10 SONGS: 4/18/2026

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 # 1332

PALMYRA DELRAN AND THE DOPPEL GANG: Hold Tight

Anyone who has ever listened to Palmyra Delran hold court on her SiriusXM Underground Garage radio show Palmyra's Trash-Pop Treasures already knows that Palmyra is the real deal, blessed with impeccable taste and a thorough understanding and appreciation of the rock and the pop. As a performer, she's well capable of channeling her passion and savvy into the creation of trash-pop treasures of her own, accomplished in various incarnations with the Coolies, the Friggs, and other irresistible dbas. 

The latest single from her flagship combo Palmyra Delran and the Doppel Gang serves up an invigmoratin' workout of the '60s UK power pop classic "Hold Tight." The original 1966 version by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich is among my all-time favorite tracks, and it was one of many gems I considered rhapsodizing in my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). I didn't have room for it in the book, but in the mean time we're thrilled with the opportunity to program Palmyra and her Gang holding tight and demonstrating their own mastery of the form. It spins here again this coming Sunday night. 

Palmyra knows her stuff. We know enough to keep playing her stuff. And bonus points to Palmyra Delran’s Doppel Gang for including guitarist and long-time friend to this show Michael Lynch.

THE CORNER LAUGHERS: Crumb Clean

There is something just so enticingly sunshiney about the music of the Corner Laughers. The blissful wave of audible illumination continues on the group's new album Concerns Of Wasp And Willow, and its warm glow is in ample evidence on the sublime current single "Crumb Clean." Little darling (as some British guy once said), it's been a long, cold, lonely winter. With the Corner Laughers on the radio, I feel warmer already.

(I'd already selected the Corner Laughers for a spot on this week's 10 Songs when I discovered that they were also guests on this week's new episode of can't-miss podcast The Spoon. Ah, I love it when a plan comes together. Especially when it comes together without benefit of, y'know...a plan.)

ROME 56: Invisible Man

THE SHIRTS: Love Is A Fiction

THE SHIRTS: Tell Me Your Plans

We love the Shirts, and the release of two previously-unissued archival live albums from these classic CBGB stalwarts (last year's 1981 recording Live Featuring Annie Golden, this year's Live At Paradise 1979) has spawned a renewed commitment to programming the Shirts as often as possible. We've heard (unsubstantiated) rumblings of more to come from the big ol' vault of Shirts; if true, we approve.

This week's show includes two tracks by the Shirts, one from Live At Paradise 1979 and one from the Shirts' second album, 1979's Street Light Shine. Our next show will also offer a pair of Shirts, reprising the Live At Paradise version of "Tell Me Your Plans" (my favorite Shirts song) and introducing the belated (and then some) TIRnRR debut of a track from their 1980 album Inner Sleeve. Shirts-O-Rama!

Shirts guitarist Arthur La Monica is currently playing with a cool combo called Rome 56, a fine group that also includes Arthur's wife Kathy La Monica. Past shows have offered a few delights from Rome 56's 2024 album Paradise Is Free and 2025 effort Pony Tales, and this week we return to Paradise Is Free for our first-ever spin of a great, great earworm called "Invisible Man."

THE STRAWBERRY ALARM CLOCK: Incense And Peppermints

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

SEX CLARK FIVE: Plastic All Over The World

THE DAVE CLARK FIVE: It Don't Feel Good

Huntsville, Alabama's phenomenal pop combo Sex Clark Five into the Tottenham Sound of the Dave Clark Five. Sometimes the segues write themselves.

THE RAMONES: All's Quiet On The Eastern Front

From a previous post, discussing my 25 favorite Ramones tracks:

"All's Quiet On The Eastern Front" appeared on the Ramones' 1981 LP Pleasant Dreams, an album that doesn't sound like any other Ramones album. Pleasant Dreams was produced by Graham Gouldman, who achieved great success in the '60s as a songwriter for the Yardbirds, the Hollies, and Herman's Hermits, and subsequently as a performer with 10cc. And, as Johnny Ramone said in our interview, "The guy from 10cc producing the Ramones? 10cc sucks, and it's not right for the Ramones." (My 1994 interviews with Johnny, Joey, Marky, and C.J. appear in my book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones.)

On Pleasant Dreams, Gouldman's production made the Ramones sound...I dunno, smoother than expected? Phil Spector had done something similar with 1980's End Of The Century, another album that doesn't sound like any other Ramones album. In Spector's hands, the bubblepunk purity of the Ramones got lost in his Wall of Sound; Gouldman turned the Ramones into a new wave pop band. Neither End Of The Century nor Pleasant Dreams is at the same transcendent level as the classic fist four Ramones albums that preceded them.

