Something big happened to the band on Valentine’s Day 1984. But at the time, they didn’t realize how big. While the band was playing a show at Boston’s Orpheum Theater, they received two special guests to see the show. It was former band mates Joe Perry and Brad Whitford. When the five original band members got in a room together, the magic started bubbling again. And by June 1984, the original band was reunited and were now out on the road for the Back in the Saddle Tour which would keep them busy until January 1985. One big thing that helped was that Perry was now divorced from his wife who the band and all their wives hated. And she wasn’t a great influence on Joe either. However, the drug problems were not gone.
After the tour, it was time for the big Comeback album. Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer…the boys were back together. They were now on a new label, Geffen, and the incredible producer, Ted Templeman was brought in to be behind the boards. This was supposed to be the album that brought Aerosmith back to the top, however, that didn’t happen.
Templeman was going for a rough and raw sound like the days of old for the band. He wanted to capture that tough, live sounding magic that they had on their earlier albums. He felt that was the sound everyone loved. A trick he used with the band was removing the “red light” in the studio that indicated the band was recording. He did this so the band wouldn’t get all stressed out when the light went. He wanted them loose and relaxed as he felt that would get the best sound. Hell, it worked for Van Halen. The problem was twofold, the band was still doing drugs and Ted was working in a studio he wasn’t familiar with so he never captured the sound he wanted. In fact, the band hates this album for that reason, especially Joey Kramer who thinks his drum sound sucks. And maybe it does. But this was my gateway in to the band. My first Aerosmith album I ever bought and as I result, I kinda like this one.
By the time the 80’s hit, Aerosmith was a mess. Joe Perry was out of the band and Steven’s drug use was way out of control. During the Fall of 1980, Steven was in a horrendous motorcycle accident which put him out of commission for months upon months. When the band finally went back in to the recording studio, things weren’t any better. After recording the first song and single, “Lightning Strikes”, Brad Whitford was done as well. He picked up his toys from the attic and walked away.
Was the band near the end? Probably pretty close. But there was an old friend that came back in to the mix. Famed producer, Jack Douglas, was back to produce the album. Jack had done all the band’s big albums and they really needed a friendly face to help them navigate this mess.
So who was still in the band? You have Steven Tyler, Joey Kramer and Tom Hamilton of course. Then Jimmy Crespo was still around after replacing Joe Perry and the newest member was guitarist Rick Dufay. However, he was brought in after the album was done and didn’t actually play on it although he was credited. The album is also notable for its price tag. Because of how long it took to record (1981-1982), the cost of the album was immense at around $1.5 million. That was an unheard of price tag in those days.
Aerosmith was a mess by this point in time. The drug use was out of control and during a show in Portland, Maine, Steven Tyler collapsed on stage. Even if that didn’t make matters worse, Steven was later in a really bad motorcycle accident that left him hospitalized for two months. It was a scary time and they needed a break. One way to do that was for the record label to release a greatest hits compilation which they did and on November 11, 1980, the ‘Greatest Hits’ compilation was released.
The album didn’t do that well as it only charted at #43. However, over the years it grew in popularity and has wound up being one of their biggest selling albums of all times with sales well over 11 million which would certify it as Diamond. Hell, I’ve bought it twice at least.
The track list was short at only 10 songs, but they are 10 great Aerosmith classics. While some songs are straight from the albums they were on, others have been edited. The album also included the Beatles cover of “Come Together” off the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Soundtrack. Now, they have reissued the album with a bunch more tracks, but we are sticking with the original track listing. Now, my version is the CD version of it for some reason as I could’ve sworn I had a vinyl of this, but apparently not.
Drugs…wives…tension. Those three things were all starting to boil over with Aerosmith during the recording of the band’s sixth studio album, ‘Night in the Ruts’. What is a night in the ruts anyway? Actually, it is a play on words for “Right in the Nuts”. Pretty funny actually. But wasn’t funny was the drug use was immense at this point. The band could barely function. Steven wasn’t writing lyrics, Joe owed the band money for his room service bills and he hadn’t been in the studio for months, longtime producer Jack Douglas was fired and Gary Lyons was brought in to produce, and the album was taking forever to finish. The band’s relationship with their label was strained as well. At this point, the band was completely and utterly out of control.
