"Woe is Me, I Feel So Badly For You" - How I Came to Realize that Aerosmith Sucks

So, I came across the following clip on YouTube, and you should check it out.  What you will find is Steven Tyler doing an artist's lecture on songwriting, featuring an impromptu performance of one of his (and my) favorite Aerosmith songs, "Seasons of Wither."

The track is relatively obscure but it is a gem. With its eerie intro, eerier tuning and woeful vocals, it has always captured for me that moment of lucidity you have when you find yourself surrounded by nothing but unhappy people who are doing nothing but bad things.  God knows that it doesn't feel very rock and roll to realize that these new friends of yours are all completely self-destructive and terminally sad and that you need to get the fuck away from them, but apparently it is a thought that might have crossed Mr. Tyler's mind.....at a time when he was setting new standards in crazy behavior. 

And we all love when we identify with a song, right?  So have a listen:

What's great about this clip is that it reminds me so clearly of why I used to love Aerosmith -- which has an awful lot to do with the street-sensibility of the band's songwriting and performance, sometimes clumsy, but always either just a little bit sinister or fatalistic -- to the point that I can nearly overlook the fact that it was performed at Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp (ugh). And that brings me to my next point:

I do not hate Aerosmith.  I simply hate what they've become.  What I've been having trouble figuring out is when they became something that I hated.

There is an astonishingly large contingent of incredibly lazy music fans who consider Steven Tyler's participation in "American Idol" as the turning point.  The truth is that it goes back much further than that.  And I'm going to try and pinpoint when.

Begin at the Beginning

I have a friend who is about ten years older than me. He grew up in the 70's and 80's, and is someone that I consider to be a total authority on music.  (In fact, he's the one who cultivated the opinionated jackass of a music snob in me).  This guy claims that Aerosmith was always terrible, and that their albums were never much more third-rate American rock.

This is simply wrong.  "Get Your Wings", "Toys in the Attic" and "Rocks" are each outstanding -- particularly when you take into account how little great American rock was being made or bought between 1973 and 1975.

(A quick and certainly incomplete bit of research reveals that there were, in fact, excellent American hard rock records released during this period by the likes of the New York Dolls, Alice Cooper, Iggy and the Stooges and Lou Reed.  Sadly, however, I don't believe that the combined sales of them all would equal the numbers behind even one completely boring record by Steely Dan).

((And, yes, I am conveniently forgetting about KISS.  And Springsteen.  One is cool, but artistically irrelevant.  The other is genius, but irrelevant to anything concerning hard rock)).

(((And we are not going to discuss the mighty ZZ Top at all, as their inclusion would at least partially sink my defense.  Because they're, like, way better than Aerosmith))).

Sucking in the 70's?

After 1975, however, Aerosmith began to release a string of not-very-good albums, half-assed live products and throw-away greatest hits offerings. Drug problems, line-up changes and a generally self-destructive streak resulted in a terribly underachieving period for the band, at a time when far inferior American rock bands were becoming stars.

And yet, I don't hate this period of Aerosmith. In a way, I kind of love it....even the universally-panned "Rock and a Hard Place" at the very least generated a charmingly sleazy cover of "Cry Me A River" and the gorgeous "Joanie's Butterfly".  The albums may not be good, but I find them to be somewhat redeemed by even these one or two great moments.

So when did things go totally wrong?

I was always convinced that the tipping point was the release of 1993's "Get A Grip" (more on that later).  And I think that I may have been wrong all of this time.

This requires a step back to the 1980's.  

Like a lot of kids my age, my first exposure to Aerosmith was the Run DMC collaboration on "Walk this Way."  And, yes, it may sound cliche, but it did change music.  I was twelve years old in 1986, I had never heard anything like it. Yet, it didn't sound strange to my young ears.  It seemed natural and very, very cool.

I'm well aware that Aersosmith didn't change music with the collaboration.  All they did was write the song and then have the good sense to answer the phone when Rick Rubin called up eleven years later. But it sure made them look (and sound) awesome.

