10 SONGS: 4/5/2025

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 # 1279

JOE GIDDINGS: You're Not Grounded

Joe Giddings is an unheralded rockin' pop treasure. His current album Stories With Guitars is the best thing since sliced amphetamines, and its track "Tonite Tonite" is pret' damned likely to make our year-end countdown show. Jeez Louise, let's herald this guy awready!

Now, the esteemed Mr. Giddings has also turned in a cover of the Flashcubes' "You're Not Grounded," which is his contribution to the forthcoming Flashcubes tribute album Make Something Happen! The song was written by 'Cubes guitarist Arty Lenin, and recorded by Arty 'n' the lads for the Flashcubes' 2003 album Brilliant. Joe Giddings' cover of "You're Not Grounded" achieves the seemingly impossible: It's a Flashcubes cover that I--the world's most insistent Flashcubes fan--consider even better than the great Cubic original. Impossible--but TRUE! And brilliant from the ground up. That's how ya make something happen.

THE ARMOIRES: The Night I Heard A Scream

After kickin' off the proceedings in righteous fashion with Joe Giddings covering the Flashcubes, we threaded a secret series of Easter eggs at select spots throughout this week's playlist. We ain't sayin' what the thread was, nor what was part of it. All will be revealed in due time.

Meanwhile: Enjoy one of our consistent current Fave Raves the Armoires and their cover of a song by power pop legends 20/20. Just 'cuz. Pop music don't need no external justification, man. And don't the Armoires sound fabulous covering a little classic power pop?

THE AIRPORT 77'S: If It's On, I'm In

If it's on, I'm in--sounds like a plan! This latest single from the Airport 77's embraces the prospect and process of a gallivantin' blueprint transitioning from pencil to ink. BOLD ink, even. And fortune favors the bold. What's going on? Whatever it is, we're in. 

SUPER 8 FEATURING LISA MYCHOLS: Pop Radio

We played Super 8 Featuring Lisa Mychols' Make Something Happen! cover of the Flashcubes' "When We Close Our Eyes" on last week's show, and it'll be turning up on future playlists as well. Believe me you! But we also need to continue poundin' the ol' console on behalf of their magnificent current single "Pop Radio," a track which serves as manifesto for us and all others who crave the pleasures of hooks 'n' harmonies cascading 'cross the airwaves, where they belong.

THE MOCKERS: Rascals Who Died

High concept! Long-time TIRnRR Fave Raves the Mockers take on the Jim Carroll Band's alt-rock touchstone "People Who Died," but re-write it from a litany of see-yas to underground cronies into a farewell to Spanky and Our Gang. No, not the '60s sunshine pop group--Sunday actually will be the same--but the actors from the original Our Gang comedy short films, which were rerun  to death on TV as The Little Rascals. Members of the He-Man Woman Haters Club could not be reached for comment, possibly because they've all passed on anyway. We're playing this one again on our next show. Many happy returns of the day!

CHRIS CHURCH: Life On A Trampoline

"Life On A Trampoline?" It's BOUNCY! And it's a great, great track from Chris Church's great, great new album Obsolete Path. It will bounce its way back onto the radio in Syracuse again  this Sunday night. Up in the air? ON the air!

THE STANDELLS: Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

POP CO-OP: Persistence Of Memory

It's been pointed out elsewhere, but it's worthy of repeat play here: no one in the media is paid to say "We don't know." Nor would such an admission inspire confidence, but it's something that should be said more often than it is. We don't know. We don't know.

The last live broadcast of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio occurred on March 15th, 2020. The paragraph seen above was part of the commentary accompanying the posted playlist for that show. At the time, we did not know it would be our final live show. The world shut down the following week. As the next Sunday rolled around without us, we all sheltered in our individual places, trying to understand what was happening, wondering what the hell would happen next.

But the following week, global pandemic be damned, we had a job to do. Before the curtain fell on us and everyone around us, we had planned to devote an episode of TIRnRR to a celebration of Factory Settings, the then-forthcoming new release from our friends Pop Co-Op. That plan seemed in jeopardy since, y'know, we didn't have a radio show anymore.

Enter some wacky, unfamiliar new (or new-to-us) thing called Zoom.

