A dime for your thoughts...

I was listening to "A Dime a Dozen," by Carla Thomas, the other day.

I love almost everything about this song. It’s pretty perfect, except for those lyrics, which are, as near as I can tell: “You’re so sweet, sweeter than apples, and just like an apple, nobody can sample.” There’s some other stuff in there that I can’t quite make out but it doesn’t sound promising.

I don’t need brilliant lyrics with every song. I’m fine with words that merely sound cool even if they don’t make much sense to me. I also don’t mind if they are just the simple lyrics of a more innocent era. My favorite song of all time is "Good Lovin’," by The Rascals, so I am by no means a lyrics snob. But "A Dime a Dozen" did make me start to wonder how bad the lyrics would have to be to make an otherwise cool song unlistenable.

So, what song do you think has the biggest gap between cool music and crappy lyrics?

Conversely, what song do you think has the biggest gap between crappy music and cool lyrics? (I’m guessing there has to be a Dylan song to fit this bill.)

It's that time of the year, the beginning of the holiday shopping season. Year-round Rock Town Hall supports the music, film, and publishing industries with our humble RTH store, Amazon search portal, and other links and suggestions for possible pick ups. When you're ready to begin shopping for rock-related products, we ask you to consider making an online order through our Amazon links. Along with the search portal on the right side of our page, you'll some suggestions in the RTH store links that kick off our RTH Approved Links, on the left side of our site. It may be a place to get a few ideas cooking. Every order contributes a few cents toward the maintenance costs of running Rock Town Hall. Thanks!

While you're shopping for musical goodies, consider these additional vendors (after the jump) and their Townsperson-produced goods and services! Your support of their works also keeps this place strong.

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What's super awesome in your musical world?

Although it's Saturday, not Friday, the recent passing of Philadelphia singing and tv legend Al Alberts necessitates revisiting the following topic.

This post initially appeared 3/25/07.

True confession time: I envy the contestants on American Idol. For that reason alone I cannot stand to watch the show. That doesn't mean I don't secretly respect the show and all the good it puts forth.

Few of you know this, but I was a child talent show contestant.

Performing under the stage name James Meara III, I appeared on the legendary Philadelphia talent show Al Alberts Showcase. That was me, all right, Contestant #22. That day, on the air, I told Mr. Alberts I wanted to be a doctor, but that's what my parents wanted to hear. In fact, there was nothing more I wanted to be than an entertainer: a singer, a dancer, a drummer, the works.

Mr. Alberts was so encouraging. He told me after the show that he thought I "had it." Within weeks of that performance, however, I was kicked off the set of another children's show, Romper Room. I can remember it like it was yesterday: I was sitting behind the set with a few other kids during a commercial break. One of the boys took my red, plastic stegasaurus and wouldn't give it back to me as soon as I asked for it. In response, I did what I often did when confronted with such situations: I turned over the table, threw my chair at the boy, and then hit him with a left hook. When Romper Room came back from the commercial break, I was mysteriously missing from the cast, having been quickly escorted with my mother out of the studio.

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Chances are we've all used rock 'n roll as a vehicle for working out some taboo desire. Whether you'd like to think you're deep into black coffee, brown sugar, white honey, or simply wanna be black - or a boy or a girl or a male model or what have you - what's a song that's helped you unlock a rock 'n roll fantasy? No joke. It can just as easily be a nice fantasy. And sure, you'll have to share something about yourself, but ultimately that's the point of this place. Happy Thanksgiving!

Few details and eyewitness accounts remain of former Lone Justice guitarist Shayne Fontayne's stint accompanying The Boss on His controversial albums and tours following a move to LA and the dumping of His E Street Band. Even fewer free images survive on the Web of Fontayne alongside The Boss, with Fontayne's knees bent, guitar slung low, and bandana tied around his thigh, as the scriptures describe him. For our fifth work of art in the Stations of The Boss series, mixed-media artist Cam Sutton, of Shelby, North Carolina, worked from stills of the live clip that introduced this piece.

