THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! Generation X, "Dancing With Myself"

Drawn from previous posts, 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!

GEN X: Dancing With Myself

Written by Billy Idol and Tony James

Produced by Keith Forsey

Single, Chrysalis Records [U.K.], 1980

Beware the would-be hipster who whines, "I liked [insert artist's name here] before anyone else did, but then [applicable personal pronoun] sold out, got popular, and started to suck!" Humph. Worst would-be hipster ever. So yeah, take it with a grain of salt when I say I never cared for Billy Idol's successful solo career, but I loved him when he was fronting Generation X in the late '70s and very early '80s. Hipster? Me? It's you who say I am.

I really wanted to like Idol. Listen, I'm in favor of artists achieving success and recognition, getting paid, and being able to continue the divine art of creating. But "Eyes Without A Face," "Rebel Yell," "Flesh For Fantasy," "Hot In The City," and his meatball cover of Tommy James and the Shondells' "Mony Mony" mostly left me cold. I liked "White Wedding" a little bit, especially the guitar hook. The only one of Idol's solo successes that I really liked--loved--was "Dancing With Myself." 

Of course, when I first loved it, it was a Generation X single.

Technically, it was "Gen X," the truncated nom de bop used for the final material credited to the soon-to-disappear UK punk pop combo previously known as Generation X. Under whatever name, "Dancing With Myself" rocks, pops, 'n' percolates, a right worthy successor to earlier Generation X triumphs "Ready Steady Go," "Your Generation," and "King Rocker." The Billy Idol "Dancing With Myself" sounds the same to my ears, so if Idol re-recorded the Gen X track, he stuck with the blueprint with stunning fidelity. 

Bomp! magazine's epic power pop issue in early 1978 was the first I ever heard of Generation X. I may or may not have heard them on my Brockport college campus that Spring--there was a Punk Night at our on-campus bar The Rathskeller, and occasional punk/new wave records played on our radio station, WBSU, and either of those sources could have served up some Generation X--but I can say with certainty that I bought two Generation X import 45s by the end of that summer. The singles were "Ready, Steady, Go" and "Your Generation," and I loved both of those loud 'n' vibrant records beyond rational description. "Your Generation" was also included on an album called Geef Voor New Wave, a freakin' fantastic compilation that no home should be without. 

And for all my seeming indifference to Idol's solo success, I'm glad he and his creative partner Steve Stevens are being inducted into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. I've come around to the hits, even if they don't mean as much to me as Generation X did (and does). Let this rebel yell serve as endorsement and celebration.

But what do I know anyway? Never trust a hipster.

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 of short stories Guitars Vs. Rayguns!! Short Stories And Other White Lies is out now, and you can get autographed copies of the new book and my previous book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) directly from me. You can still get my previous 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.

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. 

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! The Ramones, "Rockaway Beach"

Drawn from previous posts, 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 RAMONES: Rockaway Beach

Written by Ramones [Dee Dee Ramone]

Produced by Tony Bongiovi and Tommy Erdelyi

Single from the album Rocket To Russie, Sire Records, 1977

Power pop. Bomp! magazine said so.

One snowy winter evening in the late 1970s, I bought one of the greatest fun-in-the sun tunes of all time. "Rockaway Beach" represents the only instance where I can tell you without question the precise date when I bought a specific record: January 17th, 1978. My 18th birthday. Home from college for winter break. My parents took me to Beefsteak Mining Company at Penn Can Mall in North Syracuse for a birthday dinner. After the meal, a quick stop at Gerber Music netted a gift for myself: The 45 of "Rockaway Beach," the latest single by my new favorite band, the Ramones.

In 1978, the legal drinking age was 18. That evening of 1/17/78, I planned to go out with friends and execute my newly-earned status as NOT! a minor with a beer or three. Or seven. Ah, but it was January in Syracuse, NY. The snow began to fall. And then it fell heavily. Wiser teen heads prevailed. The ritual I'm-18-and-I-like-it! partying was postponed to another night. I wasn't thrilled with that turn of events, but a nightclub was too hard, too far to reach.

As the snow fell in the darkness of the suburbs, I had a new single by my new favorite band. I hadn't heard it yet, but my full-on embrace of the Ramones' previous single "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" meant I was predisposed to adore "Rockaway Beach." And it did not disappoint.

