What a way to start 2025! A Happy/Sad New Year - the tune is "So Sad About Us" and we begin with Pete Townhend's demo which is probably from 1966. A melodic guitar ostinato with drone notes and sensitive soprano choirboy singing that ends abruptly. The song then gets overorchestrated by The Merseys - the first released version - but it's less a Wall of Sound and more a Ball of Mud. We're saved by The Who, who produce a proto-powepop masterpiece when they finally wax it. Sweden's The Mascots author a great garagey version in '67 but it's not exactly cricket, is it (listen to the garbled bridge)? ... The Jam brought the song back in 1978 and they "la la la la la la la" as well as anyone can. A discussion of wiry, leather-skinned British men ensues. In North America in '92, The Breeders delivered the song with a glint in their eyes before they blew up big. All this and palm muting tips for the gearheads!

It's time for our year-end gala! Categories include:

Bo Diddliest Goofy Great

Bo Diddliest Girl Group 

Bo Diddliest Song From A Theme Episode

Bo Diddliest Tambo

and the big one:

Most Insane Song!!

Xmas time is here! So we're bringing our annual Yuletide gifts to you in the form of rockin' and poppin' tunes. The first present under the tree is "I Want a Beatle For Christmas" by Patty Surbey & The Canadian VIPs. Requests for people put Santa Claus in an awkward position. The next gift is "Deck Five" by Saturday's Children. We think this one should be more well-known: it joins "Deck The Halls" with Dave Brubeck Quartet's "Take Five" and ... it works? Sometimes you get an inappropriate gift, and Bey Ireland's "All I Want For Christmas is a Go-Go Girl" is this year's example. It's a weird fusion of Northern Soul and lounge crooning ... Let's forget about all that and get back to the real Goofy Greats - "The Wildest Christmas" by The Rumbles Ltd. Santa makes an appearance in this one, and he sounds like Classy Freddie Blassie! And there's even a final stocking stuffer, so tune in to hear what it is - jing a linga, jing jing a linga!

Bo Diddley time! In this episode, we examine his 1955 b-side, "I'm A Man." The original is sparse, minimal, sexual, spiritual and powerful. We get real deep into the lyrics and textbooks get slammed. It took a long time, but in 1964, The Yardbirds authored a version that sounds like it comes from a utopian future of highly skilled R&B robots. And it has the ultimate Royalette! In 1965, Netherland's The Bintangs put out a garage version that's snotty, lazy, lethargic, hypnotic and cool. The Groupies brought the song back to the US - New York specifically, and they make the tune swampy, weird, and rhythmic: are there swamps in Manhattan? Finally, fast forward to the grungiest city of 1990 - Seattle - and listen to Dickless's version. Is it a protest of how the song and sound came to exemplify macho cock-rock attitudes? Probably! It has an extreme vocal performance and FUZZ and some wild slide gee-tar. OWWWW!

Ringo on the bongos! That's right, it's "You're Going to Lose That Girl" by The Beatles. John is at his snarly best in this number, and George & Paul provide some nice call-and-response. Anyways, the bongos and lyrics are our main focus, as they should be. And who sings "yeah" better?! - no one's better than the Beatles, there. The second version comes from The Villagers, a Zone Press Variation that comes from Florida - it's garage and great! Next up is Chicago's Cryan' Shames and who's gonna argue with a band whose lead singer is Toad? And it's about time we discussed JC Hooke, a hook-handed percussionist rival to Moulty! In 1971, Canada's Five Man Electrical Band did it and It's Absolutely Right - a post-Sgt. Pepper homage, a la ELO. The final word goes to Dwight Twilley, who covered the song in 2009 and it's a celebration. As it should be. Yeah!

This week, we feel the need ... the need - for speed! The first song out of the blocks is "Bad Girl" by The Zakary Thaks. Crazy words, great guitar work, and a fast tempo by a drummer whose snare sounds like two textbooks slamming! The second speedster is "7 & 7 is" by Love. More wild lyrics and singing, and again ... it's a drummer who holds the thing together ... barely, at times. It's a classic! The third throttler is "Love at Psychedelic Velocity" by The Human Expression - one of the all time great 66ers. This one is a true tire-melter! And finally, we swerve with two different versions of "Love's a Fire," by the mysterious Werps. Plug your grandpa's ears when we tell you what the band name means. It's the fastest hey!-ride you've ever been on! [Explosion sounds ...]

This one's as garage as it gets: 5 Versions of "I Need You"! - The Kinks, The Zakary Thaks, The Rationals, and two (!) versions by The Ascots. 

This week the genre is baroque proto-power pop and the song is "She May Call You Up Tonight" by The Left Banke, Great melodies by Michael Brown, a killer chorus, velvet vocals by Steve Martin Caro ... but what's it all about?! A band called California Spectrum produced a faithful cover in '68 and added some cool fuzz ... but why does the singer sound like they're 12?! Who cares, it's garage! Canadian ICON Anne Murray tried her voice out on the song, which got retitled "He May Call." A sweet but sensible performance, with a crazy, period-apropo brass section and some woody woodblock - this one's as wacky as Anne gets!  Ex-Fairport Conventioneer Ian Matthews made the song into the powerpop gem it was meant to be in the bleak year of 1980. And finally, Linda Thompson stripped the song back in the early 80s, making it folky and campfire smoky. Come back, Anne!!!!!

The Byrds had a bad time in England, and wrote a curiously grey-mood tune that many consider "the first psychedelic song of all time" - "Eight Miles High." It's known for its sound, but we take a deep dive into the lyrics, too. Succulent, truculent. The next flight was piloted by the semi-legendary obscuros, Index. Some nice warm guitar strummin' & lotsa negative space. Less negative space on Leo Kottke's version - he's a king of fingerpickin' geetar and he has a nice deep baritone and he fills up the space with both. Bob Mould of Hüsker Dü also has a baritone voice, but he spends mosrt of his band's version screaming and wailing about the hippie sellouts!! Finally, Robyn Hitchcock brings the song back to earth with a faithful rendition that has a nicely unprofound spoken word middle section. All this, and David Crosby's cape!!

This week, we manage to talk about 7 songs in just over 2 hours - appropriately, all are versions of "Train Kept a Rollin'"! The original is by Tiny Bradshaw, a 1951 jump blues number that contains a rock n roll instro break that clearly caught the ears of  the next crew, namely Johnny Burnette & The Rock n Roll Trio. They take Tiny B's joyous number and inject it with some wild hillfolk hiccupin' and hollerin'.' The train somehow made it to England by 1965, and Screamin' Lord Sutch (with Ritchie Blackmore) left the station at a fevered pace, but later that same year, The Yardbirds caught up. Keith Relf and the boys even did a follow-up rendition for the movie Blow Up which they titled "Stroll On," but the lyrics are super stoopid! We close off the episode with two garage versions that take passengers to places far off the usual route - dig The Rogues (these ones from Buffalo) and Steve Walker and The Bold and their hyperspeeds! Real gone!!!



Screamin' Lord Sutch

The Yardbirds (TKAR and "Stroll On")

The Rogues

Steve Walker and the Bold