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 # 1062.
THE BUSBOYS: Minimum Wage
I mostly missed out on The BusBoys in the '80s. I had heard of them; I read about them in Trouser Press, and maybe in CREEM, and of course I saw them sing "New Shoes" and "The Boys Are Back In Town" (not the same-titled Thin Lizzy tune) in the 1982 Eddie Murphy-Nick Nolte film 48 Hours. Maybe I saw them on Saturday Night Live. That's probably all I heard of them at the time. Were they getting any significant radio play anywhere? Maybe Buffalo's adventurous and engaging WBNY-FM programmed a BusBoys track or two, but I couldn't tell ya either way.
Since we're always looking to add tracks to This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio's master playlist, I determined some time back that I wanted to get The BusBoys into our little Play-Tone Galaxy O' Stars. I did not want TIRnRR's first BusBoys spin to be "The Boys Are Back In Town," so we opted for this de facto title track from their 1980 debut album Minimum Wage Rock & Roll.
RAY CHARLES: Hit The Road Jack
While I'm pleased that my concert-goin' resumé includes that one time I got to see Ray Charles perform live, I've gotta admit I wish his set had included my single favorite Ray Charles tune, "Hit The Road Jack."
Yeah. I was surprised he didn't play it either.
But he did play "What'd I Say" and "Georgia On My Mind," among many others, and it was Ray friggin' Charles, so you won't hear a peep of a complaint from me. It was an outdoor show at The New York State Fair, either late '80s or early '90s, the same free-with-Fair-admission concert series that gave me opportunities to see Brian Wilson, The Everly Brothers, Don McLean, Gene Pitney, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Chicago, Micky Dolenz & Davy Jones, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Little Big Town, Lady Antebellum, various oldies package shows (featuring acts from Bo Diddley to Cub Koda), and Earth, Wind & Fire over a span of decades. This is not a complete list.
I'm not sure, but I think--I think--my one Ray Charles show occurred prior to the early '90s Diet Pepsi commercials that earned Charles another notch on his pop culture c.v. You've got the right one, baby. Ray friggin' Charles. I'm okay with him skipping "Hit The Road Jack."
THE CHEAP CASSETTES: Get Low
The Boston-based Rum Bar Records label has proven to be a reliable resource for records that rock, platters with pizazz, music that moves your ass and doesn't care whether or not your mind follows. We've been playing fine Rum Bar releases from Justine and the Unclean, Gallows Birds, The Shang Hi Los, Natalie Sweet, The Real Impossibles, Ken Fox, Brad Marino, Heatwaves, Stop Calling Me Frank, Geoff Palmer and Lucy Ellis, The Yum Yums, and I betcha I forgot someone I shouldn'ta oughtta've forgotten. But the point is that all of these mighty Rum Bar acts provide the volume and the fun with action-packed impunity. It's not grunge. It's not left-of-the-dial, at least not in the sense you might expect. It's pop music. Loud and proud pop music. Even the ballads bounce, man.
Now we add The Cheap Cassettes to that roll of in-your-face honor. From Rum Bar's 2017 reissue of the group's album All Anxious, All The Time--hey, it's a concept album about me!--The Cheap Cassettes' "Get Low" leaps from radio speakers to establish eminent domain.
THE DAVE CLARK FIVE: Doctor Rhythm
I was four to six years old in 1964-1966, and I had at least a peripheral awareness of the British Invasion. Everyone knew The Beatles--duh--and I kinda knew Herman's Hermits, knew of Chad And Jeremy, adored Petula Clark's "Downtown," and heard The Rolling Stones' "Get Off Of My Cloud" on the radio. And I knew The Dave Clark Five's "Bits And Pieces;" my sister had the 45. I'm sure I heard them on the radio, and I probably saw them on TV, whether it was on The Ed Sullivan Show or in a TV special with Lucille Ball. But the concrete memory is elusive. I was four, five, six years old. I remember "Bits And Pieces."
My greater understanding and appreciation of the British Invasion in general and the DC5 in particular came in the mid-to-late '70s, when teen me commenced an active embrace of '60s music. I borrowed a small stack of my cousin Maryann's old albums and singles, a stash which included Beatles For Sale, The Beatles' Second Album, Meet The Beatles, Meet The Searchers, The Best Of The Animals, The Best Of Herman's Hermits, some Beach Boys, singles by the Stones and The Lovin' Spoonful. And there was a pair of Dave Clark Five LPs, Glad All Over and The Dave Clark Five Return! I thought I recognized the "Glad All Over" title, and a spin of the record confirmed my memory of a song I must have known and then forgotten. Ah'm feelin' WHOMP! WHOMP! glad all ovah! The Tottenham Sound. Familiar and invigorating. I was a fan immediately.