"I had little choice," says Sutton, "His people must have scrubbed the Web clean of photographic evidence of this collaboration."

According to a document that Sutton uncovered identified only as "presskit_bio.pdf," Fontayne was merely a passerby, compelled to serve The Boss at the request of producer Jimmy Iovine.

In January 1992, Shane received a call from Jimmy Iovine who said, “Hey Shane, a friend of mine wants to know if you want to go out on the road.” “Who’s your friend?” Shane responded. “Springsteen,” Jimmy replied. Bruce had just seen a rerun of Saturday Night Live on which Shane had performed with Lone Justice. Springsteen had taken a departure from his E-Street band and was looking for a different set of musicians to take out on the road. The only guitarist asked to audition, Shane was invited to join the band. To start, there was a small industry show at The Bottom Line. Then there was an appearance on Saturday Night Live. “Bruce had never done network television before. He asked my opinion on whether or not he should do Saturday Night Live and I told him it was one of the biggest rushes I had ever had.”

Although Fontayne is barely remembered by His fans, the video clip demonstrates the support he provided the beaten, weary Springsteen. Sutton premieres his work of art and explains his thinking behind it following the jump!

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I was looking through a boxes of burned CDs looking for something (can't even remember WHAT I was looking for) and found the CD of Martin Newell's Greatest Living Englishman. It's been easily 10+ years since I listened to this disc (maybe because it was in with my "junk" cds and not in it's proper case...and also then did not make the great migration to the iPod in 2005).

I played it this moring and thought "How Did This LP Get Away?"

Do any Townspeople have a CD/LP/cassette that you totally forgot about, found, and wondered how you let it get away?

You may recall the interview I conducted with former Television guitarist Richard Lloyd in 2007. Among other topics, I tried to engage Lloyd in a discussion of his time accompanying Matthew Sweet. We quickly veered off into other more pressing matters, but we were able to scratch the surface of guitar porn, or Gentleman's Rock.

RTH: When I saw you with Matthew Sweet, every guitar player in Philadelphia at that time was gathered at your side of the stage –

RL: Yes, staring at my fucking crotch! OK.

RTH: I was surprised people weren’t shoving dollar bills down your jeans.

RL: I was saying to myself, Will you please move over and let me see some tits? At least if you’re gonna stand there staring at my crotch lend me your girlfriend after the show.

I'm not a guy who goes out of his way to get off on ax-wielding guitar heroes, but Lloyd's playing was worth the occasionally embarrassing moments of bumping into another guy with a hard-on for the man's fretwork.

Check out this live clip of Sweet from the tour I saw. I'll still stand behind much of Sweet's work from that period, but the guy wasn't a dynamic performer. No wonder all the dudes stood in front of Lloyd's side of the stage.

Whether you frequently attend stip - er - rock clubs to metaphorically shove dollar bills into the waistband of a lead guitarist or not, who's your favorite "adult guitar player" - or "adult" player of any instrument?

I was listening to Big Star's "Watch the Sunrise" the other day, a song that I know is not considered "cool" in the Big Star catalog, but I like it anyhow. I like the hyperkinetic acoustic guitar strumming and the song's fresh-faced, Hostess brand hippie idealism. It seemed to me that this particular type of song was common in the mid-'70s. I think these acoustic-based songs are a little different than the related country-rock songs by the likes of America and others working in that post-Neil Young/Eagles vein.

What led to these sunny, strumming number? I hear early Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, like "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" and "Marrakesh Express" mixed with George Harrison's "Here Comes the Sun." Is there some earlier template that I'm missing? Is it an English folk thing?

This style of music never eclipsed that of its country-rock cousin, but I think it led to two musical dead ends: Boston (the band) and the 128-String Guitar songs we're frequently tempted to skip on Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend. Boston may not be so obvious, but there's something about them, in songs like "Long Time," that seem indebted to that style of early '70s song, despite the big electric guitars and other pompous trimmings.

Does this make any sense, and has this style of music ever progressed beyond these perceived dead ends?