Here’s your chance to shine on one or a number of seemingly dull questions!

A couple of days ago Townsman Trolleyvox passed along an RTH-worthy question that he picked up from WFMU DJ Mike Lupica. Lupica asked, and we will too, What’s the best band that you ever got turned onto by your sweetie? It doesn’t have to be through marriage, it can just as easily be some ridiculously popular or obscure band that you first heard through an (ex/current) boy/girlfriend, or general heart throb of any stripe.

I’ve been listening to a collection of ’80s underground sensations The Embarrassment this week. I’ve long liked them since stumbling on them as the first opener for PiL and Naked Raygun in Chicago shortly before the release of The Flowers of Romance. They were a great, down-to-earth, humorous, punky pop band that never made much of a splash and would lead, in part, to the formation of another down-to-earth, high-spirited, punky pop band that I loved, Big Dipper. Anyhow, listening to them this week has had me thinking of at least three questions:

• What bands around today rock in a “down-to-earth” fashion?
• What’s your favorite precurssor band to a later band that you also love (eg, The Embarrassment to Big Dipper, The Move to ELO, The Beatles to Wings, Uncle Tupelo to Wilco), with emphasis on love for the precurssor band (ie, simply “listing” a precurssor band to show how much you know will be discounted if no sincere love is attached)?
• What’s the best opening band that you stumbled across without warning?

Finally, as we wrap up an entertaining and enlightening week on Rock Town Hall and head into the weekend, let me know what you think of the following songs that, over the last few days, have made me feel there’s still something worth digging anew.

This first one was particularly enlightening. It’s a song I’ve always loved in its original form but I love all over, in a new way, in this version, which I’d owned for some time but which had never previously made an impression on me before.
Barbara Lewis, “Ask the Lonely”

Here’s another number that I’ve known and loved by Al Green, but this one’s cool too.
Eddie Floyd, “I’ve Never Found a Girl (To Love Me Like You Do)”

Here’s one of the songs I overheard in a Toronto record store in early May that caused me to pull $10 CAN and plunk it down on the counter for my first Hawkwind album – this stuff is totally unlike what I’d expected (ie, something more hippie/prog, along the lines of Gong).
Hawkwind, “Orgone Accumulator”

I downloaded most of a Curt Kirkwood (Meat Puppets) album from eMusic that I had never heard about when it was released. It’s pretty good – much better than the stuff they put out in their ZZ Top phase.
Curt Kirkwood, “Gold”

With Mr. Moderator’s permission, I have been granted the right to choose today’s poll, a poll that is directly related to my thoughts on Rock Tits & Ass (T&A). I think it is important that you not only have the chance to vote but to comment on this issue.

We’re not talking about Meat Loaf’s tits or Patti Smith’s scrawny ass, mind you, but the musical equivalent of T & A, the elements of a rock song that first draw you in. I can only speak for my perspective as a heterosexual man, but in terms of sexual attraction, I would venture to guess that all of us have a part of the body that we first focus on, that’s our gateway to a greater sense of desire, perhaps. Similarly, in terms of rock songs, I would venture to guess that some of you are “guitar men” and some of you are “drums men.” Guitar women/drums women, too, of course. Some of you may be the old-fashioned type who are primarily attracted to a nice voice. What do you listen for first when you are presented with a new rock song? Do you find it hard to love a song that’s lacking this one key focal point? I ask because I’m working on a review of a pretty good band that’s sorely lacking in a lead guitarist. I’ll leave it to you to determine whether this means no rock tits, ass, or pretty face, from my perspective. What’s a poor boy to do?

Hey, E. Pluribus —

You need to grow a pair and actually sit down and listen to this new McCartney album. Shit, man, are you going to live out the rest of your life in a hermetically sealed, pre-1981 vinyl body-condom? Life goes on, dude!

I say all this because I’m beginning to wonder if you’re actually scared of the new McCartney record — as though the Sam Ash guitar sound is going to leap out of the speakers and infect your ears somehow. Look, man, I readily agree with the notion — which I assume you hold — that there has never been a bass drum sound as perfect as the one on the Chuck Berry single “Talkin’ ‘Bout You” — but the rock world keeps on turning, one day at a time. Like the man said: one monkey don’t stop no show!

Face your fears, Plurbie! Come up out of the basement and cue up this new disc! Justify our love! We’re rooting for you!