Posts Tagged ‘Joe Perry’

WTF, Aerosmith? WTF?

Aerosmith_-_Amazing[1]So, Aerosmith is breaking up. Or, depending on which websites you trust or whose tweets you’re following, they aren’t. They haven’t been able to get it together enough to make an album of original material since 2001, or finish a tour without multiple members ending up in the hospital, so it’s no surprise that they can’t even do this right. Perhaps they need counseling, eh, Metallica? At this point, all we know is that Steven Tyler doesn’t want to be in Aerosmith, or maybe he does, just not now. He apparently wants to focus on “Brand Tyler,” which today seems about as hip and necessary as focusing on “Brand George W. Bush.” Though I suppose it isn’t as asinine as trying to continue on with brand Aerosmith without Tyler, as Joe Perry claims he’s going to do, if in fact Tyler is quitting, which apparently now he’s not. WTF, Aerosmith? WTF?

Aerosmith, more than any other rock band, is an enigma. How can the same band have given us “Back in the Saddle” and “Pink”? “Last Child” and “Girls of Summer”? “Mama Kin” and “Amazing”? Given every opportunity to succeed in pure rock awesomeness, they’ve found ways to fuck it up. Maybe when you create something as immediate and phenomenal as the Toys in the Attic album or Rocks, you gain license to shit on your legacy? I’d go so far as to say that maybe they deserve to. But just when you’re ready to count them out, they pull a Hulk Hogan on you and come out on top, yet again. Aerosmith is harder to kill than Jason Voorhees. In fact, the only reason they’re still around today is that they’ve been lucky enough to cheat death.

I can almost guarantee that the Rock Gods had planned for Aerosmith to self-destruct sometime after 1978, and they almost did. It’s surprising no one died. Hell, acting in Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band should have been worth a smiting alone, but even all the coke and STDs in the world couldn’t kill the Toxic Twins. It’s not lost on them, either. They named an album Nine Lives, for God’s sake (and what a turd of an album that was). Sometimes you don’t deserve a second chance, or a third, or a fourth. Sometimes you just want to bury the fucking thing and move on. Unfortunately, Aerosmith has never subscribed to that theory. They’ve been making questionable decisions longer than I’ve been alive and still come up roses every now and again; why should we expect anything different? (more…)

Caught on Tape: Joe Perry, Guitar God in Training

joe_perry1December 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…)