gulliver's "Forget About Him" is a favorite, and more: It's a TIRnRR classic, reprised from the group's Kismet album for our own 2022 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 5. It's one of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio's greatest hits. Yeah it's a favorite. Gotta play the favorites.

THE CREATION: Making Time

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE RAMONES: Why Is It Always This Way?

More than 1200 shows in, I cannot believe we've never played this Rocket To Russia track on TIRnRR before this week. In last week's 10 Songs, I talked about how I'm starting to wonder if the Ramones' fourth album--1978's Road To Ruin--might really be the group's masterpiece. Whether that's true or not, its immediate predecessor Rocket To Russia also remains a contender, a Love At First Spin album for me, and the long-playing home of "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker," the record that changed my life. With last week's spin of "Bad Brain" and this week's ritual uppin' of the volume for "Why Is It Always This Way?," TIRnRR has now played each and every one of the tracks on Road To Ruin and Rocket To Russia at least once over the course of our long and bewildering tenure.. Let's see where the road takes that rocket next.

NICK LOWE: I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass

Er...okay? Breaking glass strikes me as an odd sound upon which one might fixate, but what the hell. Dig what you dig.

Smashing!

THE BEATLES: Here Comes The Sun

Syracuse got some snow this week. It wasn't as much as I expected us to get, and not nearly as much as was dumped upon areas to our north. My Tuesday evening commute invited repeated descriptions of Yuck!, but the TIRnRRmobile made its way back home to the suburbs. Accumulation on the ground and in the driveway at stately Carl Manor was minimal. The ol' Cub Cadet stood at the ready, but was not called into service this time. 

'Tis the season. And the season's just starting.

I don't love winter...but I accept it. I'm 63 years old, and I've lived in the Northeast my whole life. As a general rule, snow doesn't get me down. I bundle up. I fire up the ol' Cub Cadet when necessary. I've got the right tires for traction, the right music playing in the car, and (I hope) the right attitude to get through what needs getting through.

I don't know if Dana's pick to close this week's show with the Beatles' "Here Comes The Sun" was a deliberate Juju against the then-forthcoming lake effect snow warning, or just the welcome result of, y'know, that's a good one, we should play that one. Works for me!

Or maybe it was Dana's way of heralding our next show.

NEXT WEEK: We ignore the actual season, and celebrate an entirely different season. Yes, it's SUMMER IN DECEMBER! Counterprogramming the Holidays. We're either in willful denial or we think we're Australian. We'll have three hours of songs that make us think of summer. Winter can hold its icy water for one more week. This Sunday, December 3rd, we're hangin' ten with SUMMER IN DECEMBER!

SURF'S UP!!!

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. 

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

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

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, 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.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl

10 SONGS: 12/29/2022

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 # 1161: OUR PRAYER: Love, Hope, And Holding On. This show is available as a podcast.

THE BEACH BOYS: Our Prayer

When I was teenaged college student and early twenty-something college graduate in the late '70s and early '80s, I wasn't much of a Beach Boys fan. That opinion evolved, in large part due to the influence of Bill Yerger, owner of Main Street Records in my college town of Brockport, NY. "Carl," Bill said, "we're gonna make a Beach Boys fan out of you yet." It took a while, and it didn't really click until a few years later, but I don't know how or when it would have happened without the positive influence of Bill and his wife Carol Yerger. I was so lucky to know them.

I was seventeen when I went off to college at Brockport in August of '77. Endless Summer was the sum total of my Beach Boys music library, and all I was ever likely to need (missing only "Good Vibrations" from what I would have thought a complete collection of essential Beach Boys tracks). I did add Pet Sounds to the ol' CC archives before the end of my freshman year, purchased from Bill when he was managing The Record Grove, a year before he opened his own store.

I remained in Brockport for a couple of years after graduating in 1980. That's when the Yergers began to work on me. applying their own set of good vibrations. A pair of two-fer double-LP sets from Main Street's used bin brought Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, Friends, and 20/20 into my collection. That was the first time I heard "Our Prayer."

