My second most-favorite TV show theme song next to Rockford Files. Outside of the inevitable weekly drug raid, its theme was the only real reason for watching this Aaron Spelling potboiler. Everyone else must have reached the same conclusion because once an extended version was made available on disc, ABC dropped the series.
This pseudo disco rocker was the closest I'd ever gotten to funk. More happily, I've also somehow avoided any scrapes with federal law enforcement.
Fun fact: If you listen closely, you can hear an SRT van's tires screeching at the end of the bass breakdown. Or perhaps it’s Evel Knievel at Wembley. Listen here!
5) Bill Haley and the Comets “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock” (45 rpm)
It’s impossible to underestimate the impact television, and its inexorable link with music, had on my generation. Forty-somethings can still hum the theme songs of Welcome Back, Kotter (another early addition to my cache of seven inchers that escaped this list in an attempt to avoid redundancy), The Jeffersons, Sanford and Son, Barney Miller, All in the Family, and The Greatest American Hero. Before Happy Days became a bastardized hybrid of authentic Fifties nostalgia and oddly Seventies feathered hair, Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock” fittingly served as the sitcom’s opener.
Even today it’s easy to see how the Comets whipped a crowd of Krauts into a violent frenzy at the Berlin Sportpalast. This exhilarating, crystal clear blast of rock ‘n’ roll still leaves me in awe, with Danny Cedrone’s supernatural guitar solo, accompanied by Billy Gussak’s perfectly-timed snare drum and cymbal wallops. White lightning in a bottle. Performances like this aren’t so much planned as they are divinely inspired. And how, exactly, does one sit down and compose a song like this? Simple, but far from stupid; dynamic, yet uncontrived. Somewhere in Gonesville the planets were perfectly aligned when these heretofore unglorified shitkickers reinvented an entire genre, thus kicking AM radio’s posterior for all of posterity.
Side note: Contrary to what Bowser and Sha Na Na might have led unsuspecting teens to believe, their duck-tailed forbears most assuredly did NOT wear gold lamé jumpsuits. At least not out in public.
6) The Surfaris “Wipe Out” (45 rpm)
Gene Krupa did it a generation or two earlier with his work on Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing.” Here, however, is the disc that created vanloads of drummers, for better or worse, beginning in 1963. My parents had a copy of the Ventures’ “Walk, Don’t Run” long player, but even that precursor to surf-rock paled in comparison to the raw power of this platter, featuring the stick work of one Ron Wilson (no relation to Brian, Dennis and Carl). Again, how are these things written? It is difficult to imagine the rock lexicon bereft of this immortal drum roll: it needed to be created, and so it was. And God saw all that He had made, and it was very good, daddy-o.
Make no mistake, this is pure garage rock. And, as mind-blowing as the drum breaks are, they’re only a springboard (no pun intended) for a nearly unhinged guitar solo. It still knocks me out.
7) The Coasters “Yakety Yak” (45 rpm)
It’s one thing to sing Barry Manilow duets with your young son, and quite another to risk allowing subversive thoughts to creep into his formative consciousness, which is why Mom wasn’t all too thrilled with the lyrical content of this Coasters classic. But the shuffle rhythm was irresistible, and besides, the real fun wasn’t so much in singing the seditious “yakety yak” as it was in trying to properly mimic the baritone repartee, “Don’t talk back.”
Mom’s fears weren’t totally unfounded, as “Yakety Yak” would coincidentally find its way on to her wise-ass kid’s turntable from time to time, usually following a well-deserved scolding.
Trivia: King Curtis provided the iconic alto sax solo on “Yakety Yak”.
8) The Playmates “Beep Beep” (45 rpm)
Largely forgotten today, this nugget enjoyed a modest revival via “golden oldies” radio stations, and regular spins on the Doctor Demento Show. Given my growing obsession with Dad’s old Spike Jones records, it is no wonder why this novelty number held special appeal. Accentuated with rhythmic toots on a bicycle horn, the musical narrative describes an apparent road race between a Nash Rambler and Cadillac.
The gag, of course, is that the contest is one-sided: the Cadillac driver is only trying to catch up to the Nash Rambler to ask how to get his car out of second gear. Ha.
But the truly sad part of this whole thing is that I didn’t understand the punch line. Pop tried to explain it to me, but neither Big Wheels nor Schwinn Stingrays were outfitted with transmissions. It only dawned on me years later in the middle of a driving lesson, as my poor instructor wondered why the hell I was laughing to myself like a maroon. Listen here!
9) The Beatles "Rock and Roll Music" (2xLP)
Unlike Colorforms and Shrinky Dinks, my parents must have recognized that the "Got to Get You Into My Life" single was holding my attention nearly as much as the Sunday circulars. And so Santa got word that this compilation needed to appear beneath our tree on that storied Christmas morning of '76.
The first pressing of this two-LP set was housed in a silver foil gatefold sleeve. The artist, Ignacio Gomez, must have thought Elvis was the fifth Beatle because he inexplicably inserted images of Marilyn Monroe, a '57 Chevy, and Wurlitzer jukebox. Even the band's moniker was splashed across the front panel in neon lights, leaving one to wonder if Gomez was moonlighting from a gig as Happy Days' set designer. Perhaps the powers that be at Capitol Records were still high on the fumes from John Milner's Deuce Coupe. Whatever. None of this takes anything away from this album's impressive chronology of hits and misses culled from the Fab's miraculous catalogue. A true revelation.
10) The Beatles "Meet the Beatles" (LP)
It wasn't too long before the "Rock and Roll" sampler helped me realize that I was an "early Beatles" kind of guy. (And, like any red-blooded American, I also preferred loads of reverb.) So "Meet the Beatles" was the logical place to continue my newfound fandom.
Like a mad scientist working in a lab, I obsessively listened to the album, deconstructing its magical formula with the Penncrest's balance control, intently honing in on one channel and then the other. (What the heck was Paul doing to those birds when he "sore them winging"? And why was he on the verge of hysterics during the last verse of "Hold Me Tight"?)
I've since owned many thousands of records, and comparatively few of them warrant this kind of immersion. I guess it was just a stroke of luck that I discovered it so early. It was also a mixed blessing: the bar was set very high, and it seems my relentless pursuit of recorded sound has been an attempt to recapture the euphoria I experienced upon first hearing the Beatles. Take an unequaled mix of youthful energy, chiming chords, seamless harmonies, and dazzling melodies, and add to that my own unspoiled idealism and a spare ten bucks, and you've got the makings for one helluva strange and wonderful adventure.
John Potwora has a house full of records and plays drums in the semi-legendary power pop band Paranoid Lovesick. He also assailed radio listeners as the bombastic John E. Midnight over WRUW-FM, where he spun obscure Sixties garage rock (and dubious yarns) for several long years.
