10 SONGS: 1/10/2026

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 # 1318

EYTAN MIRSKY: This Year's Gonna Be Our Year

THE FOUR TOPS: Reach Out I'll Be There

The news of the world this week does not inspire optimism. Nonetheless: We open the new year with testimonials of hope and resilience courtesy of Eytan Mirsky and the Four Tops. Both songs are given chapters in my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). The book was not intended as fiction, the brutal nature of the real world notwithstanding.

You can read an earlier version of my GREM! celebration of Brother Eytan's fantastic "This Year's Gonna Be Our Year" in its blog appearance right here. For now, let me add this bit from the book's chapter about the mighty Four Tops:

"...'Reach Out' is no less melodramatic than 'Standing In The Shadows Of Love' or 'It's The Same Old Song' or 'Seven Rooms Of Gloom.' But its sense of heightened emotion is put to a higher purpose: Not just lamenting lost love, but planting feet firmly, chin set, and reaching out to help a loved one make a stand when the chips are down. It's pure, it's inspirational, and it's spine-chillingly convincing and uplifting...."

We need that, especially in these times of trouble, when we feel like we can't go on. All hope isn't quite gone, not just yet. It's time to rewrite our stories. This year. Reach out. 

TAYLOR SWIFT [FEATURING SABRINA CARPENTER]: The Life Of A Showgirl [dressing room rehearsal version]

Look: I realize that I'm not in Taylor Swift's demo. But I respect her talent, I respect her accomplishment, and I very much respect her super ability to piss off a lot of people who piss me off. I've already waxed rhapsodic about Swift's sublime 2020 track "The Last Great American Dynasty," while simultaneously noting that most of her work is likely to fall outside my chosen pop parameters.

With that said, the fact that I don't listen to any contemporary hits radio format means I didn't hear the title tune from Swift's 2025 album The Life Of A Showgirl until a few weeks ago. I think the studio version of this collaboration between Swift and Sabrina Carpenter was played incidentally during the six-part Disney + docuseries Taylor Swift: The End Of An Era, but what got my attention was Swift and Carpenter's dressing room rehearsal performance of the song. That was stunning, allowing the words and melody to breathe free, unencumbered by extraneous (to me) gloss and thump. This rendition became an immediate personal pop obsession, prompting me to buy the track and put it on a radio show that's generally more known for playing the Ramones and the Flashcubes rather than Taylor Swift. See, great songs can fit in anywhere.

THE CYNZ: Love's So Lovely

The Cynz were TIRnRR's 13th most-played artist in 2025, and they placed two songs among our 50 most-played tracks. One of those tracks, "Heartbreak Time," was a single that has now been remixed as part of the brand-new Cynz album Confess, which is due out this month from the Jem Records label. As we commence a new year of countdown stats, we debut "Love's So Lovely," the latest single from Confess, and we'll be playing it again on Sunday. We confess a love of Cynz.

TREVOR BLENDOUR: She's Still My Baby

About a month ago, I got a text from beloved actor/musician/producer/debonaire man-about-town Robbie Rist:

"Sir.

Trevor Blendour (pronounced blender)

Look him up.

I think he's a great addition to TIRnRR.

Has a new album called Breaking Up With Trevor Blendour.

Find it."

We hear and we obey. Thanks for the tip, Robbie! (And, um...how did you get this number? Just askin'...)

MIKE BROWNING: It's Festival Time

Festival time? Man, it's ALWAYS a festival when Mike Browning releases a new single, and "It's Festival Time" puts that sentiment in writing. And if the snowy season in Syracuse doesn't immediately conjure images of FESTIVAL!, we can close our eyes, listen, and wave the ol' cigarette lighter high. We'll wave it again this Sunday. Don't argue with festivals.

THE TROGGS: Wild Thing

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

ELVIS PRESLEY: Hard  Headed Woman

The ONLY King we acknowledge.