Like "Sheena" before it, "Rockaway Beach" is punk made pop, the Beach Boys if the Beach Boys played faster and louder, Dee Dee Ramone's introductory 1-2-3-4! no less Fab than the template provided by Paul McCartney's 1-2-3-FAW! count-in to the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" less than fifteen years before. The Ramones. The American Beatles? I wasn't quite ready to declare that when I was just 18 (if you know what I mean), but I was edging toward it. I would celebrate the notion in short order. Let others blast out the disco on the radio. The sun is out. And I want...more.

In between my acquisitions of "Sheena" and "Rockaway Beach," I wrote my first-ever attempt at rock journalism. My work was flawed, but it was a start. Just after that, I saw my first-ever live rock 'n' roll club show, as the Flashcubes (and then Bomp! magazine) introduced me to the name of the music I'd always loved most: Power pop. A couple of decades later, during an email exchange with Bomp!'s own Greg Shaw, Shaw told me he couldn't support any definition of power pop that didn't include "Rockaway Beach." A couple more decades later, I got to sing "Rockaway Beach" at a release party for my book about the Ramones. Like Flashcubes bassist Gary Frenay wrote in his song "Syracuse Summer," seasons change and you live extremes. 

But ain't no snowfall ever gonna cover my sunny dreams. Chewin' out a rhythm on my bubblegum. I've been eighteen for a long time now. Surf's up.

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 of short stories Guitars Vs. Rayguns!! Short Stories And Other White Lies is out now, and you can get autographed copies of the new book and my previous book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) directly from me. You can still get my previous 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.

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. 

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! The Runaways, “School Days”

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 RUNAWAYS: School Days

Written by Joan Jett and Kim Fowley

Produced by Kim Fowley

Single from the album Waitin' For The Night, Mercury Records, 1977

During spring break of 1978, I saw the Flashcubes, the Runaways, and the Ramones on an incredible triple bill at a nightclub in Syracuse. Although "Cherry Bomb" is undeniably the Runaways' signature tune (and it gets its own entry in The Greatest Record Ever Made! [Volume 1]), "School Days" is my favorite Runaways track. It's the most straight-ahead, no-frills rocker in Runaways canon, uncluttered by pouting or preening, unsullied by metal moves, just pure, punk-fueled Joan Jett oomph 'n' aggro.

Listening to "School Days" conjures a random memory of a girl I met that summer of '78. Janis was a co-worker, a fellow janitor on the morning crew at Sears. We were not a couple, and never likely to be a couple. There was no chemistry of that sort. I don't think I could even say that we were friends, really. Co-workers. She was cute, roughly my age, and in retrospect I guess it's odd that the thought of asking her out never occurred to me. I knew she had a boyfriend, so that was like an automatic KEEP OUT! sign to me. I may not have been the gentleman I wanted to be, but I was willfully determined not to be an asshole. To try not to be an asshole. That determination had already failed me at school, as I stole a friend's girlfriend and warred constantly with my roommate. But I continued to try.

For dramatic purposes, the part of Janis will be played by Lita Ford

Anyway, Janis and I were friendly enough, as co-workers can be, and during breaks she confided to me (and to everyone else on our small maintenance crew) that she was worried that she was pregnant. The worry became a dead certainty in her mind that she was pregnant, and that her stupid boyfriend remained, y'know, stupid, like boys are. (I'm a boy, and she's right; boys are stupid). Janis said Stupid Boyfriend--apparently unfazed by the daunting possibility of fatherhood--suggested they make with the bouncy-bouncy more often and try for twins. Janis rolled her eyes and sputtered in recounting the tale told by her idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

And nothing was the precise result. Over the course of breaktime conversations spanning days into a week and more, Janis's salutation of Carl, I might be pregnant evolved into Carl, I think I'm pregnant, and finally Guess what, Carl, I'm not pregnant! There may have been a little more back-and-forth of uncertainty, dread, and relief in Janis's story, but that was the gist of it. She broke up with Stupid Boyfriend. I still didn't ask her out. It was getting near time to return to school.

