10 SONGS: GABBA GABBA HEY! A Celebration Of THE RAMONES

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.

The second of two editions of 10 Songs this week draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1183: GABBA GABBA HEY! A Celebration Of The Ramones. This show is available as a podcast.

THE RAMONES: Blitzkrieg Bop

Hype first: I wrote a book about the Ramones. It's called Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones, and its recent publication made me wanna program a lot of Ramones into the ol' TIRnRR playlists throughout April and May. That plan culminated in this Memorial Day weekend special edition, celebrating all things Ramones and Ramones-related.

HEY-HO, LET'S GO!! It seemed imperative to start the show with "Blitzkrieg Bop." And since my book presents my 1994 interviews with Joey, Johnny, Marky, and C.J., we went with an in-concert recording of that line-up, from the album Greatest Hits Live. 

The kids are losing their minds? 

Okay by me!

THE BAY CITY ROLLERS: Saturday Night

It's been documented elsewhere, but I dig the specific phrasing Johnny Ramone used when telling me about the genesis of "Blitzkrieg Bop." We played a clip of Johnny's comments on the show, right after we played "Blitzkrieg Bop:"

JOHNNY: We started out, and I think we wanted to be a bubblegum band. At one point, the Bay City Rollers were becoming popular. They had written “Saturday Night,” and we then sat down and said, “We have to write a song with a chant in it, like they have.” So, we wrote “Blitzkrieg Bop.” Somehow, in our warped minds, I think we thought we were a bubblegum group.

CC: You weren’t that far off, that’s the thing that’s amazing. I think a lot of us had to have it pointed out to us, but it’s really not that far of a jump from the Bay City Rollers to the Ramones. 

And then we played the Rollers. S! A! T-U-R! D-A-Y! NIGHT! Hey-ho, let's go. No, not that far of a jump at all. It's all pop music. See? The kids are losing their minds! Keep on dancing to the rock 'n' roll.

THE BEATLES: I Saw Her Standing There

Her Majesty's Ramones. I often call the Ramones "the American Beatles." The phrase refers to the Ramones' sheer impact upon me and many others, and ignores the vast disparity in record sales between the two groups. If the Ramones were to issue a counterpart to the Beatles' megacolossalsupersizedselling collection 1, the Ramones would have to use a negative number.

The Beatles' influence was huge, and they for damned sure influenced the Ramones. And apart from whatever other material inspiration the Beatles provided for the Ramones, there's one specific element at the beginning of "I Saw Her Standing There" that affected ever single live show the Ramones ever did, and it likewise affected a few of their studio recordings.

What element is that?

Take it, Paulie!

One-two-three-FAH!!

Dee Dee (and C.J.) made note of that. 

DUST: All In All

A Ramones celebration requires music performed by the Ramones, whether as Ramones or in individual works outside of the group's aegis. We played a number of Joey's extracurricular projects. We played three of C.J.'s solo tracks. We played "Good Rockin' Tonight" by Lemmy, Johnny Ramone, Danny B. Harvey and Slim Jim Phantom (the only non-Ramones release I'm aware of Johnny doing). We played Dee Dee solo. We played Teenage Head with Marky Ramone. 

And we played Marky's first group Dust. From the book:

CC: Marky, you recorded with Dust and with Richard Hell and the Voidoids before joining the Ramones. Was Dust your first band?

MARKY: Yeah, that was in high school. I was sixteen years old when I did the first album, and I think I was in tenth grade at Erasmus High School on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. And the other two guys I grew up with; the guitar player’s name is Richie Wise, and the bass player’s name is Kenny Aaronson. We put out two albums on Buddah Records, which was a subsidiary of Kama Sutra, which was run by Neil Bogart. We toured with Alice Cooper and Ike and Tina Turner at the time, and Uriah Heep and a lot of different bands.

But still, we were only 16 years old, and the group disbanded after two albums. That, I guess, was right after I graduated or got out of high school at the age of 18. So, Kenny decided to join Stories, of “Brother Louie” [fame], and had a hit for, I think, two weeks; it was number one in the summer of ’73. The guitar player went on to produce KISS, the first two albums, KISS and Hotter than Hell. 