SPECTRAFLAME: Love Don't Live Here No More

Another tip courtesy of the charmingly ubiquitous Robbie Rist, and this time it's a project he's involved in. "Love Don't Live Here No More" is the latest single from St. Petersburg, Florida's phenomenal pop combo Spectraflame, a fab force commanded by singer, songwriter, and guitarist Steve Burgess. Our Robbie adds drums, bass, backing vocals, and MORE GUITAR!, Lee Pons plays the keys, and the result is ready-made for rockin' pop radio. HEY! That's where WE come in! I knew we'd get to play some kinda part in this. Our part is to play it this week, and again next week. The love of pop music still lives here, and it lives here with gusto to spare.

(Er...our apologies to Spectraflame for announcing the song on-air last week as "Love Don't Live Here ANY More." I'd say we learned our lesson, but we did it again on our next show. Jeez, it's a good thing we're so adorable.)

THE VOGUES: Five O'Clock World

Good enough for Drew Carey. Good enough for us.

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: 8/16/2025

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 # 1298.

THE SPONGETONES: Honest Work

WORK...?!

Like their fellow Power Pop Hall of Fame honorees the Flashcubes (see below), the Spongetones have recorded a trio of brand-new studio singles that are attached to their own special commemorative project. For the Spongetones, that project is a Big Stir Records release called The 40th Anniversary Concert...And Beyond

The 40th Anniversary Concert...And Beyond preserves a 2021 live show celebrating the band's fab long-standing tenure as North Carolina's phenomenal pop combo. The third single is "Honest Work," written by guitarists Patrick Walters and Jamie Hoover and sung by Walters, following bassist Steve Stoeckel's lovely "Lulu's In Love" and Hoover's AM radio-ready "Help Me Janie." "Honest Work" is a stable and reliable punch of the clock, acknowledging the ethic that gets things done. The work may not be its own reward, but the resulting music provides welcome reimbursement.

Punch that clock. Punch it with vigor. We got work to do. "Honest Work" will spin again here on Sunday night. 

DEAN LANDEW: After Work

THE VOGUES: Five O'Clock World

Dana followed the Spongetones' salute to honest work with a spin of Dean Landew's all-time TIRnRR classic "After Work," compelling me to complete the wage-slave hat trick with the Vogues' sublime "Five O'Clock World." WORK..?! Somewhere, Maynard G. Krebs approves the notion of leaving the ol' work day behind us.

THE HIGH FREQUENCIES: Modern Love

I only saw David Bowie once, during his mid '80s Serious Moonlight tour. I don't regard that as his peak period (the commercial success of the Let's Dance album and its title tune hit single notwithstanding), but witnessing Bowie perform was certainly among the highlights of my concert-going experience. From the forthcoming tribute album Jem Records Celebrates David Bowie, the High Frequencies take "Modern Love"--my favorite track from Let's Dance--and set it free to twist 'n' bop under its own earnest lunar glow. 

THE RULERS: I Want My Ramones Records Back

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

BORIS THE SPRINKLER: Kill The Ramones

Rude!

THE RAMONES: I Wanna Live

Words to...um, live by. And, to paraphrase the Rulers in the song mentioned two spots north of here: I'd be dyin' without my Ramones.

From a previous 10 Songs:

"I moved back to Syracuse from Buffalo in 1987. It was not a great time in my life, and it was still going to be a little while before things got better. 

"In good times and less-good times, music has always been a highlight. I don't remember if I heard 'I Wanna Live' before picking up my copy of Halfway To Sanity. I may have seen its video on MTV, but my memory insists I didn't even know the Ramones had a new album out when I spotted and immediately purchased Halfway To Sanity at The Record Theatre up on the SU hill. 

"The album includes a fab guest appearance by Blondie's Debbie Harry on 'Go Li'l Camaro Go,' a meeting of CBGB's minds I'd been wishing for since the late '70s. Nonetheless, my favorite was (and is) 'I Wanna Live.'

"Is it a life-affirming track? By default, I guess, though it could also be read as a suicide note. But the guitar sounds like it wants to live. Joey likewise sounds like he's digging in for the long haul. It's what I want, and I'm going with that."