Over the next few years, as I escaped high school and entered college, and as punk, new wave, and power pop supplemented my existing affections and obsessions, I went about the business of buying as many DC5 records as I could. All used, of course, some very, very used, scored at flea markets and second-hand shops. I established a decent collection, albeit an incomplete one. I still own every one of the DC5 LPs I accumulated decades ago, periodic collection-purges be damned.
1967's You Got What It Takes was an early '80s purchase. I think I bought it in Cleveland Heights on a visit to see my sister circa '81 or so, right around the time she got married, but I'm not exactly under oath here. In this time frame, one of the cool things about acquiring later, post-1965 DC5 albums was that you might not know a single one of the songs before you played the damned thing at home. Two of this album's tracks, "You Got What It Takes" and the fabulous "I've Got To Have A Reason," had been hits, but I didn't know them. Tabula rasa, baby. In addition to "I've Got To Have A Reason," I liked the album's goofy novelty number "Tabitha Twitchit," but I was disappointed that a cover of "Blueberry Hill" didn't live up to my high expectation of what the DC5's incredible and underrated lead singer Mike Smith would sound like as he wailed away on a Fats Domino cover.
"Doctor Rhythm" should have been a single, and it should have been a hit. It's a boppin' little thing, unpretentious and pounding, simple and invigorating. The Tottenham Sound. Ask your doctor if rhythm is right for you.
EMPEROR PENGUIN [featuring LISA MYCHOLS]: Planet Of Love
I was a Star Trek fan. I have (almost) always flown my geek flag high, defiant in proclaiming my affection for comic books, superheroes, science-fiction, and similar exercises in flamboyance and fantasy. There was a time when peer pressure and fear of ridicule prompted me to downplay that interest in public, but I outgrew that. I haven't outgrown much in my life of willful immaturity, but thank God I at least outgrew the notion that anyone else could ever tell me what I could or couldn't like. Dig what you dig. Naysayers can go straight to Hell. Please provide your own handcart.
So yeah, Star Trek. I was aware of the show during its original '66-'69 prime time run (same era as my beloved Batman and The Monkees, although those were both cancelled in '68); I remember the image of Mr. Spock, and I remember my neighbor Lenny making references to phasers when the kids on the block were playing rough 'n' tumble action games. But I didn't watch the show, not regularly, perhaps not at all. I became a fan in the '70s, when the syndicated Star Trek reruns aired every weekday afternoon. Man, I was hooked. In high school, I even did an off-the-cuff video discussion of the show for a friend's TV production project. I, Geek. Proud of it. My teen obsession with Star Trek merits a full-fledged post of its own some day.
But I mention it here because Emperor Penguin's track "Planet Of Love" (from the new album Corporation Pop!) makes use of audio clips from Star Trek, specifically a clip from the 1969 episode "The Way To Eden" (aka, "the one with the space hippies"). Listen: a hook's a hook.
With or without the Star Trek reference, "Planet Of Love" is a sprightly and fun track, with a typically engaging guest lead vocal from the lovely and talented Lisa Mychols. We'll be playing this again.
KID GULLIVER: Beauty School Dropout
It's a safe bet that I'm never going to look back on 2020 as my Best Year Ever. Still, even the lousiest of lousy years offers music, and 2020 introduced TIRnRR to the voice of Simone Berk.
The initial connection came in roundabout fashion via the above-mentioned Rum Bar Records, as we started carpet-bombing our playlists with "Vengeance," a Rum Bar single by Justine and the Unclean. From there, the perfectly-clean Justine Covault directed us to her involvement with WhistleStop Rock, a collective of female musicmakers that had been putting on live shows in those halcyon pre-pandemic days. Ah, those were the days, my friend. As COVID cooties shut down the notion of live shows, WhistleStop Rock collaborated on the socially-distanced recording of a single, "Queen Of The Drive-In." This was where we first heard the track's lead singer. Yeah, that would be Simone Berk.
We liked what we heard.
