Today marks part one of a new series I’m launching - in an attempt to satisfy a New Year’s Resolution to contribute more blog content to Pencil Storm - comprising “5 Songs You’ve Never Heard By” a large variety of bands & solo performers I currently house in my far-reaching (NOT wide-ranging; it’s all rock & roll, punk-rock & Americana) record collection. I’m shooting for one a week throughout the winter doldrums, we’ll see what happens after that. - Ricki C.
5 SONGS THAT YOU’VE NEVER HEARD BY BOSTON ROCKERS OF THE LATE 1970’S & 1980’S
I’ve lately been reading a book about The Cars called “Let The Stories Be Told” by Boston rock writer (and Buffalo Tom member) Bill Janovitz. It’s pretty well-written, but at 498 pages, FAR too long. I’m on page 159, and we’re still on the first album. That’s cool, there’s a lot of pre-history to the Ric Ocasek and Ben Orr segment of The Cars (Milkwood, Richard & The Rabbits, Cap’n Swing, etc.), but truthfully, I’m only interested in that first eponymous album and Candy-O, so I’m gonna be bailing on the book pretty soon. The 1976-1986 period of Boston rock & roll is likely my favorite local scene of all time.
About halfway through 1980 I started flying to Boston, MA on weekends, JUST to see bands. My first marriage was done (“a ruined artifact of rock & roll fun” as my 2013 song “A Life Of Rock & Roll” detailed it) and you could fly People’s Airline ROUND-TRIP to Boston for $36 in those impossibly long-lost bargain airline days. Most of those trips were to see a band I loved called The Neighborhoods, who I’ve written about extensively in the past, but each trip I would also pick up a ton of singles & albums that Boston rock & roll publications The Boston Groupie News, Boston Rock, T-Max’s The Noise, The Boston Phoenix, etc. would write about.
Here’s my five favorite singles of that period you’ve never heard…….
THE MAPS / “I’M TALKING TO YOU”
LIMBO RACE / INA’S SONG / 1983
THE LYRES / HELP YOU ANN / 1984
SCRUFFY THE CAT / “TIGER TIGER” / 1986
ROBERT ELLIS ORRALL (featuring CARLENE CARTER) / “I COULDN’T SAY NO” / 1982
Illuminating moment from a Boston Phoenix interview with Robert Ellis Orrall; Q. - “How does a person approach a duet with Carlene Carter?” Orrall - “Well, Carlene is such a great singer that you can go one of two directions; 1) You can try to out-sing her and get humiliated, or you can roll over and play dead.” Boston Phoenix - “Which direction did you choose?” Orrall - “Oh, I rolled over and played dead.”
Ricki C. is 73 years old and has two dresser drawers full of black rock & roll t-shirts, which he wears incessantly. He also has a hand-tooled leather hippie belt from 1972 that still fits. He has congestive heart failure and prostate cancer and KNOWS that all this rock & roll nonsense has to stop someday.
But not yet.
Ricki has also recently decided that he is going to outlive Donald Trump, so that he can visit Florida or New York or wherever to piss on Trump’s grave.