Tune Tag #125 with Nuno Babo, Pt. 2: Celtic Frost, Iggy Pop, Klark Kent, Cherie Currie, The Clique, Sniff 'n' The Tears, ? and The Mysterians
🎉Taggin' Tunes on New Year's Eve eve, we're standing on the precipice de un Nuevo Año! May we all be blessed with new friends who are as cool, generous, and kind as Nuno!📆
Welcome back, Nuno Babo of Needle in a Substack! Nuno was kind enough to have lunch Dog-Dashed, so we’ll get started shortly!
We first met Nuno exactly 6 months ago, when 2025 was but 6 months old, in late June:
In his mid-40s and living in Oporto, Portugal (the second-largest city in the country, after Lisbon, and located on the coast in NW Portugal….“Porto” to natives, “Oporto” in English), Nuno says that he “was a travel agent for about 11 years, and for the past 12 years, I’ve been working as a Tour Operator.
“Guess I’ve migrated from retail to wholesale. Musically speaking, I’ve written for several Portuguese online publications over the years: Music & Riots from 2012 to 2018, Ultraje (“Outrage” in English) in 2015, and Metal Imperium from 2023 onwards. I also collaborated with PopMatters in 2024!”
On his Needle in a Substack Recommendation page, Nuno offered this about Tune Tag: “A fun ride for people who like music. Danger of addiction to coolness and awesomeness. Enter at your own risk! You have been warned.”
Last week, we made a new and impressive friend in Owen McTigue of ODEA: Classical Music Concerts in NYC:
Next week, join us for the first Tune Tag of the New Year with Clark of Vinyl Ted!
Nuno’s song #1 sent to Brad: Celtic Frost, “Cherry Orchards,” 1988
📺In their finite wisdom, YouTube won’t allow the music video to play on other sites. Click here to view on YT.
Nuno’s rationale: Taking inspiration from the character Marv (played by Daniel Stern) from the Home Alone movie (“All the great ones leave their mark”…click here for 10-minute “Home Alone: Behind the Scenes” video), I decided that all of my Tune Tag collaborations are going to start with (Spoiler alert) a Glam Rock track!
And what a track it is, my friends!
Even if the producer, Substack’s own Tony Platt (of Tony Platt - Have Ears, Will Travel), is not a fan (Nuno’s recent interview with Platt is above) I, on the other hand, am a big Cold Lake patron. This might be a more commercial-sounding Celtic Frost, but thematically they are still as dark and turgid as ever.
As for the CD I’ve taken a photograph of, it’s not the Cold Lake original. I do own it; I just couldn’t find it anywhere. And the compilation in question features the song, so deal with it! As this album was not included on the reissue campaign the band did a number of years ago, I had to resort to buying a semi-official version of it.
Brad’s song #1 sent to Nuno: Cherie Currie, Marky Ramone, Wayne Kramer, “Cherry Bomb,” 2006
Nuno’s response: Brad’s response was “Cherry Bomb,” and I guess he went for the fruit-related response with this one! I might have gone down that road too, with “Cherry Pie” by Warrant, “Hot Cherie” by Hardline, or even go deeper into the rabbit hole with “Cheri, Cheri Lady” by the mushy German duo, Modern Talking.
Brad’s rationale: Written by Joan Jett and Kim Fowley, and recorded by The Runaways in 1976, their “Cherry Bomb” was ranked 52nd on VH1’s 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs, and peaked at #106 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart.
This cover, by former Runaways lead singer, Cherie Currie, former Ramones drummer, Marky Ramone, and former MC5 lead guitarist, the late Wayne Kramer (1948-2024), was recorded in 2006, and was included on a compilation called The Greatest ‘80s Metal Moments of All Time.
Nuno’s song #2: Klark Kent, “Don’t Care,” 1978
 | A guest post by
|