THE FLASHCUBES: If These Hands

More than a year's work is about to pay off, as our friends at Big Stir Records prepare an eager rockin' pop world for the September 12th release of Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes. But while poundin' the console on behalf of Syracuse's own power pop powerhouse is technically work, it's also a calling. Plus it's fun! Given all the fabulous covers the Flashcubes have recorded and released over the past several years, I wanted to call more attention to the wonder of the Flashcubes' own brilliant songbook. A various-artists Flashcubes tribute album seemed the best way to accomplish that, so we gathered a bunch of talented artists, matched them with a bunch of songs written or co-written by members of the Flashcubes, and sent 'em off with one simple directive:

Make something happen.

And oh, did they ever come through, and then some. That's been reflected in consistent TIRnRR airplay, with this week's spins of Make Something Happen! gems by Dolph Chaney, Sorrows, and Callan Foster following in the Cubic-heeled footsteps of last week's MSH! treats from Tom Kenny and the Hi-Seas, Librarians With Hickeys, and Chris von Sneidern, and Sunday will bring a reprise of Librarians With Hickeys as well as the Verbs and the Armoires. On the album, these all frolic and frug alongside fascinating interpretations of Flashcubes songs as rendered by sparkle*jets u.k., Graham Parker and Mike Gent, Joe Giddings, Ballzy Tomorrow, the Kennedys, Pop Co-Op, the Peppermint Kicks, the Choosers, Hamell On Trial, Rob Moss and Skin-Tight Skin, the Mayflowers, Super 8 featuring Lisa Mychols, and the Spongetones.

As referenced in the Spongetones entry up top, the Flashcubes have also contributed three new singles of their own to this project. The first Make Something Happen! single was guitarist Paul Armstrong's epic burner "Reminisce." The second was the gorgeous big pop number "The Sweet Spot," co-written by 'Cubes bassist Gary Frenay with the late B. D. Love. 

And now comes the third and final single in advance of this tribute. Back in 1978, the Flashcubes' first 45 was "Christi Girl," a ballad written by 'Cubes guitarist Arty Lenin. In 2025, Arty closes this portion of the Flashcubes' singles discography with another lovely ballad, "If These Hands." 

We naturally talk about the songwriters, as befits an album intended as a salute to a group's original songs. Let's also throw in a bit of praise for Flashcubes drummer Tommy Allen, not just for his irresistible percussive skill, but for the sheer pop and power he brings to this material as a producer. This stuff sounds amazing, and that's due in large part to our boy Tommy.

Putting this album together has been a lot of work, and there's a long, long list of people who deserve credit for making this particular something happen. Even though others did most--almost all--of the heavy lifting here, I find myself exhausted in its aftermath. Exhausted, but proud. If memory serves, the last original song recorded and released by the Flashcubes prior to these three new singles was "Carl (You Da Man)" for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 1 more than twenty years ago. As flattering and fulfilling as it was that this band that's been so important to me wrote and recorded a killer song about Dana and me, I could not allow that to stand as the last word in original Flashcubes recordings.

It isn't the last one anymore. "Reminisce." "The Sweet Spot." Maybe "If These Hands" will be the Flashcubes' final recording, or maybe there will be more yet to come. I hope so. Either way, man, we made something happen. It was well, well worth the work.

MONDO TOPLESS: Think With Your Hands

BALLZY TOMORROW: Back Of My Hand

The Flashcubes' "If These Hands" leads us naturally into "Think With Your Hands" by Mondo Topless. Naturally. Whenever Dana plays a track by Mondo Topless, I naturally have to say, "Oh, so it's THAT kind of show, is it?" Because, y'know...topless. I amuse me.

Hadda follow "Think With Your Hands" with a cover of the Jags' new wave pop perennial "Back Of My Hand," as performed by our bud Robbie Rist under his Ballzy Tomorrow moniker. A delightful number in any incarnation, Ballzy Tomorrow's rendition of "Back Of My Hand" comes to us via DJ/uber fan Adam Waltemire's ace curated 2022 various-artists coverfest Sing Me A Song--A 50th Birthday Celebration. We've programmed a number of tracks from Sing Me A Song (particularly Barry Holdship's divine reading of Conway Twitty's "It's Only Make Believe") on past shows, but I'm mortified to discover we ain't ever played Ballzy Tomorrow's "Back Of My Hand" before this week. I tell ya: WE deserve the back of the hand.

