My thoughts on pop music and pop culture, plus the weekly playlists from THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO with Dana and Carl (Sunday nights 9 to Midnight Eastern, SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM in Syracuse, sparksyracuse.org). You can support this blog on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2449453 Twitter @CafarelliCarl
All editorial content on this blog Copyright Carl Cafarelli (except where noted). All images copyright the respective owners TIP JAR at https://www.paypal.me/CarlCafarelli
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.
RICH ARITHMETIC: When You Want Somebody (To Make Love To)
Rich Arithmetic is the nom de bop of Rich Horton, and somehow our stats indicate that this week's spin of "When You Want Somebody (To Make Love To)" is only the fifth time a Rich Arithmetic track has ever graced a TIRnRR playlist. Man, where the hell have we been? This fine tune comes to us from the brand-new Rich Arithmetic album Pushbutton Romance, it's flippin' fantastic, and it's back on the radio again in our next show. We may be slow. But we ain't stupid.
THE CYNZ: Little Miss Lost
Singles. Tribute album offerings. Since the Cynz aligned with the mighty Jem Records, we've been getting little teases of new Cynz recordings, whettin' the ol' appetite for more. Now, at long last, that promised MORE! is nearly at hand.
March 29th is the official street date for Little Miss Lost, the brand new album from the Cynz. We can't wait. Meanwhile, the album's title tune has been released as an advance single. We played it on the radio this week, and we're playin' it again this Sunday night. Tease leads to promise. Promise leads to reward. Don't let this be a lost opportunity: Get with the music of the Cynz.
ELENA ROGERS: I Feel Alive
This is so good. Elena Rogers first entered TIRnRR's sovereign air space on a recommendation from pop giant Jamie Hoover. Jamie's been working with the young singer for a few years, he's clearly (and understandably) knocked out by her talent and musical prowess, and he would kindly like the world at large to wake the hell up and get hip to Elena Rogers awready.
Elena's new single "I Feel Alive" is her best track yet, ambitious and audacious in its approach while remaining absolutely, unerringly pop. During Jamie's 2023 appearance on the way-swell Only Three Lads podcast, our esteemed Mr. Hoover promised a new Elena Rogers album in '24. That album will be called Prelude To Whatever, and "I Feel Alive" ratchets up the anticipation.
Can you feel it?
LEATHER CATSUIT: Can't Get You Off My Mind
A couple of week's back, in the exciting 2/9/2024 edition of 10 Songs, I referred to both Paul Collins' "I'm The Only One For You" and Leather Catsuit's "Can't Get You Off My Mind" as welcome earworms. Well, the fact that we're still delighting in that act of programming 'em indicates their Welcome, Earworm! status remains unchallenged. Hell, the Leather Catsuit track is in my head pretty much all day, every day. Yep: I can't get it off my mind.
Don't wanna get it off my mind. And I am perfectly fine with that.
THE CYRKLE: We Can Find It
We've been playing most of the advance single sides from '60s sunshine pop combo the Cyrkle's new album Revival, and the arrival of the entire album gives us a chance to air what seems to be its best track. "We Can Find It" is less overtly nostalgic than the album's (still pretty nifty) first single "We Thought We Could Fly" and the attendant (solid) remakes of the Cyrkle's hits "Red Rubber Ball" and "Turn Down Day," but equally a product of the group's legacy. Endearing in its own right.
THE RAMONES: Swallow My Pride
"Swallow My Pride" is one of my favorite tracks by one of my all-time favorite groups, the Ramones. The American Beatles! The greatest American rock 'n' roll group of all time! I like 'em so much I wrote a book about them. And I also wrote an appreciation of my 25 favorite Ramones tracks, which included this celebration of "Swallow My Pride:"
We should have seen this as a sign: If "Swallow My Pride" couldn't become a smash hit single, any top-of-the-pops aspirations the Ramones harbored were doomed from the start. Looking just at the Ramones' American singles, we can say maybe U.S. radio wasn't quite ready for"Blitzkrieg Bop" in '76, that "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" was pretty but not smooth enough for American airwaves, and maybe "I Remember You" didn't have the prerequisite oomph to be radio-ready.