Janis wasn't a Runaways fan, at least not as far as I was aware. But the song reminds me of that summer. Timing, I guess. I associate the Runaways' "School Days" with that period of my life, when I was working and partying during vacation, flirting with getting into some real trouble--at separate times that summer, I sheltered an AWOL Marine and a teenage girl running away from home--but getting away with it as unscathed as any of us can claim. I had a little bit of money. There were bands to see, records to hear, friends to join, fun to have. School days. In between school days, sure, but still...

Used to be the troublemaker

Hated homework, was a sweet heartbreaker

Now I have my dream

I'm so rowdy for eighteen

School days. Here's to ya, Janis. Friends?

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! The Monkees, "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone [live]"

Drawn in part from previous posts, this is not included in 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 MONKEES: (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone [live]

Written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart

Produced by Bert Schneider, Bob Rafelson, and Bill Inglot

Originally unreleased live performance recorded on August 25, 1967; first released on the album Live 1967, Rhino Records, 1987

Come and watch them sing and play.

The best-known version of the '60s garage punk stomper "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" was recorded by the (originally) made-for-TV combo the Monkees. Written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, the Monkees' version appeared on the group's second album More Of The Monkees in 1967, and it was the B-side of their # 1 smash single "I'm A Believer," creating a two-sided 45 rpm winner that could rival the Beatles and the Beach Boys. Even as a mere B-side, the Monkees' "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" made it to # 20 on Billboard's Hot 100.

As "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone," the song was first recorded by the Liverpool Five, released on their 1966 album Arrive. I knew nothing about that version until, y'know, Wikipedia just told me about it. Beating the Liverpool Five to retail if not to the studio, Paul Revere and the Raiders cut the first released version of "Steppin' Stone," and there's ample rockin' reason why many consider the Raiders' take to be definitive. The Sex Pistols covered it in the '70s, certifying the song's enduring, surly cred.

Paul Revere and the Raiders were a terrific rock 'n' roll group masquerading as costume-party Revolutionaries, so of course their "Steppin' Stone" simmers with authority and swagger. They planned to release it as a single. When the Raiders were offered the Barry Mann-Cynthia Weil anti-drug anthem "Kicks," the Raiders thought (correctly) that was a sure-fire hit record, so they delayed "Stepping Stone" and released "Kicks" instead. Boyce and Hart, pissed off and convinced they were being yanked around, took the song to the Monkees. 

As great as the Raiders' "Steppin' Stone" is, I like the Monkees' version best. Although they were still just a prefab entity at the time, the Monkees' machine somehow created a rendition with even more punch than the invincible Raiders, more power, more precision; it can't match the seeming abandon of the Raiders, but it matches and even slightly surpasses their intensity, and Micky Dolenz delivers a vocal that cannot be topped. Puppets with a chip on their shoulders? The Monkees would not remain puppets for much longer.

After More Of The Monkees, our assembled MonkeeMen--Dolenz, Davy Jones, Peter Tork, and Michael Nesmith--staged an unprecedented show biz coup that allowed them to become the functioning rock 'n' roll band they played on television. They began to play on their studio sessions. They played live--Micky, Davy, Peter, and Mike--closing their 1967 concerts with a savage pummeling of "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone."

For decades, the public had very little access to evidence of the live Monkees. There was nothing--nothing--on record. There were the live clips featured in "The Monkees On Tour," the final episode of the first season of their TV series. There was the in-concert performance of "Circle Sky" witnessed in their dark and brilliant 1968 film Head. The Head soundtrack LP used a comparatively tepid studio version of "Circle Sky" instead. 

With lack of even an Exhibit A to support the claim that the Monkees could play, much of the general public concluded that the Monkees could not play. I remember being at a 1979 gig by my favorite power pop group the Flashcubes, chatting with 'Cubes drummer Tommy Allen before their set. In the course of that discussion, Tommy and I expressed our mutual interest in the Monkees' records. Guitarist Paul Armstrong overheard and quipped, "Yeah, especially the Monkees' live album." Tommy and I immediately gushed in perfect harmony, "Is there a Monkees live album...?!" Paul rolled his eyes in dismissal of our inability to get his joke. The Monkees playing live? Sure. As if!

