THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE: America

This piece is planned to appear as a chapter in my book-in-progress The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Parts of it have appeared previously in different settings. 

An infinite number of rockin' pop records can be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!



FIRST AID KIT: America
Written by Paul Simon
Produced by Mike Mogis
From the EP America, Columbia Records, 2014

My daughter Meghan knew about First Aid Kit well before I did, and she played their Emmylou Harris tribute song "Emmylou" during one of her guest DJ stints on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. First Aid Kit were among the final musical guests on Late Night With David Letterman in May of 2015, which was where and when they floored me with their sublime cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "America." 

As a teen, I was a Simon & Garfunkel fan, ranking them up in my pop pantheon not all that far below The Beatles. I never stopped being a fan, though I did listen to them with decreasing frequency. My introduction to the song "America" came via the incongruous means of a comic book letters column in the early '70s, wherein a reader closed his missive about the (then) topically-relevant Green Lantern/Green Arrow series by quoting the song's line, And we walked off to look for America. You can scoff if you wanna, and maybe you should, but that seemingly innocuous tag line has stuck with me for decades. I was 12 or 13. I was on a bus going to or from visiting my grandparents in Missouri. Not knowing the song itself yet, I had no idea how very appropriate it was to learn of its existence while traveling on a Greyhound.

Relevance. We search for it in our entertainment and in our art, a connection to what we feel, to what we desire, to where we think we are and what this place looks like today. Relevance. Meaning. Sometimes we imagine a meaning an artist did not intend, but that's fine. That's how art becomes a part of our lives.

First Aid Kit is from Sweden, consisting of sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg. In their rendition of "America," First Aid Kit's reading of Paul Simon's lyrics takes on a shimmering, gossamer quality that not even Paul and Artie's delicate harmonies could match. 

Cathy, I'm lost, I said though I knew she was sleeping
And I'm empty and aching and I don't know why

The American experiment is nearly two and a half centuries old. This experiment--a nation governed of the people, by the people, for the people, we the people--is ongoing. It has had successes, and it has had failures. There have been times when we've fallen far short of our goal of who we want to be. There have been times when our collective efforts have shined like a beacon of hope around the world.

We are not shining at the moment. A nation that could elevate a soulless charlatan like Trump to its highest office is a nation that has betrayed its own ideals. Snowflake pretend patriots who cry out in indignation about athletes taking a knee to protest institutionalized racism and police brutality do far more to dishonor the flag they pretend to revere. While proud know-nothings shrug off science and responsibility as fake news, and blithely and belligerently celebrate the thickness of their skulls in the midst of a pandemic, those who seek a fairer and brighter example of the American experiment may despair. 

We can do better. We can be better.

I still believe in this experiment. The experiment's guiding principle isn't unique--there are other nations that also embrace these concepts of freedom and possibility--but it is, and must remain, America's defining quality. We can be better than we are. We can always seek to be better than we are. The American experiment can choose acceptance over exclusion, charity over greed, humility over arrogance, love over hate. We can. We will. We must. Our goal is written in our mission statement: a more perfect union. This experiment continues. 

All come to look for America.

The sound is sweet, the feeling electric and liberating. Let the word go forth. Let the torch be passed. 

And let freedom ring.



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You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

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

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download

Volume 2: CD or download

Volume 3: download

Volume 4: CD or download

Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 155 essays about 155 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: 3/24/2020

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.


There was no This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio this week, but we did have an incredible simulation. This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the virtual playlist of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio: Isolation Edition.

JOAN ARMATRADING: Me Myself I


I've had a complicated relationship with social interaction. Just a few years ago, I told a friend that I tend to feel out of place no matter where I am or what I'm doing. I'm a square peg, and I'm shy. I conceal it pretty well--anyone who has heard me on the radio will attest to that--and sometimes I can continue playing the role of bon vivant for short spells in real life. It's not really me, but it's the me I think I want to be. I think. I guess. I don't know.

In the early '80s, when I was a recent college graduate still living with my undergraduate girlfriend in our college town of Brockport, radio stations in Buffalo introduced me to the music of Joan Armatrading. It was probably on 97 Rock, an AOR station that aired a better'n decent Sunday night alternative show called 97 Power Rock, or it may have been WUWU-FM, the squarest peg commercial radio station I ever did hear. Either way (or both), I heard radio commercials for Armatrading's 1981 album Walk Under Ladders, and I heard a Walk Under Ladders album track called "Eating The Bear," and liked it. It took me a while to become an Armatrading fan (and I'm still but a casual fan, with her Greatest Hits CD the sole Armatrading offering in my collection), but I got there. As time went on, I became particularly taken with her songs "Drop The Pilot," "When I Get It Right," "I'm Lucky," and "Me Myself I."

"Me Myself I" is a clarion call of willful solitude. It's not who I am either, but there are times when it feels right. Damned good song, too.

ARTFUL DODGER: It's Over


By the summer of 1979, I had read a little bit about Fairfax, Virginia's Artful Dodger, but I had yet to hear a note of their music.  That changed when they played a show at Stage East, a rock club located in a shopping center in Syracuse's Eastern suburbs. I was drawn to this rock 'n' roll Mecca of East Syracuse that night in part because The Flashcubes were the opening act, and I tried very hard to see The Flashcubes as often as I could. 

But I was also curious about Artful Dodger, and man, they did not disappoint. I would later look back on that show and describe the group as a cross between Badfinger and The Faces, a comparison somewhat lacking in total accuracy, but which conveyed my impression of Artful Dodger as a power pop group with rock 'n' roll swagger. God, I loved 'em, and their performance of "It's Over" had me absolutely transfixed. And that evening, the price of admission at Stage East included a souvenir: a four-song EP of tracks from Artful Dodger's eponymous debut album. "Wayside." "Think Think." "Follow Me." "It's Over." My Artful Dodger fandom was set to begin in earnest.

THE BEATLES: For No One



The Beatles! I wrote about this wonderful Paul McCartney song in my annotated list of my all-time 25 favorite Beatles songs: This is perhaps the most dignified and simultaneously one of the saddest descriptions of desperation as love slips inexorably through one's hapless, helpless fingers. It would not have sounded out of place on The Beach Boys' masterpiece Pet Sounds. I will add that its lyrics display a depth and maturity that bely the notion that our Paulie was only capable of writing silly love songs.

SUSAN COWSILL: River Of Love


There is a magic point in art, in creation, where our pain becomes redemption, our sorrow turns to strength, our devastating losses flow like a river into our determination to endure. "River Of Love" was written by Barry Cowsill of The Cowsills, and it's a stunning study in heartbreak, in holding on, in letting go, in hoping against hope that what was lost can still be found again. 

Barry Cowsill perished in 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. His sister Susan Cowsill performed the song during the months that he was missing. Its meaning had changed, but its sheer beauty had not.  Susan recorded it for her 2010 album Lighthouse, and its impossible mix of the ache of farewell with the determined buoyancy of pop music makes me want to dance and cry at the same time. We'll meet again. Waiting at the river of love.

FIRST AID KIT: America



My daughter Meghan knew about First Aid Kit well before I did, and she played their Emmylou Harris tribute song "Emmylou" during one of her guest DJ stints on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. First Aid Kit were among the final musical guests on Late Night With David Letterman in May of 2015, which was where and when they floored me with their sublime cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "America." 

As a teen, I was a Simon & Garfunkel fan, ranking them up in my pop pantheon not all that far below The Beatles. I never stopped being a fan, though I did listen to them with decreasing frequency. My introduction to the song "America" came via the incongruous means of a comic book letters column in the early '70s, wherein a reader closed his missive about the (then) topically-relevant Green Lantern/Green Arrow series by quoting the song's line, And we walked off to look for America. You can scoff if you wanna, and maybe you should, but that seemingly innocuous tag line has stuck with me for decades. I was 12 or 13. I was on a bus going to or from visiting my grandparents in Missouri. Not knowing the song itself yet, I had no idea how very appropriate it was to learn of its existence while traveling on a Greyhound.

Relevance. We search for it in our entertainment and in our art, a connection to what we feel, to what we desire, to where we think we are and what this place looks like today. Relevance. Meaning. Sometimes we imagine a meaning an artist did not intend, but that's fine. That's how art becomes a part of our lives.

First Aid Kit is from Sweden, consisting of sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg. In their rendition of "America," First Aid Kit's reading of Paul Simon's lyrics takes on a shimmering, gossamer quality that not even Paul and Artie's delicate harmonies could match. 

Cathy, I'm lost, I said though I knew she was sleeping
And I'm empty and aching and I don't know why

The American experiment is nearly two and a half centuries old. This experiment--a nation governed of the people, by the people, for the people, we the people--is ongoing. It has had successes, and it has had failures. There have been times when we've fallen far short of our goal of who we want to be. There have been times when our collective efforts have shined like a beacon of hope around the world.

I still believe in this experiment. The experiment's guiding principle isn't unique--there are other nations that also embrace these concepts of freedom and possibility--but it is, and must remain, America's defining quality. We can be better than we are. We can always seek to be better than we are. The American experiment can choose acceptance over exclusion, charity over greed, humility over arrogance, love over hate. We can. We will. We must. Our goal is written in our mission statement: a more perfect union. This experiment continues. 

All come to look for America.

Let freedom ring.



THE GO-GO'S: Vacation


It puzzles me that The Go-Go's remain so under-appreciated. They were a fabulous group, they wrote great pop songs, and executed those great pop songs as great pop recordings. Yet many still view them as something, I dunno...frilly, or ephemeral. They deserve a lot better consideration than that. Their debut album Beauty And The Beat is nearly flawless; only the quirky, forgettable "Automatic" prevents me from embracing it as a solid, start-to-finish Love At First Spin record. I loved The Go-Go's then, and I love The Go-Go's still.

Before joining The Go-Go's, bassist Kathy Valentine had been in The Textones, a punk-influenced Texas pop group that also featured future solo performer (and future Gene Clark collaborator) Carla Olsen. Valentine's "Vacation" was one of two songs on the B-side of The Textones' 1980 single "I Can't Fight It." The Textones' original version of "Vacation" shares just enough DNA with the 1982 hit version by The Go-Go's to say that yeah, it's the same song. Sort of. The lyrics are different, the melody is different, and the choppy DIY feel of the original offers little clue to how The Go-Go's could change it into such an irresistible, shining object that cuts with the sharp edges of its wistful regret and unfulfilled wishes. A pop masterpiece, I tell ya, and the title track from the second Go-Go's LP.

DAVID JOHANSEN: Frenchette


As in the case of my first Artful Dodger show, that same summer of '79 also made me a David Johansen fan, when I saw him on a bill with--duh--The Flashcubes. Now--how shall I put this? I was 19, I was with friends at both shows, and we were...well, let's say we were really, really psyched to have a good and transcendent rock 'n' roll time by whatever means necessary. At the Artful Dodger show, I remember grooving on what seemed like an endless, extended opening vamp to "It's Over." With David Jo, I remember "Frenchette" blowin' my freakin' mind, its slow, beguilingly pretty intro giving thunderous way to the forceful boom of its big-Rock battering ram. And its lyrical refrain of Let's just dance! embodied a paradox of triumphant surrender. I can't get the kind of love that I want, so let's just dance and I'll forget. Maybe it was nonsense. Maybe it was deep and meaningful. Maybe it was both. Let's just dance.

THE KENNEDYS: Safe Until Tomorrow


During our current necessary period of social distancing, The Kennedys--expatriate North Syracusan Maura Kennedy and her husband (and honorary Central New Yorker) Pete Kennedy--have been doing one-hour live stream performances from their Greenwich Village apartment every Sunday afternoon at 2:00 Eastern. It's a lovely and uplifting way to spend an hour of your time, and you can join 'em for another virtual show this Sunday. Their original tune "Safe Until Tomorrow" closes their show, and its an appropriate theme song to adopt in this time of trouble.

BEN E. KING: Stand By Me


Ben E. King's classic song "Stand By Me" is one of the 124 fine records scheduled to be featured in my proposed book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Last week, I had an unpleasant dream where my agent sat me down and told me directly that she would not be able to sell the book because my writing just isn't good enough.

Hmmm. I can be self-deprecating and full of genuine doubt about virtually any aspect of what I do or try to do...except my writing. I always believe in my writing.

Maybe the dream was a reflection of the doubt and uncertainty that I sense all around us lately. I'm probably not really as accomplished a writer as I think I am, sure, but my conviction and belief in my ability is my sole practiced arrogance. Because I'm aware that writing is the only thing I've ever been any damned bit of good at doing. The book still may not find a home--that's always a possibility in any attempted commercial endeavor--but I think the work itself is decidedly, like, not terrible.

"Stand By Me" borders on a religious experience, a timeless ode to the power and strength to be derived simply from faith and devotion. Yet it's not a religious song at all; it's a tacit recognition that such a transcendent feeling of renewal and hope can come not just from the heavens, but also from the genuine loyalty of (and loyalty to) a lover or friend. That's the opening paragraph from my book's Ben E. King chapter. 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.


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


Well. Aren't we all?

Stay safe, my friends.


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You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

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

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download

Volume 2: CD or download

Volume 3: download

Volume 4: CD or download

Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

Hey, Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 124 essays about 124 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).

Fake THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO Playlist: Songwriters Showcase, Part 1

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl is simply too large a concept to be neatly contained within a mere three-hour weekly time slot. Hence these occasional fake TIRnRR playlists, detailing shows we're never really going to do...but could.


Here's one Dana and I will never do for real, simply because it would require too much coordination, and the result just wouldn't be This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. But it's a fun idea: a show wherein each set is devoted exclusively to the work of a single songwriter. That's an inviting playground to hop, skip 'n' jump within, so I'm gonna milk it for at least two fake TIRnRR playlists. We'll return here tomorrow for Part 2, dedicated to songwriters who worked with other songwriters, either steadily or occasionally. For now: it's not the singer, it's the songwriter.

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl--y'know, the real one--plays Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse on The Spark WSPJ-LP 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/

Spark Syracuse is supported by listeners like you. Tax-deductible donations are welcome at http://sparksyracuse.org/support/

You can follow Carl's daily blog Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) at 
https://carlcafarelli.blogspot.com/

Our new compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4 is now available from Kool Kat Musik! 29 tracks of irresistible rockin' pop, starring Pop Co-Op, Ray Paul, Circe Link & Christian Nesmith, Vegas With Randolph Featuring Lannie Flowers, The Slapbacks, P. Hux, Irene Peña, Michael Oliver & the Sacred Band Featuring Dave Merritt, The Rubinoos, Stepford Knives, The Grip Weeds, Popdudes, Ronnie Dark, The Flashcubes, Chris von Sneidern, The Bottle Kids, 1.4.5., The Smithereens, Paul Collins' Beat, The Hit Squad, The Rulers, The Legal Matters, Maura & the Bright Lights, Lisa Mychols, and Mr. Encrypto & the Cyphers. You gotta have it, so order it at https://tinyurl.com/ycnly8oz Digital download version (minus The Smithereens' track) now available at https://tinyurl.com/ycauy9xt