The intrepid Laura Sessions Tinnel set everything up. On Sunday, 3/29/2020, a live Zoom session commenced with Dana and I at our remote locations, connected with Pop Co-Op's Steve Stoeckel, Joel Tinnel, Bruce Gordon, and Stacy Carson chimin' in from their individual Batcaves, plus (if I recall correctly)  Futureman Records CEO Keith Klingensmith joining us from somewhere within the palatial Futureman HQ. We talked back and forth, played each of the new album's tracks along with some relevant older material, and collectively reveled in the combined magic of technology and pop music bridging physical distance. Hands across the water, at a time when holding hands was verboten.

This whole experience of our Zoom with Pop Co-Op is a dizzying blur in my memory. It's a good blur nonetheless, and an important flashpoint in this little mutant radio show's long, strange history. It was yet another point where we seemed on the verge of falling silent, but found a way to dig in our heels and resist. A chip on our shoulders and a song in our hearts.

"Persistence Of Memory" is my favorite track on Factory Settings. This week, we played it again, as memory persists and time melts away.

We're still here.

FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE: Better Things

Five years ago today--April 5th, 2020--was the debut of the remote-programmed TIRnRR. It was a few days after we learned that COVID had killed Fountains Of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger, but our tribute to Schlesinger had to wait until the following week. Inspired by Rich Firestone and Michael McCartney, our decision to attempt recording a show at home came late in the week, with no time to program a playlist. Instead, Dana grabbed a model playlist I'd concocted in between the last live show and the Zoom with Pop Co-Op, I barked some back announcements into my iPhone, and Dana performed the process that transmogrified it all into a radio show. We have not missed a week since then.

As we tried to figure this out and move forward, I wrote this bit for our 4/12/2020 show:

Sometimes yesterday feels a lot closer than tomorrow. Tomorrow can seem like a vague promise, a mere possibility. Tomorrow isn't even a destination; it's just the next leg of our journey, a marker we hope will be followed by another tomorrow, then another, and so on. In our desperate moments, we may suspect that tomorrow won't arrive at all.

Yesterday is always right there with us. We don't want to live in the past, but memories can help to sustain us in our uncertainty. It's true that memories (good and bad) can also hold us back, but whatever we are, whatever we will become, is a product of places we remember all our lives, lovers and friends we still can recall. We don't get to tomorrow without keeping the lessons that yesterday tried to teach us. Like the saying goes: those who forget the pasta are condemned to reheat it.

Or something like that.

Right now, many of us may think that tomorrow is even further away than normal--hey, remember normal?--that these days of self-quarantine, disruption, and fear will stretch beyond any horizon we can see. This is natural, and it's difficult to shake. In the present day, yesterday is still with us, for well or ill, as we continue our march toward that elusive tomorrow.

The Coronavirus has compromised our feelings of safety and security, distanced us from friends and family. On the positive side, it's made it okay for me to appear in public wearing a mask, bringing me one step closer to my dream of being Batman. If you laughed at that, or even if you just rolled your eyes, I hope it was a momentary distraction from heavier thoughts. These are heavy times. We hope you're coping. We hope you're well. We hope you will endure through tomorrow.

And, in the words of a Ray Davies song that Adam Schlesinger covered with Fountains Of Wayne: I hope tomorrow you'll find better things.

THE BEATLES: Here Comes The Sun

Here comes the sun. To quote a different song title: Let it be.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. 

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. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.

THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! The Standells, "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White"

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

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

THE STANDELLS: Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White

Written by Ed Cobb

Produced by Ed Cobb

Single from the album Dirty Water, Tower Records, 1966

A poor boy born in a rubble makes his first last stand.

It's tempting to say that the counterculture was born in the 1960s. Members of the Beat Generation would beg to differ--beg to differ, man--pointing instead to the '50s as the true Ground Zero for an active and high profile alternative to the mainstream. And I'm sure there were fringe elements predating Beatniks, Jack Kerouac, Allan Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, operating somewhere out there on the periphery of popular consciousness.

Nonetheless: It was in the '60s that counterculture became an active and at times dominant part of the greater pop culture. That creates a paradox--how can anything be part of something to which it claims to be a counter?--but you go into culture wars with the oxymoron you have, not the logical parameters you wish you had. The Rolling Stones. Bob Dylan. Youth revolution, across race and gender, resisting rules, protesting injustice, tuning in, turning on, dropping out of what had been mainstream before, redrawing the map of what could become mainstream thereafter.

