10 SONGS: 2/24/2024

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 # 1221. This show is available as a podcast.

RICH ARITHMETIC: When You Want Somebody (To Make Love To)

Rich Arithmetic is the nom de bop of Rich Horton, and somehow our stats indicate that this week's spin of "When You Want Somebody (To Make Love To)" is only the fifth time a Rich Arithmetic track has ever graced a TIRnRR playlist. Man, where the hell have we been? This fine tune comes to us from the brand-new Rich Arithmetic album Pushbutton Romance, it's flippin' fantastic, and it's back on the radio again in our next show. We may be slow. But we ain't stupid.

THE CYNZ: Little Miss Lost

Singles. Tribute album offerings. Since the Cynz aligned with the mighty Jem Records, we've been getting little teases of new Cynz recordings, whettin' the ol' appetite for more. Now, at long last, that promised MORE! is nearly at hand.

March 29th is the official street date for Little Miss Lost, the brand new album from the Cynz. We can't wait. Meanwhile, the album's title tune has been released as an advance single. We played it on the radio this week, and we're playin' it again this Sunday night. Tease leads to promise. Promise leads to reward. Don't let this be a lost opportunity: Get with the music of the Cynz.

ELENA ROGERS: I Feel Alive

This is so good. Elena Rogers first entered TIRnRR's sovereign air space on a recommendation from pop giant Jamie Hoover. Jamie's been working with the young singer for a few years, he's clearly (and understandably) knocked out by her talent and musical prowess, and he would kindly like the world at large to wake the hell up and get hip to Elena Rogers awready. 

Elena's new single "I Feel Alive" is her best track yet, ambitious and audacious in its approach while remaining absolutely, unerringly pop. During Jamie's 2023 appearance on the way-swell Only Three Lads podcast, our esteemed Mr. Hoover promised a new Elena Rogers album in '24. That album will be called Prelude To Whatever, and "I Feel Alive" ratchets up the anticipation.

Can you feel it? 

LEATHER CATSUIT: Can't Get You Off My Mind

A couple of week's back, in the exciting 2/9/2024 edition of 10 Songs, I referred to both Paul Collins' "I'm The Only One For You" and Leather Catsuit's "Can't Get You Off My Mind" as welcome earworms. Well, the fact that we're still delighting in that act of programming 'em indicates their Welcome, Earworm! status remains unchallenged. Hell, the Leather Catsuit track is in my head pretty much all day, every day. Yep: I can't get it off my mind.

Don't wanna get it off my mind. And I am perfectly fine with that.

THE CYRKLE: We Can Find It

We've been playing most of the advance single sides from '60s sunshine pop combo the Cyrkle's new album Revival, and the arrival of the entire album gives us a chance to air what seems to be its best track. "We Can Find It" is less overtly nostalgic than the album's (still pretty nifty) first single "We Thought We Could Fly" and the attendant (solid) remakes of the Cyrkle's hits "Red Rubber Ball" and "Turn Down Day," but equally a product of the group's legacy. Endearing in its own right. 

THE RAMONES: Swallow My Pride

"Swallow My Pride" is one of my favorite tracks by one of my all-time favorite groups, the Ramones. The American Beatles! The greatest American rock 'n' roll group of all time! I like 'em so much I wrote a book about them. And I also wrote an appreciation of my 25 favorite Ramones tracks, which included this celebration of "Swallow My Pride:"

We should have seen this as a sign: If "Swallow My Pride" couldn't become a smash hit single, any top-of-the-pops aspirations the Ramones harbored were doomed from the start. Looking just at the Ramones' American singles, we can say maybe U.S. radio wasn't quite ready for "Blitzkrieg Bop" in '76, that "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" was pretty but not smooth enough for American airwaves, and maybe "I Remember You" didn't have the prerequisite oomph to be radio-ready.

But "Swallow My Pride" was perfect. Perfect. It's pure pop, drawing inspiration from the best '60s influences, and it doesn't even have any specific punk or glue-sniffing aspect to put an asterisk on its commercial sheen. It's a revved-up counterpart to the Bay City Rollers' "Rock And Roll Love Letter" or KISS' "Shout It Out Loud."

