Like most of this blog, I’ve let this series lapse, and I don’t know that I have the time to keep it going regularly after this instalment, but Ric Ocasek is gone, and this seemed like a good time to mention that my first Cars record was the 45 single for “Let’s Go”.



Most people of course know The Cars from the MTV hits from Heartbeat City – “All I Want Is You”, “Magic” and “Drive” were ubiquitous at the time, and still get airplay to this day even on adult contemporary stations. Personally, I’m not that big a fan of Heartbeat City for that very reason. The first two albums (The Cars and Candy-O) capture the essence of what made The Cars so appealing in the late 70s, while their fourth album (Shake It Up) was a more satisfying pop album – overall it’s not as good as the first two, but it still has a few of their better songs on it.

The Cars stood out partly because Ocasek was a sharp songwriter, but also because they were basically New Wave before New Wave was a thing – which is ironic since they were Americans, not Brits. But they were the perfect bridge from the back-to-basics punk scene of The Ramones to synth-driven 80s pop.

For my money, they were also one of the first bands to create that blend of guitars and cheap synths that bridged rock’s evolution from the 70s to the 80s. Sure, bands like Devo, The B-52s and Talking Heads were doing it too (and possibly better), but The Cars were one of the first to take it mainstream. They were very much at the vanguard of the 80s pop culture landscape before it became infused with dayglo, hairspray, shoulderpads and Miami Vice fonts.

Or at least they were for me. “Let’s Go” was my intro to them, or at least the song I remember noticing first – I don’t remember if the radio stations in my neighbourhood played songs from the first album before then, but they certainly did afterwards.

FUN FACT 01: I always thought the lyric went, “She's got wonderful eyes and a whiskey mouth.” Which sounded like a delightful thing when I was 14. I kind of like my version better.

FUN FACT 02: I was today years old when I realized that “Moving In Stereo” is the song playing during the pool scene in Fast Times At Ridgemont High. Which is another way of saying that the music was the last thing I was paying attention to. If you see what I’m saying.



PRODUCTION NOTE: Don’t worry, that’s the edited-for-TV version, so it’s reasonably safe for work, depending on how strict your office is about that kind of thing.

BONUS TRACK: It’s also worth mentioning that Ocasek was also a top-notch producer who was willing to work with underground bands like Bad Brains, Suicide and Romeo Void. Oh, and Weezer.

She’s a frozen fire,

This is dF

Time to get back on track with this series.

If you’ve followed this long enough, you know I have a lot of one-hit wonders in the 45 library.

Gary Wright is not one of them. He was a two-hit wonder. But then I’ve only got one of those two hits on 45, so close enough.

This is the one I have.



This is the one I don’t have (not on 45, anyway – I did have it via a K-Tel comp, I think, so it doesn’t count towards this series).



Wright was, of course, formerly with Spooky Tooth, which I didn’t know at the time. And it probably wouldn’t have mattered if I did because Spooky Tooth weren’t all that big in the US when they were active, and I didn’t know who they were in the mid-70s when these two songs came out.

Anyway, I still kind of like both songs, but “Love Is Alive” is the stronger of the two, thanks to that hard-hitting bass line and the delay effects on the guitar. (I like me some echo.) And it does kind of rock. Listening to it now, it gets by more on nostalgia, perhaps  but I still like it.

It’s all clear to me now,

This is dF 

If you’ve been following this series, by now you’ve noticed the pattern and the general timeframe involved, and naturally yr starting to wonder:

“Where’s the Kiss records? Surely you have some?”

Fair question. And yes, though actually I wasn’t all that big on Kiss at the time. They were arguably the most popular rock band in my junior high school, with the exception of Lynyrd Skynyrd. (And I’ll admit, it was only much later that I appreciated the irony of my male 8th Grade classmates beating up kids for being [allegedly] queer whilst their favorite band was four guys in make-up, leather, high heels and fishnet stockings.)

Anyway, I liked what songs I heard, and I enjoyed their TV special and that Phantom Of The Park thing, but I wasn’t trying to paint my face like them or anything.

And given the nature of many of the other songs in this series, I guess it says a lot that the one Kiss 45 I bought was the disco cash-in.



That said, I didn’t really think of it as a disco song. Probably because of all the guitars.

In my defense, I did end up spending more time listening to the more hard-rockin’ B-side.



I think the B-side holds up better, overall.

FUN FACT #1: Looking these songs, I learned for the first time that Peter Criss didn’t play drums on these songs. They used a session guy – Anton Fig, a.k.a. the drummer in David Letterman’s band.

FUN FACT #2: I did have one other Kiss song I listened to a lot.



This is probably my favorite Kiss song. But I had it on a Ronco comp, not on 45, so it doesn’t count for this series.

The first step of the cure,

This is dF

It’s still Father’s Day in the West, so this will also count as my post for that.



I’ve mentioned elsewhere that my dad was a session musician in Nashville in the 1950s/60s, and also played with The Bluenotes (sort of the de facto house band for Colonial Records in North Carolina). His biggest claim to fame is working with Roy Orbison, but according to AllMusic – and I only just learned about this today – his credits also include Grandpa Jones. And apparently Ann Margret recorded one of his songs.

So, wow.

Anyway, he recorded and released this solo 45 in 1961. It’s the B-side of another song of his, “Lover’s Holiday”. Apparently Billboard was impressed.

So naturally the 45 was in our house. I listened to this a lot when I was a kid, but I’m not sure I still have it anymore. It may be in storage somewhere in the US.

Anyway, point being, I hadn’t heard this in something like 35 years, and had in fact completely forgotten about it. Then I decided to Google up something of his for Father’s Day and this popped up. As soon as it started playing, I recognized it and remembered each part of it – the boingy distorted riff, the mournful backup singers, the fadeout.

It’s been a sort of strange year for me in regards to my dad. We didn’t have the greatest of relationships, and just when we were on the point of reconciling that in 1984, he died suddenly of a heart attack.

So it goes.

But I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that, and … well, let’s just say I’ve come to terms with it all, and it’s cool. I just wish I’d put more effort into archiving his music when I still had it all in the house.

Anyway, I dig this record. I think it stands up with some of the better (if obscure) rockabilly records of the era.

But then I would say that, wouldn’t I?

All in the family,

This is dF

As you may or may not know, Stan Freberg is gone now.

The name probably means little to some of you – Freberg was known mainly for writing funny ads for radio and TV in the 50s and 60s, and for a few novelty records, the most famous of which is probably “St George And The Dragonet”, which managed to parody both medieval folk tales and Jack Webb at the same time.

I had that one on a comedy album comp, but I had this one on 45: a Harry Belafonte parody featuring a sensitive beatnik bongo player.



Anyway, I have a lot of respect for Freberg, including his ad work. If we have to have ads, they might as well be entertaining – and irreverent.

Soft sell,

This is dF

Since I’ve already admitted to having a 45 with Michael McDonald on it, I might as well bring up that Firefall record.

You know the one.



Yeah.

Well, how many hit songs have a flute solo that doesn’t involve Ian Anderson?

I don’t have much else to say about it. It’s sort of up there with Little River Band – catchy tune, but pretty lightweight. It’s hard to believe they were a pretty big deal (well, in Colorado, anyway).

I also remember this was the first record that introduced me to the concept of overdubs. Sort of. I remember asking my mom, “How did they manage to put together a band where the singers have the same voice?”

“Electronics,” she replied.

And so much for Firefall.

It’s not the clothes you wear,

This is dF

As I’ve mentioned before, I bought most of my 45s between the ages of ten and 17, at a time when most of my musical knowledge was informed by whatever was on Top 40 radio at the time.

Consequently, there’s more than a few 45s that I listen to now and wonder just what I was thinking at the time.

Which brings us to Little River Band.

They were from Melbourne, Australia, but they slotted in pretty well with the mellow soft-rock sound that was dominating the charts in the late 70s – Fleetwood Mac, Eagles, Doobie Brothers, Atlanta Rhythm Section, etc. In fact, it seems the late 70s was a good time for Australian acts like Olivia Newton-John and Air Supply to make it big in America, so why not LRB?

Anyway, I had this on 45.



Listening to it now, I’m not sure what I saw in it at the time. It’s catchy, I suppose. But you can definitely file it under “songs I haven’t listened to since high school”.

Don't be thinking that I don’t want you,

This is dF

If you’ve followed the “dEFROG On 45” series from the beginning, you know there are a lot of one-hit wonders in my collection. There’s also a lot of disco.

Here’s one of both.



This one comes with an amusing anecdote: When this came out, I was reasonably convinced that Amii Stewart was Rod Stewart’s sister.

Why? Because they had the same last name. Obviously.

It was only later I saw a picture of her, and realized I might have gotten that one wrong.

Told you it was amusing.

FUN FACT: This is actually a cover of an Eddie Floyd song.



It’s hard to compare the two. They’re different enough versions (classic Stax/Volt sound vs Gary-Glitter inspired disco) that they kind of stand on their own.

The way you love me is frightening,

This is dF

When yr a kid in the 70s buying 45s, yr inevitably going to wind up with songs from the reliable hit machines of the era. I’ve covered quite a few already – ABBA, The Eagles, ELO, Steve Miller, Barry Manilow, etc.

There’s a fairly obvious gap there. So it’s probably time to bring up Sir Elton John.

Of course he wasn’t “Sir” in those days. But he was definitely cranking out the hit singles. Elton was pretty ubiquitous on the American airwaves, and my sister and I were in awe of the fact that he used swear words in his songs. (“It’s four o’clock in the morning, dammit.”)

Well, c’mon, we lived in Tennessee and we were barely out of elementary school.

Anyway, even though I liked Elton John, I only ever bought one of his 45s.

And given the nature of other songs in this series, of course it’s the one with Kiki Dee on it.



I had no idea who Kiki Dee was, of course. Great name, though. And I do still like this song – it’s a well-crafted (if slightly overproduced) slice of pop candy.

Nobody knows it,

This is dF

As I’ve mentioned before, a decent chunk of my 45 collection is courtesy of mom and dad. 

This one is from dad’s side of the record cabinet: a rockabilly take on Tarzan.

Complete with Tarzan yell.



It’s an obscure enough record that I’ve been waiting for years for someone to post it on YouTube so I could share it with you all.

FUN FACT: For years, when I heard Beatty sing the line, “Hurry with the tweezers, there’s a briar stuck in his feet” in the second verse, I thought he was saying “there’s a bra stuck in his feet”.

Which of course I found both hilarious and appealing.

Swimming with the hippos,

This is dF