But "Swallow My Pride" was perfect. Perfect. It's pure pop, drawing inspiration from the best '60s influences, and it doesn't even have any specific punk or glue-sniffing aspect to put an asterisk on its commercial sheen. It's a revved-up counterpart to the Bay City Rollers' "Rock And Roll Love Letter" or KISS' "Shout It Out Loud."
Perhaps "Swallow My Pride" was too good for Top 40 in 1977, and I guess progressive FM might have thought it too pop (or whatever other excuse they could concoct to dismiss something so obviously beneath their smug carcasses). The Ramones' next three singles--"Sheena Is A Punk Rocker," "Rockaway Beach," and "Do You Wanna Dance"--maintained a similarly irresistible spark, and even managed to breach the Billboard Hot 100. No subsequent Ramones single even came close.
The Ramones deserved a string of hit records. "Swallow My Pride" should have been one of 'em.
THE MONKEES: For Pete's Sake
When we programmed this spin of the Monkees' shoulda-been-a-single track "For Pete's Sake," we weren't thinking about the fact that this week also marked five years since the world lost Peter Tork. We played it simply because we wanted to play it. In this generation, in this lovin' time.
THE SPINNERS: I'll Be Around
In the perhaps unlikely event my long-threatened (and long-ago-completed) book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) ever finds its path to publication, it will include a chapter about the Spinners' 1972 soul classic "I'll Be Around."
"I'll Be Around" was one of the many integral components of my own golden age of AM Top 40, the days and nights when my adolescent and teen ears were surgically tethered to Syracuse's WOLF-AM and WNDR-AM. My experience of just being in utter thrall to pop radio in the early '70s is the biggest reason why I grew up [sic] wanting to participate in the process. Make no mistake: My part of making TIRnRR is a direct result of my prevailing wish to be able to create something that can match and expand upon the sound and sense AM radio sparked within my hook-starved noggin.
From an early draft of the long-threatened thing:
The Spinners' string of Atlantic hits commenced in 1972, with the # 3 smash "I'll Be Around." Its resigned sigh offers little clue to the exuberance yet to come; thematically, its tale of love lost has more in common with "It's A Shame" and "My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me)" than it shares with the presumed happiness within the love stories sung in "Could It Be I'm Falling In Love," "One Of A Kind Love Affair," and "Then Came You." You've made a choice, and now it's up to me to bow out gracefully. It's pop music performed with a lump in the throat, yet it eschews melodrama with...well, not quite a shrug, but with the wisdom to realize causing a scene won't do any damned bit of good. I'm sorry, my friend; this affair is over, man. But whenever you call me I'll be there That devotion won't change, even as the singer bids farewell to a house he'd prefer to still call his home, to a heart he aches with a desire to still call his, to a present and a future he's desperate to believe could still be, though he knows with dull certainty that it can't. His love is too strong to allow him to wish his lover anything but the best, even though he's shattered by the fact that "the best" emphatically does not include him. She's made a choice. As he leaves, she's going to close the door behind him. He doesn't give up hope. Whenever she calls him....
It's an important subject, and we thank our friends Wonderboyfor starting the conversation. We introduced TIRnRR to the concept last week. We re-visited it this week. We'll return to it yet again on our next show. Let's hear it for the girls.
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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, streaming at SPARK streamand on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.
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.
"Girl Don't Tell Me" occupies an incongruous but significant slot in my story of belatedly becoming a fan of The Beach Boys. I've previously written (principally here and here) of my slower'n slow path from thinking The Beach Boys were uncool to regarding them as one of my favorites.
But I don't think I've mentioned the specific importance of "Girl Don't Tell Me" in that evolution. It was almost incidental; I knew the song from my old copy of the Endless Summer compilation, so it wasn't anything new to me when I heard it again in, I guess, the late '80s. I had borrowed a copy of the Capitol Records two-fer CD reissue of Beach Boys albums Today! and Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), a loan courtesy of the local library.
