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 # 1247.
THE HALF/CUBES: Spinning The Wheel
As we prep for the imminent Big Stir Records release of Pop Treasures, the debut album from the Half/Cubes, I was tempted to mention that 2024 is shaping up to be a banner year for the mighty Big Stir label. Then common sense reminded me that every year is a banner year for Big Stir. See, common sense is just plain smart. And Big Stir releases a ton of great stuff throughout the course of any 365-day span you care to examine.
My top album last year was Pop Masters by Big Stir recording artists (and Half/Cubes parent group) the Flashcubes. Currently, sparkle*jets u.k.'s Box Of Letters is clearly one of the best albums of the year. I've heard the forthcoming new album from Big Stir's house band the Armoires, and that record is gonna knock your motherlovin' socks off. This Sunday's TIRnRR will spin a fabulous new Big Stir single by Librarians With Hickeys, as well as another great teaser single from the Armoires. That ol' Big Stir banner's been waivin' pretty damned well.
And the banner flies high for the Half/Cubes. Pop Treasures finds the group--comprised of the Flashcubes' Gary Frenay and Tommy Allen alongside Randy Klawon and an all-star squadron of guest collaborators--taking a deep, deep dive into the best rockin' pop record collection on the whole friggin' planet, digging out the coolest songs by Del Amitri, the Rubinoos, the Pernice Brothers, the Searchers, Dwight Twilley, Phil Seymour, the Pursuit of Happiness, and more, and remaking them all to stunning effect.
This week, TIRnRR spins "Spinning The Wheel," a shiny Pop Treasures gem originally done by the Hudson Brothers. The Half/Cubes even enlist the one 'n' only Mark Hudson to assist them with their version of "Spinning The Wheel," with all attendant razzle-dazzle defiantly intact. More from Pop Treasures this Sunday night.
THE RAMONES: Don't Come Close
Dana and I will be making an appearance very soon on Only Three Lads, the essential weekly classic alternative podcast hosted by Brett Vargo and Uncle Gregg. The Ramones--the American Beatles, the greatest American rock 'n' roll band of all time--will be an important part of our O3L conversation.
We play the Ramones almost every week on TIRnRR, and this week's 1-2-3-4! selection was chosen by Dana. But I'm for damned sure all in. Last year, in the run-up to the publication of my book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones, I finally began to realize that the group's 1978 album Road To Ruin may be da brudders' masterpiece, more varied than its three otherwise-nonpareil predecessors without sacrificing even one stray ooze of the sniffin' glue oomph that made them the few, the proud, the Ramones.
When I interviewed Johnny Ramone in 1994, he expressed his dislike of "Don't Come Close" and "Questioningly," two tracks he considered the "country" songs on Road To Ruin. It takes a considerable stretch of the tumbling tumbleweeds to think of either of these pop ditties as country or western (let alone both), but they are enduring proof of what the Ramones were capable of accomplishing within a broader pop realm.
THE BAY CITY ROLLERS: Too Young To Rock And Roll
Speaking of podcasts, I recorded a guest DJ hour on Dedication--Fans Remember The Bay City Rollers, the weekly Tartan-clad Rollerfest hosted by Laura Brady and Suz Rostron, and available for shang-a-langin' at will via Spotify and Apple. My guest spot should run some time in the next not-too-long-from-now, and it involves me discussing my top ten Rollers tracks.
No, I'm not going to tell you which songs they are, though it wouldn't take the deductive brilliance of Batman, Sherlock Holmes, nor even Schlomo Raven to figure out my list probably includes this one and this one, plus another one featured in my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). The rest? Listen and learn, when my own dedicated time is due.
Meanwhile, I will reveal that the Rollers' "Too Young To Rock And Roll" was at least in the running for my Rollers Top Ten. It's a rockin' track, for sure, though I confess I'd like it even more if we could back to 1975, flip the genders, and have my '70s teen crush Suzi Quatro sing the song to fifteen-year-old me. I first saw Suzi Q perform on an S! A! T-U-R! D-A-Y! DAY! rather than on a Saturday night, lip-syncing (fittingly) "I May Be Too Young" on the British TV show Supersonic.
"Too Young To Rock And Roll?" "I May Be Too Young?" Same difference. Swoon in the manner you choose.
FOOLS FACE: Maiden USA
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In the ongoing hype and promo for the above-mentioned Greatest Record Ever Made! book, I've been embracing the fact that I've always been more a single-song guy rather than an album guy. But there have, of course, been a number of albums that have meant the world to me. One of those albums is Tell America, an obscure 1981 album by an obscure (but fantastic) group caslled Fools Face. I wrote this about Tell America last year:
"Outside of a splendid eponymous reunion album in 2002 and a subsequent live set preserved as Live At Last in 2005, Springfield, Missouri's phenomenal pop combo Fools Face have been completely unrepresented in the CD format. I think one of the 2002 tracks made its way to an IPO compilation. And even the Fools Face and Live At Last discs are difficult-to-impossible to snag nowadays. Fools Face's album output during their original 1979-1984 album career--Here To Observe, Tell America, Public Places, and the cassette-only self-titled sayonara usually referred to as "The Red Tape"--are rarer'n rare. I remember once seeing a copy of Here To Observe at a record store in Arlington, Virginia. I own the only other copy of that album I've ever seen, and I've never seen any copies of Tell America or Public Places except for the ones I bought and have held on to for years. (I've never seen the Red Tape either, but I have a CD-R a friend made for me.)
"The Fools Face library is one of American indie pop's greatest gaps. I have heard that there are labels who would love a chance to bring this magnificent stuff back to retail. I have also heard that members of the band just ain't interested in that prospect.
"My first exposure to Fools Face was via Trouser Press magazine, my first listen to their sound courtesy of a Trouser Press flexi-disc single of 'L5' from Tell America coupled with the title tune from Public Places. Tell America absolutely blew my mind on first spin, and it's been one of my all-time favorite albums for four friggin' decades. I wrote about it here. And I wish you could all experience its wonder, on vinyl, CD, mp3, 8-track, streaming, a series of cereal box 45s, whatever. 'Nothing To Say' is the greatest end-of-the-affair teen kiss-off you've never heard. And it's only one of the incredible treats to be found on Tell America.
"In the unlikely event you could find it all."
From Tell America, "Maiden USA" makes its TIRnRR debut this week.
RUSH: Seven And Seven Is
No, I wouldn't have thought Love's furiously sublime/sublimely furious '60s nugget "7 And 7 Is" would be appropriate cover fodder for a band like Rush. Damned if they didn't pull it off anyway. Of course, they felt the need to spell out the numbers in the song's title. Just to be, y'know, Rush about it, I guess.
sparkle*jets u.k.: Goodbye X 3
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Up top, we mentioned that Box Of Letters by sparkle*jets u.k. is--and I'm quoting myself directly-- "clearly one of the best albums of the year." And I've learned to limit the amount of time I spend arguing with me. In last week's 10 Songs, we noted that seven of Box Of Letters' twelve tracks had already found their way to TIRnRR playlists, with an eighth--"Goodbye X 3"--to follow this week.
This Sunday night, we'll add a ninth Box Of Letters cut to our tally. Clearly one of the best albums of the year. Yeah, I agree with me on this one.
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A classic from the Shirts: The Greatest Record Ever Made!
And we follow that with the Shirts' current single "Move On Groove On," which (as noted previously in this space) retains the spunk and sass of the old days, sidestepping nostalgia and just, y'know, doing. NEW SHIRTS! And they fit just fine.
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My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available; you can see details here. My 2023 book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is also still available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books.
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.
