10 SONGS: 8/2/2025

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 # 1296.

AL JARDINE: Islands In The Sun

Al Jardine is the only member of the Beach Boys whom I've seen more than, y'know, once. All three of my Al Jardine concert moments came at The New York State Fair. I saw Jardine with Hawthorne's Phenomenal Pop Combo in the late '80s (our Al performing alongside Carl Wilson and Mike Love), fronting his own band in the aughts, and again with Brian Wilson's group in 2016. Given a chance to play a brand-new track by Jardine, we figured it was our time in the sun to open this week's show with that brand-new track, "Islands In The Sun." 

The California-meets-the-Caribbean vibe of "Islands In The Sun" strikes me as a better version of "Kokomo." Don't turn away! I know that comparison risks damning the song with faint praise, but "Islands In The Sun" is actually pretty good, and I hereby declare it agreeably radio-ready. I would be delighted to add a fourth in-concert Al Jardine experience should the opportunity arise. Let the sun shine down on our Beach Boys island home.

BLACK SABBATH: Am I Going Insane

All of us are sick of having to bid farewell to so many of our idols. The late Ozzy Osbourne wasn't necessarily one of my idols, but I feel the loss just the same, and I feel the driving inner need to pay some sort of respect to one of the giants of rock 'n' roll. We did have Ozzy's "Crazy Train" perched in the playlist's staging area, but it never found its spot in the show. 

My own interest in the Prince of Darkness tends to center on a couple of specific and unapologetically obvious Black Sabbath favorites, "Iron Man" and "Paranoid." I loved "Iron Man" when I was a teen, and I considered playing all of its six bludgeoning minutes here (and it would not have been its TIRnRR debut). I knew I wanted to circle back to "Paranoid" near the end of the show, and I wanted our first set to include a Sabbath cut we'd never played before. 

"Am I Going Insane" fit the moment like a custom-made straitjacket. The song carries an inherent pop core amidst its prerequisite crunch, and it asks the same eternal rhetorical question burning in everyone's achin' craniums in these troubled times. Going? Gone, off the rails on a crazy train. Ozzy saw it coming.

THE CYNZ: Can't Help Thinking About Me

The second week in a row for well-deserved airplay of this ace track from the forthcoming various-artists tribute album Jem Records Celebrates David Bowie, as the Cynz turn in their epic rendition of Bowie's "Can't Help Thinking About Me." SPOILER ALERT! The track establishes its third week in a row this Sunday. We play the hits! Sunday will also see the debut of a Jem Records Celebrates David Bowie treat by power pop king Paul Collins, with more to come in future weeks. Can't help thinking about Jem's great new salute to Bowie.

THE TWEEDS: I Need That Record

Don't we all, brothers and sisters. Don't we all.

SHAUN CASSIDY: Hey Deanie

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE FLASHCUBES: The Sweet Spot

Back during the Flashcubes' original late '70s run, they used to include "Hey Deanie" in their set lists, though they credited the song to its author Eric Carmen rather than its hitmaker Shaun Cassidy. No matter! Opening a set with a Greatest Record Ever Made! spin of Cassidy's "Hey Deanie" was a swell set-up to include the Flashcubes' own current dancin'-like-diamonds-in-the-moonlight single "The Sweet Spot" in that very same sweet set. Hey Deanie! Meet us at the sweet spot!

CHUCK BERRY: Promised Land

From my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):

"...Chuck Berry knew well the travails of the downtrodden. Dark skin, humble origin, destined to transcend all and everything to become the single most important performer in the history of rock 'n' roll. His mind was quick, his fingers precise, wedding intricate, unforgettable wordplay to a guitar he played like a-ringin' a bell. He struggled. He pushed. He got noticed. He got pushed back. He kept pushing back in turn, smiling and duck-walking, while quietly seething behind his flamboyant mask. A nice man? Tough to say, but beside the point. An important man? If you've ever loved rock 'n' roll, you should be ashamed to even ask that question.

"Berry built the foundation (and much of the walls) of his legacy in the '50s, when segregation was commonplace throughout much of this Land of the Free, when failure to mind one's place wasn't just a breach of protocol; it was a de facto criminal act. 