Before the simplistic notion of My country, right or wrong would be challenged by chants of Hell no, we won't go!, there was already a push to embrace the antihero, to celebrate the bad boy. In rock 'n' roll, the Rolling Stones established that template, providing a scowling, earthier counterpart to the perceived cheer of the Beatles. It was a façade--I do think, if it came down to it, the Beatles coulda beat down on the Stones in a street fight, five against four odds be damned--but it was an effective affectation, and the Stones delivered the soundtrack to match it. That template was followed by garage bands everywhere. It was certainly followed by the Standells.

The Standells weren't quite a garage band. They were playing clubs in L.A. in the early to mid '60s, appearing in the film Get Yourself A College Girl, providing the theme song for the kids' matinee flick Zebra In The Kitchen, and even appearing on an episode of the wacky TV sitcom The Munsters. All of this occurred before most of the record-buying public had even heard of the Standells. As a mainstream rock combo, they did not establish a popular impression. When they applied dat ole Rolling Stones template, the mainstream came to the grungier, garagier Standells.

I became a fan of the Standells as part of my overall exploration and embrace of '60s rock 'n' roll when I was a teen in the '70s. I started with a used 45 of their only big hit, 1966's classic "Dirty Water," and a various-artists set called 15 Original Rock N' Roll Biggies Vol. 2, which included "Why Pick On Me" and "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White." My interest in the Standells expanded even further as I fell hard for the notion of '60s punk/garage Nuggets, Pebbles, and dazzlin' debris of all description. "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White" was my favorite.

I'm a poor boy born in a rubble/And some say my manners ain't the best. A chip on my shoulder and a song in my heart. When I played "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White" at home in the '70s, my mom thought drummer and lead singer Dick Dodd sounded like Sonny Bono. She wasn't wrong. Coincidentally, Bono did work with the Standells earlier in their career; Sonny's own "Laugh At Me" shares some cantankerous DNA with "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White." It's all part of that Stonesy bad boy template. 

Good guys, bad buys, which is which? Sometimes the bad boy is a good guy that's misunderstood; sometimes the bad boy's just plain bad. Who can say who's the better man? Surly and put upon, an outsider staking his claim, with a shrug that's somehow defiant. A poor boy born in a rubble. We stand with the Standells. 

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. 

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. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.

10 SONGS: 5/12/2022

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 # 1128.

POP CO-OP: I Just Love To Watch Her Dance

As chronicled waaaaaay back here, This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio has a unique sense of pride and investment in the music of Pop Co-Op. The Post-Fab Four of Steve Stoeckel, Bruce Gordon, Joel Tinnel, and Stacy Carson are good guys who make good music, and their specific connection with our little mutant radio program makes us feel like their music is just, well, our music, too.

And we're thrilled that the lads (and marketing overlord lass Laura Sessions Tinnel) chose TIRnRR as the platform to announce their forthcoming new album Suspension. We've heard it, and YOU, my friend, are gonna love it. We selected "I Just Love To Watch Her Dance" as the on-air introduction to our belief in Suspension, and we'll premiere three more tracks over the next three weeks. We'll have details on ordering the album as soon as we can, and you'll have that grand opportunity to further immerse yourself in the magic of these guys and their music. 

Their music? Our music? Listen: Pop Co-Op should be your music, too. Pride is infectious. Investment is fulfilling. Your mileage may not vary. Check your Suspension.

THE SPONGETONES: Have You Ever Been Torn Apart?

Knowing that we were opening the show with new music from Pop Co-Op, Dana had the marvelous idea of devoting our entire first set to music from the members of the group. Hey, look at Dana, with the marvelous ideas! So we followed "I Just Love To Watch Her Dance" with a track by the Spongetones. The mighty, mighty 'Tones were our introduction to Steve Stoeckel, and Steve wrote what is probably my favorite Spongetones song, "(My Girl) Maryanne." But we opted to play "Have You Ever Been Torn Apart?," an ace tune written by Spongetones guitarist Pat Walters for 1984's Torn Apart, the same EP that gave the world "(My Girl) Maryanne." We couldn't go wrong either way. 

(And, coincidentally, the Spongetones' other singin' and songwritin' guitarist Jamie Hoover was also represented later in the playlist by another spin of "What The Heart Wants," from the current three-song single by his current duo Hoover and Martinez. We live in a world of pop plenty!)