Fake TIRnRR Playlist: Songwriters Showcase, Part 1

PAUL McCARTNEY: Not Such A Bad Boy
MARY HOPKINS: Goodbye
THE CRICKETS: T-Shirt
BADFINGER: Come And Get It
THE EVERLY BROTHERS: On The Wings Of A Nightingale
THE FIREMAN: Sing The Changes
--
CHUCK BERRY: Johnny B. Goode
THE ROLLING STONES: Come On
BUDDY HOLLY: Brown-Eyed Handsome Man
THE BEATLES: Rock And Roll Music
GEORGE THOROGOOD & THE DESTROYERS: It Wasn't Me

THE MC5: Back In The USA
--
PRINCE: I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man
HINDU LOVE GODS: Raspberry Beret
CYNDI LAUPER: When You Were Mine
BIG DADDY: Purple Rain
CHAKA KHAN: I Feel For You
SINEAD O'CONNOR: Nothing Compares 2 U
--
MICHAEL NESMITH: Rising In Love
THE STONE PONEYS: Different Drum
THE PAUL BUTTERFIELD BLUES BAND: Mary, Mary
THE CONTINENTAL DRIFTERS: Some Of Shelly's Blues
MICHAEL CARPENTER: Joanne
THE MONKEES: You Just May Be The One
--
ERIC CARMEN: Never Say Die
LISA MYCHOLS: Go All The Way
THE RUBINOOS: Tonight
SHAUN CASSIDY: That's Rock 'n' Roll
THE SHIVVERS: Hey Deanie
THE RASPBERRIES: I Wanna Be With You
--
PAUL SIMON: American Tune
THE CYRKLE: Red Rubber Ball
FIRST AID KIT: America
THE BANGLES: Hazy Shade Of Winter
CHAD & JEREMY: Homeward Bound
SIMON & GARFUNKEL: My Little Town
--
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: Girls In Their Summer Clothes
THE HOLLIES: Sandy
JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS: Light Of Day
ROBERT GORDON: Fire
THE KNACK: Don't Look Back
DAVE EDMUNDS: From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come) 
--
NEIL DIAMOND with BRIAN WILSON: Delirious Love
LULU: The Boat That I Row
UB40: Red, Red Wine
URGE OVERKILL: Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon
THE SPECIALS: A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You
THE SIDEWINDERS: Solitary Man
--
RAY DAVIES: Sold Me Out
THE PRETENDERS: Stop Your Sobbing
HOLLY GOLIGHTLY: Time Will Tell
DAVID BOWIE: Waterloo Sunset
KIRSTY MacCOLL: Days
THE KINKS: You Really Got Me
THE KINKS: She's Got Everything [backing track]

THE EVERLASTING FIRST: Quick Takes For S [music edition]

Continuing a look back at my first exposure to a number of rock 'n' roll acts and superheroes (or other denizens of print or periodical publication), some of which were passing fancies, and some of which I went on to kinda like. They say you never forget your first time; that may be true, but it's the subsequent visits--the second time, the fourth time, the twentieth time, the hundredth time--that define our relationships with the things we cherish. Ultimately, the first meeting is less important than what comes after that. But every love story still needs to begin with that first kiss.






SAM & DAVE



Well, this was certainly ass-backwards. I have no recollection whatsoever of Sam & Dave's music from when I was a kid in the '60s, nor did I develop any awareness of them as an oldies-obsessed adolescent and teen in the '70s. I'm embarrassed to admit that I first heard the song "Soul Man" via Saturday Night Live, when John Belushi and Dan Akroyd performed it on the show in their incarnation as Jake and Elwood, The Blues Brothers. I didn't care much about The Blues Brothers on SNL, but The Blues Brothers' subsequent recorded version sizzled, thanks largely to the irresistible guitar work of Stax Records legend Steve Cropper. Cropper and bassist Duck Dunn had also played on the original Sam & Dave recording of "Soul Man," and Jake and Elwood's faux soul revival eventually led me to the real deal. Gotta give Belushi and Akroyd some respect for knowing who to hang with. But once I did hear Sam & Dave's "Soul Man" and "Hold On, I'm Coming," I would have neither time nor inclination to ever listen to The Blues Brothers again.




