This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl is simply too large a concept to be neatly contained within a mere three-hour weekly time slot. Hence these occasional fake TIRnRR playlists, detailing shows we're never really going to do...but could.
Most pop music fans in my age bracket will remember hearing some specific new song on the radio, and being inspired to buy that song on a 7" 45 RPM vinyl single A-S-A-motherlovin'-P. Today's imaginary playlist is not about that. No, these are 45s I acquired before I'd heard the songs on either side.
The purchases and acquisitions weren't necessarily drawn from a blank slate. Often, it was an act I'd heard about, or more likely read about in CREEM or Bomp! or Trouser Press, maybe Phonograph Record Magazine, possibly even Rolling Stone. Others were by acts whose previous work I'd already discovered and enjoyed, so why not jump right into their latest Pick T' Click without waiting for radio or TV to introduce it to me?
To meet the criteria for this playlist, I had to be unfamiliar with both the A-sides and the B-sides before I took possession of the 45 (though either side is fair game for the playlist itself). No 12" singles allowed, but 7" EPs are perfectly okeydokey. I'm disqualifying singles where I'm pretty sure I'd heard the band perform the songs live before the single release; that eliminates all of the Flashcubes' singles, dammit. I'm allowing oldies accumulated way after the fact; if I heard those oldies at the time of their release, I didn't remember them, so they were effectively new records to my ears. And I say purchases and acquisitions to include stuff I got for free, like the Candy and Sheila E promo 45s scored when I worked in a record store in the '80s, singles by the Jam and Simply Saucer which were included free with other purchases, and the Freddy Cannon single my parents bought for me at J.M. Fields in the early '60s. We play the hits! Even if it's a hit we haven't heard yet.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl--y'know, the real one--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 all about this show's long and weird history here: Boppin' The Whole Friggin' Planet (The History Of THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO). TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS are always welcome.
Fake TIRnRR Playlist: 45s I acquired before I'd heard the songs