"Into this tinderbox, Chuck Berry brought black music that made white kids dance. He wrote in code--most famously, the irresistibly potent brown-skinned handsome man became (wink) a brown-eyed handsome man, man--but he crafted and chronicled the American teen-age dream with greater eloquence than anyone, black or white. It was inevitable that he would be slapped down.

"Some say that he mighta had it coming. Maybe. Others say the rap was racially-motivated, pure and simple. Berry was busted for a violation of the Mann Act, transporting a minor across a state line for immoral purpose. It's plausible to suggest that Berry may have been guilty, but it's also plausible that he wasn't. Guilty or not, Berry spent a year and a half behind bars. While still a guest of the state, Berry wrote 'Promised Land.' 

"Fitting...."

CHRIS VON SNEIDERN: No Promise

Since I haven't yet completed the writing process for any new books in 2025, my biggest project this year has been Big Stir Records' September 12th compilation Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes. It's been a lot of work, absolutely worth it, and I do believe you're gonna love it. Here's evidence on my behalf: Pop Gem Factory foreman and expatriate Central New Yorker Chris von Sneidern paying homage to the shared sound of the 315 by taking on "No Promise," my # 1 favorite Flashcubes song.

And nailing it. Plenty of promise to go around!

BLACK SABBATH: Paranoid

THE BEATLES: Polythene Pam

My favorite Ozzy track, segued into Ozzy's all-time favorite band. Ozzy and I for damned sure had that in common.

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.

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

THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! Shaun Cassidy, "Hey Deanie"

Expanded from previous posts, this is not part of my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1).

An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!

SHAUN CASSIDY: Hey Deanie

Written by Eric Carmen

Produced by Michael Lloyd

Single from the album Born Late, Curb Records, 1977

Teen idolatry is part of pop music, as it should be. The Beatles were as much teen idols as Bobby Sherman was a bit later on, or as any subsequent poster lads from the Bay City Rollers through whatever contemporary pretty face I'm too old to know about. 

Shaun Cassidy should be held in higher regard among power pop fans. Like his half-brother David Cassidy, our Shaun could sing; the fact that both Cassidys became 16 magazine heartthrobs via TV exposure (in The Partridge Family and The Hardy Boys respectively) doesn't change the fact of their God-given talent. Shaun himself wrote a terrific teen idol anthem called "Teen Dream," a delightful ditty basically thrown away as the B-side of his hit (but less interesting) cover of the Lovin' Spoonful's "Do You Believe In Magic." 

And Shaun had a way with Eric Carmen songs, as evidenced by his renditions of Carmen's "That's Rock 'n' Roll" and "Hey Deanie." Carmen's own versions of these songs were fine, better than fine. But Cassidy brought them both closer to a power pop ideal. At a time when Carmen himself seemed less interested in the raucous style he’d pioneered with the Raspberries, Cassidy’s vibrant versions of these songs served as a potent reminder of the frenzied, over-the-top pop mania Carmen had decided to leave behind. Cassidy even went so far as to declare to Newsweek magazine that “I’m not teenybop, I’m power pop...melodic!”

(Cassidy also served as the direct inspiration for one other teen-pop-meets-power-pop footnote, as Syracuse, NY’s own power pop powerhouse the Flashcubes later wrote a song called “Boy Scout Pinup,” telling the tale of a young girl fantasizing about her Shaun Cassidy poster coming to life...and she didn’t want him to be a boy scout, baby. And the 'Cubes used to include "Hey Deanie" in their live sets.)

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 maturity. Hey, just like Eric Carmen! 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"). The album was not as big a hit as Cassidy's previous records. 1979's Shaun Cassidy Live was his farewell to the screamin' girls of 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. 

Wasp also fell short of sales goals. I believe this fact should be accepted as further evidence that growing up is way, WAY overrated.

Lost in a teen dream, I still listen to Cassidy occasionally. By the time I was in college from 1977 to 1980, what Mason Reese woulda called the borgasmord of my primary rockin' pop influences--British Invasion, AM Top 40, bubblegum, loud rock 'n' roll, and punk--had gelled within the general parameters of what I considered power pop. Cassidy's version of "Hey Deanie" fit within those parameters, and it still does. The track is a durable souvenir of my own youthful pop embrace, of hearing Cassidy and the Bay City Rollers on AM radio, seeing the Ramones and the Flashcubes in nightclubs, and absolutely reveling in the sheer rush of it all. "Hey Deanie" wasn't quite as integral a component of that rush as, say, "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker," but it was indeed a part of my palpable thrill of pop music in the late '70s.