THE SELECTER



I think I had at least heard of something called ska music prior to the 2-Tone British ska revival in the late '70s, but I probably couldn't have told you anything about it at the time. By '79, I knew who The English Beat were (I believe I voted for Saxa as Best Saxophone Player in some music poll), and in 1980 my college roommate had The Specials' first album. My quirky memory associates my belated discovery of The Selecter with the guy behind the counter at Muesey's, a convenience store not far from my apartment in Brockport circa '80 or '81. I usually bought my Goebel's Beer supply at Muesey's, so yeah, I was there a lot. Chatty sort that I can be at times, I must have mentioned my love of punk, new wave, and power pop music on one or more Muesey's visit, prompting Counter Guy to sniff Yeah, I guess that stuff's okay, but you really should be listening to ska, man. Something with a beat. Do you know The Selecter? I'd probably read about The Selecter in Trouser Press, but I hadn't heard them yet. I took Counter Guy's advice sufficiently to heart to at least keep my ears open. Before long, via radio or TV or whatever, I heard The Selecter's magnificent "On My Radio." What a fantastic track! I eventually picked up a 2-Tone sampler LP that included "On My Radio" and the nearly-as-great "Too Much Pressure," though I wouldn't own a Selecter album until purchasing a best-of CD within recent years. Nonetheless: Thanks for the tip, Counter Guy! My taste for The Selecter aged much better than my taste for Goebel's.



SHAM 69



Sham 69 was a British punk group that I read about in the '70s, but never got around to hearing. The press reports didn't exactly inspire enthusiasm, as descriptions of Sham 69 painted a picture of simplistic, laddish sloganeers, more pub-bound football hooligan than no-future anarchist in the U.K. I was curious about them, but not curious enough to seek out their music. It may have been as late as the '90s by the time I actually heard Sham 69, though I think I at least had some small exposure to them before that, or at least to lead singer Jimmy Pursey's appearance with The Clash in the film Rude Boy. Ultimately, Sham 69 struck me as the least-interesting of England's higher-profile punk groups of the day--all right, but no match for The Damned, and nowhere near the same league as The Sex Pistols. I wound up digging "Hurry Up Harry," a simple laddish track about goin' 'round the pub. Of course.



THE SHANGRI-LAS



Girl groups were sweet. The Shangri-Las were the bad-girl group, tougher than the rest, hangin' out with bikers, doin' it on the beach, and regretting such transgressions a year later while [REMEMBER!] walking in the sand. Beneath their leather beat hearts of gold, more fragile than they would easily admit. The Shangri-Las' best records were tiny teen dramas writ large for AM radio. I presume I heard them in the '60s, but my awareness of The Shangri-Las didn't dawn until my oldies immersion in the '70s. I must have heard "Leader Of The Pack" on the radio, and screamed along, Look out! Look out! Look out! LOOK OUT! Man, is she really going out with him? My first Shangri-Las acquisition was "Leader Of The Pack" on the 2-LP various-artists set Dick Clark 20 Years Of Rock N' Roll, which used a defective master that omitted the line One day my dad said find someone new; either that, or my copy skipped. Whatever. A subsequent purchase of an oldies collection called Supercharged Rock N' Roll Hits gave me a complete and unexpurgated "Leader Of The Pack," as well as "Remember (Walking In The Sand)." Yet another oldies comp (15 Original Rock N' Roll Biggies Vol. 2) added "Give Him A Great Big Kiss" to my cavalcade o' Shangri-Las gems. My sister gave me a CD of The Shangri-Las' best; her daughters used to sing along with its track "Long Live Our Love," dressing up and acting it out in the infectious, flamboyant fashion of little girls. Years later, I played the song again on my radio show shortly after my sister's oldest daughter was killed in a stupid car accident. And I just sobbed, singing along Long live our love, long live our love. I still can't come to terms with what happened. (To close this on a happier note, I'll mention that former Shangri-Las lead singer Mary Weiss' 2007 album Dangerous Game was one of the best albums released that year.)



SIMON & GARFUNKEL



Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? In 1968, the success of Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson" was so vast and ubiquitous that even this eight-year-old knew it, and that's my earliest conscious memory of Paul 'n' Artie. I became a huge S & G fan in the '70s, to the extent that they probably rivaled The Monkees as runners-up to The Beatles in the countdown of my all-time top pop acts. (The Ramones and The Flashcubes ultimately knocked everyone who wasn't The Beatles outta my Top Three, with The Monkees and The Kinks right up there next in line.) I still love Simon & Garfunkel, too. An English teacher in middle school or high school used "The Sounds Of Silence" as an example of poetry in pop songs, and from there I moved on to "The Boxer," "Homeward Bound," "El Condor Pasa," "I Am A Rock," "The 59th Street Bridge Song," and "Bridge Over Troubled Water." When the pair reunited in '75 for the single "My Little Town," it was the next best thing to The Beatles re-Beatling. (And I loved the sequence when Paul Simon hosted the second-ever edition of NBC's Saturday Night (later re-named Saturday Night Live), with musical guest Art Garfunkel. Paul said to his erstwhile partner, So. Artie. You've come crawling back. Homeward bound.)



SLADE



The glittery 'n' glammy-looking (but rompin' 'n' stompin'-sounding) Slade were huge stars in their native British Isles in the early '70s, but nearly unknown in the States at that time. Except for in Syracuse; let's face it, we here in Syracuse were just plain ahead of you backward louts in the rest of America. You'll catch up with us. Someday. Harrumph. Slade's awesome "Gudbuy T' Jane" was a great big hit record on Syracuse's Big 15 WOLF-AM, and I freakin' adored it. I can't remember whether or not I ever saw Slade alongside the divine Suzi Quatro, the loathsome Gary Glitter, or the Tartan-clad Bay City Rollers on cable-TV airings of the British pop show Supersonic a few years later; even if I did, "Gudbuy T' Jane" is my only real Slade memory from that time frame (other than a radio ad for a Slade live concert appearance, which this young teen had zero chance of attending). As a college freshman in the spring of '78, I read more about Slade in Bomp! magazine's landmark power pop issue. A later Main Street Records purchase of the best-of set Sladest gave me "Mama Weer All Crazee Now" and "Cum On Feel The Noize," and I was a fan. When goofy metal group Quiet Riot hit big in the '80s with a cover of "Cum On Feel The Noise," I could only roll my eyes at my countrymen and countrychicks embracing this clunky imitation instead of the rockin' original. When Slade finally had U.S. hits in the mid '80s with "My Oh My" and "Run Runaway," I shook my head in wonder that it took my fellow Americans so long to understand and embrace what AM radio listeners in Syracuse already knew more than a decade before that. Come on: feel the noise.



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Our new compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4 is now available from Kool Kat Musik! 29 tracks of irresistible rockin' pop, starring Pop Co-Op, Ray Paul, Circe Link & Christian Nesmith, Vegas With Randolph Featuring Lannie Flowers, The Slapbacks, P. Hux, Irene Peña, Michael Oliver & the Sacred Band Featuring Dave Merritt, The Rubinoos, Stepford Knives, The Grip Weeds, Popdudes, Ronnie Dark, The Flashcubes,Chris von Sneidern, The Bottle Kids, 1.4.5., The Smithereens, Paul Collins' Beat, The Hit Squad, The Rulers, The Legal Matters, Maura & the Bright Lights, Lisa Mychols, and Mr. Encrypto & the Cyphers. You gotta have it, so order it here. A digital download version (minus The Smithereens' track) is also available from Futureman Records.