Paul Armstrong knows as much about rock 'n' roll music as anybody. But even he bought into the myth that the Monkees couldn't play, because there wasn't much of anything to prove, nor even just suggest, that they could.

I think the live "Circle Sky" made its waaaay-belated retail debut on a 1979 3-LP compilation called Monkeemania, issued only in Australia and using a master presumably dubbed from a bootleg video of the film itself. I loved it. I wanted to hear more evidence of the Monkees in live performance.

Resurgent Monkeemania granted that wish in 1987, with the release of Live 1967, which I adored in all its rough 'n' ragged glory. It's not that the Monkees were ever at the level of technical proficiency of the seasoned studio cats who played on The Monkees and More Of The Monkees, nor that they were even as tight in concert as producer Chip Douglas managed to nudge them into being in the studio for the making of their 1967 hey-hey-we're-a-real band triumph Headquarters (the album the Monkees were hyping at the time of these live recordings). On stage, before thousands of screaming fans, the Monkees were THE biggest garage band the world has ever seen. Bigger than the Ramones. Bigger than the Clash. As punk as anything ever, and as legitimately DIY as a mainstream show-biz project could ever dare to be. Yeah, come and watch 'em sing and play, ya bastards!

The tracks on Live 1967 were patched together from three different shows, trying to choose the best representation of each song on the Monkees' set list. Like the concerts themselves, Live 1967 concludes with"(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone," because let's face it, nothing they did could hope to follow that. The live "Steppin' Stone" is a grungy, full-throttle leap into the air: Loud, messy, barely (if at all) tethered to the mortal plane, a noise that revels in its ability to just freakin' rock. Micky's vocal remains in his control, Davy and Michael nearly scream, Peter does scream, and the former puppets wail away on guitar, bass, drums, and tambourine, culminating in an absolute musical freak-out, all of it accomplished with the sure-eyed determination of a local rock group down the street trying hard to learn their song.

And succeeding. The Monkees were on stage, in their Heaven, and if all wasn't quite right with the world, they made enough noise to drown out the world's tsuris with a ferocity that would have made the Sex Pistols jealous.

I've been a Monkees fan since 1966. As steel is forged in the crucible, so my belief in the Monkees was hardened the more people tried to convince me they were no good, plastic, lesser. Bullshit. I know what I hear, I know what I see, and I know what I like. The Monkees TV series helped to form my sense of comedy, right alongside the droll British humor--er, humour--of the Beatles' movies, the broad schtick of Jerry Lewis and The Three Stooges, and the brilliance of The Marx Brothers. The Monkees' records were outstanding. If they'd all been assembled in a laboratory by Dr. Frankenstein and Don Kirshner, they'd still be great records. The fact that Michael, Peter, Micky, and Davy also took some measure of control, and became a band rather than just playing one on TV, just enhances the richness of the Monkees story. The Monkees are one of my favorite groups, and they always will be.

And they could put on a show. Trying to make their mark in society. Using all the tricks they learned from everywhere, from rock to blues to country to pop to the three chords and a chip on their shoulder celebrated by vintage garage-punk Nuggets afficionados all over the world. Walkin' 'round like the front-page news they were. Steppin' stones no longer. Punk, meet the mainstream. Mainstream, meet the goddamn Monkees.

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! The Ramones, "Carbona Not Glue"

Drawn from part of a previous larger post, this is not included in 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 RAMONES: Carbona Not Glue

Written by Ramones

Produced by Tommy Bongiovi and T. Erdelyi

From the album Leave Home, Sire Records, 1977

Originally a track on the Ramones' second album Leave Home in 1977, "Carbona Not Glue" was for a very long time the great lost Ramones track. It was expunged from the record (and the records) after a threat of legal action from the weasel manufacturers of Carbona Spot Remover. Razzafrazzin' weasels.

"Carbona Not Glue" was replaced on UK copies of Leave Home by "Babysitter;" in the US, it was replaced by an AM radio mix of the recent chart-climbing (and then non-LP) single "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker." "Carbona Not Glue" remained banished from retail until Rhino Records brushed all of that nonsense aside with an expanded CD reissue of Leave Home around 2002.