And, as with many songs I love, I have a specific memory that shines its stubborn glow on "Hey Deanie." In my dorm room one afternoon in 1978, my roommate introduced me to a friend of his, an intro that included an obligatory eye-rollin' dismissal of my preferred rockin' pop musical taste. Imagine!, my roommate sort of said, Carl would rather listen to SHAUN CASSIDY than the Grateful Dead!

I shrugged it off, like I always did, like I always do. Then as now: Don't even try to tell me what to like or what not to like. "Hey Deanie" might not be the two-word response I offer to anyone making that attempt.

And also then as now: "Hey Deanie" is its own reward, a pure pop song secure in the wonder of its identity as a pure pop song. The stars are dancing like diamonds in the moonlight. We could never find a better time to be in love.

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.

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: 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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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:

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Volume 4: CD or download
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Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1)will contain 165 essays about 165 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).

10 SONGS: 6/16/2020

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 # 1029.

BILL BERRY: 1-800-Colonoscopy



Yeah, songs about unpleasant and/or invasive medical procedures are rarely as catchy as this. (Though, to be fair, I might prefer to undergo a colonoscopy rather than listen to, say, "Never Been To Me" by Charlene.) From the splendid John Wicks tribute album For The Record, Bill Berry's take on "1-800-Colonoscopy" just might be my favorite new track of 2020, which is fitting for a year that's been such a massive pain in the ass so far.

SHAUN CASSIDY: Hey Deanie


Teen idolatry is part of pop music, as it should be. The Beatles were as much teen idols as Bobby Sherman was a bit later on, or as any subsequent poster lads from The Bay City Rollers through whatever contemporary pretty face I'm too old to know about. 

Shaun Cassidy should be held in higher regard among power pop fans. Like his half-brother David Cassidy, our Shaun could sing; the fact that both Cassidys became 16 magazine boy scout pinups via TV exposure (in The Partridge Family and The Hardy Boys respectively) doesn't change the fact of their God-given talent. Shaun himself wrote a terrific teen idol anthem called "Teen Dream," a delightful ditty basically thrown away as the B-side of his hit (but less interesting) cover of The Lovin' Spoonful's "Do You Believe In Magic." And Shaun had a way with Eric Carmen songs, as evidenced by his renditions of Carmen's "That's Rock 'n' Roll" and "Hey Deanie." Carmen's own versions of these songs were fine, better than fine. But Cassidy brought them both closer to a power pop ideal than Carmen was interested in doing at the time. 

THE CLICK BEETLES: If Not Now Then When?

Okay, the fix is in here. The Click Beetles' auteur Dan Pavelich operates Pop-A-Looza, the pop culture website that runs one of my Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) posts every Friday. Dan and I have been online pals for years, so of course I'm going to plug his latest project.

BUT! The thing is, my taste in friends is pretty damned good. I can't sing or play, so I surround myself with those who can, and I tell everyone else about how great they are. I didn't become a pundit or a radio show host to promote mediocrity; I wanna spread the Gospel of what's cool. 

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio listeners heard "If Not Now Then When?" last year, when it was a fan-favorite track on the essential compilation Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. The song was a hit, and one of our most-played tracks in 2019. Now, it joins a fistful of other minty-fresh Click Beetles treasures on the combo's brand-new album Pop Fossil. Yep, we're gonna play it. Yeah, we're gonna hype it. For sure, we're gonna say you oughtta buy it already. Radio's job is to sell records. That's what friends are for.

DEEP PURPLE: Highway Star


I associate Deep Purple with my cousin Mark. Mark's about a year younger than me, and he grew up on the opposite coast. But most summers during the '60s and '70s, we met in the middle, at our grandparents' house in Southwest Missouri. We were like brothers, young co-conspirators in the pursuit of spark. We read comic books, went fishing, watched TV, collaborated on comedy bits. And, in the mid '70s, we listened to music.

The music in question was all Mark's. I loved music as much as he did, but my music was mostly on the radio, from Badfinger to various former Beatles. Mark, on the other hand, had cassettes, and a cassette player. We listened to Mark's Deep Purple cassettes, Burn and Machine Head.

This was...1974, maybe? That sounds right. I was 14, Mark was 13. That would have been the year of the Wonder Woman TV movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby, and Melvin Purvis: G-Man with Dale Robertson, both of which we saw in reruns that summer. We also saw Billy Jack, either at the local movie theater in Aurora or at the mall in Springfield. We had begun the summer visiting our other mutual cousins in Pensacola, then traveled with our combined families to Aurora from there. We stopped to spend the night at a Ramada Inn in Memphis the same night that the FBI was also there, pouncing on a suspect. Mark and I went to get Coca-Colas out of the vending machine shortly before those law enforcement hijinks ensued, and we were trailed back to our rooms by a federale. 

For dramatic purposes, the FBI agent at the Memphis Ramada is played by Cathy Lee Crosby.

Good times.

The only Deep Purple song I knew was "Smoke On The Water." I may have also known the earlier, Beatley hit "Hush," and it's possible "Woman From Tokyo" had crossed into my sovereign airspace via Syracuse's WOLF-AM. But I got a crash course in the Purple for the remainder of Mark's stay in Missouri in '74, hooking me on tracks like "What's Goin' On Here," "Might Just Take Your Life," "'A' 200," and the title song from Burn, and "Smoke On The Water" and "Highway Star" from Machine Head. We rocked. ROCKED, I say!

"Highway Star" remains the one song I most associate with that summer. We also used that cassette machine to make our own comedy tape, a simulated broadcast of an imaginary radio station called KLOD. Mark's idea, but I approved of it immediately. Teen co-conspirators. Cousins. Brothers. Friends.

Yeah, it's a wild hurricane
All right
Hold tight
I'm a highway star!

THE KATYDIDS: The Boy Who's Never Found

Remembering that Nick Lowe produced the British group The Katydids for their eponymous debut album in 1990, I mistakenly credited ol' Basher with likewise tending to the ceremonial twiddling of the knobs on their second and final album, 1991's Shangri-La. But no! Shangri-La was produced by Ray Shulman, and it includes my very favorite Katydids track, the atmospherically wallopin' "The Boy Who's Never Found." Sorry, Basher!

PRINCE: When Doves Cry

By the time 2016 sealed its sinister reputation by taking Prince away from us in April, we'd already been playing "When Doves Cry" with some frequency, and it probably would have made our year-end countdown of TIRnRR's most-played tracks in '16 even without the additional reflexive airplay that comes when we mourn another of our musical heroes. "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man" really became my go-to Prince track for the remainder of that year, but "When Doves Cry" was the one already getting significant burn in the happier days when Prince was still one of our greatest living rock stars.

I became a Prince fan right about the same time as much of the rest of the pop world did, with "Little Red Corvette" and "1999." The 1999 album was released in late '82, but the "Little Red Corvette" single turned the world purple in '83. I saw the video for "Little Red Corvette" on MTV, and wished I could look as cool as Prince. I loved Purple Rain, and managed to see Prince & the Revolution with guest Sheila E on that tour in '84. I thought Prince's "4 The Tears In Your Eyes" was the most interesting track on the We Are The World charity compilation (though I also liked Bruce Springsteen's "Trapped" on that album; the rest, not so much).

My Prince fandom was casual after that, but I recognized the talent, and I was in awe of his Super Bowl Half-Time performance in 2007. When I eventually delved into his back catalog, "When You Were Mine" ultimately emerged as my top Prince track. But it's like The Beatles, or The Rolling Stones, Ramones, et al. You don't have to stick with just one.

DIANA ROSS & THE SUPREMES: Love Child

Although The Supremes' chapter in my eventual book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) deals with "You Keep Me Hangin' On" rather than "Love Child, the entry's introductory paragraph applies here as well:

The Supremes are among the most popular recording acts of all time. They were certainly among the biggest of the '60s, and possibly the biggest on Motown at the time, which was a pretty big deal itself. The Supremes were stars....