It would be inaccurate to say my introduction to "Our Prayer" was some immediate revelation; as noted, it wasn't until years later that I realized my folly in delaying my full-on embrace of Hawthorne's Finest. When we settled on the theme for this week's special show, I knew we had to call it OUR PRAYER, and that we needed to open the show with the Beach Boys. 

Our prayer is for love, for hope, and for the ability to hold on. Our prayer is for friends, and our prayer is for music. Sometimes, our prayer is answered. Thank you, Bill and Carol. 

THE RASCALS: People Got To Be Free

I had the good fortune to see the Rascals at a club show sometime around the close of the '80s. It was 3/4 of the original Rascals line-up, with Felix Cavaliere, Gene Cornish, and Dino Danelli present and accounted for, missing only Eddie Brigati. All four Rascals eventually played a show at Syracuse's Landmark Theater in this bright 'n' shiny new millennium, but another commitment prevented me from attending. I wished I coulda made it, but it wasn't in the cards.

Dino Danelli passed away two weeks ago. He was an extraordinarily talented drummer; even though the Rascals are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I'm not sure the group gets all the credit they deserve, and I don't think Danelli's name comes up often enough in discussions of the great rock 'n' roll drummers.

Some time back, I started writing a celebration of the Rascals' (or the Young Rascals') "Good Lovin'" for my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). I never completed the entry, and it's not part of the book's current plan, but its opening paragraph is worth noting here:

"Little Steven says garage rock is 'white kids trying to play black rhythm and blues and failing--gloriously.' Fair enough. So what do we call it when a white group tries to play soul music, and succeeds? We could call that the Young Rascals."

What a great, great group. Rest in peace, Dino.

ARETHA FRANKLIN: I Say A Little Prayer

If you're gonna bill a radio show as OUR PRAYER: Love, Hope, And Holding On, you had best give Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin her due chance to testify. Doesn't even matter if her testimony in this case happens to secular; a prayer's a prayer, man.

MELANIE WITH THE EDWIN HAWKINS SINGERS: Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

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

In this sublime gem that opens Marykate O'Neil's 2006 album 1-800-Bankruptcy, O'Neil and co-writer Jill Sobule declare readiness for luck to finally turn around. At some point in our lives, we all relate to that wish. Here's a bit of what I wrote about the song for The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1);

"...I'm ready for my luck to turn around.

"I used to say that I was made out of hope. Maybe I still am. Marykate O'Neil's wonderful track was one of my most beloved security blankets in 2020, first as I attempted to calibrate my own frustrations and expectations, and then more gravely as the year became...that year. I don't think O'Neil designed the song to be a comfort for anyone. That's just how it turned out. Ultimately, even the artist's own goals fall away as the audience adopts the work as its own. 

"I'm ready for my luck to turn around. As this world continues to give us more and more reason to question what we think we know, to lose faith in what we believe to be unshakeable truth, it's a sentiment worth adopting as both shield and sword. Stand by me. 

"If you're ready."

GREAT BUILDINGS: Hold On To Something

Recommended if you like [your Fave Rave here].

RIYLs can help us find new favorites. But they can also create a false and unfair expectation. In 1981, I read somewhere (possibly in CREEM, maybe in Trouser Press) that Great Buildings were like a male counterpart to the Go-Go's. I believe it was meant as a compliment, and since Beauty And The Beat was my top album that year, the comparison provided sufficient push for me to purchase Great Buildings' Apart From The Crowd LP before I had ever heard a note of the group's music.

And I was disappointed. It didn't sound anything at all like the Go-Go's. I filed it away.

I came back to it, though. Freed of the misconception that it would sound like boys singin' original tunes that channeled "We Got The Beat," I grew to appreciate the LP on its own sterling merit. Opening track "Hold On To Something" freaking knocked me out, once I gave it its proper opportunity. 