It's a damned shame the track was unavailable for so long. My first copy of Leave Home was one with "Sheena" on it, purchased in I think '78. Although I had never heard "Carbona," I very quickly pieced together that something was missing here and tracked down an earlier pressing of Leave Home ASAFP. "Carbona Not Glue" became a Fave Rave instantly.

Was the track's status as Officially Unavailable--the punk rock equivalent of a Soviet being declared a non-person--part of its appeal to me? I concede the possibility, but I really don't think that was it. The track's shotgun marriage of substance-abuse lyrics and over-the-top amphetamine pop music was just thrilling, then and now. Irresistible!

And habit-forming.

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.

GABBA GABBA HEY! My Ramones book's second birthday

It's been two years since the publication of my first book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones. The official street date was around May 8th or 9th of 2023, though a number of folks already had physical copies in hand by the end of April. My first book! It was a great, great feeling.

I remain very proud of the book, and appreciative of all that my friends at Rare Bird Books did to design it, assemble it, edit it, publish it, and get it into stores. While I wish the book had found a larger audience, I look back on the experience with delight and wonder. I summarized that experience here. 

You can still purchase your very own copy of Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones directly from Rare Bird. It's also available from the usual online resources, your local bookstore can order it with ease, and you can even get autographed copies directly from me, though my own supply's getting pretty light; email ccdatsme@aol.com with inquiries in that regard. I also have copies of my latest book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), collectively serving up more CC than most could tolerate.

Today, I celebrate my first book's second birthday with a look back at my May 8th, 2023 in-studio appearance on Syracuse TV talk show Bridge Street, discussing the Gabba, the Gabba, and the Hey! with NewsChannel 9's Erik Columbia and Steve Infanti:

You can also access the video at this link.

And now, welcome back to my ongoing Church of Ramones. Time for a reading from this good book.

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

Drawn in part from previous posts, this is not part of my current 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!

BLONDIE: (I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear
Written by Gary Valentine
Produced by Richard Gottehrer
Single from the album Plastic Letters, Chrysalis Records, 1978

A love letter from Lois Lane, sent by Marilyn Monroe, delivered 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!

My first Blondie record purchase was the "Rip Her To Shreds" 12" single, acquired specifically as a budget approach to owning "X Offender" without springing for the cost of the whole LP. Efficient!  When I finally did buy a copy of Blondie's first album in the summer of '79, I was staying at my girlfriend's apartment and gave my newly-acquired record a spin on her turntable. One of the other girls living there heard the track "Little Girl Lies," and declared it the worst excuse for music she had ever experienced.

Heh. And you thought Blondie wasn't punk?

And Blondie was a group. Debbie Harry was always the focal point--how could she not be?--but don't underestimate the boys in the band: The guitar and arty vision of Chris Stein, the evocative keyboard stylings of Jimmy Destri, and the powerhouse pummeling of the late, great Clem Burke on drums. As the line-up of other players shifted over time, Debbie, Chris, and our Clem were the constants, and Jimmy Destri was still involved until 2004.

"X Offender" was written by Blondie bassist Gary Valentine. Valentine had ambitions of his own, and had already exited this group called Blondie by the time of their second album, 1978's Plastic Letters. He left even before that record's release, and I don't think he plays on the album. But he gave Blondie one sublime parting Valentine gift: A gorgeous Plastic Letters confection called "(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear."

Like their Bowery contemporaries the Ramones, the players in Blondie had some degree of fascination with what others might dismiss as junk culture. Their work was informed in part by pulp fiction, bubblegum, girl groups, sci-fi monsters, B-movies like Attack Of The Kung Fu Girls and Them!, cheesecake art, trashy chic, and comic books, all viewed with an aesthetic drawn impartially from both Andy Warhol and sheer fannish enthusiasm alike.

The lyrics of "(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear" bear a superficial resemblance to superhero comics, suggesting a girl who loves a boy with something extra, and our super boy feels the same way about her. The something extra? He can fly! He can read minds! He has conversations with his Super Friends! The girl and her boy with something extra are levitating lovers in the secret stratosphere!

In real life, Valentine has said the song was written for his girlfriend at the time, with whom he felt he had a psychic connection. Close enough to the Justice League for me! The music itself is an explosion of pure pop brilliance, a sensation both pristine and orgasmic at the same time. 