MR. ENCRYPTO: Long After Long

Our Pop Co-Op appreciation thread continued with Bruce Gordon, under his nom du bop Mr. Encrypto. Mr. Encrypto's a cappella mix of Bruce's "The Last Time" is one of the defining tracks of TIRnRR's long and storied history (and, we're told, the specific impetus for Joel Tinnel telling Steve Stoeckel, "Listen to this track. I think we need to find a way to work with the Bruce Gordon guy."). As tempting as it was to play that fantastic track again, we wanted to mix up the selections an eensy little bit, so we programmed "Long After Long" from the first Mr. Encrypto album, Hero And Villain. As with the case of the Spongetones, Mr. Encrypto offers a lot of pop plenty to choose from.

POP CO-OP AND THE THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO ALL STARS: He And She

I was very tempted to include all six of the tracks from our Pop Co-Op appreciation set in this week's 10 Songs, but I prolly oughtta leave room for some acts that don't include your Steve, your Bruce, your Joel, and/or your Stacy. (Either that, or expand this thing to 15 Songs, which is, y'know, too much work.)

But we'll include one more here before moving forward. 2018's "He And She" was originally credited to Steve Stoeckel and his This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio All Stars, an informal combo of Steve and friends, and yeah, we did indeed give them that name. Humility is overrated. The All Stars debuted circa 2013 with "I Could Be Good For You," a track which appeared on our compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 3. The billing for "He And She" has since been changed to Pop Co-Op and the This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio All Stars.

For "He And She," the All Stars are Pop Co-Op--Steve, Bruce, Joel, Steve--supplemented by Dan Pavelich of the Click Beetles on keyboards and Radio Deer Camp's Rich Firestone on vocals, with Laura Tinnel, Kathy Firestone, and Elizabeth Racz singing backup. Lyrically, it's kinda sorta kinda about those lovebirds the Tinnels, and it seemed a prerequisite for our Pop Co-Op set.

(The final two tracks in our Pop Co-Op set were the above-mentioned Rich Firestone with Steve, Joel, and Stacy [plus Alex Tinnel on keys] covering the Smithereens' "If The Sun Doesn't Shine" and Stoeckel and Peña--Steve with America's Sweetheart Irene Peña--and their Big Stir Records single "Why.")

PERILOUS: Rock & Roll Kiss

Rockin' pop resumé! Perilous includes our pals Paul Dougherty of the Trend and Bob Cat Rawks of Hurtin' Units, plus Pauline Digati from early '80s Buffalo stalwarts Pauline and the Perils and Renee Rettie from Screaming Meemies. Their debut single "Rock & Roll Kiss" honors and expands their collective legacy, and makes us wanna dance to rock 'n' roll radio played at really loud volume. We know just the radio show to do that.

THE MONKEES: You Bring The Summer

"You Bring The Summer" was the second single released in advance of the Monkees' triumphant 2016 album Good Times! While the preceding single "She Makes Me Laugh" had to grow on me a bit, I was captivated on first spin by the perky charm of "You Bring The Summer." Its release prompted a personal reminiscence of a high school friend who helped expand my awareness of the Monkees in 1977, the spring of my senior year. And "You Bring The Summer" heightened my anticipation for the album that would follow.

TONY VALENTINO: Dirty Water

Return of the riff! Tony Valentino was guitarist for the Standells, and he played that distinctive bomp-bompbomp-BOMP-bompbomp lick that distinguished the group's biggest hit, 1966's "Dirty Water." Tony's back to reclaim his riff, with a Big Stir digital single of his own new version of "Dirty Water." Guitarists! You know this one! We air guitarists know it, too. Play along. We love that dirty water.

COCKEYED GHOST: Karma Frog

We've been corresponding with Cockeyed Ghost's Adam Marsland since before there was a This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, and Cockeyed Ghost has been a consistent TIRnRR fave rave since the beginning of always. That blatant favoritism certainly includes the group's 2001 farewell album Ludlow 6:18 and its incredible track "Karma Frog."

Adam lives in Indonesia now, but he was back in the States recently, long enough to play a SoCal live date with his cracklin' combo Adam Marsland's Chaos Band and to reconvene the Ludlow 6:18 line-up of Cockeyed Ghost to finally do a "Karma Frog" video. It was a couple of decades overdue, sure, but it was well worth waiting for.

THE YARDBIRDS: Stroll On

Going out once again to Jane Birkin, wherever she is.

THE FLASHCUBES: No Promise

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

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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.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl

10 SONGS: 2/10/2022

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 # 1115.