I was not at all familiar with Dust, but "All In All" rocks, in a decidedly and agreeably '70s way. It doesn't sound like KISS--maybe closer to the pre-KISS Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley group Wicked Lester--but you can still hear why Richie Wise was an appropriate choice to co-produce (with Kenny Kerner) those first two KISS LPs.

SIBLING RIVALRY: See My Way

I know of two errors I made in my Ramones book, both of which appear near the book's end. I mistakenly claim I saw the Ramones nine times; cross-referencing my recollection with comprehensive lists of the entirety of the Ramones' tour history, I can only verify eight Ramones shows for me. I must have double-counted one of the four times I saw 'em in Buffalo in the '80s. In fairness to me, it was the '80s, after all.

A much happier mistake involves Joey Ramone's surprise phone call to me, a week or so after we'd done the interview. Because I wasn't expecting the call, my memory convinced me that there was no way--no friggin' way--I had the presence of mind to record it.

I did record it. The tape exists, and I recently found it, stuffed in a box in my garage. Sometimes you're happy to be wrong.

We played two little excerpts from that tape on our Ramones special. We heard Joey talking about working with General Johnson of the Chairmen of the Board on a beach soul remake of "Rockaway Beach." And we heard Joey talking about his brother, Mickey Leigh:

JOEY: Right now, I’m working on a project with my brother. His name is Mickey Leigh. Years back, he had a band called the Rattlers that a lot of people know about. He’s done a lot of work throughout, working with different people. Like Lester Bangs, he had a band with him called Birdland. I guess he’s had a few bands recently, a band named Tribe, and Crown the Good. But right now, he’s got a new band. I always wanted to work with him because I think he’s a really talented guy, a great songwriter, great guitar player, he’s got a great style, real original and exciting. So, he’s working with kind of a three-piece situation right now. His new songs, I think, are great, and so we decided to do a project together. We’re gonna call it Sibling Rivalry, because that’s how brothers are. It’s a reworked version of Blodwyn Pig’s “See My Way.” It was a very obscure English band, and it’s a great song, and he rearranged it and it’s like much better than the original. So, we’re gonna do the song, take different parts in the vocals. Daniel Rey’s the producer, and it’s comin’ out great.

I loved Joey and Mickey's "See My Way" as soon as I heard it. It was a no-brainer that our Ramones special would include that, as well as the Rattlers' 1979 single "On The Beach," which featured a guest appearance by Joey.

In a tangent unrelated to the book or the radio show, this week I saw a Facebook post from Mickey Leigh, dismissing haters and emphasizing that he and Joey were supporters and fans of each other's work. Joey's comments above prove that was true. So I told Mickey about it.

I don't know Mickey. We're just Facebook friends, and we have had no interaction prior to this. But I was touched beyond description by Mickey's response:

"Don't know whether to smile or cry. But I gotta say THANK YOU for this and I'm so glad I just happened to catch it!!"

Man. How often do you get a chance to offer anything--anything--of substance to the family of someone whose work meant such a great deal to your own life? Those opportunities are rare. I'm absolutely delighted I had this chance. You're welcome? No, Mickey--thank YOU.

RONNIE SPECTOR: She Talks To Rainbows

This Ramones tribute's concept required examples of a lot of other artists covering Ramones songs. We needed to hear the Ramones Songbook as interpreted by Rockaway Bitch, KISS, Josie Cotton, the Pretenders, the Flashcubes, Hayley and the Crushers, Miriam, Green Day, Shonen Knife, Weird Al Yankovic, P. J. Soles, and more. And we needed to hear Veronica. We needed Ronnie Spector.

Without checking pesky things like, y'know, facts, my memory says the late, great Ronnie Spector released a total of three Ramones covers. The first was, I think, an early '80s cover of "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow." And Spector's Joey Ramone-produced EP She Talks To Rainbows offered two more Ramonesongs, the title tune and "Bye Bye Baby."

"Here Today, Gone Tomorrow" is represented on this playlist with a performance by the late Lisa Marie Presley. Ronnie sings "She Talks To Rainbows." Joey approved. So do we. 

THE RAMONES: I Wanna Be Sedated [Ramones-On 45 Mega-Mix!]

One doesn't normally associate the Ramones with extended dance mixes. That seeming dichotomy works to perfection in "I Wanna Be Sedated [Ramones-On-45 Mega-Mix!]."

It's loud. It's danceable. It's the bubblepunk of the Ramones caught makin' out with club chicks. It's "I Wanna Be Sedated" set to a heavier beat, with bits of "Blitzkrieg Bop," "Teenage Lobotomy," and "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" edited in, peppered with prerequisite dance-mix Sensurround moves, but retaining a far-from-sedate line-of-sight with the purity of the Ramones.

I should hate this. I freakin' love it. Awright, all you punks 'n' bumpin' bunnies alike: we can't control our fingers, we can't control our brains. Can't control our feets, either. BAMbambumpbam, ba-bambambumpbam. We know what we want.

THE SIMPSONS [THE RAMONES WITH HARRY SHEARER]: Happy Birthday, Mr. Burns

From the book:

CC: How did the Ramones’ appearance on The Simpsons come about?

MARKY: The guy who runs the show, or who is in charge of the show, is a fan. He wanted a song, so he found out that we were in New York, and he came down to the studio and asked us to say a few lines. So, we said our lines and he recorded them. He took some photos back, and they worked on the photos on how supposedly we looked to the artist there. And that’s how we got on the show. We sang “Happy Birthday” to Mr. Burns.

CC: It’s like the Standells appearing on The Munsters. It’s a classic moment in TV history.

MARKY: That was great. Do you remember F Troop? They had a thing with “Mr. Tambourine Man.”

CC: Oh, yeah, yeah. I remember that.

MARKY: That was wild. That was funny.

JOHNNY: I don’t know who got it for us. They just did it, and we went to the studio on Fourteenth Street, said our lines, recorded “Happy Birthday.” It took us longer to figure out how to play “Happy Birthday” than it did to record it. It became difficult to play because you only hear it a cappella. Took us a while to figure it out, fooling around with it for about half an hour or an hour, which is long.

C .J.: The Simpsons I wasn’t surprised about. They have a lot of bands, like underground type bands on it, not even underground, like, you can’t call the Chili Peppers and AC/DC underground, but you can call them, like, I don’t know. I could just picture us being more on The Simpsons than I could on the Leno show, which we also did.

CC: Still, after all these years, the Ramones never appeared on Saturday Night Live, which I find amazing.

C. J.: Isn’t that incredible or what? 

C. J., "incredible" ain't the half of it. Smithers, have the SNL guys, er...well, inconvenience them a little, anyway. No need to get rough.

AMY RIGBY: Dancing With Joey Ramone

"RAMONES" by Mötorhead and "Dancing With Joey Ramone" by Amy Rigby are the two all-time finest tributes to the Ramones. As I said yesterday, not even celestial intervention could have kept either track out of our Ramones special. Rigby's song earns a chapter in my long-threatened next book, The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):

Does Amy Rigby dream about the Ramones? We have a song here that says she does, and her autobiography Girl To City suggests it as well. Rigby was an active and avid fan of the scenes at CBGB's and Max's Kansas City in the '70s and '80s, and if the folkier and janglier aspects of her music seem to separate her muse from the grunge of Bowery and Bleecker, rest assured that muse wears a leather jacket, chain-smokes, and swears like a muthuh. Seriously: do not cross Amy Rigby's muse. That damned muse will cut you as soon as look at you.