Perhaps "Swallow My Pride" was too good for Top 40 in 1977, and I guess progressive FM might have thought it too pop (or whatever other excuse they could concoct to dismiss something so obviously beneath their smug carcasses). The Ramones' next three singles--"Sheena Is A Punk Rocker," "Rockaway Beach," and "Do You Wanna Dance"--maintained a similarly irresistible spark, and even managed to breach the Billboard Hot 100. No subsequent Ramones single even came close.

The Ramones deserved a string of hit records. "Swallow My Pride" should have been one of 'em.

THE MONKEES: For Pete's Sake

When we programmed this spin of the Monkees' shoulda-been-a-single track "For Pete's Sake," we weren't thinking about the fact that this week also marked five years since the world lost Peter Tork. We played it simply because we wanted to play it. In this generation, in this lovin' time. 

THE SPINNERS: I'll Be Around

In the perhaps unlikely event my long-threatened (and long-ago-completed) book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) ever finds its path to publication, it will include a chapter about the Spinners' 1972 soul classic "I'll Be Around."

"I'll Be Around" was one of the many integral components of my own golden age of AM Top 40, the days and nights when my adolescent and teen ears were surgically tethered to Syracuse's WOLF-AM and WNDR-AM. My experience of just being in utter thrall to pop radio in the early '70s is the biggest reason why I grew up [sic] wanting to participate in the process. Make no mistake: My part of making TIRnRR is a direct result of my prevailing wish to be able to create something that can match and expand upon the sound and sense AM radio sparked within my hook-starved noggin.

From an early draft of the long-threatened thing:

The Spinners' string of Atlantic hits commenced in 1972, with the # 3 smash "I'll Be Around." Its resigned sigh offers little clue to the exuberance yet to come; thematically, its tale of love lost has more in common with "It's A Shame" and "My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me)" than it shares with the presumed happiness within the love stories sung in "Could It Be I'm Falling In Love," "One Of A Kind Love Affair," and "Then Came You." You've made a choice, and now it's up to me to bow out gracefully. It's pop music performed with a lump in the throat, yet it eschews melodrama with...well, not quite a shrug, but with the wisdom to realize causing a scene won't do any damned bit of good. I'm sorry, my friend; this affair is over, man.

But whenever you call me
I'll be there

That devotion won't change, even as the singer bids farewell to a house he'd prefer to still call his home, to a heart he aches with a desire to still call his, to a present and a future he's desperate to believe could still be, though he knows with dull certainty that it can't. His love is too strong to allow him to wish his lover anything but the best, even though he's shattered by the fact that "the best" emphatically does not include him. She's made a choice. As he leaves, she's going to close the door behind him. 

He doesn't give up hope. Whenever she calls him....

HOLLY GOLIGHTLY: Time Will Tell

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

WONDERBOY: Girl Songs

It's an important subject, and we thank our friends Wonderboy for starting the conversation. We introduced TIRnRR to the concept last week. We re-visited it this week. We'll return to it yet again on our next show. Let's hear it for the girls.

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

Family, loss, and an imaginary letter

 

Today's post was written in 2017 as part of a larger piece called "How To Be The Blogman! (Or The Blogwoman. That Works, Too.)" The piece itself was about how blogging can give a would-be writer an opportunity and outlet to write, and it included a pitch for intrepid would-bes to consider crafting an entry for a (now-dormant) blog called Love Letters 2 Rock n Roll.

To illustrate the sort of entry that might suit the needs of Love Letters 2 Rock n Roll, I concocted my own wholly fabricated letter to an imaginary rock act I named Pants-On Flyers, a letter written from the point of view of a middle-aged guy missing his younger brother, and comforting himself with the music of his little brother's favorite band.

It was a flight of fancy, written very quickly as a model of how one could express the connection between the emotions of our lives and the soundtracks of our lives. Once the bit was finished, I congratulated myself on its cleverness. It had no tether to my reality; I'm the youngest of four--Art, Rob, Denise, then li'l baby me--so I can't claim first-hand understanding of what it's like to have a younger sibling.

And yet....

On Thursday--exactly one week after I lost my oldest brother Art--the Blogman piece came up at random, in a review of what older blog posts are getting an itty bit of current traffic. I found myself rereading it, and this silly fake letter to a band that never existed outside of my silly imagination had me blubbering on my couch. 

I guess there was something real in there after all.