Gary Valentine's role in Blondie's history is too often overlooked, forgotten. That's a shame. One gets the sense that Debbie and Chris have basically tossed the group's first two albums into the dustbin, pretending that the success of 1978's Parallel Lines is the band's Ground Zero. In the 21st century, a Blondie concert setlist isn't going to include "X Offender" or "In The Flesh," no "In The Sun" nor even the European hit "Denis," and certainly not "(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear." Bands play the hits. I get that.

But as much as I love those hits, from the power-pop validation of their cover of the Nerves' "Hanging On The Telephone" and the audacious disco moves of  "Heart Of Glass" through the pop reggae of the cover of the Paragons' "The Tide Is High" and the incongruity of Blondie supplying the first-ever rap song ("Rapture") to top the Billboard Hot 100, and especially the pounding spectacle of Clem Burke being Clem Burke on "Dreaming," there isn't any of 'em that I would put above "(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear."

So look! Up in the sky! And listen while you're at it. Let's hear it for levitating lovers. And let's raise a glass to Debbie, Chris, Jimmy, dear Clem, and Gary. Here's to a group called Blondie. A super group, for sure.

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.

GABBA GABBA HEY! A CONVERSATION WITH THE RAMONES Coda: Chewin' Out A Rhythm On My Bubblegum

We're coming up on the two-year anniversary of the publication of my first book, Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones. The book's official publication date was May 9th of 2023, but it was already out and about by late April of that year. The book is still available from publisher Rare Bird Books, and you can still purchase autographed copies directly from me.

The book collected my 1994 interviews with Joey, Johnny, Marky, and C.J., the four headbangers that represented the Ramones' final line-up. A condensed version of these interviews was published in Goldmine in 1994, and later cited as "essential reading" by The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame when the Ramones were indicted in 2002. I am very proud of this work, and I'm grateful to Rare Bird Books for allowing me to preserve and expand upon it.

Two years on, let's look back at how the book ends. This is the book's coda, my closing arguments after Joey, Johnny, Marky, and C.J. have had their say and we have bid them all a fond ¡Adios Amigos!

CODA:

Chewin' Out A Rhythm On My Bubblegum

Joey Ramone did not live to see the Ramones become icons of pop culture. Today, the music of the Ramones is routinely heard in TV commercials and sitcom soundtracks. There was at one point plans for Martin Scorcese to direct a Ramones biopic, and at this writing Netflix is developing a 2022 movie based on Joey's brother Mickey Leigh's autobiography I Slept With Joey Ramone, with Pete Davidson as Joey.  The world has changed since the end of the '70s and the end of the century. 

Although Joey passed before the Ramones' popular ascension, he was able to see the trend in that direction; he saw the magazine articles, the comments from other artists acknowledging a debt to the Ramones, and he was aware of the demand for more Ramones shows. He was too sick to consider a Ramones reunion for one more tour, or even just one more show.

Joey may have...strike that, he probably expected his group to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and he certainly believed they were worthy. The Ramones were first eligible for induction in 2001, the year Joey died. He passed in the spring, and the Ramones were among the winners when the Hall announced its honorees later in the year. 

The induction ceremony was in 2002, as the Ramones were celebrated alongside fellow new inductees Gene Pitney, Isaac Hayes, Brenda Lee, Chet Atkins, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Talking Heads, and Stax Records visionary Jim Stewart. In his speech inducting the Ramones, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder said, "the Ramones were our Beatles."

The Hall officially inducted Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Tommy, and Marky; latter-day Ramones Richie and C.J. were snubbed, in spite of Johnny's righteous insistence that they were Ramones, too. They should have been recognized as such.

In accepting the induction, Tommy said, "This means a lot to us. It meant everything to Joey." Dee Dee thanked himself. Johnny said "God bless President Bush." A dysfunctional family to the end. Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz was asked if the Ramones would join the Hall of Fame's traditional jam session after the awards. Frantz chuckled, and said, "The Ramones don't jam...!"

Dee Dee succumbed to a heroin overdose in 2002, less than three months after thanking himself at the Hall of Fame. Prostate cancer claimed Johnny in 2004. Tommy died in 2014, also taken by cancer. The four original members of the Ramones are gone, and many have joked that they're together now in the hereafter, still fighting and squabbling as they did in life.