My interest in The Beach Boys at this point was slightly more than perfunctory, considerably less than devoted. But something clicked for me this time. I was enjoying the CD, but for some reason that familiar 17th track stood out, and hooked me in a way it hadn't before. "Girl Don't Tell Me." It had a Beatles aura about it, yet it sounded uniquely American, Californian, Beach Boys '65. It was roughly contemporary to my favorite Beatles albums. It was fantastic, just inviting and all-encompassing.
And it set me on the better-late-than-never path to discover and eventually adore this Beach Boys music I'd mostly ignored for so long. I bought all the Capitol two-fers. I bought the Pet Sounds CD reissue as soon as it hit the stores. Later, I bought the Pet Sounds boxed set, the first of a few occasions where I shelled out cash for a multi-disc collection of what had originally been a single LP. All worth it, though. And for me, a proper appreciation of The Beach Boys began with "Girl Don't Tell Me."
BOW WOW WOW: C30 C60 C90 ANDA!
Bow Wow Wowsinging in Spanish? ¡Me gusta esta!
DEAR STELLA: Time Machine
I can't get enough of this track. In a previous 10 Songs, I compared Dear Stella's "Time Machine" to Olivia Newton-John fronting Cheap Trick. That first impression reinforces itself every time I listen. Like, what if Cheap Trick had replaced Electric Light Orchestra in collaborating with Newton-John for the music in her 1980 flick Xanadu? No, I didn't see the movie either, but that's beside the point. The sound woulda been awesome, and it would have sounded at least a bit like "Time Machine." This is absolutely one of my favorite tracks of the year.
THE DIXIE CUPS: Iko Iko
Like Mary Poppins and The Ramones, The Dixie Cups' "Iko Iko" is practically perfect in every way. I considered playing the originally-unreleased a cappella version (which refers to a boy as "a sex machine," and probably wouldn't have made it to the radio in 1965), but nothing compares to the well-known hit rendition. The Greatest Record Ever Made? Well...yeah.
THE FOUR TOPS: Baby I Need Your Loving
It is possible for a pop song to be both smooth and powerful at the same time. I mean, The Righteous Brothers demonstrated it with their version of "Unchained Melody," and The Four Tops owned the concept on their break-through 1964 hit "Baby I Need Your Loving."
THE KINKS: (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman
Bert Parks' greatest hit. Sort of.
The Kinks' 1979 album Low Budget brought the group a commercial resurgence in America, moving them from modest concert halls to arenas. Its release was preceded by the single "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman," which was a seemingly incongruous mix of our dedicated followers of fashion with a disco beat. Faster than a speeding leisure suit, more powerful than a mirrored ball, able to leap over tall velvet ropes in a single bound, the record is flush with Ray Davies' characteristic cantankerousness, and it was accepted by rockers who would not have been caught dead with any kind of Saturday night fever. Disco? The Rolling Stones did it. KISS did it. Blondie had their first U.S. hit by doin' it. Even the razzafrazzin' Grateful Dead did it with "Shakedown Street," though every Deadhead I knew denied the fact and the beat. So why shouldn't The Kinks make a disco record? The Kinks pulled it off, and The Kinks got bigger.
And then...Bert Parks.
1979 was the final year that Parks would host the annual Miss America beauty pageant. He had been that show's host since about, oh, the dawn of time, and he was about to be kicked aside and replaced by someone younger, if not exactly hipper. "Hipper" and "Miss America beauty pageant" were definitely not two great tastes that taste great together. Actor (and former TV Tarzan) Ron Ely took over the job in 1980 and '81.
By '79, I was not in the habit of watching the Miss America broadcast. Whatever interest I could have derived from seeing pretty girls on my TV screen was overshadowed by the sheer hokiness of such an emphatically four-cornered spectacle. But that year, my girlfriend asked me to be her plus-one at the wedding of one of her dearest friends, so I accompanied her out of town for the event. We had some down time one evening, and we found ourselves watching TV.
Miss America.
Bert Parks.
The...Kinks...?!
No, Muswell Hill's finest didn't show up to warble "Theeeere she is, Miss America...!" That would have been odd, but interesting. Instead, Bert Parks himself lent his golden throat to a never-before, never-again, why-in-God's-name-in-the-first-place performance of "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman." Parks concluded the brief songlet by ripping open his shirt to reveal the Superman shield on his chest.