Great Buildings' Danny Wilde and Ian Ainsworth had been in the Quick, whose quirky 1976 cover of the Beatles' "It Won't Be Long" got some airplay on Utica's WOUR-FM when I was in high school. After Great Buildings closed up shop, Wilde went solo, and eventually reconnected with Great Buildings guitarist Phil Solem to form the Rembrandts. The Rembrandts scored a Top 20 hit with "Just The Way It Is, Baby," and achieved pop culture immortality with "I'll Be There For You," the theme from Friends. Maybe you're sick of that song--dig what you dig--but it was the number one song on the radio the week my daughter was born, and I will always, always cherish that memory.

Comparing Great Buildings to the Go-Go's was a fake-out, and the disparity between what was teased and what was delivered turned me off. Initially. But without that PSYCH! moment, would I have even gotten around to hearing Great Buildings at the time? No harm, no foul. The apparent dead end of that RIYL still led me to "Hold On To Something," a magnificent track that has now been in my all-time Hot 200 for four decades. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Baby, baby, baby, hold on.

POPDUDES: Share The Land

Going into the planning session for this week's show, our list of potential tracks included three songs associated with the Guess Who: the group's own fabulous rendition of "No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature," the Halfcubes' ace (but currently unreleased) cover of "Hand Me Down World," and this capable take on "Share The Land," courtesy of Popdudes. The Popdudes track made it into the show, and it comes to us from the terrific various-artists set We All Shine On: Celebrating The Music Of 1970. We All Shine On scored some significantTIRnRR airplay this year--we'll hear one of its other tracks in our countdown show this Sunday--and "Share The Land" is certainly among the album's many highlights.

THE RAMONES: Do You Wanna Dance

A new year looms. I'm going to be mentioning the Ramones a lot in 2023. Wanna dance? I sure hope so.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: Girls In Their Summer Clothes

Love's a fool's dance

I ain't got much sense but I still got my feet

The original plan was to close the main portion of OUR PRAYER with the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again," setting up Eytan Mirsky's incredible "This Year's Gonna Be Our Year" as our post-signoff bonus track. We wound up running way, way over time, so we hadda remodel the plan a bit. Some songs came out, some songs came in, and a few tracks were moved around. All in the service of building a better playlist.

Bruce Springsteen's "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" was going to occupy this week's Greatest Record Ever Made! spot (because it is, after all, The Greatest Record Ever Made!). Figuring the paradox of fragile durability expressed in "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" provided an appropriate note to conclude our theme, we moved Melanie into the GREM! slot and switched Bruce into the finale. Bruce, in turn, set up Eytan for the encore.

(And yeah, Eytan Mirsky's "This Year's Gonna Be Our Year" is also The Greatest Record Ever Made! An infinite number, my friends, as long as they take turns.)

EYTAN MIRSKY: This Year's Gonna Be Our Year

That's our prayer. Every year. Every day. This year? Why the hell not?

Like Eytan Mirsky, Spider-Man is also from Forest Hills

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider supporting this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon, or by visiting CC's Tip Jar. Additional products and projects are listed here.

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.

10 SONGS: 11/23/2022

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 # 1156. This week's show is available as a podcast.

LIBRARIANS WITH HICKEYS: I Better Get Home

This sublime song (and current single) from Librarians With Hickeys' recent album Handclaps & Tambourines has already established itself as a TIRnRR Fave Rave. There's a new video to go with it, and we endorse the video, the song, and the album with all the celebratory HEY!s we can muster.

We are broken. You can see that graffiti scrawled near a heart on a wall, as depicted in the video and in the cover graphic for the single. The group's Ray Carmen sits atop that crumbling wall, looking upon the words, perhaps contemplating the melancholy they express.

It suits the song. Sometimes it suits my mood, too. This Thanksgiving week, it seems a suitable choice to open our show.