But "Dancing With Joey Ramone" does not concern itself with the perceived seamier aspects of punk or underground pop. It is a bittersweet (mostly sweet) celebration of the joy within the Ramones' music. It borders on the giddy, in a good way, delighting in the thrill of dancing with the departed Joey, trying to copy every move he makes, swaying to the sounds of the Temptations, the Crystals, the Dave Clark Five, the Searchers, the Ronettes, the Coasters, the Shadows of Knight, the Brooklyn Bridge, and "Hanging On The Telephone," by Blondie or the Nerves, or both. It is engaging and happy, human, a fond and fanciful remembrance of a unique singer taken from this mortal world before the world ever quite got around to showing its appreciation for his work. Well, we closed our eyes for a minute, and then he was gone.

But it is as Amy says: the music kept playing, on and on and on and on. It plays still. Amy Rigby understands. The dream of the dance. You know how dreams are. 

THE RAMONES: I Don't Want To Grow Up

The Ramones' final album, 1995's ¡Adios Amigos!, opens with this line-in-the-sand statement of intent, a Ramonesified cover of Tom Waits' "I Don't Want To Grow Up." And I take great satisfaction in the fact that a track on the very last Ramones record is among my all-time Fave Raves, right alongside the irresistible music on the Ramones' first four albums at the end of the '70s. Grow up? As if.

We're told that growing up is inevitable. It isn't. We age, sure, but there's more to life and living than the accumulation of calendar pages. What do you want to be when you grow up? When I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer. Somewhere along the way, I figured out I could be a better writer if skipped the maturity phase entirely. Honestly, I don't think I could have hacked adulting. Grow up! I say no. Why on Earth would I ever wanna do that?

Understand: I'm not Peter Pan, nor do I wish to be. I have responsibilities, and I carry them out. That's part of the deal, and that's cool. We can accomplish stuff, serious shit, without abandoning the sense of glee that helped get us this far.

Because I am proudly and emphatically a 63-year-old kid who still dreams, still reads superhero comic books, still listens to my rockin' pop music a little louder than I should. 

And I wrote a book. It's a book crafted by the wide-eyed spark that's always driven me, whether I was a six-year-old discovering Batman or a teenager hearing "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" for the first time.

As always: Growing up is for squares, man. The Ramones weren't gonna do it. We don't have to do it either. Don't want to. Won't need to. Ain't gonna.

IN-PERSON EVENT! On June 29, I will be making an in-store appearance at GENERATION RECORDS, 210 Thompson Street in NYC on behalf of my  new book GABBA GABBA HEY! A CONVERSATION WITH THE RAMONES. The book contains my 1994 interviews with Joey, Johnny, Marky, and C.J., which were cited by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as essential reading. I'll be at Generation to chat with fellow Ramones fans, talk about the book, the interviews, and how the music of the Ramones impacted my life. If you are in the New York area on June 29th, I would love to see you at Generation Records. Hey-ho, let's GO! 

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.

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/

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

10 SONGS: GABBA GABBA HEY! The Cutting Room Floor

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 is the first of two editions of 10 Songs this week. Tomorrow's entry will discuss some tracks from This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1183, our special GABBA GABBA HEY! A Celebration Of The Ramones. Today's post deals with ten worthy Ramones-related tracks that were considered for this week's playlist, but ultimately left out.

THE HEARTBREAKERS: Chinese Rocks

Some tracks are omitted from playlists as a result of the normal give-and-take of slappin' a show together. This is equally true whether it's one of our normal weekly Dana & Carl collaborative set lists, or a solo programming effort like the annual Dana's Funky Soul Pit! extravaganzas or this week's Ramones special. We have three hours of airtime, including patter. Some things fit within the time slot. Some things do not.

But omitting the Heartbreakers' "Chinese Rocks" this week was a straight-up mistake on my part. The song was written by Dee Dee Ramone, probably co-written with the Heartbreakers' then-bassist Richard Hell. Johnny Ramone vetoed "Chinese Rocks" as a Ramones song (because of its heroin references), so the Heartbreakers did it instead. Johnny later reversed his decision, and the Ramones recorded it a few years later for their fifth album End Of The Century.