Ignoring the anomaly of this album's place in the larger Carbona-huffin' picture, though, I need to risk contradicting myself: Pleasant Dreams is a fantastic record. Fantastic. I know Marky liked it, and we've established that Johnny hated it, but the fact that it wasn't Rocket To Russia doesn't prevent it from being compelling in its own right.

Pleasant Dreams is loaded with great Ramones songs, from "We Want The Airwaves" to "It's Not My Place (In The 9 To 5 World)" to "She's A Sensation" to the superb album closer "Sitting In My Room." "The KKK Took My Baby Away" is the best-known of the bunch. Would the tracks sound better if Ed Stasium or Tommy Ramone had produced them? Possibly. They sound pretty good as-is.

"All's Quiet On The Eastern Front" was my immediate pick when I bought the album in '81, and it has remained so. It's the sprightliest song ever done about a serial killer, stalking the street 'til the break of day, a track delivered with decidedly un-Ramoneslike percussion, and with backing vocals from Dee Dee Ramone asking that musical question, Can't you think my movements talk? Hey, you unsuspecting soon-to-be victims: Pleasant dreams!

THE BEATLES: Tell Me Why [Takes 4 and 5]

And speaking of the Tottenham Sound of the Dark Clark Five....

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. You can also become a Boppin' booster on my Patreon page.

I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. You can read about our history here.

THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! Strawberry Alarm Clock, "Incense And Peppermints"

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

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

THE STRAWBERRY ALARM CLOCK: Incense And Peppermints

Written by John S. Carter and Tim Gilbert [based on instrumental ideas by Mark Weitx and Ed King]

Produced by Frank Slay and Bill Holmes

Single, Uni Records, 1967

Going out to the Z-man, wherever he is. It's my happening, and it freaks me out!

I don't remember if I knew Strawberry Alarm Clock's "Incense And Peppermints" at the time of its 1967 chart reign--I was seven years old, but it's possible--or if I came to embrace the song after the fact. If the latter, I may have heard of the 1970 sexploitation film Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls before I knew "Incense And Peppermint;" I certainly didn't see the movie itself until many, many years later, and I didn't know that Strawberry Alarm Clock appeared in it, but I saw a Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls pictorial in Playboy, and that got my adolescent attention. (What business did a ten-year-old have reading Playboy? The business of staring at unclothed women. Plus articles, I guess.)

But yeah, in addition to the pulchritudinous charms of its actresses, Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls presented Strawberry Alarm Clock in a party scene, lip-syncing their hit from a few years back, and then doing the same with two new songs for the soundtrack LP (as well as pretending to back up the film's fictional combo the Carrie Nations).

Unlike the Carrie Nations, the Strawberry Alarm Clock kept their clothes on. Who cares what games we choose?

Little to gain, but nothing to lose. "Incense And Peppermint" was the group's only big hit, (though "Tomorrow" did make the Top 40 at # 23). But man, they earned that one hit, and one hit is one more freakin' hit than most of us ever achieve. The Strawberry Alarm Clock's one hit still buzzes like the audible psychedelic flash of a black light custom-fitted for AM radio. A yardstick for lunatics? That's one point of view. Good sense, innocence, cripplin' mankind. Beyond any valley of dolls, the sound of the Strawberry Alarm Clock is but one of many things I can't define. Turn on. Tune in. Turn your eyes around. And to hell with the Z-man anyway.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. You can also become a Boppin' booster on my Patreon page.

I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. You can read about our history here.

10 SONGS: 11/15/2025

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 # 1310

P. HUX: Hard To Get Over A Heartbreak

The great Parthenon Huxley covering Raspberries? I'm IN! P. Hux's irresistible rendition of "Hard To Get Over A Heartbreak" comes to us via Think Like A Key Music's Play On: A Raspberries Tribute, a simply sublime berry-flavored confection collection masterminded by our old friend Ken Sharp. It's hard to get over how good this is. We'll debut two more Play On cuts on our next show.

THE RAMONES: Surf City

When the Ramones' incredible Rocket To Russia album was released in 1977, someone in the rock press (I don't remember who) proclaimed with great glee, IT'S A JAN AND DEAN ALBUM! True assessment! But it took da Brudders more than 15 years to get around to actually covering your Jan and your Dean on record. That feat was finally accomplished with this righteous 'n' respectful punk rock romp through "Surf City," as heard on the Ramones' 1993 all-covers album Acid Eaters. Two girls for every boy. Well! Jackie and Judy, and Sheena and Ramona, meet Jan and Dean. 

