December 1973, Hollywood, California – Back in 1973, before he was Joe “Fucking” Perry, the Aerosmith guitarist was just another kid in a hard rock band from Boston. Thirty-five years ago, he hadn’t racked up album sales in excess of 150 million or been immortalized in a video game. He was neither one-fifth of the Bad Boys from Boston nor one-half of the Toxic Twins. And he was still at least 10,000 broken strings away from becoming one of the coolest and most copied guitar players of all time.
But you could have never told Joe Perry that. From the moment Aerosmith were formed in 1971, the guitarist had a vision, and the balls and chops to back it up. In his head, the gold records were already mounted on his walls – right next to all of the framed guitar mag cover stories. The concept of Guitar Hero may have escaped him, but it certainly wouldn’t have surprised him.
Aerosmith were stars just waiting to happen.
That blind faith, however, was sorely tested at the beginning of ’73. Columbia Records had released Aerosmith, their eponymous debut, but it had barely broken into the Billboard Top 200. “Dream On,” their first single, had stalled at number 59 on the Pop Singles charts.
It was a bad year for a baby rock band trying to make its bones. (more…)
A friend of mine told me I needed a severe attitude adjustment. At first, I didn’t know what she was talking about: “What’s wrong with my attitude?”
A word of note to anyone who is not a music nerd accidentally finding themselves at this site: a cover song is when an artist records another artist’s song, hence covering it. The term ‘remake’ fits as well. The term ’smart-ass’, at least relative to this article, refers to those who decide to go all hipster and record something that bears no relevance, charm or wit toward their own sensibility. I’m thinking of Madonna’s cover of “American Pie” or that godawful A Perfect Circle CD where the songs weren’t just reworked, they were worked over, until all that was left was roadkill disguised as tribute. Then there’s the Bluegrass Tribute to Pink Floyd’s The Wall. More notoriously, I’m thinking of the late-’50s pop songs from black artists covered by teen idol white artists because, you know, if it comes from a white guy in a sweater, the subtext can’t be about sex. Right? Pat Boone? Tutti Frutti?