The Ramones' version (called "Chinese Rock") was produced by Phil Spector, and it did not match what the Heartbreakers did with the song. Spector was very much the wrong choice to produce "Chinese Rocks." Oddly enough, the first time I heard "Chinese Rocks" was when the Ramones performed it live on July 6, 1979, a few months before I scored my copy of the Heartbreakers' fantastic Live At Max's Kansas City LP, and certainly before the 1980 release of End Of The Century.

And our Ramones special should have included the Heartbreakers! My bad. I also considered "I Love You"--my favorite Heartbreakers track, and a song the Ramones covered on ¡Adios Amigos!--but I knew "Chinese Rocks" was an essential choice. I wrote it down in my notes. I forgot to put it into the work-in-progress playlist, and therefore forgot about it when assembling the actual show. My girlfriend's cryin' in the shower stall. Oops.

RICHARD HELL AND THE VOIDOIDS: Blank Generation

I knew I wanted to include something by Dust, which had been Marky Ramone's first group. I also wanted to play either "Blank Generation" or "Love Comes In Spurts" by Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Marky's group immediately prior to joining the Ramones. Dust made it into the show, but I wound up cutting the Voidoids. 

DIE TOTEN HOSEN [WITH JOEY RAMONE]: Blitzkrieg Bop

Other than deciding (enthusiastically!) to play two versions of "I Wanna Be Sedated"--an elevator music cover by the Nutley Brass and the Ramones' epic "Ramones-On-45 Mega-Mix!"--I was determined not to duplicate songs. One "Rockaway Beach" (General Johnson and Joey Ramone). One "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" (Josie Cotton). And one "Blitzkrieg Bop." 

Our designated "Blitzkrieg Bop" was gonna be a remake by German group Die Toten Hosen, from their 1991 album Learning English, Lesson One. Joey Ramone hisself shows up here to sing along, and the result is nearly as invigorating as the nonpareil original.

My blueprint was solid. I was going to play a clip of my 1994 interview with Johnny, so our listeners could hear him crediting the Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night" as the specific inspiration for "Blitzkrieg Bop," follow that with the Rollers chantin' S!A!T-U-R! D-A-Y! NIGHT!!, and then the combined forces of Joey with Die Toten Hosen answering HEY-HO, LET'S GO! Foolproof!

Proper staging demanded a different approach. It seemed to me the show really needed to open with a cry of "Hey-ho, let's go!," and I didn't want our first song to be by anyone else but the Ramones. I also wanted our first selection to include the four Ramones I interviewed--Joey, Johnny, Marky, and C. J. Ramone--which meant a live version of "Blitzkrieg Bop." Then Johnny talking about Bay City revelations, and the Rollers singin' about their favorite weekend evening. 

It was the only opening sequence that made sense. We'll get to to Die Toten Hosen on a near-future show.

RODNEY & THE BRUNETTES: Surfin' Safari

The "Rodney" of Rodney and the Brunettes is legendary SoCal DJ Rodney Bingenheimer. I believe our Rodney did a total of two releases with two different bands o' Brunettes. I knew the first one, a cover of Ronnie and the Daytonas' "Little GTO" recorded with members of Blondie; the second was this remake of the Beach Boys' "Surfin' Safari," with Beach Boys-affiliated girl group the Honeys singing lead, backed by the Ramones themselves.

My first awareness that this even existed was when Joey Ramone told me that Japanese editions of the Ramones' 1993 all-covers album Acid Eaters contained da brudders' otherwise-unavailable take on "Surfin' Safari."  As if I didn't already IMMEDIATELY want that then-elusive Japanese issue of "Surfin' Safari," Joey then mentioned the Rodney and the Brunettes version. Arghh. Forbidden fruit!

I've never seen a copy of this. It only appeared on a 1984 compilation album called All Year Party!, which also treats us with the Ventures playing "Surfing And Spying," a song Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go's wrote for them. I eventually tracked down an mp3 of Rodney, Honeys, and Ramones goin' on safari to stay, but I deemed it too lo-fi to meet the radio show's needs.