STRAWBERRY ALARM CLOCK: Monsters

Who cares what trick-or-treat games we choose? As the eerie glow of jack-o'-lanterns fades in the rearview mirror, and colorful lights of a different season beckon on the horizon, we still wanted to play one more track from Big Stir Records' epic Halloween compilation Chilling, Thrilling Hooks And Haunted Harmonies. With little to gain but nothing to lose, and mindful of a rare opportunity to play something new from Strawberry Alarm Clock, we opted for a post-All Hallow's Eve spin of their TCH&HH track "Monsters." A yardstick for lunatics? Man, that's just one point of view.

And on the subject of Strawberry Alarm Clock, from a previous 10 Songs:

I don't remember if I knew Strawberry Alarm Clock's "Incense And Peppermints" at the time of its 1967 chart reign--I was seven years old, but it's possible--or if I came to embrace the song after the fact. If the latter, I may have heard of the 1970 sexploitation film Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls before I knew "Incense And Peppermint;" I certainly didn't see the movie itself until many, many years later, and I didn't know that Strawberry Alarm Clock appeared in it, but I saw a Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls pictorial in Playboy, and that got my adolescent attention. (What business did a ten-year-old have reading Playboy? The business of staring at unclothed women. Plus articles, I guess.)

But yeah, in addition to the pulchritudinous charms of its actresses, Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls presented Strawberry Alarm Clock in a party scene, lip-syncing their hit from a few years back, and then doing the same with two new songs for the soundtrack LP (as well as pretending to back up the film's fictional combo the Carrie Nations).

Unlike the Carrie Nations, Strawberry Alarm Clock kept their clothes on.

THE CRAWDADDYS: There She Goes Again

MARVIN GAYE: Hitch Hike

The Crawdaddys covering the Velvet Underground, and Marvin Gaye inspiring the Velvet Underground. I believe Lou Reed acknowledged that his VU song "There She Goes Again" borrowed directly from Gaye's 1962 Motown stalwart "Hitch Hike," as both songs are built on an identical boppin' rhythm that starts 'em and carries 'em. Thumbs out, and thumbs up. 

VEGAS WITH RANDOLPH: I Could Be The One

"I Could Be The One" is another past TIRnRR favorite included on Drops Of Gold: The Best Of Vegas With Randolph. We play the hits, and this particular hit has a brand-new animated video that is likewise hit-worthy. GOLD, I tell ya! Gold.

THE GO-GO'S: Surfing And Spying

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE KINKS: Juke Box Music

From a previous post:

There are songs for all occasions. The right tune can comfort, console, lift, motivate. It can offer catharsis or escape, band aid or blunt instrument, challenge or confirmation. A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together. 

Also dancing. Evidence suggests the right song can inspire dancing.

The Kinks' 1977 Sleepwalker album was released just as I was becoming increasingly fascinated by the Kinks. It was the right album at the right time, unencumbered by the larger themes of the group's then-recent series of concept albums, fittingly sprightly and energetic at a time when punk rock was also about to draw my interest. I saw the Kinks perform the album's title track on TV, on both The Mike Douglas Show and NBC's Saturday Night. Each of these home tube appearances was supplemented by older Kinks material--"Celluloid Heroes" on the Douglas show, an exciting medley of "You Really Got Me," "All Day And All Of The Night," "Well Respected Man," and "Lola" on the show soon to be renamed Saturday Night Live--reinforcing the connection between past and present. The Kinks weren't back; they'd never gone away.

I wound up absolutely obsessing over a Sleepwalker album track and single called "Juke Box Music." That song's bouncy saga of a girl who maintains a far-too-literal belief in the lyrics of the songs she loves resonated within my own ongoing conflict of thinking too much versus not thinking nearly enough, taking things too seriously (and being waaaay too thin-skinned) versus developing an elusive emotional and (quasi-) intellectual balance. As a college freshman in the fall of '77, I wrote a short story inspired by my interpretation of "Juke Box Music." It...wasn't very good. But my skills improved over time. It's only juke box scribblin', man.

But it's only meant to dance to, so you shouldn't take it to heart.

Only juke box music. Can anything that captivates us really be reduced to an only? I say no, but I also embrace the need for balance. We can't let passions interfere too much with the task of living our lives in this mundane world. As a slightly later Kinks song tells us, you've gotta live life.

But without our passions, is it really living? 

In the spring of '78, I saw the Kinks in concert. "Juke Box Music" was their encore. Right place at the right time. God save serendipity, and God save "Juke Box Music."

ELVIS PRESLEY: Heartbreak Hotel

King Elvis I. From my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):

This was rock 'n' roll's equivalent of the shot heard 'round the world. A segregated America was about to be forced to integrate its pop charts in a manner without precedent, to look on in horror as its young embraced this race music, this primal beat, this blatantly sexual sound that their daughters would find orgasmic, that their sons would find irresistible. A white kid who could sing like a black man. Before long, more and more white kids would also listen to black performers, and pop music would change forever after. The roots of that change predate Elvis and "Heartbreak Hotel," but it is still impossible to overstate the cultural significance of this record. And it would be stupid to deny its lasting effect and appeal. One could only claim a handful of records as changing everything that followed. "Heartbreak Hotel" would top that list.

THE FLASHCUBES: The Sweet Spot

Syracuse's own power pop powerhouse the Flashcubes, contributing a fab original tune to their own tribute album. As one oughta! In a year of Dow-Jonesian highs and lows, assembling the various-artists blockbuster Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes stands as my proudest work. We have found the sweet spot, and it is ours.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. You can also become a Boppin' booster on my Patreon page.

I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. You can read about our history here.

10 SONGS: 5/19/2022

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 # 1129.

POP CO-OP: Short Fuses

Our pre-release campaign on behalf of Suspension, the forthcoming new album from the irresistible melodic buzz force called Pop Co-Op, enters its second week with a spin of another exclusive track. We feel taller! "Short Fuses" pops 'n' sizzles in all the right places, and it opened the big show this week. Yep, just like the Suspension track "I Just Love To Watch Her Dance" kicked off last week's show, and how next week's show and then the next week's show after that will open with...

...well, that would be telling. Stay tuned.

POP CO-OP: Extra Beat In My Heart

In the same spiffy category as "Short Fuses," "I Just Love To Watch Her Dance," [redacted] and [redacted], "Extra Beat In My Heart" is another irresistible new 2022 track from Pop Co-Op. BUT! It will not be included on Suspension; it's from something else. It's not currently available from any resource. It will be. And it is indeed something else.

ARIELLE EDEN: U-Turns

Speaking of something else!, a previous edition of 10 Songs said this about "Sagittarius," a wonderful track from rockin' pop chanteuse Arielle Eden: "Well, now, this is pop music. Arielle Eden first came to TIRnRR's attention last year, through a recommendation from our pal, America's Sweetheart Irene Peña. 'Sagittarius' is Arielle's best yet, a bubbly and inviting track that easily earns this Capricorn's eager approval. This is the dawning of the age of Arielle."

Ms. Eden's recent singles have taken more a country-pop turn, and we continue to play those, too. Her latest effort "U-Turns" cruises on the periphery of modern mainstream country, and contemporary country radio would be improved by programming it. It's ALL pop music! And pop music is something else, man.

SOLOMON BURKE: Cry To Me

The great Solomon Burke: denying efforts to put Baby in the corner since 1962. At its core, "Cry To Me" is really a country song, but country (or any other damned thing) became soul when it was sung by King Sol. 

(And, while I have neither a particular affinity for nor a spiteful grudge against the popular film Dirty Dancing, I have seen it--way, waaay after the fact--and I believe Burke's "Cry To Me" plays on the movie's soundtrack when Patrick Swayze's character was trying to teach Jennifer Grey's character the flick's titular moves. Take it, Baby!)

PERILOUS: Rock & Roll Kiss

Also something else! And really, really good. BUY IT!

BRAD MARINO: Another Sad And Lonely Night

Although a myopic pop world remembers the Bobby Fuller Four as a one-hit wonder for the superb 1966 smash "I Fought The Law," that song is either my third- or maybe even fourth-favorite BF4 track. And there's a fistful of other Fuller cuts that are nearly as good. One-hit wonder? The world is a ninny.

Brad Marino recognizes the richness of the Bobby Fuller catalog. Marino's latest Rum Bar Records single is an ace, blood-pumpin' cover of Fuller's "Another Sad And Lonely Night," a sturdy little ditty that is my # 1 BF4 track on the days when "Fool Of Love" isn't my # 1 BF4 track. ("Let Her Dance" rounds out my Bobby Fuller Top 4.) 

And I tell ya, Mr. Marino rises to the occasion of honoring Fuller's legacy. Whether you're investigating the great originals or immersing yourself in our Bobby's many able proxies, there is a world of treasure to discover beyond the well-known bop of breaking rocks in the hot sun. We'll be playing Brad Marino's "Another Sad And Lonely Night" again on next week's show.