Next came the release of "Permanent Vacation," complete with a string of huge hits and totally fun music videos for "Dude Looks Like a Lady", "Rag Doll" and "Angel" (the last of which provides the soundtrack to an absolutely vivid memory I have of a very special summer night in high school. I was out in one of those big groups that dorky kids run in at that age, when I was first introduced to a classmate who I'd somehow never met.  Wasting time with her and my friends in the parking lot of a McDonalds on University Boulevard, I can remember every millisecond of the moments when I first developed a deep, months-long crush on her, which would progress absolutely nowhere over the course of the summer and the following school year.  I would later find out from a good friend that this same girl (or, actually, maybe it was her sister...I forget) had become a home wrecker well before the time she was out of college.  Apparently, unlike Steven Tyler and myself, this young woman was not content to be "sleepin' in this bed alone").

So, yeah, "Permanent Vacation" was a big hit, and I have fond memories of it, so this clearly couldn't have been the initial suck-point for Aerosmith.

After that, you've got "Pump," which was pretty much the biggest album in the world (or at least in my world) back in 1990 and 1991.  It was a majestic moment for the band, marking arguably the single greatest comeback of any rock band ever. The tour was tremendous, the album had fantastic energy, the list of singles was never-ending, and it was impossible for me not to love everything about them: I loved their legend. I loved their commitment to sobriety.  I loved the teenaged ribaldry of Steven Tyler's lyrics.  And I really, truly loved the MTV "Making of Pump" documentary, which I taped and watched pretty much constantly the entire summer of 1990.  This era of Aerosmith seemed inspired, focused and triumphant to me.

So, again, big hit, happy memories.  So, this also couldn't have been the moment, either, right?

Then we come to "Get A Grip," which, incidentally, my college buddy, Drew, and I ran all the way into Center City Philadelphia to purchase on its release date. After a rush back to the dorms and a first listen, we kind of knew that the album was just plain bad. Sure, the ballads were strong, but the rockers simply didn't rock very hard, and there was something funky about the songwriting....the songs were terribly inconsistent both in their style and their quality, which I later realized might have something to do with the presence of EIGHT co-songwriters on various tracks.

Moreover, it seemed as though this was the moment when Tyler's clever double-entendres became less of a schtick and more of a stick....as in a walking stick.  (Also known as a crutch).  Despite an earnest attempt at social commentary in the lead single,Tyler seemed to fully ensconce himself in the type of wordplay that initially seems clever, but might be more accurately described as lazy as the pattern repeats itself over and over and over through the years.

At the time, I chalked it up to a disappointing album -- searching high and low for reasons to like it.  But, truthfully, I moved on from Aerosmith after that.  Never bought another album.  Never saw them live again.  It was sort of like eating bad clams...no matter how much you used to enjoy them, after that last stinky night of burning disappointment, you know you'll never again spend your hard earned money on them.

(I'm not going to give time to the albums after "Get A Grip", other than to say that the singles alone are completely embarrassing.  Go ahead and listen to "Pink" or "Fallin in Love Is Hard on the Knees" if you need a reminder.......though I would be dishonest not to admit that I think that "Jaded" might be the single redemptive moment from this era).

I never stopped listening to the old albums, however.  In fact, songs from "Get Your Wings" have found themselves on an abnormal number of my iTunes playlists.  But I divorced myself pretty thoroughly from the later era stuff.

Coming Back to the Comeback

That time away from the band seems to have given me some clarity.  Because I've recently gone back and given a listen to "Permanent Vacation" and "Pump" -- commonly thought of as the comeback albums -- and I have to admit that neither is actually very good at all.

In fact, both albums sound all wrong.  I mean, completely wrong.

They're entirely too *huge* for Aerosmith -- a band that always thrived within a very loose, but driving, blues-based minimalism.  The snare drum booms on nearly every track.  The crash cymbals are mixed right up front for maximum impact. And the guitars and chorus vocals often feel multi-layered and clarified to the point that any and all sleazy, sloppiness found on "Rocks" or "Toys" is simply absent.  (Forgive me, Joe Perry, because your solo on "Rag Doll" is totally awesome).  