But what can I say? It's just that kind of show. And it works for us.

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.

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! Works In Progress

 

Although I've long since completed (and submitted) a draft of my proposed book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), the subject itself remains open for me. I continue to work on more GREM! entries, for use here on the blog and for potential engagement in an even-more-theoretical The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 2). An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made as long as they take turns. Maybe I take the infinite part of the book's tagline too literally.

Nonetheless! Here's a look at bits of some of my many GREM! works in progress. 

THE PRETENDERS: Back On The Chain Gang

It was just like starting over.

The Pretenders emerged in England in 1978, led by Chrissie Hynde, an American playing guitar and singing lead. Hynde, guitarist James Honeywell-Scott, bassist Pete Farndon, and drummer Martin Chambers turned out to be great Pretenders, debuting on record with a 1979 single covering the Kinks' "Stop Your Sobbing." More records followed: singles, two albums (1980's Pretenders and 1981's Pretenders II), with the 1981 EP Extended Play in between albums. 

And then half the band died. 

WAR: Low Rider

Has anyone ever used the word "imperious" to describe the rhythm of War's 1975 hit "Low Rider?" I'd presume it hasn't been done, and it may be a stretch to use it now. But GodDAYum, that regal riddum rules by divine and absolute right. Imperious War!

When discussing the records that make us wanna dance, prance, and make romance, we often talk about the beat. But more than the beat, "Low Rider" has a visceral, almost physical rhythm that dictates a mandatory moving of your body. Typical of me being me, I didn't come to appreciate that rhythm until way, way after the fact.

BONEY M: My Friend Jack

My relationship with disco is complicated. I hated it during its heyday, but began to re-think my position as it became clear that some (not all) of the Disco Sucks movement was built upon a foundation of tacit racism and homophobia. I further realized that a lot of the disco LP-burnin' Fascists hated my preferred punk and power pop almost as much as they hated dat ole debbil disco, so...enemy of my enemy is my friend.

But never mind the shifting parameters of my mixed-signal interactions with disco. Eurodisco group Boney M was a breed apart anyway, willfully weird but extremely pop.

PEGGY LEE: Fever

There is cool, and then there is cool. Cool-as-a-fever cool. No other approximation of cool has ever been anywhere near the sizzling cool of Peggy Lee's 1958 absolute annexation of Little Willie John's R & B (and crossover pop) hit "Fever." 

THE MAYTALS: Pressure Drop

Listening to Johnny Nash didn't prepare me for this.

I first saw Toots and the Maytals name-checked in some magazine (either Rolling Stone or Playboy, possibly both) in the late '70s, though I wasn't conscious of the music until many years thereafter. I recall that Linda Ronstadt was among those praising the essential nature of Maytals LPs Funky Kingston and Reggae Got Soul, and if I couldn't quite fit reggae into my new wave rock 'n' roll world view at the time (the Clash notwithstanding), I did get there eventually. 

THE POLICE: Roxanne

When I worked at a record store in the '80s, one of my co-workers was horrified when I mentioned that I didn't really care about the music of the Police. "Horrified" may not be much of an exaggeration; he gasped, put his hands to the sides of his face in a manner that would have made Macaulay Culkin proud, and backed away from me slowly. I think I saw him mouth the world Unclean! 

I had liked the band initially, around the time of their first two albums in the late '70s, but found myself losing interest in them as they became (to my taste) increasingly...mainstream? I guess. I wasn't trying to be hipper than the crowd, honest; it was just that I preferred their earlier records. I appreciate some of their bigger hits a bit more now than I did then, though I'm pretty sure I'll always detest that damned stalker song, "Every Breath You Take."