STRAWBERRY ALARM CLOCK: Incense And Peppermints

Going out to the Z-man, wherever he is. It's my happening, and it freaks me out!

I don't remember if I knew Strawberry Alarm Clock's "Incense And Peppermints" at the time of its 1967 chart reign--I was seven years old, but it's possible--or if I came to embrace the song after the fact. If the latter, I may have heard of the 1970 sexploitation film Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls before I knew "Incense And Peppermint;" I certainly didn't see the movie itself until many, many years later, and I didn't know that Strawberry Alarm Clock appeared in it, but I saw a Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls pictorial in Playboy, and that got my adolescent attention. (What business did a ten-year-old have reading Playboy? The business of staring at unclothed women. Plus articles, I guess.)

But yeah, in addition to the pulchritudinous charms of its actresses, Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls presented Strawberry Alarm Clock in a party scene, lip-syncing their hit from a few years back, and then doing the same with two new songs for the soundtrack LP (as well as pretending to back up the film's fictional combo the Carrie Nations).

Unlike the Carrie Nations, Strawberry Alarm Clock kept their clothes on.

THE RAMONES: Sheena Is A Punk Rocker

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE FLASHCUBES: I Wanna Be With You

Recently, Pop Co-Op's Steve Stoeckel referenced something I wrote for the first issue of Big Stir magazine in 2018: "Enthusiasm isn't everything. But nothing of value endures without it." I wholeheartedly agree with me on that point.

I bring this up again because it applies specifically to the enthusiasm musical performers can bring to their efforts, and how their own passion for acts that inspired them manifests in fresh magic, magic that can inspire others. That mystic mojo can be in the grooves of original work, or it can be expressed in covers.

Covers can be perfunctory, sure. But they can also serve as sincere and enthusiastic tribute, a thank-you note to the sounds that formed us. As Pop Co-Op's Bruce Gordon says, Let's be the Beatles! Or let's channel Chuck Berry, or Janis Joplin, or the Miracles, Buddy Holly, the Kinks, Otis Redding, the Velvet Underground, the Sex Pistols, Joan Jett. For the Flashcubes--my favorite power pop group--one can picture them imagining themselves as the Raspberries.

The Flashcubes have always been avid fans of pop music, rock 'n' roll, the vibrant sound of hooks and la-la-las played at a louder volume than decorum would prefer. The 'Cubes had dozens of influences, from British Invasion through punk, the Who through the Jam. I don't think there's any single act that served as the Flashcubes' biggest overall influence, but the Raspberries would be a huge part of that discussion. The Flashcubes positioned themselves--enthusiastically!--as a power pop band in the late '70s. That power pop approach was embodied by the Raspberries' hits, by "Go All The Way," "Tonight," and "I Wanna Be With You." The 'Cubes were Raspberries fans. That was evident. A power pop band is proud to wear its heart on its sleeve.

I remember witnessing the Flashcubes cover both "Tonight" and "I Wanna Be With You" at club shows when I was a street-legal teen. Their live version of "I Wanna Be With You" is one of the assorted shots o' gusto contained on the recent release Flashcubes On Fire, which preserves a 1979 'Cubes live show and captures the band at the height of their prowess. 

And the height of their enthusiasm. Covers and originals. The value of enthusiasm endures.

(That same enthusiasm carries through the Flashcubes' current series of Big Stir digital singles, covering the likes of Pezband, the Dwight Twilley Band, and Shoes. Chris Carter's British Invasion show recently debuted the 'Cubes' cover of Slade's "Gudbuy T' Jane" [and we'll start playin' that as soon as we get our hands on it], and next week's TIRnRR will include the combined forces of the Flashcubes and the Spongetones remaking the latter's "Have You Ever Been Torn Apart?" There's still much more to come. We're enthused about the possibilities.)

STYX: Lorelei

Even the act you actively despise may be capable of creating one or more tracks you flat-out adore. As much as I hated Styx in the '70s and '80s--and, believe me, I hated Styx in the '70s and '80s--even then I knew I liked their peppy pop song "Lorelei." I still do like it, singer Dennis DeYoung's bombast notwithstanding, while retaining my decades-old disdain for most of the familiar Styx songbook.  (I was also okay with "Too Much Time On My Hands, and I worship a 2003 Styx track called "Kiss Your Ass Goodbye" as just over-the-top friggin' fabulous. So: three. Three cool tracks from an act I otherwise shun. Here's to ya, Lorelei.)

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider supporting this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon, or by visiting CC's Tip Jar. Additional products and projects are listed here.

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