I was horrified. Transfixed, car-crash hypmotized, unable to turn away, scarred for life, damaged beyond repair, a gas-strike, oil-strike, lorry-strike, bread-strike pinned-in-place deer in the disco lights. Hey, girl. We gotta get out of this place.
You don't believe me? Lord, I wish it had only been the hallucination it seemed. But no! It was real. Check out this YouTube clip, and go directly to the 38:08 mark...IF YOU DARE!
So. Bert Parks' final gig as Miss America pageant host. Coincidence? Maybe. Or further evidence that you don't tug on Superman's cape. And, for God's sake, you don't mess with The Kinks.
THE LAST: Lies
When I was in college, my favorite rock magazine was Bomp!, which I adored even more than I adored CREEM and Trouser Press. I read about The Last in Bomp! circa 1979, and I was sufficiently intrigued by the write-up (without having heard the music) to make a mail order purchase of The Last's debut single "She Don't Know Why I'm Here." It arrived alongside its partner purchases (The Romantics' "Tell It To Carrie" 45 and The Sex Pistols' Spunk bootleg), and it did not disappoint. I remember telling Flashcubes guitarist Paul Armstrong about "She Don't Know Why I'm Here," describing it as a cross between the Pistols and The Castaways (of "Liar, Liar" fame). The Last and The Flashcubes were both on a Bomp! compilation album called Waves. I bought The Last's debut album L.A. Explosion!, and eagerly awaited more from this fab combo.
"More" did come eventually from The Last, but the specific follow-up to L.A. Explosion!--1980's Look Again--was not released at the time. It has just finally seen the light of day, proving that even 2020 is good for something. I'm very, very happy.
IRENE PEÑA: It Must Be Summer
Willful denial as winter approaches. Though this cover of the Fountains Of Wayne gem (performed by America's Sweetheart Irene Peña) retains the original's sense of a bummer of a summer, which is certainly fitting for 2020.
Heartbreak, capitulation and acceptance--and that's all apparently taken place before the song's even started.The ultimate stiff-upper-lip ditty, as the ex-lover bows out gracefully, but leaves the girl with his card...just in case things change.
VAN HALEN: Dance The Night Away
The death of a popular performer can strike one in surprising ways. This can be true even when it's a performer you were never really into to begin with. Sudden, overdue perspective can strike from anywhere. I was never a Van Halen fan, and guitarist Eddie Van Halen's unexpected passing this year isn't going to change that. But I've always liked (and occasionally loved) VH's 1979 hit "Dance The Night Away," and its eventual addition to TIRnRR's little Play-Tone Galaxy O' Stars was inevitable. With this week's show, we've now played the song twice, and odds are we'll play it again.
What wasn't inevitable--and, in fact, I woulda thought you flat-out loco if you suggested it--was for me to ever consider adding a Van Halen entry to my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Crazy. Absurd! And yet...yeah, it's there, in the updated Table of Contents: Van Halen, "Dance The Night Away," currently nestled in between The Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer In The City" and a piece about The Tottenham Sound of The Beatles. Didn't see that coming, but it feels undeniable now. DANCE!