HEY! Let's play it again next week! With our best thoughts of home in mind, the holidays won't even know what hit them.

THE TEMPTATIONS: Superstar (Remember How You Got Where You Are)

While we don't necessarily believe that Little Steven Van Zandt stole TIRnRR's format to create Underground Garage--well, Dana believes it, but I'm not sure--the similarities are certainly there. Given the fact that TIRnRR does predate Underground Garage, I'm not ashamed to admit when we do the turnabout-is-fair-play bit and nick an idea from one of the many fine shows on the SiriusXM Underground Garage channel. I'm a subscriber. More great radio shows mean more great radio.

I wish I'd made specific note of which fab Underground Garage jock played the Temptations' "Superstar (Remember How You Got Where You Are)" last week. I think it was either Michael Des Barres or Palmyra Delran, but I'm not testifying in either case. Whoever it was, thank you Mr./Ms. DJ! Your airplay of this wonderful Tempts tune prompted me to dig the track out of my own CD library for TIRnRR programming purposes. We are one!

But, uh...make no mistake: Little Steven still owes us a beer.

THE COCKTAIL SLIPPERS: St. Valentine's Day Massacre

Hey, speakin' of Little Steven, and speaking of melancholy, please welcome back to the TIRnRR stage: the Cocktail Slippers! Little Steven himself wrote this one, and it earns a defiantly tear-stained spot in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):

"Van Zandt's lyrics here imply a lovers' drama playing out in rapidly elapsing time. Was it adventure, was it fear, or sanctuary? Modesty Blaze's voice is tinged with both regret and resignation as she sings; behind her and with her, her band of sisters seems hellbent on holding an Irish wake for broken hearts. Across the calendar pages that fly by with cruel indifference--Thanksgiving night, Christmas morning, New Year's Eve--a love that can't even evolve from pencil to ink careens toward its inevitable erasure come the 14th of February. Now even your carrier pigeons have been picked off by the vultures/There's only one thing left for you to confess.... The song flies to its foregone conclusion on a conjugal bed of the most bittersweet la la la la lala las in rock 'n' roll history....

":...After those faux but convincing garage rockers the Twylight Zones performed 'The St. Valentine's Day Massacre' in Not Fade Away, Little Steven hisself recorded the little ditty for the 2017 Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul album Soulfire. Not to slight the song's author, nor to diss a made-for-the-movies band already dealing with the handicap of never actually existing in the first place, the song will always belong to five women from Norway who asked if they were still penciled in on your calendar. I know you're busy directing your life-long documentary/You never mentioned what part you wanted me to do...

"....Who'll be the last lover standing? Whether they liked it or not, the Cocktail Slippers knew the answer to that one. La, la, la, la, lala, la."

POPDUDES: Share The Land

The esteemed John M. Borack--writer, drummer, debonaire man about town--is the mastermind at the helm of We All Shine On: Celebrating The Music Of 1970, a superb various-artists tribute to the sounds of '70. A joint release from the combined forces of SpyderPop Records and Big Stir Records, We All Shine On came out this summer, and I think one or another of its tracks has seen TIRnRR airplay nearly every week since then.

John's group Popdudes contributes this cover of the Guess Who's 1970 smash "Share The Land," with (fittingly!) shared lead vocals from Michael Simmons and Robbie Rist, and it was the first of two covers of 1970 Guess Who hits we played this week (see below). It was also the first part of a Robbie Rist twin-spin, as we followed "Share The Land" with Robbie's own combo Ballzy Tomorrow, singin' a song from our current compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 5. Worth sharing!

THE CYNICS: Girl, You're On My Mind

Dana's been on a little bit of a Cynics kick lately, and we all benefit from that. "Girl, You're On My Mind" is my # 1 top Cynics track, written by Bernard Kugel of Buffalo's phenomenal fuzz combo the Mystic Eyes. I knew Bernie a little when I lived in Buffalo in the '80s, and I was just thrilled when the Cynics' circa 1990 video for "Girl, You're On My Mind" scored a spin on MTV 120 Minutes. The song still gets the ol' blood a-thumpin' and a-pumpin' like Rock 'N' Roll oughtta.