Airplay and adulation. Simone appreciated our appreciation, and sent us her stuff, recorded as Sugar Snow and Kid Gulliver. Justine decided to start her own label, Red On Red Records, which released a flippin' awesome Kid Gulliver single, "Forget About Him." More adulation and airplay. And more music, including this latest Red On Red single of "Beauty School Dropout" by Kid Gulliver. No, it's not the song from Grease; aim higher, people. It's an original, it cooks, and it sounds like it oughtta be on the radio. Our discovery of Simone Berk is the glorious result of a miserable year.
THE KINKS: Set Me Free
1977: I was just 17, if you know what I mean. And my girlfriend and I were moving way too fast. It was almost entirely my fault, maybe even my fault alone. But I had to stop it.
Over the course of '77, I had become a fan of The Kinks. In August, I went off to college with the tentative beginning of a Kinks collection, which included the Kinks-Sized, Sleepwalker, and possibly Schoolboys In Disgrace LPs. I was still learning about this great band and its cavalcade of wonder. Late in that fall semester of my freshman year, I picked up a Kinks compilation, The Pye History Of British Rock. That revelatory set included just two Kinks tracks I already owned ("You Really Got Me" and "I Gotta Move"), and introduced me to "I'm Not Like Everybody Else," "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion," "Where Have All The Good Times Gone," "Till The End Of The Day," "Sunny Afternoon," "The World Keeps Going Round," "So Mystifying," "Long Tall Shorty," and a superb, rockin' B-side called "I Took My Baby Home." Fantastic stuff, and an essential plank on my path to greater Kinks devotion.
And it included a song called "Set Me Free."
Set me free, little girl
All you gotta do is set me free, little girl
You know you can do it if you try
All you gotta do is set me free, free....
It wasn't her fault. It was mine. Yeah, probably all mine. I was 17. That's explanation, not excuse. I listened to the song playing on my roommate's stereo in our dorm room, looking at my girlfriend, feeling guilty for what I was thinking. But I was beginning to realize what had to happen.
We lasted until Christmas break. I wrote her a letter. It hurt her, and I regret my actions that made that seem necessary. Damn me. But it was time. Set me free.
THE MONKEES: Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow) [TV version]
I've been into The Monkees since I was six; never paused, never ceased, never will pause or cease. I bought all of the records, and resurgent Monkeemania in the '80s gave me the chance to see all of the episodes of their TV series. I'd seen them all before, mind you; I'd seen a few in prime time circa '66-'68, probably all of them in Saturday morning reruns in the early '70s, and again in syndicated afternoon reruns in the mid '70s.
But in the '80s, I was theoretically an adult, and able to notice things I hadn't picked up on when watching The Monkees as a younger fan. While enjoying a late '80s rerun of the 1967 first season episode "The Monkees In Manhattan," I realized that the version of Neil Diamond's "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)" (a favorite of mine since I was six or seven) was longer than the version I knew, containing a keyboard break unique to this TV track. It instantly became my preferred version, though I had to wait until its eventual release on the 2001 Monkees boxed set Music Box to own a copy of it.
POPDUDES: O-o-h Child
Popdudes' lovely cover of The Five Stairsteps' sublime 1970 hit "O-o-h Child" was released as a Big Stir Records digital single in 2020, with proceeds from its sale benefiting the homeless and hungry in Orange County, California. We played its virtual B-side (a cover of The Guess Who's "Share The Land") on the show, but the fact that we were playing the original Five Stairsteps "O-o-h Child" postponed a TIRnRR spin of Popdudes' version. Until now! The track also serves as a teaser for We All Shine On, a various-artists tribute to the music of 1970, due out later this year from the good folks at SpyderPop Records. I can not wait to hear that.
THE SHANG HI LOS: Saturday In The Park
The Rum Bar and WhistleStop Rock connection continues. Rum Bar Recording artists The Shang Hi Los were a consistent TIRnRR Pick Hit in the latter part of 2020, thanks to their irresistible little number "Sway Little Player." A line from "Sway Little Player" provides the band with the title of their recently-released mini-album, Kick It Like A Wicked Bad Habit. Kick It Like A Wicked Bad Habit also includes this nice cover of Chicago's "Saturday In The Park," and it occurs to me that this was actually the very first Shang Hi Los performance I ever heard. The band performed it as part of the video release party for WhistleStop Rock's "Queen Of The Drive-In" this past summer. We were delighted to make that acquaintance.
Can you dig it? Yes I can.
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Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1)will contain 165 essays about 165 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1). My weekly Greatest Record Ever Made! video rants can be seen in my GREM! YouTube playlist. And I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl
