Back in '76 Aerosmith released their 'Rocks' album and it, for me, was one of those rare albums that was good all the way through.
Now a lot of people were dissin' Aerosmith at the time. Rolling Stone was generally panning their stuff, being enamored with media darlings The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin and other more 'highbrow' entertainment and I think at the time I was actually subscribing to Rolling Stone magazine, tryin' to keep up on what was cool, and they ran a story about Aerosmith and in that story was a picture of a guy wearing a blue jean jacket at an Aerosmith concert. On the back of his jacket in huge letters was "Aerosmith Is The Best Fuckin' Band In The World" which was the magazine's way of saying that lowbrow guys like him were the kind of crowd Aerosmith was attracting, and I was in that group too, because I liked Aerosmith. Much more than The Stones.
I don't know where these Aerosmith guys came from, or what the hell most of their songs were about, because sometimes it's better not to know those kinds of details. What I liked was their sound.
Now, sound is ridiculously, if not impossibly hard to write about, it's as difficult as explaining color to a blind person but the music mags would regularly try to do just that, they would try and describe each band's latest musical offerings in some sort of prose that somehow captured their 'sound' but nah, it always left me flat and totally confused as to what exactly they were talking about and why they were even trying to describe it anyway.
So. Back to the album in question. This one had sound. It had energy. I liked it the first time I heard it, and I liked it last night when I listened to it again. Even if a song started out less than stellar, these guys tweaked it somewhere along the line to where it satisfied, which to me is nothing short of miraculous because, while I can write almost effortlessly, I cannot write a damn song (except for the lame-ass Almond Poppyseed Muffin song).
'Rocks' captured a moment in time, the feeling of the 70's, young male adulthood (for me, and guys like me); it was powerful and had deadly rhythmic hooks interspersed throughout. Damn thing sounded different than anything I had heard before or since. I don't know where the album was recorded, in what studio, how long it took, what instruments were used, who produced the thing, and I don't want to know! Ever! I could easily find this information out on the internet but it would take all the magic away so I don't go there.
'Back In The Saddle' is one of the best f___in' songs ever written and that was the first song on one of the sides of this album. The rest I all lump together as being cool, but most of all I like that damn mysterious, slightly echoey, dark warehouse district sound and Steven Tyler's pained voice.
Is This Awesome Or What?!
Speaking of Steven Tyler, he's going to autograph an Aerosmith pinball machine as part of a fundraiser here on the island. Yeah, he lives here, probably part time like all the celebs do. I don't have enough layaround dough to place the winning bid on the thing, 'cuz he's going for the highest bid but if I did, well, it would be an honor, the Rocks album having meant so much to me.
Music that hits the spot never gets old but it does get buried under all the new stuff. Times being what they are, you can have all the newfangled instruments you want and all the digital effects to play with, but you'll never get that sound. That is what is captured forever in that vinyl. It's history, man, like an insect in some amber that's millions of years old. You can look at that insect, and try and picture the environment it lived in, but that's all you can do. Time has moved on and things have radically and forever changed.
Anyway, hats off to 'Rocks'. Hasn't been any other album sounded like it.