And "Roxanne?" My God, "Roxanne" was far and away the best thing on AM Top 40 in 1979. Nothing else even came close to it. 

ABBA: Dancing Queen

There is a false conviction among some rock 'n' roll fans that ABBA's music is inherently schlocky. This conviction is a big ol' pile of piggy poop.

AM radio surrendered to ABBA's "Waterloo" in 1973. I may have struggled with some indecision over whether or not I liked the song at the time, and I can't explain why. It was a pop song. I like pop songs. And I sorta liked ABBA. Ultimately, I decided that I liked "Waterloo," too. 

"SOS" was my favorite among ABBA's initial run of hits, though the only ABBA singles I bought were "Knowing Me, Knowing You" and "Take A Chance On Me." I also loved "Dancing Queen." I had no use for "Fernando." I was indifferent to "Mamma Mia" and "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do." Reading in Bomp! magazine's 1978 power pop issue about "So Long," a purportedly great ABBA power pop song I'd not yet heard, was reason enough for me to buy my friend Jay's copy of ABBA's Greatest Hits. I was perfectly okay with ABBA's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Hell, a lot of ABBA's hits are closer to original-formula '50s/early '60s rockin' pop than anything that a band like, say, Genesis ever did.

"Dancing Queen" is ABBA's signature tune. It's often lumped in with disco, but its gloss is more girl-group than Studio 54. It shimmers in its own deliciously pure pop way, not beholden to trends, timeless yet still so '70s it could have been sporting a WIN button.

THE AVENGERS: We Are The One

The Clash sang that anger could be power. Even before that line appeared in The Clash's London Calling album track "Clampdown" in 1979, a San Francisco group called the Avengers was on stage at Winterland, opening for the Sex Pistols in that group's final appearance meltdown, and embodying the concept of cathartic fury. Anger. Power. Rock 'n' roll.

BLONDIE: (I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear

A love letter from Lois Lane, sung by Marilyn Monroe, backed by the Dave Clark Five.

Blondie's lead singer Debbie Harry was sexy without any appearance of trying to be sexy. She didn't even seem to be conscious of her everyday allure, her natural beauty and glamour, her God-given possession of It. She just was. 

My first awareness of Blondie came via Phonograph Record Magazine in 1977. I've never forgotten writer Mark Shipper's description of the band's look as "like Marilyn Monroe backed by the Dave Clark Five," a blurb which (even more than Debbie Harry's attractive image) sold me on Blondie well before I ever heard a note of their music. When I got to college that fall, I immediately started carpet-bombing the school radio station with requests for all of the acts I'd read about in PRM, from Television to the Dictators, and certainly including constant (and urgent) petitions to hear Blondie's "X Offender." I loved the track on first spin, and I have never stopped loving it since. And they called it puppy love!

THE JAM: In The City

Punk could be pop. In America, the Ramones already knew that, even if the charts didn't reflect the verity of that aesthetic.

THE YOUNG RASCALS: Good Lovin'

Little Steven says garage rock is "white kids trying to play black rhythm and blues and failing--gloriously." Fair enough. So what do we call it when a white group tries to play soul music, and succeeds? We could call that the Young Rascals.

THE RECORDS: Starry Eyes

Dreams of fame and fortune are not held solely by the performers.

THE VOGUES: Five O'Clock World

It should only be a footnote in the story of "Five O'Clock World," but the result is so engaging, so perfect, that I can't help elevating it to a prime moment in the history of rockin' pop on TV. 

THE DICKIES: Banana Splits

TRA-LA-LAAAA! TRA-LA-LA-LAAAAAA! TRA-LA-LAAAA! TRA-LA-LA-LAAAAAAAAAA!

No. You get a hold of yourself. Don't be messin' with the manifest majesty of the Banana Splits.

And don't be messin' with the manifest DESTINY of The Greatest Record Ever Made!, whether it's Volume 1, Volume 2, or an undrafted free agent. The infinite does what the infinite does.

