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 # 1064.
COCKTAIL SLIPPERS: St. Valentine's Day Massacre
Yes, opening a February 14th broadcast with Cocktail Slippers' incredible 2009 track "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" is an obvious choice. Sometimes the obvious choice is the right choice. From my maybe-eventual-maybe-not book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):
"...'St. Valentine's Massacre' is a welcome earworm, maddeningly catchy, sounding incongruously bouncy while reflecting on love's uncertainty and rushing fearlessly and fatalistically toward an affair's assured and imminent end.
Am I still penciled in on your calendar?
Am I still the late night call when you've got nothing to say?
I know it's Thanksgiving night, and you say you love me
But who'll be the last lover standing come Saint Valentine's Day?
I'm thinking a box of chocolates isn't gonna cut it this time.
Little Steven Van Zandt's lyrics here imply a lovers' drama playing out in rapidly elapsing time. Was it adventure, was it fear, or sanctuary? Modesty Blaze's voice is tinged with both regret and resignation as she sings; behind her and with her, her band of sisters seems hellbent on holding an Irish wake for broken hearts. Across the calendar pages that fly by with cruel indifference--Thanksgiving night, Christmas morning, New Year's Eve--a love that can't even evolve from pencil to ink careens toward its inevitable erasure come the 14th of February. Now even your carrier pigeons have been picked off by the vultures/There's only one thing left for you to confess.... The song flies to its foregone conclusion on a conjugal bed of the most bittersweet la la la la lala las in rock 'n' roll history...."
DOLPH CHANEY: My Good Twin
Dolph Chaney's ultraswell new album This Is Dolph Chaney is out this week, courtesy of the good folks at Big Stir Records, and of course you need to own it if you have any hope of ever being one of the cool kids. As an added bonus: you'll like it! The album's first single is "Now I Am A Man," and it's a worthy candidate for saturation airplay. But my favorite is "My Good Twin," so we're gonna carpetbomb the ol' playlist with that one instead. We're all winners in that situation.
SAM COOKE: Win Your Love For Me
There have been several occasion where a song's cover used in other media has hooked me on the original. The Blues Brothers got me into Sam and Dave. I knew Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" and "Everyday" well before I saw 1978's The Buddy Holly Story, but actor Gary Busey's warbling in that film inspired me to immediately purchase the Holly collection 20 Golden Greats.
On a similar note, I've known some of Sam Cooke's music (particularly "Chain Gang") for my entire life. Leslie Odom, Jr's star turn as Cooke in the recent film One Night In Miami... nudged me toward supplementing my "Chain Gang" 45 with the Sam Cooke best-of CD Portrait Of A Legend, which in turn introduced me to Cooke's original rendition of "Good Times," a song Odom sings in the movie. The CD also includes "Win Your Love For Me," a wonderful tune I'd neither heard nor heard of prior to picking up Portrait Of A Legend, and it's now one of my favorite Sam Cooke songs.
THE GOLD NEEDLES: I Get The Pressure
Here's another track from The Gold Needles' new album What's Tomorrow Ever Done For You?, which comes out this very week on the visionary Jem Recordings label. We've been playing its advance singles "Billy Liar" and "What's Tomorrow Ever Done For You?," and we're delighted to now add this boppin' li'l album track to our own Play-Tone Galaxy Of Stars. The album also includes capable covers of The Beatles and The Hollies, and seems likely to be an early candidate for more than a few year-end best-of lists come December.
IAN HUNTER: All Of The Good Ones Are Taken
An anti-Valentine! Ian Hunter's brilliantly wistful "All Of The Good Ones Are Taken" was an MTV fave rave in 1983, and it's an underrated gem in Hunter's vast collection of precious preciouses. As a public service, Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) would like to remind you that Hunter's former group Mott the Hoople is not in The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. This proves that, in fact, all of the good ones have not yet been taken.JUSTINE AND THE UNCLEAN: Scorpion Bowl To Go
Make it two Scorpion Bowls. And arrange an Uber for Justine and the Unclean. They should not be driving.
KID GULLIVER: Forget About Him
We've been playing Kid Gulliver's current single "Beauty School Dropout" these past couple of weeks, but Valentine's Day made us feel like reaching back into Kid Gulliver's treasure trove o' hits. So we played an oldie. Some of you older people might remember it. It's from last year, and it's called "Forget About Him." Like "All Of The Good Ones Are Taken," "Forget About Him" is another anti-Valentine, this one told from the perspective of a concerned and compassionate friend and observer. Honey. You can do better than that loser, believe me.
THE MONKEES: Valleri
"Valleri" was The Monkees' final Top Ten hit, a # 3 smash in 1968. Written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, legend has it that the intrepid tunesellers concocted the ditty on the fly when Golden-Eared Monkees impresario Don Kirshner told them over the phone he wanted a song with a girl's name as its title. Oh, fantastic timing, Donnie!, Boyce may have said. We just wrote a great one called...um, "Valleri!" Yeah, that's it, "Valleri!" Sure, we'll head right over and play it for you! See ya, Donnie! And then Boyce would have contacted Hart and said, Bobby! Get in the car, man! We on our way to see Kirshner, and we need to do some work on the way!
Not a true story? Oh, I don't care. It oughtta be true. And here's what I wrote about the song in a post about my 25 favorite Monkees tracks:
"Michael Nesmith famously dismissed this as 'the worst song I've ever heard in my life.' He also described 'What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?' as 'the bottom of the music,' so I'm thinking we shouldn't rely on Michael for an assessment of The Monkees' best. Granted, 'Valleri' really ain't much of a song; the lyrics are almost laughably simple (even by the loose requirements of pop music), and the music is just a guitar riff gussied up with horns. It all works together like wizardry, alchemy even, distinguished in no small part by some mesmerizing flamenco guitar by Louie Shelton. The original made-for-TV track sounds thin; the official single and LP cut benefits from fatter sound and a more confident and assured Davy Jones vocal."
THE YACHTS: Box 202
As much as I've learned about pop music over a span of decades, I must acknowledge the fact that I still have so much more to learn. The late '70s/early '80s British group The Yachts present a case in point. The Yachts were a group that I never really got to know at the time, even as I was absorbing so much great then-contemporary rockin' pop from the likes of The Jam, The Beat, The Romantics, Generation X, The Jags, The Undertones, Squeeze, and The Records. I remember the LP cover from The Yachts' lone American album; I don't recall hearing the music at all. Years later in 1993, their track "Yachting Type" was included on one of the CDs in Rhino Records' essential compilation series DIY, and that was my de facto introduction to Yachttunes.
When Paul Collins of The Beat and John Wicks of The Records visited TIRnRR in 2009, we chatted with Wicks about The Records' enduring classic "Starry Eyes." Wicks talked about writing this song as a kiss-off to The Records' soon-to-be-ex-manager, a bloke who at the time had seemed more invested in The Yachts' potential fortunes than in The Records' own career. I was aghast that anyone could ever think The Yachts were a bigger deal than The Records.
Dana's been playing The Yachts a lot on the show of late, and I'm starting to get it. The Yachts weren't better than The Records--let's not get crazy--but this is a fantastic and relatively uncelebrated stash of pop music. I'm happy to find out more about it, even all these years after the fact. See? Ya learn stuff listening to TIRnRR. Ya learn stuff co-hosting it, too.
THE 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS: You're Gonna Miss Me
This. As we talk here and on the radio about the concept of The Greatest Record Ever Made--an infinite number of songs can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns--there are still some that deserve more frequent turns than others. Songs like "You're Gonna Miss Me" by The 13th Floor Elevators.
Heh. As if there was ever another song like "You're Gonna Miss Me' by The 13th Floor Elevators. Let's have my book take it from there:
"...With his '60s combo The 13th Floor Elevators, Roky Erickson sang of fire in the bones, of taking us to the empty place in his fire engine, of Easter everywhere. He was damaged. And with The 13th Floor Elevators, he gave us an incredible, unforgettable rock 'n' roll classic called 'You're Gonna Miss Me.'
'You're Gonna Miss Me' is acid made punk, as hallucinatory as Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, as badass as...anything, ever. It's the embodiment of the rock-critic concept of 1960s garage-built psychedelia, while sounding not quite like any of its peers.
It could only have come from Texas. It profoundly influenced at least one son of the Lone Star State: Billy Gibbons, later to find fame slingin' his sharp-dressed six-string with ZZ Top. Contemporary to the Elevators, Gibbons played with a group called The Moving Sidewalks, whose own awesome single '99th Floor' couldn't have popped into being without 'You're Gonna Miss Me' providing a blueprint. 'You're Gonna Miss Me' has continued to glow in the dark for all subsequent generations seeking the sound of electric guitars crossed with electric sugar cubes...
...Immediate. Hypnotic. As tough as Detroit's MC5 or Stooges, as potent a warning as a sidewinder's rattle, as intoxicating as drinkin' wine, spo-dee-o-dee, drinkin' wine, goddamn. Welcome to Texas, muthas and bruthas...."
And welcome to The Greatest Record Ever Made.
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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
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio: CD or download
Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1)will contain 165 essays about 165 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). My weekly Greatest Record Ever Made! video rants can be seen in my GREM! YouTube playlist. And I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl