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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 # 1035. EMITT RHODES: Fresh As A Daisy In the early '90s, I put together a proposal for a book I wanted to write about power pop. I had a little bit of name recognition in pop circles at the time, but the project never had much of a chance of becoming real, and my prospective publisher told me to go all the way...home. One evening, when the book project was still a potential thing, I was chatting with Gary Frenay of The Flashcubes and Screen Test between sets at an acoustic gig in Skaneateles, NY. In the conversation, Gary mentioned Emitt Rhodes; I replied that I didn't recognize that name. Gary looked at me silently for a beat, and then said, "And you want to write a book about power pop...?" Point taken. But then Gary mentioned Rhodes' former group The Merry-Go-Round, and I was a bit more familiar with them (which probably saved me from being exiled from Flashcubes fandom right then and there). I knew two Merry-Go-Round tracks--"Live" and "You're A Very Lovely Woman"--from their inclusion on various-artists '60s compilations in Rhino Records' Nuggets series in the '80s. Still, I had never heard any of Rhodes' solo work. I had to fix that. I don't recall the order in which I assembled my belated Emitt Rhodes library. If memory serves (and it rarely does with me), I picked up The American Dream, Mirror, and Farewell To Paradise at various used record shops over the next year or two. I'm not sure if I ever owned a vinyl copy of the 1970 eponymous debut album. I definitely bought one of my Rhodes LP acquisitions at a store in Virginia Beach, during the same idyllic vacation when I first heard Material Issue's "Kim The Waitress" on the radio. I may have gotten one of them at another cool place on Eau Gallie Road in Melbourne, Florida in August of 1994. It's also likely that I got something (probably The American Dream) from the basement of Johnnie's Collectibles in Syracuse when I was researching a different book that I also didn't write in the '90s. I'm pretty sure I grabbed a beat-up Merry-Go-Round anthology at Desert Shore Records up on the SU hill. By the late '90s, I had also added One Way Records' CD reissue of Emitt Rhodes, and Varese Sarabande's Emitt Rhodes career anthology CD Listen, Listen. And by then, I certainly understood why Gary Frenay would question the credentials of a pop pundit who didn't know Emitt Rhodes. But there are still a lot of people who don't know this music. Rhodes never breached the boundary of Billboard's Top 40; The Merry-Go-Round's "Live" died at # 63, and Rhodes' classic "Fresh As A Daisy" only made it as high as # 54. Both should be well-known, well-loved staples of American radio. They should not be obscurities relegated to the left of the dial and the fringes of the internet. One wishes the world at large had followed Gary Frenay's lead in appreciating Emitt Rhodes. As Emitt Rhodes leaves us, the world seems not as fresh as it should have been. In 1997, Rhino Records hired me to write the liner notes for the 1990s volume in its Power Pop Classics anthology series Poptopia! I saw the list of tracks the label wanted to license for each of Poptopia!'s three decade-specific volumes, and I know the Rhino folks wanted "Fresh As A Daisy" for the 1970s disc. It was not to be. In 2018, Screen Test released a cover of "Fresh As A Daisy" on their Through The Past, Brightly collection, with Gary Frenay's lead vocals channeling Emitt Rhodes as a capable rockin' pop fan oughta. Well if you come from Heaven You know that that's okay Just as long as you're here to help me It doesn't matter how long you stay We wish you could have stayed a little longer, Emitt. THE BANGLES: Live Before those above-cited Rhino Nuggets LPs hipped me to The Merry-Go-Round's "Live," I already knew the song as one of my favorite tracks by The Bangles. I was a huge Bangles fan in the '80s, and their 1984 All Over The Place album was loaded with engaging tracks. I had no idea that "Live" was a cover, but whatever its genesis, I was wholly captivated by The Bangles' dreamy rendition, and equally swayed to swoon with The Merry-Go-Round's original version. THE BAR: Katie's Shoes The BAR is Jim Babjak, Danny Adlerman, and Kurt Reil, an irresistible troika of rockin' pop forces pooling their resources to commanding effect. They've just released a digital single of "Katie's Shoes" as a tease for their eponymous debut album, which is itself due out soon. Go to dannyandkim.com for more information. Of course, TIRnRR fans already know how great this track is. The BAR let us use it on our 2006 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 2, and Dana and I are delighted that we're finally going to be hearing more music from The BAR. I think "Katie's Shoes" was our formal introduction to Danny Adlerman, a musician and author of children's books in collaboration with his wife Kim. We were already corresponding with Jim Babjak of The Smithereens and Kurt Reil of The Grip Weeds when we were assembling TIRnRR2, and conversations led us to The BAR. As they often do. Danny's a true believer, and we're happy to be in his corner. Our shared history started here. THE CLASH: Train In Vain