This is to say nothing of the majestic choruses on all of those ready-made singles, most of which bear the unmistakable stamp of professional hit-makers like Desmond Child and doofus A&R execs like John Kalodner.  (Forgive me, also, Jim Vallance, as "Magic Touch" is a quite fine song).

To that end, both records often feel closer to being a Bon Jovi album than an Aerosmith one.  Which is at least partially to say that while the albums were all wrong for Aerosmith, they were alright for the late 80's.  (To prove my point, give a listen to "Let the Music Do The Talking", a single off 1985's total dud, "Done with Mirrors," and you'll find the both the songwriting and the production sound much truer to Aerosmith's sound than "Girl Keeps Comin Apart", from the massively successful "Permanent Vacation").

To an extent, it seems unfair to group "Permanent Vacation" with "Pump," seeing as how "Pump" is a completely superior album.  But the two records are necessarily bound together in my head no longer as the time at which a newly sober Aerosmith got their act together, but more as example of the point at which the band simply embraced a lesser aesthetic.  (I'll stop short of saying that Aersosmith sold out, because they so clearly burnt out the first time).

And that puts the birth of the suck right at 1987, with the release of "Permanent Vacation".

It rubs all wrong, doesn't it?  But hear me out:

This album represents a fundamental shift in the Aerosmith brand, no longer serving the disaffected stoner kids, but instead directly targeting well-adjusted suburban youth such as myself.  

Gone was the hazy, drug-feuled aura surrounding the band, the live videos of Tyler and Joe Perry sweating out bucketfuls of toxins onstage as they leaned on one another to remain upright.  In its place were big smiles, exhausting puns, and constant over-the-top nods to sex that were anything but subversive or confrontational (unless, of course, you consider borderline incest fantasy music videos subversive, in which case I declare point: Tyler).  

Out with the slurred lyrics, in with the the monkey-chatter "A-CHA-CHA-CHA-CHA-CHA" technique for which Tyler has since become famous.

Never again would Aerosmith play the villains in a completely crappy rock opera.   Moving forward, they would star in their own children's video games instead.

Of course, it seems ironic -- and absolutely cliche -- to insist that Aerosmith started to suck as soon as their albums started selling. 

And, once again, we face that word, "unfair."  It seems so unfair to chastise Tyler, especially after watching that video that clearly shows that Steven Tyler is somehow still in touch with that seemingly-long-lost songcraft of his. 

And I guess it also seems dishonest, considering that "Permanent Vacation" and "Pump" were my gateways to the band.  I really loved those two albums, and no matter who shared the songwriting credits, there are still quite a few tracks on both records that I personally think are pretty damned good.  Even if they're all "wrong."

But somehow, this actually brings things full circle.  Because the entire thesis of this blog is that its perfectly ok to love stuff that sucks, as long as you're honest about it.  

So, I suppose that I do.  And I suppose that I am.

But more importantly, Aerosmith sucks.

You See Me Crying: 10 Songs that Mess Me Up

So, in my last post I made mention of something that had brought me to tears, and I guess it caught the four people who read this blog by surprise.

The truth is, I'm kind of a crier.

I'm not a bawler.  But it's pretty common for me to indulge a creeper in the corner of my eye at the end of Slumdog Millionaire. Or Philadelphia. Or Hotel Rwanda. Or  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  Or Its a Wonderful Life.

(The above list excludes probably my second most shameful crying episode: that time when my wife and I had just started dating, and we went to see Together.....a film that should probably be required viewing for anyone who had ever desired--or regretted their decision--to play music.  I won't spoil the ending, but the climax of the film happens to coincide with its very sudden ending.  And this means that there's no time at all to compose yourself should you happen to burst into tears as the story comes full circle.  