My earliest Supremes pick was probably "Stop! In The Name Of Love" when I was a kid in the '60s, later supplemented by "The Happening," a song I learned from a various-artists set I discovered in the family LP library. I have occasionally found Diana Ross to be too much of a diva for my taste (a charge I could also level against Mick Jagger). 

I'm not sure if my favorite Supremes track is "Stop! In The Name Of Love," "Love Child," or "You Keep Me Hangin' On," but they're all contenders. A love Supreme.

SHOES: Tomorrow Night

I don't think that this fantastic song was my introduction the music of Shoes--I think I succumbed to raves in the pop press and bought the Black Vinyl Shoes LP before I'd actually heard anything by Shoes--but "Tomorrow Night" is my favorite. It's a permanent fixture on my all-time Hot 100 for decades, and it earns a berth in The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):

In the late '70s, power pop was a niche genre that did not wish to be a niche genre. It wanted fame, fortune. It wanted action. It for damned sure wanted the girl, right now. If not tonight, then tomorrow night...

..."Tomorrow Night" is nearly textbook power pop, a pretty ditty that combines yearning and lust, its façade suggesting an equal measure of the two, but really looking for a steamy tomorrow-night stand. What the track lacks in explosiveness á la The Who or Raspberries  is more than compensated by its confidence and posture, the music leaning forward with single-minded precision. It's catchy and aggressive, its dreamy, breathy vocals piloting a rockin' sound with one Beatle boot perched in the British Invasion and one ragged Converse stepping on a back-breakin' crack in the New Wave of post-punk rock 'n' roll....

I favor the original Bomp! Records single version, though Shoes' subsequent (and also excellent) re-recording of the song for their 1979 Present Tense album was the first version I heard. And I heard it on the radio, where it belongs.

THE STONE PONEYS: Different Drum



It tickles me how I still occasionally run into folks who are amazed or amused that Michael Nesmith of The Monkees wrote "Different Drum," the 1967 Stone Poneys hit that introduced that group's lead singer Linda Ronstadt to the world at large. On the "Two Many Girls" episode of The Monkees' TV series, Nesmith even performs a brief version of the song as a parody of a bumbling folk singer, Billy Roy Hodstetter. (That particular episode is otherwise notable for TV censors' decision to blur actress Kelly Jean Peters' cleavage, lest American youth be, I dunno, too busy gawking to put anybody down.)

Cheer up, Kelly Jean! Oh what can censors mean to an unblurred believer...?

Ronstadt herself is dismissive of "Different Drum," associating the song with her memory of its recording and her unhappiness with the process. But it's a wonderful, wonderful pop song, and no one has yet matched her rendition of it. No, not even Billy Roy Hodstetter. And not even Nesmith, whose own version was rootsier and perhaps more authentic in its approach, but not as striking. Nesmith wrote it; he wrote a lot of great songs, and performed the definitive versions of many of them. But "Different Drum?" Linda Ronstadt owns that one.

THE VOGUES: Five O'Clock World

Best rockin' pop yodel ever. You can have your Focus and their "Hocus Pocus" if ya gotta, but I'm stickin' with The Vogues and "Five O'Clock World." 

"Five O'Clock World" was released in 1965, pop music's greatest year, but I don't recall hearing it until one afternoon in late 1977. I was in my dorm room, early in the first semester of my freshman year at college, listening to the Brockport campus radio station WBSU. It was a particularly revelatory radio-listening session, as it introduced me not only to The Vogues, but also to The Flamin' Groovies, The Jam, and "Lies" by The Knickerbockers. It's no wonder I love radio so much. And I hold radio to that standard, still demanding sounds that will turn me on like the sound of The Vogues, Groovies, Jam, and Knickerbockers got me going more than forty years ago. Too much to ask for? No. No, it is not. Radio could do it if it tried.

"Five O'Clock World" has remained one of my favorite songs. It does not have a chapter in The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Because I want the book to reflect a larger dynamic than just my fave raves, I am deliberately omitting coverage of some all-time personal Tops O' The Pops like "Five O'Clock World," The Animals' "It's My Life," The Plimsouls' "A Million Miles Away," and The Yardbirds' "Heart Full Of Soul" (among others) just to make that point. Doesn't mean I love those songs any less. Our pop obsessions are infinite. A book can't cover 'em all.

But radio should.

Radio to the rescue!

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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

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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).