"Train In Vain" is far and away the most pop-sounding track The Clash ever did. "Pop" never really seemed to be The Clash's primary goal; they were The Only Band That Mattered, politically aware, socially conscious, and that ambition and reputation (plus, y'know, actually being great) made them the most revered group to come out of 1970s British punk. Punk songs like "White Riot" are pop, of course--it's ALL pop music, after all--but "White Riot" isn't pop in the same way that "Train In Vain" is pop. Nor is "London Calling," nor is the throwaway B-side "1-2 Crush On You." Nor is "Rock The Casbah," even though that was The Clash's biggest pop hit in America. "Rock The Casbah" was popular; "Train In Vain" was pop. I tell ya, outside of "Train In Vain," the closest thing to pure pop in the Clash catalog o' hits is "Spanish Bombs," which is much prettier and catchier than one would expect of a song about the Spanish Civil War. "Train In Vain" has no qualifiers, no asterisks next to its description as an unabashed pop tune. If we close our eyes, we can imagine "Train In Vain" by Otis Redding, "Train In Vain" by The Monkees, "Train In Vain" on Motown or Apple. As we open our eyes, it's The Clash, with guitar hero Mick Jones crooning a simple song over a simple riff, a boy in love and unashamed to say it. There is not a shred of self-consciousness in play, no taint of irony; to paraphrase another set of British punks, he means it, man. THE GO-GO'S: Beatnik Beach The Go-Go's released some terrific B-sides. I devoted an installment of my B-side appreciation series The Other Side Of The Hit to "Surfing And Spying," The Go-Go's' great original Ventures tribute that backed "Our Lips Are Sealed." The other side of "We Got The Beat" ("Can't Stop The World") coulda been an A-side single itself. "Speeding," "Good For Gone," "I'm With You," and "Mercenary" (the respective flips of "Get Up And Go," "Head Over Heels," "Turn To You," and "Yes Or No") may not have been Billboard chart hit material, but they do rock, and they provide further proof of the sheer splendor of The Go-Go's. "Beatnik Beach," the fab B-side of "Vacation," doesn't sound like a shoulda-been radio smash, but I've always loved it--YEAH yeah!--and it remains one of my favorite Go-Go's cuts--yeah YEAH! There's a new Go-Go's documentary premiering on Showtime this weekend, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing it. YEAH YEAH! THE JAM: The Eton Rifles Eatin' waffles! Eatin' waffles! It's an in-joke. Move along. THE KINKS: I Took My Baby Home For a very brief flash of time, "I Took My Baby Home" was the most exciting track that The Kinks ever released. It didn't have a lot of competition for that title, since it was the B-side of the very first Kinks single, and much more distinctive and interesting than the perfunctory cover of Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" on its A-side. The Kinks' second single, "You Still Want Me"/"You Do Something To Me," paired a couple of fine beat numbers, though I'd say "I Took My Baby Home" was still the pick of this four-song run. The Kinks' third single was the greatest record ever made, and its release ended the short reign of "I Took My Baby Home" as the best of The Kinks. Nonetheless, "I Took My Baby Home" remains a superb rock 'n' roll track, with its strutting harmonica come-on and its euphoric tale of a helpless chap gleefully seduced by his girl (whose high-powered kisses really knock him out, they knock him oh-oh-over). And it was one of the songs I acquired in my first year as a Kinks fan. I started with "All Day And All Of The Night" on a various-artists LP at Christmas of 1976, added "You Really Got Me," the Kinks-Size LP and maybe Sleepwalker before heading off to college the following August, and scored my first Kinks compilation album during the fall semester. This Kinks volume of The Pye History Of British Rock introduced me to "I Took My Baby Home," right alongside "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion," "Sunny Afternoon," "I'm Not Like Everybody Else," "Where Have All The Good Times Gone," and "Till The End Of The Day." I knew "I Took My Baby Home" before I knew "Waterloo Sunset," though I would discover that one soon enough. Not a bad way to get to know The Kinks, I say. (And I still mentally change the song's line "And she put her hands on my chest" to "And she put my hands on her chest." Aggressive girl. I bet her name was Lola.) THE RUNAWAYS: School Days During spring break of 1978, I saw The Flashcubes, The Runaways, and The Ramones on an incredible triple bill at a nightclub in Syracuse. Although "Cherry Bomb" is undeniably The Runaways' signature tune (and it gets its own entry in my eventual book The Greatest Record Ever Made! [Volume 1]), "School Days" is my favorite Runaways track. It's the most straight-ahead, no-frills rocker in Runaways canon, uncluttered by pouting or preening, unsullied by metal moves, just pure, punk-fueled Joan Jett oomph 'n' aggro. And listening to it on this week's show conjured a random memory of a girl I met that summer of '78. Janis was a co-worker, a fellow janitor on the morning crew at Sears. We were not a couple, and never likely to be a couple. There was no chemistry of that sort. I don't think I could even say that we were friends, really. Co-workers. She was cute, roughly my age, and in retrospect I guess it's odd that the thought of asking her out never occurred to me. I knew she had a boyfriend, so that was like an automatic KEEP OUT! sign to me. I may not have been the gentleman I wanted to be, but I was willfully determined not to be an asshole. To try not to be an asshole. (That determination had already failed me at school, as I stole a friend's girlfriend and warred constantly with my roommate. But I continued to try.)
