Monday Metal

The Fami de Stroock visited our father over the weekend, who maintain the house in which we grew up. Much has changed, but little rocks in the stream of time from our childhood remain. Here a vintage Star Wars figure*, there a piece from Risk.

The girls discovered our old stereo, a gift for our 13th birthday (1986). We showed them the ins and outs. 'You mean they play music on both sides?' We put on this old album, received as a Christmas gift in 1987:

That's Aerosmith, Permanent Vacation. We always loved that intro. The stereo still sounds good.

*Like, the ones from 1977 where you bought the empty box and mailed in the proof of purchase. Don't bother, Obi Wan is missing the light sabre, plastic cape, etc....

Monday Metal

Anyone who watched the Grammy Awards last night knows where this is going. 

Aerosmith and Run DMC re-created their famous 1986 rendition of Walk this Way. We and Mrs. Stroock made a point of sticking around for the performance. Our daughters were baffled and we promised to show them the video.

For younger reader(s) there's really no overstating how big a deal this video was. It was rap's MTV breakthrough and Aerosmith's introduction to a new generation. They went on to have three absolutely huge albums that are part of any Generation Xr's life soundtrack, certainly for our self and Mrs. Stroock. We met in 1994, sooooo.

We still think this is one of the ten greatest videos ever made.

Tuesday Tally: Late Edition

Rock n Roll as a pop force is dead and we are now in the age when we can say definitive things about it.

To that end here is a very interesting article gauging the top five American bands.*

We have a criteria for great bands. Did they make an impact? Did they write songs that stood the test of time. Did they grow?

Below follows our list:

The Beach Boys: Everyone's first choice and everyone's beach soundtrack. Talk about growth. Listen to Pet Sounds sometime. It's spooky genius. Brian Wilson did it all without booming drums and crashing cymbals.

Kiss: We are not members of Kiss Army and really don't like them that much. But there's no arguing with their content, their output and their anthems. Over time they even grew. Two Jewish guys appreciated the value of vaudeville style showmanship. What are the odds?

Aerosmith: There are two Aerosmiths, pre RUN DMC and post. Their pre albums are classic 70's rock. Their first three post albums are successively better than the last. The three power ballads from Get a Grip are something to behold. Not nearly the same band they were in 1975 or even 1987. Pure blues based rockers.

REM: We were reluctant to put them on the list, but again, there's no arguing with their output, performance and innovative talent. We will now have  Loosing my Religion in our head all day.

Nirvana: The last great rock innovators. They had their own sound, look and style. Perhaps we are lucky we never had to watch Nirvana get old? Or is that just Foo Fighters?

*A lot of guys on the linked article talk about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Sorry, we don't get it.

The Tuesday Tally's Triumphant Return; Aerosmith Edition

Picking up on yesterday's Aerosmith themed Monday Metal, today we have Will Stroock's authoritative list of the best Aerosmith songs.

-Love in an Elevator: A long, almost jazzy song, which has for my money the best Joe Perry Solo ever.
-What it Takes: One of the aforementioned schlock ballads, but off of Pump not Get A Grip. I love the outro.
-Walk this Way: Of course, but being that age, I prefer the Run DMC version.
-Sweet Emotion: Duuuh. Interestingly they re-released this in 1992, when I was 18. Cool video too. Great intro with the bass, and a great riff (easy to play too) the drums....actually, there is nothing about this song which is not awesome.
-Jaded: One of their later songs, with Mili Kunis in the video. I just like the 'my, my, baaaaabyyyyyy-blue' rendition, and not just because I have two myself.
-Amazin': The video is sooooo 1993 in every way imaginable. Again, great guitar solo.

*Never liked Ragdall, and in retrospect, I don't like that comeback album at all which is ironic since I have the original vinyl I got for xmas in 1987.

Monday Metal...Aerosmith?

...Aerosmith?

Interesting article about Aerosmith:

It’s schlock, but like Mommie Dearest and Andy Warhol paintings, it’s some beautiful schlock that’s not without artistic merit.

I get that it’s fashionable to shit all over ’70s rock bands who persisted in the ’80s. As I said above, I’ve been guilty of this myself. Not without good reason, either. But the more I look at what Aerosmith did from Permanent Vacationto Get a Grip, the more I’m impressed with the songcraft of their comeback years.

I never stopped to think of of Aerosmith as schlock, but I see the point. They were kind of schlocky in their 'comeback years'.

Of course, being in Generation X, this was my intro to Aerosmith:

Still one of the ten greatest videos ever. I was 13.

Aerosmith was an important part of the soundtrack to my teenage years. My first girlfriend and I slow danced to Angel. I listened to What it Takes after said girlfriend broke my heart; and it drove me nuts when radio stations would lop off the long outro. Later Aerosmith had a trio of power-ballads that were required listening at my frat mixers. When I was getting things together in 2001-2002 I listened to Aerosmith's greatest hits and really experienced their 70's stuff for the first time.

Given the quality and breadth of their career I'd rank Aerosmith as one of ten greatest bands of all time. But that is the subject of another post.

Of course there is the question of whether or not they're a metal band. Their comeback coincided with the domination of heavy metal in '87. They were in the epic The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years:

Of course they're talking about jazz and R&B. The funny thing is they're just drying out here, they're still groggy. They're just realizing what they did.

Are they metal? Not really. As Steve and Joe say at the end of the video, they have a unique, utterly Aerosmith sound. No one ever quite sounded like them.

But there's a reason why That Metal Show was our source for all things 'hard rock and heavy metal'.