THE FLASHCUBES FEATURING RANDY KLAWON: Get The Message

THE HALFCUBES: Hand Me Down World

In my proud, long-standing (and self-appointed) role as the Flashcubes' most insistent fan, I love their original songs even more than I love their cover tunes. My possession of a pulse means I also love the covers they've recorded. The Flashcubes have always been armed with great taste and great ability to execute. The 'Cubes renditions of various ace gems previously done by the likes of the Move, Chris Spedding, Badfinger, the Bay City Rollers, and Paul Collins' Beat are wonderful, live covers of the Who, the Kinks, Arthur Alexander, Eddie Cochran, Link Wray, the Raspberries, Larry Williams (via the Beatles), and Big Star captured on Flashcubes On Fire are the sonic equivalent of amphetamines, and I think the Flashcubes' version of "Do Anything You Wanna Do" somehow edges beyond Eddie and the Hot Rods' seemingly nonpareil original. I'm biased--I'm a FAN!!--but the evidence is in the grooves. Cubic grooves.

All of the above serves as explanation for why the Flashcubes' current series of digital singles for Big Stir Records has been so compelling: enthusiastic and riveting new versions of rockin' pop classics, usually recorded in partnership with either the original artist or a like-minded performer. Each single has been the percolatin' embodiment of Oh HELL yeah!!

I believe the current single--a collaboration with Ohio '60s pop legend Randy Klawon, covering Cyrus Erie's 'Get The Message" (written in 1968 by Eric Carmen)--is the best one yet. That, my friends, is saying something.

Randy Klawon also joins Flashcubes bassist Gary Frenay and drummer Tommy Allen to form the Halfcubes, alongside Mike Kallet and Nick Frenay. The Halfcubes' cover of the Guess Who's "Hand Me Down World" is unreleased for now, but I betcha we'll be hearing more of it as part of a forthcoming various-artists project. Taste and execution. This part of the pop world is in good hands.

THE KINKS: You Really Got Me

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

TALL POPPY SYNDROME: Come Some Christmas Eve (Or Halloween)

From our absolutely irresistible compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 5, Tall Poppy Syndrome's ace invigmoration of the Bee Gees' "Come Some Christmas Eve (Or Halloween)" isn't really about either one of its titular holidays. So we felt secure in blasting it now, in this time frame smack dab in between visits from the Great Pumpkin and Santa Claus. A fantastic track in any season.

THE RAMONES: Sheena Is A Punk Rocker

The record that changed my life. Dana and I had already settled the playlist when I realized that this week also marked the 45th anniversary of the first time I heard "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" by the Ramones. In November of 1977, less than two months shy of my 18th birthday, I was already an enthusiastic rockin' pop addict, a dyed-in-the-wool Beatles, Monkees, Kinks, and Dave Clark Five fanatic, and a burgeoning punk rocker. Listening to that "Sheena" 45 shifted everything--everything--into overdrive. It's not an exaggeration. The first spin of "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" changed my life.

Looking at the calendar for November of 1977, I've gotta guess it was either Wednesday the 23rd or Thursday the 24th--Thanksgiving Day--when my ears opened, my eyes widened, and my mind kaleidoscoped as I listened to a 2:45 single over and over for twenty minutes or more. 

I couldn't let that anniversary slide by without commemoration. 45 years! A 45 that changed my life. I'll be speaking about the Ramones a lot in 2023. The manifestation of that ongoing obsession started here: Thanksgiving week, 1977. I remain grateful. Thanksgiving really has it all. Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh YEAH...!

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider supporting this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon, or by visiting CC's Tip Jar. Additional products and projects are listed here.

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

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl