ed- in our continuing effort to make roll bama roll your roll bama roll, from time to time we'll be soliciting random tens from you, the readership. y'all know how to play by now, so leave your random tens in the comments section below, and if you'd like to host in the coming weeks, let us know.

So Todd asked me to man the Random Top Ten this week and I agreed with a slight caveat - it won't be that random.

You see, way back in the day when I was drinking my way out of the university I haunted the communications building as a DJ at WVUA. These were the carefree days of the mid-80s college rawk that was doing its thing across the SEC radio waves. Bolstered with jangly guitars, unabashed affection for country music and a love for Alex Chilton that knew no bounds it set my heartstrings aflutter from the start.

About the only band still remembered from that era is R.E.M. but there was lots more great stuff where that came from, I can assure you. So come with back to those wonderful days of yesteryear when Mike Shula was destroying the team as just a quarterback, Cornelius Bennett had yet to meet Steve Beuerlein and we were just a single coach past the Bear Bryant era.

1) Guadalcanal Diary - "Watusi Rodeo"  A fantastic barn burner by Marietta GA's favorite sons. This dusty video was made by the band way in '83 while on tour across SEC country. It'll make you a little wistful if you remember those days long gone by. (Not to mention seeing Nina Blackwood introduce it.)

(more after the jump)

2) The dB's - "Amplifier" The boys from Winston-Salem via NYC doing their jangly power pop thing with aplomb. A dizzying cacophony of fun about the morbid aftermath from another car wreck of a relationship. Nobody embraced the legacy of Big Star with greater enthusiasm or did it a better service than these guys. Still my favorite band of the era.

3) Love Tractor - "Beetle Boots" If there was a Mecca for great college rock in the mid-1980s it was Athen's GA and this was my favorite band it produced. The wah-wah guitar and classic power pop sensibility of this song simply won me over from the first time I heard it.

4) The Replacements - "Alex Chilton" When those bad boys from Minneapolis, Minn. released this album it was kind of the nadir of their indie adventure. It rocked harder than it had any right to but still had that pure pop heart. And no-one summed up 80s college rock better than when he sings "I never travel far/Without a little Big Star."

5) The Golden Palominos - "Silver Bullet" Not really a band, just drummer Anton Fier and whoever was in the room at the time. It’s just a LOT of great musicians tended to be hanging out in the room when he was playing. This band is the Rosetta Stone for that entire era. And this song is a great example of why it was so great.

6) The Bears – "Fear is Never Boring" This one from Cincinnati’s The Bears is a tune that crawled under my skin the first time I heard it. Pure pop harmony and melodies draped luxuriously with Adrian Belew’s phenomenal guitarwork. All these years later it still has the same power to enthrall and make me feel happy inside when I hear it.

7) Lets Active – "Fell" Winston-Salem’s Mitch Easter and his legendary Drive In studio turned out to be the midwife for this entire music scene but lets not forget he was a formidable songwriter as well. This song is a jangle pop masterpiece and one I defy you to listen to an not like.

8) The Lyres - "No Reason to Complain" Hailing from Boston, Mass, the Lyres might seem a bit far afield but don't be fooled - this was the greatest garage band of all time and this record got played almost continually at WVUA in 1986. By the end of the fall semester the sleeve had simply disintegrated but the guitars were still as raw and glorious as ever.

9) Hoodoo Gurus - "Bittersweet" I was simply inundated by requests for this song from my first day behind the console at WVUA. One listen and you’ll know exactly why. These boys from Sydney Australia believed in guitars and that's an international language we all can understand.

10) R.E.M. – "I Believe" This list would be incomplete without at least on song from Life’s Rich Pageant. This album was the soundtrack of my time in Tuscaloosa and it was simply impossible to cross the campus on a Saturday afternoon in the fall and not hear it playing somewhere. And, IMHO, it’s also the best effort from this legendary band.

Anyhow, that’s my top ten for today. I wish I could have thrown in a few of the Tuscaloosa bands that I remembered from that time but all that’s on vinyl in the back of a storage shed in Chandler, AZ. So you’ll have to wait another day to learn the greatness of Eric Landis & the Squires.

Feel free to put your music player of choice on "random" and let us know what you’ve got playing on this Friday. Roll Tide!