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

Carl's new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is now available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. Gabba Gabba YAY!! https://rarebirdlit.com/gabba-gabba-hey-a-conversation-with-the-ramones-by-carl-cafarelli/

If it's true that one book leads to another, my next book will be The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Stay tuned. Your turn is coming.

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.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl

10 SONGS: 6/16/2020

10 Songs is a weekly list of ten songs that happen to be on my mind at the moment. Given my intention to usually write these on Mondays, the lists are often dominated by songs played on the previous night's edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. The idea was inspired by Don Valentine of the essential blog I Don't Hear A Single.

This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1029.

BILL BERRY: 1-800-Colonoscopy



Yeah, songs about unpleasant and/or invasive medical procedures are rarely as catchy as this. (Though, to be fair, I might prefer to undergo a colonoscopy rather than listen to, say, "Never Been To Me" by Charlene.) From the splendid John Wicks tribute album For The Record, Bill Berry's take on "1-800-Colonoscopy" just might be my favorite new track of 2020, which is fitting for a year that's been such a massive pain in the ass so far.

SHAUN CASSIDY: Hey Deanie


Teen idolatry is part of pop music, as it should be. The Beatles were as much teen idols as Bobby Sherman was a bit later on, or as any subsequent poster lads from The Bay City Rollers through whatever contemporary pretty face I'm too old to know about. 

Shaun Cassidy should be held in higher regard among power pop fans. Like his half-brother David Cassidy, our Shaun could sing; the fact that both Cassidys became 16 magazine boy scout pinups via TV exposure (in The Partridge Family and The Hardy Boys respectively) doesn't change the fact of their God-given talent. Shaun himself wrote a terrific teen idol anthem called "Teen Dream," a delightful ditty basically thrown away as the B-side of his hit (but less interesting) cover of The Lovin' Spoonful's "Do You Believe In Magic." And Shaun had a way with Eric Carmen songs, as evidenced by his renditions of Carmen's "That's Rock 'n' Roll" and "Hey Deanie." Carmen's own versions of these songs were fine, better than fine. But Cassidy brought them both closer to a power pop ideal than Carmen was interested in doing at the time. 

THE CLICK BEETLES: If Not Now Then When?

Okay, the fix is in here. The Click Beetles' auteur Dan Pavelich operates Pop-A-Looza, the pop culture website that runs one of my Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) posts every Friday. Dan and I have been online pals for years, so of course I'm going to plug his latest project.

BUT! The thing is, my taste in friends is pretty damned good. I can't sing or play, so I surround myself with those who can, and I tell everyone else about how great they are. I didn't become a pundit or a radio show host to promote mediocrity; I wanna spread the Gospel of what's cool. 

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio listeners heard "If Not Now Then When?" last year, when it was a fan-favorite track on the essential compilation Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. The song was a hit, and one of our most-played tracks in 2019. Now, it joins a fistful of other minty-fresh Click Beetles treasures on the combo's brand-new album Pop Fossil. Yep, we're gonna play it. Yeah, we're gonna hype it. For sure, we're gonna say you oughtta buy it already. Radio's job is to sell records. That's what friends are for.

DEEP PURPLE: Highway Star


I associate Deep Purple with my cousin Mark. Mark's about a year younger than me, and he grew up on the opposite coast. But most summers during the '60s and '70s, we met in the middle, at our grandparents' house in Southwest Missouri. We were like brothers, young co-conspirators in the pursuit of spark. We read comic books, went fishing, watched TV, collaborated on comedy bits. And, in the mid '70s, we listened to music.

The music in question was all Mark's. I loved music as much as he did, but my music was mostly on the radio, from Badfinger to various former Beatles. Mark, on the other hand, had cassettes, and a cassette player. We listened to Mark's Deep Purple cassettes, Burn and Machine Head.

This was...1974, maybe? That sounds right. I was 14, Mark was 13. That would have been the year of the Wonder Woman TV movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby, and Melvin Purvis: G-Man with Dale Robertson, both of which we saw in reruns that summer. We also saw Billy Jack, either at the local movie theater in Aurora or at the mall in Springfield. We had begun the summer visiting our other mutual cousins in Pensacola, then traveled with our combined families to Aurora from there. We stopped to spend the night at a Ramada Inn in Memphis the same night that the FBI was also there, pouncing on a suspect. Mark and I went to get Coca-Colas out of the vending machine shortly before those law enforcement hijinks ensued, and we were trailed back to our rooms by a federale. 