The Ramones battled each other like brudders. But they were indeed brudders, united not by blood but by a bond unique to their experience. Some of them may have denied it, but the bond was there. 

In the course of our discussion, Joey made a point of complimenting Johnny's distinctive guitar style, and he made a favorable comparison of Marky to the likes of Ginger Baker. Marky was pleasantly surprised--flabbergasted, really--to hear that Joey had said that. 

When Joey died, Johnny said something to the effect that he didn't like Joey, and that he couldn't understand why Joey's death depressed him. After Joey was gone, Johnny told Ramones tour manager Monte Melnick, "I'm not doing anything without him. I felt that was it. He was my partner. Me and him. I miss that."

In my interviews with the Ramones, Joey, Johnny, Marky, and C.J. spoke on the record. The sole instance where I was asked to take something off the record was one moment--one--when a member of the Ramones made a relatively innocuous personal observation about a bandmate. The remark was factual, and in fact it was discussed openly and on the record by two other Ramones. Nonetheless, the Ramone making the comment thought the comment could seem hurtful, and requested that it be deleted from the transcript. That request stands.

Brudders. Hell, brothers. We will never see their like again. 

The few, the proud.

Semper Fi.

Gabba gabba hey. 

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! David Johansen, "Frenchette"

This is not part of my current book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). If I do a Volume 2, this will probably be included in that.

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

DAVID JOHANSEN: Frenchette

Written by David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain

Produced by Richard Robinson and David Johansen

From the album David Johansen, Blue Sky Records, 1978

There was this guy from Staten Island. A singer. He was in a band, a loud, sloppy, garish mess of a rock 'n' roll band. Some said they couldn't play. Their fans said they didn't care. The band got signed, made records, looked fine on television. Readers of CREEM magazine voted them the best new band of 1973, and at the same time voted them the worst new band of 1973. All and nothing. They didn't sell a lot of records. They were as influential as nearly any band that didn't sell a lot of records could even dream of being...but again, they didn't sell a lot of records. This best new band of '73/worst new band of '73 broke up. Too much, too soon.

So if you're this guy, this singer from Staten Island: What the hell do you for your second act?

Improvise. Reinvent, from gutter glam to funky but chic. Retain the grit, smooth its edges. Survive.

David Johansen was an incredible performer. He was a magnetic, preening frontman for the glorious chaos of the New York Dolls. When he stopped playing with Dolls, he...grew up, still magnetic, still incredible, possessed of a sudden maturity that suited him as well as drag-trash had fit him before. 

Former Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders accused Johansen of selling out--or worse, selling out even though no one was buying--but Johansen himself didn't really change. He ditched the glam, and maybe he cut back a bit on the prancing part of his on-stage presentation; he still screeched (melodically), he still wailed, he still infused his rockin' pop with a deep love of R & B. He still ruled the room, and he still looked like he was having fun.

This was evident on much of Johansen's first solo record. The initial line-up of the post-Dolls David Johansen Group included Sylvain Sylvain, who had been the other guitarist in the New York Dolls, less noisy (and less heroin-smacked) than Thunders, but no less powerful. Johansen and Sylvain co-wrote a number of the songs on 1978's David Johansen album, and their collaborations "Cool Metro" and "Girls" could have fit seamlessly on the Dolls' second album Too Much, Too Soon. Sylvain moved on to his own career, but he did play on "Cool Metro."

The other two Johansen-Sylvain co-writes on the album are less evocative of the pair's mascara-streaked alma mater. "Funky But Chic" was the single, a not-quite-funky, not-quite-campy but tres chic bit of breezy, bouncy pop. 

The other one was "Frenchette."

You call that love in French, but it's just Frenchette. I've been to France, so let's just dance.

The track opens with a piano sound so mournful we are tempted to send condolences and take up an emergency collection to finance distractions from its sorrow. Johansen, the ex-lover too weary to even try to shrug off his fate, slowly sings his litany of disappointments and regrets (or, I guess, regrettes). As guitars come in and the pace quickens, the singer has already abandoned all hope. He makes one last stand anyway.  