Note to somebody: REISSUE THIS!!!

JOAN JETT & THE REMAINS OF THE RAMONES: Bad Reputation

In addition to its looming status as our designated father-daughter dance when my darling daughter Meghan gets married this fall, Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation" is a great, great track that is influenced by the Ramones without stealing from the Ramones. 

And this live version enlists a couple of actual Ramones, as Marky and Dee Dee Ramone endorse Ms. Jett's admirable absence of damns about her bad reputation. The track was included on a 2013 expanded reissue of Jett's first album, and the only reason it didn't make our playlist was because I didn't wanna take the time to do a radio edit for (mild) language. See, per George Carlin, shit is still one of The Seven Words. No radio edit, so no airplay.

It's okay. Joan Jett doesn't give a damn about it anyway. More power to her!

SLEATER-KINNEY: I Want To Be Your Joey Ramone

In addition to Ramones tracks, Ramones collaborations, individual Ramones working outside the group's aegis, and covers of Ramones songs, our celebration of the Ramones also needed some songs about the Ramones. CELEBRATIONS! My two favorites in this category are Mötorhead's "RAMONES" and Amy Rigby's "Dancing With Joey Ramone." Not even a celestial intervention could have kept either of those tracks out of this show.

We supplemented Lemmy and Ms. Rigby's efforts with works by U2, Lugless Booth, PurrBox, the Rulers, and Huntingtons, even Boris the Sprinkler's "Kill The Ramones." Sleater-Kinney's "I Want To Be Your Joey Ramone" was an almost, one of the last tracks deleted to force-fit the three-and-a-half-hour show into its three-hour time slot.

It's a cool track, and I regret we couldn't squeeze it in. I also regret having to admit this is the only Sleater-Kinney track I know offhand. Gonna have to remedy that.

HELEN LOVE: Debbie Loves Joey

It has been a very, very long time since we've heard the music of Helen Love on TIRnRR. "Punk Boy," Helen's duet with Joey Ramone, was an obvious choice, but her solo "Debbie Loves Joey" seemed, y'know, obviouser. 

Nonetheless, we had to cut it for time. "Debbie Loves Joey" and the New Piccadillys' "Judy Is A Punk" were The Last Tracks Out.

THEE HEADCOATEES: Pinhead

Because a special show with GABBA GABBA HEY! in its title should probably oughtta present some version of the Ramones song that birthed that phrase, I did want to push a "Pinhead" in here somewhere. Thee Headcoatees' rendition was selected, prepped...and then dropped anyway. Gabba Gabba, we don't accept you. Time constraints again.

RONNIE SPECTOR [WITH JOEY RAMONE]: You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory

Joey Ramone produced Ronnie Spector's She Talks To Rainbows EP. The EP includes a Beach Boys cover ("Don't Worry Baby"), a live performance of the Ronettes' "I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine," two Ramones covers (the title tune and "Bye Bye Baby," the latter a duet with Joey), and Ronnie with Joey on this cover of Johnny Thunders' "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory." 

We played "She Talks To Rainbows." This track remained but a memory.

CC AND THE PERILOUS 1.4.5.: Rockaway Beach

Okay, I was tempted. A little bit. But no, we never seriously considered programming this one.

Trust me. You hadda be there.

Hey! Speaking of being there!

IN-PERSON EVENT! On June 29, I will be making an in-store appearance at GENERATION RECORDS, 210 Thompson Street in NYC on behalf of my  new book GABBA GABBA HEY! A CONVERSATION WITH THE RAMONES. The book contains my 1994 interviews with Joey, Johnny, Marky, and C.J., which were cited by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as essential reading. I'll be at Generation to chat with fellow Ramones fans, talk about the book, the interviews, and how the music of the Ramones impacted my life. If you are in the New York area on June 29th, I would love to see you at Generation Records. Hey-ho, let's GO! 

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.

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/

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

10 SONGS: 2/17/2023

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 # 1168. This show is available as a podcast.

THE HALFCUBES: The Weakest Shade Of Blue

Well, this is how ya start a superior rockin' pop radio program. The Halfcubes, of course, are two members of the Flashcubes--drummer/producer Tommy Allen and bassist Gary Frenay--working with guitarist Randy Klawon and the occasional Special Guest Bat Villain. This is the third different Halfcubes track we've played, following their covers of the Guess Who's "Hand Me Down World" and Jason Falkner's "I Live." As Gary tells us, "Half a 'Cubes is better than none!"

And as today's Special Guest Bat Villain, the Halfcubes welcome Bob Pernice for a new (and wonderful) version of the Pernice Brothers' sublime gem "The Weakest Shade Of Blue." None of the Halfcubes' works have been released yet. We should all hope that changes very, very soon.

THE RAMONES: I Need Your Love

FIRST, THE PLUG! My new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is due out in early May, and I humbly invite you to preorder it here. Feel free to regard the "humbly" thing as a joke.

I like the Ramones' 1983 album Subterranean Jungle album more than some other folks seem to like it. To my ears, it was, if not quite a peer to the transcendent oomph of the first four Ramones albums, at least a return to form after the relatively less compelling End Of The Century and Pleasant Dreams.

Subterranean Jungle includes this cover of '80s NYC combo the Boyfriends' "I Need Your Love," a sprightly but mostly unknown pop ditty. When I interviewed Johnny Ramone in 1994, Johnny said "I heard the Boyfriends do the song. They did it great, and then we tried to do it and didn't do it very well."

Me? I love the Ramones' version of "I Need Your Love." We must agree to disagree on this one, Johnny.

THE SHIRTS: Tell Me Your Plans

My enthusiastic immersion in punk, new wave, and other assorted rock 'n' roll labels in the late '70s did not include the music of the Shirts. It wasn't a rejection of the Shirts; I just wasn't exposed to their recordings until many years later. Lack of opportunity? I guess. The only thing I remember hearing from them at the time was a track on the various-artists LP Live At CBGB's, wherein singer and actress Annie Golden's greeting to the Bowery audience was something like, We're the Shoits, from Brooklyn. She exaggerated the accent deliberately.

Nice Shoit, Annie

(I don't remember whether or not I've ever seen any of Golden's performances as an actress. I have never watched Orange Is The New Black. I do remember reading a letter she wrote to CREEM magazine in the late '80s, dismissing the artistic validity of the Monkees. Her opinion of the Monkees did not match mine. I'M a believer!)

Still, I didn't really hear the Shirts until a very long time after the fact. I snapped up a used CD reissue of their 1979 eponymous album in, I dunno, the early '00s?  I was immediately and overwhelmingly taken by that album's opening track "Reduced To A Whisper," hypnotized by a guitar sound that reminded me of the Shirts' CBGB's contemporaries Television. 

As a whole, the Shirts didn't really sound at all like Television; the comparison was based almost entirely on a similarly serpentine six-string thrum and the two groups' shared stomping grounds. The Shirts were...well, I don't wanna call them more mainstream than Television, 'cause that ain't exactly it either. But there were hints of connection to some things beyond the Bowery, to, say, the progressive-folk mix aura of Renaissance, or maybe even post-Woodstock FM radio, but at least a little more aggressive. It all still felt like part of Television's world, the Ramones' world, the world of Blondie, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Max's Kansas City. CBGB's. New York City really has it all.

From that first album, the track "Tell Me Your Plans" just clicked with me recently. Its simmering blend of regret, resignation, yearning, and unmeasured dollops of uncertainty suggests a love affair approaching a crossroads without benefit of a map. Or a plan. There is, at best, a bumpy road ahead. There may not even be a road at all.

What's the plan, then? It's hard to tell.

THE CYNZ: Tell That Girl To Shut Up

We've been hittin' hard on "Tell That Girl To Shut Up," the current single by the Cynz. Holly and the Italians' original version of the song is nonpareil, and attempting to cover it is a daunting task indeed. The Cynz acquit themselves well, looking Holly square in the eye, not flinching, not ceding ground, and succeeding on their own confident 'n' groovin' merit. This track seems likely to score a berth on our 2023 year-end Countdown show.

But it's taking a break next week. Our February 19th playlist will give a different act a shot at channeling Holly and her Italians, but we're not forsaking our Cynz. We'll program an older Cynz track instead, one we've never played before. Tell that girl to STEP UP! Let's hear it for the Cynz.

THE EXCITERS: If You Want My Love

As Cheap Trick would later say (in a different song): If you want my love, you got it.

Man, the Exciters were such a great recording act. Until recently, I only knew them from their sole big pop hit ("Tell Him" in 1962), their 1964 Forgotten Original of "Do-Wah-Diddy" (a song that entered the public consciousness later the same year when covered [with an extraneous "Diddy" added to its title] by Manfred Mann), and 1963's "He's Got The Power" (from its inclusion on Rhino's girl group boxed set One Kiss Can Lead To Another). 

But Dana's been on an Exciters kick lately, and that's been good news for all of us. Such good material, and it's been a pleasure to hear Dana's Exciters pick each week. "If You Want My Love" is an A1 pop track.

Next week's Exciters track is even better.

RONNIE SPECTOR & THE E STREET BAND: Say Goodbye To Hollywood

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE BAY CITY ROLLERS: Honey Don't Leave L.A.

My CD reissue of the 1980 album Voxx credits the artist as the Bay City Rollers, but it's really just the Rollers, the post-Tartan, post-teenbeat incarnation of our erstwhile S! A! T-U-R! D-A-Y! chanters. Make no mistake: I loved a lot of the Bay City Rollers' stuff (particularly "Rock And Roll Love Letter"), but the latter-day Rollers were almost a different band. 

Er, not literally a different band. The Rollers did include 4/5 of the Bay City Rollers lineup that hit big in America as a one-band Scottish Invasion in '75. But it was a different vibe, as former lead singer Les McKeown split and the "Bay City" was dropped from the marquee; bassist Woody Wood, drummer Derek Longmuir, and guitarists Eric Faulkner and Alan Longmuir remained, and new recruit Duncan Faure brought his John Lennon-influenced vocals to this valiant effort to shuck the group's old image and continue as a more mature new wave pop band.

The Rollers' records didn't sell, but they should have. 1979's Elevator is quite good, and 1981's Richochet has its own irresistible moments. In between, Voxx was a contract-breaker, the kiss-off fulfillment of the group's commitment to Arista Records. It's the greatest contract-breaking kiss-off in pop history. If you dig great groups like the Records, then ya gotta hear what the Rollers did in their brief lifespan. The Voxx track "Honey Don't Leave L.A." is evidence of a worthy combo the world decided not to notice.

And it was the world's loss.

POPSICKO: Same Old Me

Our friends at Big Stir Records are going all-in on Popsicko. See, I like when Big Stir goes all-in on something. This '90s alt-rock combo appears to be a specific passion for Big Stir, and we'll be hearing the fruits of that passion in due time. For now, I direct you to S.W. Lauden's oral history of Popsicko for a little bit of background, and invite you to brace yourself for more from the legacy of Popsicko in 2023.

THE BEATLES: I Want To Hold Your Hand

THE BEATLES: She Loves You

The twist and shout heard 'round the world. 59 years after the Beatles assumed command, they're still my primary musical reference. They weren't the only great rock 'n' roll band, and I don't ever want to listen to only the Beatles and the Beatles only. There's still a lot of other old gold we need to crank up just as loud, and shiny-fresh new gold awaiting our delighted discovery each and every day.

Nonetheless: the TIRnRR POV starts with the Beatles. This week, we commemorated the anniversary of that POV's initial spark with two of the songs that annexed my ears and my pop ideals when I was four years old. Oh yeah, I'll tell you something. Nothing is Beatleproof. Keep those yeah-yeahs comin'.

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Carl's new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is now available for preorder, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. Gabba Gabba YAY!!

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.