For dramatic purposes, the FBI agent at the Memphis Ramada is played by Cathy Lee Crosby.

Good times.

The only Deep Purple song I knew was "Smoke On The Water." I may have also known the earlier, Beatley hit "Hush," and it's possible "Woman From Tokyo" had crossed into my sovereign airspace via Syracuse's WOLF-AM. But I got a crash course in the Purple for the remainder of Mark's stay in Missouri in '74, hooking me on tracks like "What's Goin' On Here," "Might Just Take Your Life," "'A' 200," and the title song from Burn, and "Smoke On The Water" and "Highway Star" from Machine Head. We rocked. ROCKED, I say!

"Highway Star" remains the one song I most associate with that summer. We also used that cassette machine to make our own comedy tape, a simulated broadcast of an imaginary radio station called KLOD. Mark's idea, but I approved of it immediately. Teen co-conspirators. Cousins. Brothers. Friends.

Yeah, it's a wild hurricane
All right
Hold tight
I'm a highway star!

THE KATYDIDS: The Boy Who's Never Found

Remembering that Nick Lowe produced the British group The Katydids for their eponymous debut album in 1990, I mistakenly credited ol' Basher with likewise tending to the ceremonial twiddling of the knobs on their second and final album, 1991's Shangri-La. But no! Shangri-La was produced by Ray Shulman, and it includes my very favorite Katydids track, the atmospherically wallopin' "The Boy Who's Never Found." Sorry, Basher!

PRINCE: When Doves Cry

By the time 2016 sealed its sinister reputation by taking Prince away from us in April, we'd already been playing "When Doves Cry" with some frequency, and it probably would have made our year-end countdown of TIRnRR's most-played tracks in '16 even without the additional reflexive airplay that comes when we mourn another of our musical heroes. "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man" really became my go-to Prince track for the remainder of that year, but "When Doves Cry" was the one already getting significant burn in the happier days when Prince was still one of our greatest living rock stars.

I became a Prince fan right about the same time as much of the rest of the pop world did, with "Little Red Corvette" and "1999." The 1999 album was released in late '82, but the "Little Red Corvette" single turned the world purple in '83. I saw the video for "Little Red Corvette" on MTV, and wished I could look as cool as Prince. I loved Purple Rain, and managed to see Prince & the Revolution with guest Sheila E on that tour in '84. I thought Prince's "4 The Tears In Your Eyes" was the most interesting track on the We Are The World charity compilation (though I also liked Bruce Springsteen's "Trapped" on that album; the rest, not so much).

My Prince fandom was casual after that, but I recognized the talent, and I was in awe of his Super Bowl Half-Time performance in 2007. When I eventually delved into his back catalog, "When You Were Mine" ultimately emerged as my top Prince track. But it's like The Beatles, or The Rolling Stones, Ramones, et al. You don't have to stick with just one.

DIANA ROSS & THE SUPREMES: Love Child

Although The Supremes' chapter in my eventual book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) deals with "You Keep Me Hangin' On" rather than "Love Child, the entry's introductory paragraph applies here as well:

The Supremes are among the most popular recording acts of all time. They were certainly among the biggest of the '60s, and possibly the biggest on Motown at the time, which was a pretty big deal itself. The Supremes were stars....

My earliest Supremes pick was probably "Stop! In The Name Of Love" when I was a kid in the '60s, later supplemented by "The Happening," a song I learned from a various-artists set I discovered in the family LP library. I have occasionally found Diana Ross to be too much of a diva for my taste (a charge I could also level against Mick Jagger). 

I'm not sure if my favorite Supremes track is "Stop! In The Name Of Love," "Love Child," or "You Keep Me Hangin' On," but they're all contenders. A love Supreme.