So, unless you can convince your then-new girlfriend that you like to sit through the entire credits of foreign films -- even if you both know you don't speak a word of Mandarin -- well, then, big guy, she's gonna see you cry for the first time.)

((The most shameful crying episode?  Oh, that was when I was in fifth grade, and I saw some  goddamned TV ad, featuring a kid leaving for college as his dog watches him drive away, the poor mutt's tail slowly stopping its wag as a tennis ball drops out of his mouth and rolls down the driveway. For reasons I cannot express today, this broke my heart, causing me to run into the bathroom and sob.  Over dinner that evening, my mother asked me what had been troubling me all night, and I foolishly reenacted the advertisement for her, bringing on yet another sobbing fit in front of the entire family.

I will never forget the look of exhausted confusion on my father's face as he sat in front of his dinner, waiting for me to please shut the fuck up)).

So, yeah: tears are sort of my thing, I guess.  And, so, it got me thinking about the many songs that have been known to make me cry.  Here is a sampling for your enjoyment and mockery:

Elliot Smith -- Waltz # 2

 

The grandaddy of all tearjerkers, in my book -- and not just because I'll always associate it with Smith's suicide. In fact, I once lived with a guy who was going through a tremendous depression over an unrequited love, and he listened to this record endlessly. 

A mere three years later, I went through a similar patch myself, and I suddenly understood the senselessly defeatist (yet willful) decision to not get over someone.

"I'm tired/I'm tired"

It somehow says so much.

Ain't No Nice Guy  (acoustic) -- Motorhead

 
Not only is this Lemmy's single most beautiful vocal performance, but damn near every couplet is a depth charge of self-awareness, timed to release only after its too late to change the reality of what a total fucking jerk you actually are.   
 

Sigur Ros -- Svefn g Englar 

 

I could not make the first guess as to what this song is about.  But I swear that there are times when I hear it that I wish nothing more than that I'd never had to have left the safety of my mother's womb.

He Moved Through the Faire -- as sung by Sinead O'Connor

For those of use who grew up in Irish households, Sinead knows how to hit that sad, sad note that permeates the best Irish music -- nearly a Celtic blue note, except less sexy and more.....miserable.

Celebrated Summer -- Husker Du



This song's indecision -- bouncing between exuberance, nostalgia and a vague sense of regret --  harnesses an emotional confusion that most people live with throughout much of their teens and even their 20's.  It is a true credit to Bob Mould's songcraft that he captures the sadness and futility of those years most clearly in retrospect. 

I'm supposed to see Mould live in three weeks and its pretty much a lock that I won't survive the middle section of this song intact.

You See Me Crying - Aerosmith

Jesus, do I hate what Aerosmith has become. Even so, this song has such a masterful, hazy, 70's AM radio vibe (god DAMN, that wonderful oboe and those awesome string arrangements!) that you can overlook the ridiculous-even-by-Areosmith's-standards lyric, "cuz my love is like a merry-go-round."  

No doubt about it: this song is unabashed in it's self-pity.  But at times we all need that.

Let It Loose -- The Rolling Stones

Mick Jagger might be a conceited jerk, but he has a way of turning some very vulnerable lyrics. That whole half-bridge, "Maybe your friends think/I'm just a stranger/Some face you'll never see no more" section, where his voice becomes thin and exasperated, has always struck me as one of the more honest and sincere vocals in the entire Stones catalog. 

Who ever would have thought Jagger gave a damn about what his groupies thought....much less what his groupies' friends thought?? 

Acetone - Mudhoney

"Oh, Lord what have we become?/We're not fooling anyone"

Nothing is sadder than shame.

Roberta Flack -- Do What You Gotta Do

I found this record in parents' vinyl collection during a sick day in high school.  Long before I'd ever had a girlfriend, after listening to this record I believed that I knew precisely what a breakup would feel like.  This song is so painful, so beautiful, so feminine and so totally dignified in the face of heartache that it crushes me to this day.