I'm told I need to let this out. It's good advice, and I'm trying. Meanwhile, here's a letter I wrote, assuming the POV of a fictional character missing family. Time is the enemy. In the end, time will win the battle. 

I'm not giving up without a fight.

Godspeed, Art. And God bless you Rob and Denise; your little brother loves you.

Dear Pants-On Flyers

I confess I never liked you much. I don't say that to be rude; it's just the fact, at least the fact as it used to be. My kid brother was into Pants-On Flyers, and he thought you were the greatest rock 'n' roll band that ever was. Me? I was into a whole bunch of groups, from KISS to the Stylistics to the Sex Pistols to Motorhead to Gladys Knight and the Pips to Talking Heads. Mostly the Isley Brothers. And KISS. You weren't on my radar. I mean, who wants to like the same band your stupid younger sibling raves about? I didn't hate you. I just didn't like you.

My little brother's name is Rich. I haven't seen him in nearly five years. He's okay, I think. His career took him to Europe, and he's been living mostly in Belgium, with little opportunity to return to the States. He's not a letter-writer, I'm not a Skype user. We retain superficial contact via social media. I kind of know what he's doing, he kind of knows what I'm doing. There is an illusion of companionship. I miss him a lot lately.

Today is Rich's birthday. Science has no explanation for how my pesky kid brother Rich could possibly be fifty freakin' years old. We won't bother saying how old I am. 

Knowing this milestone was coming, I went on a Pants-On Flyers buying spree. I bought Rich your new rarities boxed set Pants OFF For Once!, and his email thanked me for it. On a whim, I also purchased a number of your albums for myself: your 2-CD best-of set Pathological Flyers, a beat-up LP copy of your classic Remembering On Cue, an illicit digital download of your otherwise-outta-print live set Barroom Budokan USA, your much-maligned covers collection We Stole These Songs, and your most recent studio effort, the 2011 reunion album Gone/Back/Gone Again. 

I've been listening to all of them, especially Remembering On Cue's "So Far Away From Home." It may be putting it too strongly to say I like you now; hearing these songs inspires a melancholy ache that is not entirely welcome. But it's a necessary ache. It's a connection with my brother, a connection I so sorely miss otherwise. I do finally appreciate your music. I get the craft and the passion that I couldn't see at the end of the '70s, when I was a college kid too good for whatever drek my little brother was soaking up. 

But I get it now. I confess I never liked you much. I like you now. And I love my little brother, so far away from home.

Rob, Art, Denise, and Carl, April 2022--our final picture together

THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! A weekly feature on THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO

Time for another update!

The pop noir genius of Todd Alcott

Here's the weekly GREM! story so far:

In 2022, we started doing The Greatest Record Ever Made! as a (nearly) weekly feature on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. Here's an updated list of the weekly GREM!s so far. More to come. Some of these will (I hope) appear someday in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), some will not, and one--the Ramones' "I Don't Want To Grow Up"--appears RIGHT NOW in my new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones.

Each update gives me another chance to share some of Todd Alcott's brilliant images of classic rock 'n' roll songs reimagined as pulp paperbacks. I need to devote a full post to Alcott's work one of these days (or nights). Meanwhile, you can visit his site and buy some stuff. 

And here's a reprise of what I previously wrote about TIRnRR's weekly GREM! series:

An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns.

In 2022, with an eye toward mining the vast resource of material prepared for my ongoing concept The Greatest Record Ever Made!, we started doing a weekly GREM! feature on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl.

Part of the motivation here was, frankly, an effort to cut a tiny little corner in writing my weekly 10 Songs column. See, laziness is the mother of invention. Deciding that one 10 Songs entry each week could be a link to a previously-written Greatest Record Ever Made! piece meant that I only hadda write about nine songs. FREEDOM!

But a weekly feature also enhances the show itself. Prior to this, it had been a very long time since we had any specific weekly feature on TIRnRR. There used to be a weekly Forgotten Original!, there was a weekly Mystery 45! (where Dana grabbed a single from his collection and played it without previewing it), there was a very brief flirtation with Unsafe At Any Speed! (playing a record back at something other than its intended rpm), and I think we even may have had a weekly GREM! feature at some point. Maybe not. Maybe.

But these were all many years ago. The tentative beginning of our current weekly GREM! feature was in February of 2022, when we played Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want To Be With You" on our February 6th show, and then followed with "Thank You, Girl" by the Beatles the next week. Then, in typical fashion, I completely forgot about the idea for a few weeks.

Pretty quick work, right?

GREM! resumed as a weekly thingie at the end of March in 2022, and continued thereafter. It skips a week every so often...but not very often. Anyway, here's a list of all of 'em so far. I think the only one we repeated was "That Thing You Do!" by teen sensations the Wonders. Please be aware that I am not under oath. 

But we played them all on the radio. It's our own ongoing contribution to the infinite.

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

THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! The Weekly TIRnRR Featured Songs [updated list]

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD: I Only Want To Be With You

THE BEATLES: Thank You, Girl

THE SEARCHERS: Hearts In Her Eyes

THE DAVE CLARK FIVE: Any Way You Want It

THE JAYHAWKS: I'm Gonna Make You Love Me

THE WONDERS: That Thing You Do!

FREDDIE AND THE DREAMERS: Do The Freddie

GLADYS KNIGHT AND THE PIPS: Midnight Train To Georgia

THE FLASHCUBES: No Promise

THE RAMONES: Sheena Is A Punk Rocker

THE WHO: I Can't Explain

THE BUZZCOCKS: Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)

THE RARE BREED: Beg, Borrow And Steal

EYTAN MIRSKY: This Year's Gonna Be Our Year

THE KINKS: Waterloo Sunset

MATERIAL ISSUE: Kim The Waitress

THE SMITHEREENS: Behind The Wall Of Sleep

TRACEY ULLMAN: They Don't Know

STEVIE WONDER: I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)

LITTLE RICHARD: The Girl Can't Help It

CRAZY ELEPHANT: Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'

KISS: Shout It Out Loud

THE RAMONES: I Don't Want To Grow Up

SQUEEZE: Tempted

NELSON RIDDLE: The Batman Theme

ELTON JOHN: Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting

T. REX: 20th Century Boy

THE RASPBERRIES: I Wanna Be With You

SMOKEY ROBINSON AND THE MIRACLES: The Tears Of A Clown

BARON DAEMON AND THE VAMPIRES: The Transylvania Twist

THE NEW YORK DOLLS: Personality Crisis

THE CAST OF WEST SIDE STORY: America

THE MONKEES: Porpoise Song (Theme From Head)

THE KINKS: You Really Got Me

THE MUFFS: Saying Goodbye

VERDELLE SMITH: Life Goes On

THE RAMONES: Blitzkrieg Bop

THE MONKEES: Riu Chiu

MELANIE WITH THE EDWIN HAWKINS SINGERS: Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)

LOVE: 7 And 7 Is
HEART: Kick It Out

THE DIXIE CUPS: Iko Iko

THE YARDBIRDS: Heart Full Of Soul

THE BYRDS: Eight Miles High

RONNIE SPECTOR AND THE E STREET BAND: Say Goodbye To Hollywood

GENE PITNEY: Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa

THE CLASH: Train In Vain

THE SPONGETONES: (My Girl) Maryanne

AMY RIGBY: Dancing With Joey Ramone

THE BAY CITY ROLLERS: Rock And Roll Love Letter

THE BREAKWAYS/PAUL COLLINS: Walking Out On Love

THE FLAMIN' GROOVIES: Shake Some Action

THE RAMONES: I Believe In Miracles

THE MONKEES: The Girl I Knew Somewhere

ALICE COOPER: School's Out

THE MYNAH BIRDS: I Got You (In My Soul)

THE PANDORAS: It's About Time

THE RAMONES: I Wanna Be Sedated [Ramones On 45 Mega Mix]

IKE & TINA TURNER: River Deep--Mountain High

THE DRIFTERS: On Broadway

JUSTINE AND THE UNCLEAN: Vengeance

SUZI QUATRO: I May Be Too Young

THE RUBINOOS: I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend

THE MARVELETTES: I'll Keep Holding On

THE RUNAWAYS: Cherry Bomb

THE BOBBY FULLER FOUR: I Fought The Law

SAM COOKE: Chain Gang

BIG STAR: September Gurls

AL HIRT: The Green Hornet Theme

THE EVERLY BROTHERS: Gone, Gone, Gone

RICK JAMES: Super Freak

THE JAM: That's Entertainment

R. DEAN TAYLOR: Indiana Wants Me

THE BOB SEGER SYSTEM: 2 + 2 = ?

THE LOVIN' SPOONFUL: Summer In The City

JOAN JETT: Bad Reputation

THE VELVELETTES: He Was Really Sayin' Somethin'

THE ONLY ONES: Another Girl, Another Planet

TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS: American Girl

SOLOMON BURKE: Everybody Needs Somebody To Love

THE MC5: Kick Out The Jams

ARTHUR CONLEY: Sweet Soul Music

THE CREATION: Making Time 

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: This Ain't The Summer Of Love

THE DICTATORS: Who Will Save Rock And Roll?

THE BYRDS: I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better

THE RAMONES: Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)

THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS: All For Swinging You Around

DAVID BOWIE: Life On Mars?

MARYKATE O'NEIL: I'm Ready For My Luck To Turn Around

THE SHANGRI-LAS: Leader Of The Pack

TEGAN AND SARA: Walking With A Ghost

THE COCKTAIL SLIPPERS: St. Valentine's Day Massacre

HOLLY GOLIGHTLY: Time Will Tell

MERLE HAGGARD: Mama Tried

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

Fake THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO Playlist: Acts I Got Into After The Fact

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. 

Hey, you know how a stereotypical hipster might sniff in snarky condescension at crass hoi polloi jumping on the bandwagon of adulation for a suddenly-popular performer our precious li'l hipster used to dig before the clueless world at large ruined everything by, y'know, catching on to the artist in question? 

Well, this is the opposite of that.

Today's imaginary playlist celebrates acts that I got into after the fact, long after the hipsters had scurried elsewhere. Listen: Better late than never. 

These are all artists whose work I discovered at some point subsequent to their recording and performing heyday. Some are groups that broke up, some are legends who left this mortal world behind before I got around to hearing them. I'm excluding acts like the Kinks, James Brown, the Who, and others who were still active at the onset of my belated fandom, but I'm allowing groups who disbanded and later reunited. I'm also allowing Mad Monster Party and the Mynah Birds, two artists whom almost no one got to hear at the time they were recording.

I repeat one of my many mantras: Right now is ALWAYS the best-ever time to be a rockin' pop fan. All the music we loved before is still with us, but there's so much more great stuff, new and old, just waiting for us to notice. Great records don't care what year it is.

And you get to them when you get to them. It's okay. They're waiting now. And they're ready when you are.

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.

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
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

Volume 5: CD or download

PS: SEND MONEY!!!! We need tech upgrades like Elvis needs boats. Spark Syracuse is supported by listeners like you. Tax-deductible donations are welcome at 
http://sparksyracuse.org/support/

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!! 

You can follow Carl's daily blog Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) at 
https://carlcafarelli.blogspot.com/

FAKE TIRnRR PLAYLIST: Acts I Got Into After The Fact

BUDDY HOLLY: Peggy Sue

BONEY M: My Friend Jack

THE SHIRTS: Reduced To A Whisper

OTIS REDDING: (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay

THE SOFT BOYS: I Wanna Destroy You

THE SHANGRI-LAS: Leader Of The Pack

--

SAM AND DAVE: Soul Man

THE MC5: Kick Out The Jams

MAD MONSTER PARTY: Can't Stop Loving You

RITCHIE VALENS: La Bamba

JOHNNY KIDD AND THE PIRATES: I'll Never Get Over You

ROTARY CONNECTION: Love Me Now

--

THE VELVELETTES: He Was Really Sayin' Somethin'

EDDIE COCHRAN: Somethin' Else

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND: I'll Be Your Mirror

IGGY AND THE STOOGES: Search And Destroy

EMITT RHODES: Fresh As A Daisy

THE SHIVVERS: Please Stand By

--

THE NEW YORK DOLLS: Personality Crisis

THE TAMS: I've Been Hurt

THE VOGUES: Five O'Clock World

MICKEY AND SYLVIA: Love Is Strange

THE BEAU BRUMMELS: Laugh Laugh

BLUE ASH: Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her?)

--

THE BANDWAGON: Breakin' Down The Walls Of Heartache

THE STANDELLS: Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White

THE MO-DETTES: White Mice

PHIL OCHS: Tape From California [live]

THE RONETTES: Be My Baby

BIG STAR: September Gurls

--

THE REMAINS: Don't Look Back

FAIRPORT CONVENTION: Time Will Show The Wiser

THE ANIMALS: We Gotta Get Out Of This Place

THE YOUNG RASCALS: Good Lovin'

BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD: Mr. Soul

THE MYNAH BIRDS: I Got You (In My Soul)

--

THE KNICKERBOCKERS: Lies

THE BYRDS: Eight Miles High

THE DIXIE CUPS: Iko Iko

THE EASYBEATS: Sorry

THE SMALL FACES: Sha-La-La-La-Lee

JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE: Purple Haze

--

THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS: Time Has Come Today

THE SEEDS: Pushin' Too Hard

THE OHIO EXPRESS: Had To Be Me

MARTHA AND THE VANDELLAS: Nowhere To Run

THE MOVE: Fire Brigade

WIZZARD: See My Baby Jive

--

DUCKS DELUXE: Love's Melody

THE ELECTRIC PRUNES: I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night

THE CHOCOLATE WATCHBAND: Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In)

THE COOKIES: Wounded

THE UGLY DUCKLINGS: Nothin'

BIG BROTHER AND THE HOLDING COMPANY: Piece Of My Heart

THE YARDBIRDS: Heart Full Of Soul

THE MARVELETTES: I'll Keep Holding On 

--

THE CREATION: Making Time

A Comic Book That Never Was: SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY # 1

This is a new post, incorporating elements from a few previous posts.

In the midst of DC Comics' current (and welcome) series of facsimile editions reprinting individual classic comic books, here's a wish for a fauxsimile, a "reprint" of a comic book that never existed: Seven Soldiers Of Victory # 1.

In the mid 1970s, six consecutive issues of DC's Adventure Comics (# 438, dated March-April 1975, through # 443, January-February 1976) presented a previously untold tale of the 1940s team the Seven Soldiers of Victory. And I was stoked for it.

The Seven Soldiers (aka Law's Legionnaires) were DC's second-tier super-team in the 1940s, an attempt to replicate the success of the Justice Society Of America. Our valiant assembled Soldiers--the Green Arrow and Speedy, the Vigilante, the Shining Knight, the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, and the Crimson Avenger, with the Crimson's Asian stereotype sidekick Wing an unofficial eighth Soldier--starred in the first fourteen issues of Leading Comics, 1941-1945, their victories vacated when the title switched to a funny animal format with Leading Comics # 15. 




I first heard of the group via a text page in a giant-sized issue of Justice League Of America published circa 1970 or so, and I was instantly fascinated by them. They were revived in 1972 for an epic three-part Justice League-Justice Society crossover in Justice League Of America # 100-102, and that arc remains my all-time favorite JLA story. And it was a popular story, so maybe it wasn't all that odd a notion for editor Joe Orlando to consider reviving the Seven Soldiers Of Victory a few years later as a backup in Adventure Comics.

But it was a little odd that it wasn't a new adventure; "Land Of Magic!" was an unused script from the '40s, written by Joe Samachson for (one presumes) an issue of Leading Comics and scuttled when the funny animals of King Oscar's Court kicked Law's Legionnaires outta Leading. The script was plucked from the vaults three decades later, and given to artists: Dick Dillin and Tex Blaisdell for the opening and closing team chapters, Howard Chaykin on Shining Knight, Lee Elias on Green Arrow and Speedy, Mike Grell on Crimson Avenger and Wing, Ernie Chua on Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Mike Royer on Vigilante. It was set to run as a serial backing the Spectre (and later Aquaman) in Adventure. Odd. But intriguing; I confess I was a little underwhelmed with the results at the time, but I had certainly been looking forward to it, and I still have some fondness for it looking back. Here are some sample pages from all of the serial's chapters.

The entire 1940s Seven Soldiers of Victory chronicles were eventually reprinted in a series of three DC Archives hardcovers. Of course I own them all. Victory at last!

But not complete victory. Script pages from "Land Of Magic!" were reproduced in the third and final volume of The Seven Soldiers Of Victory Archives, but the published story and its artwork have never been reprinted.

I concede this is an unlikely candidate for DC to ever put out as a fabricated facsimile edition, but...c'mon! Wouldn't it be cool? Until that happens, this would-be Seven Soldiers Of Victory # 1 will remain A COMIC BOOK THAT NEVER WAS.

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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.

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