SHOES: Tomorrow Night

I don't think that this fantastic song was my introduction the music of Shoes--I think I succumbed to raves in the pop press and bought the Black Vinyl Shoes LP before I'd actually heard anything by Shoes--but "Tomorrow Night" is my favorite. It's a permanent fixture on my all-time Hot 100 for decades, and it earns a berth in The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):

In the late '70s, power pop was a niche genre that did not wish to be a niche genre. It wanted fame, fortune. It wanted action. It for damned sure wanted the girl, right now. If not tonight, then tomorrow night...

..."Tomorrow Night" is nearly textbook power pop, a pretty ditty that combines yearning and lust, its façade suggesting an equal measure of the two, but really looking for a steamy tomorrow-night stand. What the track lacks in explosiveness á la The Who or Raspberries  is more than compensated by its confidence and posture, the music leaning forward with single-minded precision. It's catchy and aggressive, its dreamy, breathy vocals piloting a rockin' sound with one Beatle boot perched in the British Invasion and one ragged Converse stepping on a back-breakin' crack in the New Wave of post-punk rock 'n' roll....

I favor the original Bomp! Records single version, though Shoes' subsequent (and also excellent) re-recording of the song for their 1979 Present Tense album was the first version I heard. And I heard it on the radio, where it belongs.

THE STONE PONEYS: Different Drum



It tickles me how I still occasionally run into folks who are amazed or amused that Michael Nesmith of The Monkees wrote "Different Drum," the 1967 Stone Poneys hit that introduced that group's lead singer Linda Ronstadt to the world at large. On the "Two Many Girls" episode of The Monkees' TV series, Nesmith even performs a brief version of the song as a parody of a bumbling folk singer, Billy Roy Hodstetter. (That particular episode is otherwise notable for TV censors' decision to blur actress Kelly Jean Peters' cleavage, lest American youth be, I dunno, too busy gawking to put anybody down.)

Cheer up, Kelly Jean! Oh what can censors mean to an unblurred believer...?

Ronstadt herself is dismissive of "Different Drum," associating the song with her memory of its recording and her unhappiness with the process. But it's a wonderful, wonderful pop song, and no one has yet matched her rendition of it. No, not even Billy Roy Hodstetter. And not even Nesmith, whose own version was rootsier and perhaps more authentic in its approach, but not as striking. Nesmith wrote it; he wrote a lot of great songs, and performed the definitive versions of many of them. But "Different Drum?" Linda Ronstadt owns that one.

THE VOGUES: Five O'Clock World

Best rockin' pop yodel ever. You can have your Focus and their "Hocus Pocus" if ya gotta, but I'm stickin' with The Vogues and "Five O'Clock World." 

"Five O'Clock World" was released in 1965, pop music's greatest year, but I don't recall hearing it until one afternoon in late 1977. I was in my dorm room, early in the first semester of my freshman year at college, listening to the Brockport campus radio station WBSU. It was a particularly revelatory radio-listening session, as it introduced me not only to The Vogues, but also to The Flamin' Groovies, The Jam, and "Lies" by The Knickerbockers. It's no wonder I love radio so much. And I hold radio to that standard, still demanding sounds that will turn me on like the sound of The Vogues, Groovies, Jam, and Knickerbockers got me going more than forty years ago. Too much to ask for? No. No, it is not. Radio could do it if it tried.

"Five O'Clock World" has remained one of my favorite songs. It does not have a chapter in The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Because I want the book to reflect a larger dynamic than just my fave raves, I am deliberately omitting coverage of some all-time personal Tops O' The Pops like "Five O'Clock World," The Animals' "It's My Life," The Plimsouls' "A Million Miles Away," and The Yardbirds' "Heart Full Of Soul" (among others) just to make that point. Doesn't mean I love those songs any less. Our pop obsessions are infinite. A book can't cover 'em all.

But radio should.

Radio to the rescue!

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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:

Volume 1: download

Volume 2: CD or download

Volume 3: download

Volume 4: CD or download

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Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 134 essays about 134 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).