I Loves You, Porgy -- as sung by Nina Simone

"Don't let him take me/ Don't you let him handle me and take me off somewhere"

Suggested Listening for "Like You Never Had Wings"

Like You Never Had Wings

I've been listening to metal in one form or another since 1986.  Even considering that I foolishly gave up on the genre sometime in the mid-90's (thanks a lot, Korn, and double fuck you, Metallica), and that I fully embraced punk rock in my 20's...and that my lifestyle became decidedly UNmetal in recent years (though still preferable to NUmetal), the genre never went out of rotation for me.

Because even though I've lived a very fortunate life, I've always been one for extreme peaks and valleys.  And metal has always gotten me through both.

When I constantly felt like a dork and a misfit back in high school, Metallica's "Fade to Black" and Megadeth's "My Last Words" were the soundtrack to my angst.

Back in college, when I didn't get that summer job I wanted so badly at the Library of Congress, it was Mr. Danzig's "Long Way Back From Hell" that I brooded over.

And these past few years, when I resentfully marched myself out of the Judiciary Square Metro station each morning to a job - and perhaps even a career - that I had tragically fallen out of love with, more often than not I'd damage my ear drums to the trifecta of Lamb of God's "Black Label", Bolt Thrower's "The Killchain" and Sepultura's "Dead Embryonic Cells" to gear myself up for what lay ahead.

Now listen: I know that blogging about work is about as dumb as eating Buffalo Wings while watching porn, but this is kind of important:

I had become very frustrated about what my career had become.  Frustrated, angry and sad, in fact.  The things I most excelled at in my profession - the things that brought me true joy -- seemed to have become oddly devalued and out of reach as my duties morphed.  Conversely, my daily tasks somehow felt at once mundane and impossible.  The more I committed myself to them, the more I felt buoyed on all sides by inescapable feelings of failure and anxiety.

Then there were the meetings in Boston and Texas and Oklahoma.  And the nearly weekly day trips to New York that would kick off with a 4:00 AM wake up, a 6:00 AM train and a walk back through the front door never before 10:00 PM. All to attend command performances at which I typically felt completely out of place and occasionally just plain lost (or as my supervisors repeatedly put it, "invaluable").

I felt trapped.  I ate more.  I drank more.  I weighed more.  I slept less.  

I withdrew from my best friends, and - even worse - came to resent several of them.  My sense of humor became mean-spirited as I accepted my own unhappiness. 

In time, my confidence eroded and the skills in which I took the most pride seemed to atrophy before me. For the life of me, I could not summon the passion I once had for my job, and it made me feel worthless.

I was going through changes.  I was killing myself to live. I was going off the rails of my crazy train.

I was losing my fucking mind, more than once asking myself if these feelings - this nearly constant fear and anger and helplessness -- was, in fact, the tipping point where an irreversible psychological descent might begin.

The nine minutes of metal I would listen to every morning served as so much more than an outlet for what I look back on now as impotent rage; it was a liberation of my spirit. As every primal scream has ever been, it was a declaration of independence...at a time when I had somehow shackled myself to an identity and a value system to which I had never aspired.

It took a hell of a long time to gather the courage to resign from that job, and as difficult as the decision was, the process of actually walking out the door was even harder.  My entire last week on the job I felt out of place, guilty and very uncertain about my decision.  I was terribly sad to be leaving the many coworkers who I liked and respected, even if we weren't meant to be together.

That final week, I fiddled with my iPod compulsively during my commute, never quite finding music that felt appropriate.  I was still anxious, but all of the anger had been drained from me. In fact, I was exhausted all week, and nothing about metal energized me.

My last day in the office was a Friday, and by some fluke of scheduling, several of my closest teammates were out for scheduled vacations that day.  That made it easier to stay late and slip out once everyone had left.  It was lonely, but it was fitting: this was, after all, my choosing.

Once again, I sat on the metro platform, smashing the shuffle on the iPod, hoping for anything that might bring me to a fitting place on a day when I felt a little bit sad and a little bit relieved, but mostly very alone.  Hopeful, but alone.