CHEAP STAR: Flower Girl

Man, ya gotta appreciate a band that creates its name by mashing up the monikers of power pop touchstones Cheap Trick and Big Star. Playin' directly into the ol' TIRnRR demographic. Rather than bludgeoning the idea by calling their new album Heaven City or Radio Tonight, Cheap Star's latest is Wish I Could See, and we opened this week's extravaganza with a spin of "Flower Girl." Intrepid TIRnRR listener Mike Browning found the track pleasantly reminiscent of Nada Surf, and we approve of that message. 

BALLZY TOMORROW: Double Our Numbers

Everyone's musical pal Robbie Rist is a big fan of Parthenon Huxley. That's a right worthy thing to be, and our own story of falling under the delightful thrall of P. Hux was told way back here. My favorite among Parthenon Huxley favorites is the sublime "Double Our Numbers," an absolutely irresistible little--no, BIG!!--number that appeared on Parthenon's 1988 album Sunny Nights. We know Robbie also loves the song; he's said so more than once, and several years ago he posted a video of himself performing an acoustic cover of the song. More recently, Robbie recorded a new version of "Double Your Numbers" under his nom du pummel Ballzy Tomorrow. It's a wonderful cover of a wonderful song. I wish some sort of Powers That Be would return Sunny Nights to proper retail availability, and I really wish more and more people recognized "Double Our Numbers" as the rockin' pop classic it is. In the mean time: take it, Robbie! 

THE LINDA LINDAS: Growing Up

All last year, we routinely referred to the young quartet called the Linda Lindas as "the buzz band of 2021." It looks like Bela, Eloise, Lucia, and Mila have their eye on claiming 2022 as well, with the forthcoming release of their first album, Growing Up. The album's due in April, but available for preorder right now. The preorder gets you the title track (and previous single tracks "Oh!" and "Nina") in that very same right-now time frame. GO! Get it! Buzz waits for no one.

PALMYRA DELRAN AND THE DOPPEL GANG: Lucky In Love

For someone who is--in theory!--wired into the phantasmagoric splendor of today's now sound, it's appalling how much stuff I just miss. Y'know, if I could afford to pay attention, I would pay attention. Will attention accept an IOU?

Case in point: this yummy digital single from Palmyra Delran and the Doppel Gang. "Lucky In Love" (virtually backed by a cover of Tuff Darts' tres pop "Who's Been Sleeping Here?") came out a freakin' year ago, and I just managed to hear it in this far-future world of 2022. I need better minions. Or maybe some minions. A minion. Or at least something resembling peripheral awareness.

Ah, but any track you ain't heard is a new track, and "Lucky In Love" is for damned sure worth waiting for anyway. Famed rocker and Underground Garage personality Palmyra's gang o' doppels includes the one 'n' only Michael Lynch, and both tracks are as fab as fab can be. Fabber, even. I wish we'd played 'em last year. We're happy to play 'em now.

TONY VALENTINO: Barracuda

Like many of my fellow Americans, my first exposure to the Standells was when the group guest-starred as domestic ersatz Beatles on a 1964 episode of TV's The Munsters, wherein unassailable pop pundit Herman Munster indicated he would sleep easier knowing the future of our country was in the hands of fine young men like the Standells. They would go on to become one-hit wonders for "Dirty Water" in 1966, but they also had a number of lesser chart hits that deserved wider notoriety. The rise of the Nuggets critical aesthetic in the '70s and '80s brought an embrace of '60s garage and punk, and that embrace proudly acclaimed Standells perennials like "Riot On The Sunset Strip," "Why Pick On Me," the pounding "Dirty Water" B-side "Rari," and (my favorite) "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White."

Guitarist Tony Valentino was a founding member of the mighty Standells, and he's still active as a recording artist for Big Stir Records. Tony made his post-Standells TIRnRR debut as a guest of the Forty Nineteens, playing on that group's single "Late Night Radio" (which then appeared on the Forty Nineteens' 2021 album New Roaring Twenties). Now, Tony returns with a new single, offering a new version of the Standells' "Barracuda." Somewhere, Herman Munster is smiling. Right here, we're smiling, too.

THE JIVE FIVE: Hully Gully Callin' Time

While the Jive Five's biggest hit was the 1961 doo-wop gem "My True Story," TIRnRR's go-to Jive Five track has generally been "What Time Is It?," a dreamy recording that earns a place in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). We've played a couple of other Jive Five selections over the years, but this week offers the first-ever TIRnRR spin of "Hully Gully Callin' Time." And it makes its way to the playlist because I discovered that one of the song's credited songwriters was one Joyce Cafarelli. I have no idea whether or not this Joyce Cafarelli was any distant relation to my family--Third Cousin Joyce? Honorary Aunt Joyce? Jivin' Sister Joyce, who never writes, never calls, never shows up at weddings or funerals?--but I can state with some authority that we have yet to see any royalties. Hey! Joyce! What about your family...?!