For dramatic purposes, the part of Janis will be played by Lita Ford
Anyway, Janis and I were friendly enough, as co-workers can be, and during breaks she confided to me (and to everyone else on our small maintenance crew) that she was worried that she was pregnant. The worry became a dead certainty in her mind that she was pregnant, and that her stupid boyfriend remained, y'know, stupid, like boys are. (I'm a boy, and she's right; boys are stupid). Janis said Stupid Boyfriend--apparently unfazed by the daunting possibility of fatherhood--suggested they make with the bouncy-bouncy more often and try for twins. Janis rolled her eyes and sputtered in recounting the tale told by her idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. And nothing was the precise result. Over the course of breaktime conversations spanning days into a week and more, Janis' salutation of Carl, I might be pregnant evolved into Carl, I think I'm pregnant, and finally Guess what, Carl, I'm not pregnant! There may have been a little more back-and-forth of uncertainty, dread, and relief in Janis' story, but that was the gist of it. She broke up with Stupid Boyfriend. I still didn't ask her out. It was getting near time to return to school. Janis wasn't a Runaways fan, at least not as far as I was aware. But this week, the song reminded me of that summer. Timing, I guess. I associate The Runaways' "School Days" with that period of my life, when I was working and partying during vacation, flirting with getting into some real trouble--at separate times that summer, I sheltered an AWOL Marine and a teenage girl running away from home--but getting away with it as unscathed as any of us can claim. I had a little bit of money. There were bands to see, records to hear, friends to join, fun to have. School days. In between school days, sure, but still... Used to be the troublemaker Hated homework, was a sweet heartbreaker Now I have my dream I'm so rowdy for eighteen School days. Here's to ya, Janis. Friends? THE SPINNERS: Could It Be I'm Falling In Love Rhino Records' 1970s soul box Can You Dig It? has become one of my key go-tos in assembling tracks for each week's This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio playlist. I have a separate CD anthology of The Spinners, and the group was already a Featured Act on the show back in the days when we did Featured Acts, but scanning the tracks on Can You Dig It? while considering possibilities for TIRnRR provides a different sense of inspiration. I would never have become interested in co-creating a radio show if I hadn't fallen in love with AM radio when I was a kid. Anything, any sound, that renews that vital lifeline to the dream radio station playing in my head...well, that's what I need. Could it be I'm falling in love? Could be. That pure love of the sound of pop music is why we keep doing this. STEVIE WONDER: Uptight (Everything's Alright) My book's chapter on Stevie Wonder's "I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)" mentions that I was a latecomer to appreciating the wonder of Wonder. But it was impossible to resist "Uptight (Everything's Alright)." The song is a joyous explosion of abandon and bliss, the rush of young love fully expressed as the giddy, exuberant celebration the experience demands. God, what a rush. I may need to write a second book just to make room for "Uptight." Guess I should finish writing Volume 1 first, though. Outtasight! TIP THE BLOGGER: CC's Tip Jar!
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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:
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).