The lyrics can seem a bit pat, as permutations of -ette--luncheonette, naturalette (whatever that is), leatherette, launderette, kitchenette, dinette, yeah yeah--delineate the modest, truncated booby prizes Johansen is forced to settle for in place of the grand romance that eluded him. The vignette is accompanied by castanets and references to the Ronettes and to the Four Tops' "Bernadette." It makes you wonder if the song's original scribblings contained discarded lines about flannelette, baguettes, Raisinets, and, I dunno, maybe a Penthouse Pet named LaFayette. Do you call that love in French?

Let's just dance and I'll forget.

And that's the heart of it. Even as we try to be glib and clever, to feign some suave patchwork shield of indifference, transcendence, philosophical understanding, and muttered assurances that yes, of course we can still be friends...damn it, we know we've lost something that meant more to us than either blush or bourbon can obscure. There's no such thing as painette.

I had never heard "Frenchette" before the first time I saw the David Johansen Group play. That live show was in the summer of 1979, with the Flashcubes opening. I'd barely heard the Dolls by then, and "Funky But Chic" was likely the only Johansen track that had crossed my path, but I knew of the Dolls and was eager to hear more. Johansen and his boys--Come ON, boys!!--nailed their set, from its cool-beyond-cool "Cool Metro" opener through the rest of the DJ songbook, including tips to the Dolls with "Babylon," Bo Diddley's "Pills," and--obviously--the signature New York Dolls number "Personality Crisis," performed as a medley with Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff." Obviously. The whole damned thing was nothing short of fascinating.

"Frenchette" was mesmerizing.

Granted, I'd had a few drinks, a few transcendental tickets to paradise to enhance my enjoyment of the night. But my God, being in a crowded nightclub as that piano lick began its melodic shiva, witnessing this guy who used to be a dressed-up Doll croon so eloquently and effectively of just dancing to forget...man, the lump in my throat is still there. This was amazing. 

And this was where I became a fan. I bought the Johansen albums, tracked down a hideously battered copy of the first Dolls LP and a cassette of their second, snapped up Johnny Thunders' live album with his band o' junkies the Heartbreakers as well as JT's own solo debut So Alone. 

I saw the David Johansen Group on a few subsequent occasions--another club show, an outdoor show, and a show in the spartan ballroom at my former college's student union building--and if nothing ever quite matched the magic buzz of my first David Jo concert, I loved each opportunity to shout along with "Girls" and "She," to raise a fist with "Personality Crisis," to flip off the persistence of memory with "Frenchette."

But that outdoor show and that ballroom show also offered a glimpse of Johansen's next avenue. By then he had played larger venues as an opening act for the Who, and he told a journalist of his growing disinterest in performing in hockey arenas for an audience of Hitler Youth. My last two Johansen shows, outside in the Buffalo suburbs and in the ballroom at Brockport, there was an increasing element of show-biz camp working its way into Johansen's schtick. That element would take full form as Johansen's swingin' alter ego Buster Poindexter, a sort of self-aware Dean Martin pastiche that was even more removed from whatever the Dolls had been. Improvise. Reinvent. Survive.

As I write this, it's been a little over a week since Johansen's death. Yesterday, as I was getting ready to leave for work, some lines popped into my head, compelling me to jot them down in my notebook before fickle memory consigned them to the dustbin of flowers and trash:

He set himself to write a song

About the girl who'd done him wrong

Picked up a guitar he couldn't play

Struggled with words he couldn't say

I'm not a songwriter, and these random lines will never find the company of melody nor even additional words. But without even meaning to, I stumbled into what might pass for the story of the New York Dolls. Couldn't play, couldn't sing? Fuck it. Doin' it anyway. David Johansen went a step beyond that, assembling a kickass post-Dolls band, building upon the legacy of the Dolls, entertaining in whatever guise he chose.

And with "Frenchette," David Johansen did what Alex Chilton did with "September Gurls," what Michael Brown did with "Walk Away Renee," what Smokey Robinson did whenever he damned well felt like doing it: He took the ache of loss and made it pretty.

What more can we ask? Our hearts are going to break. We are going to lose, at least sometimes. And we are going to have to say goodbye, whether we want to or not. Our art can comfort, confront, elevate, console. It can improvise. It can reinvent.

So let's just dance. But we're not going to forget.

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.