(Oddly enough, though I'm actually pretty sure I'm not really kin to Joyce Cafarelli, the song's title does make me remember something about my Dad. Dad wasn't really a rock 'n' roll fan, saying he preferred "pre-Pearl Harbor music" to the bangin' and twangin' that captured his youngest son's fancy. In our sporadic and amiable conversations about the rock and the roll, Daddy almost always made some reference to the Hully Gully. Like, many times, over the course of decades. Coincidence? I think so. But...maybe not? It would be a cool connection if true.

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD: I Only Want To Be With You

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE MONKEES: Listen To The Band

No, it was not a surprise when the Monkees were once again snubbed by this year's list of nominations for The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Just because the RnRHOF nominating board is clueless doesn't mean we have to be. Listen to the band.

THE BLUSTERFIELDS: Insomnia

Let's talk about the Blusterfields. The North Carolina lads' debut album The Vicious Afterglow opens with all the bluster 'n' aggro of an arena show, but all in service to a higher pop calling. You've got your sway. You've got your hooks. You've got your volume, and you've got your sweet, anthemic-sounding singalong vocals. The Blusterfields do not seem to be lacking in confidence, and their confidence is justified. Let's talk about the Blusterfields. And let's say those three little words we need to say: Turn. It. UP.

TODD RUNDGREN: Couldn't I Just Tell You

Todd Rundgren's essential double album Something/Anything? just turned an ever-spry 50 freakin' years old. I'm not quite the Todd fan that many of my peers are, but I am very fond of a number of individual things he did, including his '60s days with the Nazz and his '80s Fab Four pastiche Deface The Music. I've owned a copy of Something/Anything? for more than 40 years, a set secured when I traded a gift of Eagles' Greatest Hits for this sprawling 2-LP magnum opus. 

I got it specifically for "Couldn't I Just Tell You." I had seen Rundgren perform the song 

with Utopia on a 1978 TV appearance on The Mike Douglas Show. Our Todd introduced it as "an example of the latest musical trend. It's called power pop." I knew the song before that, but this was when it really grabbed my attention. Here's an excerpt from the song's entry in The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):

"Even though 'Couldn't I Just Tell You' wasn't a hit, I knew the song from somewhere. Maybe it got some play on WOLF-AM, falling into the airwaves in between our Todd's big hits 'I Saw The Light' and 'Hello It's Me' [both from Something/Anything?]. Maybe I picked up on it some time later, perhaps as an older track dusted off for a fresh spin by an FM radio DJ after I switched preferred frequencies.

"I wasn't necessarily a Todd Rundgren fan, at least not specifically. He was fine, but aside from hearing "Hello It's Me" and later his remake of the Beach Boys' 'Good Vibrations,' he wasn't really part of my conscious pop thought. I knew him more as a guy who (I'd read somewhere) sported multi-colored hair, and whose ladyfriend was Playboy centerfold Bebe Buell. I liked him, but didn't think much about him.

"But that song....

"'Couldn't I Just Tell You' lurked within the gauzy borders of my subconscious, a welcome guest however it was that it got there. It settled comfortably in my mind's terra incognita, itself a phrase I picked up from a girl I fancied. I could have sung the song to her if I'd thought of it.

"The tentative dance of teen infatuation, captured in microcosm, made pretty with the sound of (apparently) the latest musical trend.

"Seeing and hearing Utopia perform 'Couldn't I Just Tell You' on The Mike Douglas Show in '78 brought all of this subconscious thought to the surface, elevating the song immediately and forever thereafter to my own Top of the Pops. Immediately after the show was over, I phoned another girl I knew, just to say, Did you see THAT...?!

"By 1978, my eighteen-year-old self had already suffered and--damn me--inflicted some broken hearts. I had also discovered a name for my favorite sounds: power pop. The latest musical trend. Todd Rundgren may not have thought much of it. I sure did. And on this song, Todd Rundgren accomplished it, fully and with great authority. Why don't you lend me an ear, I'll make it perfectly clear, I love you. Harmonies and guitars. A crush can lead to more. And it can sound magnificent, regardless of whether or not it ever starts to trend."

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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.

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