Taking my seat on the metro train, I kept fiddling with the iPod.  And moments later, the Deftones' "Change in the House of Flies" came up.

Even in the best of moods, that song will always have the potential to send me to the depths of despair.  Whatever the lyrics are actually about, it always stuck me as a requiem for a loved one who had decayed unnecessarily ...and by their own doing:

I watched a change in you 

 It's like you never had wings  

It all hit just a little too close to home.

Welling with a true feeling of horror and a sense of something that felt much like grief, I quickly hit the FWD button once again.  I paused, I swallowed, I scowled and I waited.

Every adult knows that immediately after a lump forms in their throat, there is a significant moment whereupon they can choose to indulge their ego's need for dignity, or their nervous system's need for relief.

But as the next track loaded, there was no decision to be made.  Evening rush hour be damned, as Mick Jagger sang that "she would never say where she came from," I began to cry just slightly.

After all of this talk about metal -- about powerlessness and anger and release, about it "being there for me" when things became dark -- it turned out that the genre wasn't to provide the emotional bookend to the past seven and a half years.

On a day when I may have finally learned to separate my sadness from my anger, when I was choosing "farewell" over "fuck you," it was time for something different.

That was three weeks ago.  I haven't listened to much metal since.

Video Footage of the Randy Blythe Incident

Via The Gauntlet (by way of the great people at MetalSucks), here's the latest on Randy Blythe, including video of the alleged incident.

I would love to say that this makes things any less unclear, but the film might as well have been shot by Zapruder.

Either way, check it out:

Better quality, via Metal Delirium

Also, sorry for fucking up the formatting on these videos, here and throughout this crappy blog.  I'm really bad at this shit.

To Never Recover the Pieces to All That We've Lost

Following up on last week's post, I have an awful lot swirling around in my head that I want to write about.  For the moment, that'll have to wait for me to collect my thoughts.


I'm writing this morning because I just read that Lamb of God front man, Randy Blythe, is facing 5-10 years for an alleged assault on a fan, who later died from his injuries.


These sorts of things are difficult to discuss. Much like the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman issue, I don't really have a good grip on what actually happened, so perhaps I should keep my opinions to myself.  

And, yet, I have to admit that I am going to give Blythe the benefit of the doubt on this one. Sorry, Zimmermen.  Them's the breaks.


Because I met Randy in 2010.  It is a story I've been meaning to capture here, but the short form is that my wife and I bumped into him while touring the Forbidden City in Beijing.  Even though it was his first day in China and he told us the jet lag was killing him, the guy could not have been friendlier:  he asked us about our trip, he talked about his wife and he even put us on the guest list for the Lamb of God show the following evening. Even as both my wife and I started to worry that we'd taken up too much of his time, Randy just kept on chatting.


This past year, I dropped him a tweet before their show in D.C.  Much to my surprise, the guy responded, referencing our conversation from nearly two years earlier.  Totally unnecessary, and very cool.


I guess that even in my old age, I'm apt to be a fanboy from time to time.

The truth is that I don't really know Randy at all.  But I'm inclined to say that he's a good guy, which is why this is so troubling.  

If you're skeptical, I invite you to read two selections from his highly entertaining (though desperately in need of editing) Tumblr page: I Love Boobies, and What Its Like to Be In A Band.  I like to think that they're both very good indications of the man's character.

Sadly, not lost in any of this discussion is the fact that a fan is dead. And quite, frankly, I'm struggling to create a pithy conclusion to follow that.

A Decision in Five Movements

The First Movement: Frustration


"Above all, I didn't want to take any more shit."

The Second Movement: Resolution


"And if they try to slow you down, tell them all to go to hell"

The Third Movement: Grief





"Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind"

The Fourth Movement: Rebirth 


"I believe I've waited long enough.  Where do I begin?"

The Fifth Movement: Conviction


"Let this be my annual reminder: We can all be something bigger."



So....guess what I did?