The album was taking so long, the band was forced to go out on the road and that was not a good place for them to be. More drugs meant horrible shows. Horrible shows meant more tension. More tension bled over in to the wives starting to fight and things got really ugly in Cleveland, OH on July 28, 1979 when Joe Perry’s wife through milk at Tom Hamilton’s wife. The band I believe already hated Joe’s wife so after the show, Steven and Joe got in to a nasty altercation and by the end, Joe Perry was no longer in the band. He was done and he was out!
Well, that didn’t bode well as the album wasn’t even finished. The band brought in Richie Supa to help on the guitars as well as Jimmy Crespo to finish others. Jimmy was the one that stayed and toured with the band until 1984. The album finally was finished and released on November 16th, 1979. It didn’t do well at all. It did got to #14 on the Billboard Charts but barely went gold. They had one single, “Remember (Walking in the Sand)” which didn’t even break the Top 40 landing at #67.
The band had been recording / touring and recording / touring non-stop for years now and it was taking its toll. The drug use was rampant as Tyler and Perry became known as the “Toxic Twins” if that gives you any indication of the toxicity of their drug use and relationship. The record company and management felt the band needed a break so they decided to put out a live album. I believe the record company wanted a clean, studio overdubbed album like every other band was doing at the time, but the band wanted it to sound real and raw.
Luckily for us, the band won out and we got a rough and raw record that was more representative of how the band really sounds live. They even took it a step further and made the album cover look cheap and dirty like a real bootleg album would look. You have coffee rings on the back cover and everything looks stamped and very unprofessional. One great thing about bootlegs are they are usually riddle with mistakes so the band purposely left the song “Draw the Line” off the setlist although it is really after the song “Mother Popcorn”. They were meticulous to make it look like a real bootleg. And to go even further with the bootleg theme, they recorded a couple songs on to a cassette and used that version so you get a slight hiss like a cassette usually has. I love the authenticity they were shooting for on this record.
The band pieced together songs from numerous shows over 1977 and 1978. They also threw in 2 songs from a radio broadcast from 1973 and those songs are obvious as they don’t sound anything like the other tracks and it does disrupt the live feel they established over the rest of the album, but we will get to that later. The album includes the same ol’ crew of Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer but that would soon come to an end…more on that with the next review.
Drugs…Addict…What do these words describe? It is simple. They describe Aerosmith! Rock band certainly doesn’t describe them because at this point, drugs were way more important than being musicians as that was what they spent most of their time doing..drugs!
As a result of this massive drug problem, their manager, David Krebs, thought he needed to get them away from the drugs so he shipped the band to an old Convent in Armonk, New York. But what David didn’t take in to account that drug dealers are basically Grubhub, especially if your names are Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. Place an order and they will deliver and that they did…in droves. So much so that Tyler and Perry were less involved in this album than any other. But it did give the rest of the band, Tom Hamilton, Brad Whitford and Joey Kramer more say in to what was going on with the album.
Producer, Jack Douglas, was back and did the best he could. The music is pretty straight-forward blues rock & roll and far less fancy stuff than prior albums. Heck, he was lucky to even finish recording the album with everyone still alive. The album took forever as they worked on it from June to October of 1977 as Joe and Steven were so drugged up all the time that they could only record in little increments of time. The album finally saw its release on December 9, 1977 and although the album did sell over 2 million copies (by 1996) and went to #11 on the Billboard Charts, it is still perceived as a lesser album than the prior two. It is also believed to be the beginning of the end as the tensions and drug use would eventually reach a breaking point.
Welcome to the next installment of Purchases as we run through the monthly purchases here at 2 Loud 2Old Music. And this was a good month…a really good one. This would be a quality month over quantity although the quantity was still there. The month started out with a visit to one of my favorite stores Noble Records. It was Dillion’s 2nd Anniversary as a Brick & Mortar store and he was putting out some holy grail items for sure. I’m not one of crowds at the moment so I knew it was going to be packed so I waiting until later in the day before I showed up. There was nothing I was really looking for so going early didn’t matter. I was there to show some support.
The first thing I found were some great 7″ Singles. 2 from Quiet Riot and one from David Bowie. I nice score for me and I will take it…
And there was still more. Now, I didn’t really find a whole lot. But I found something I had never seen before so I grabbed it. It was an alternate cover for the Scorpions debut, “Lonesome Crow”. And it is a cool cover. It turns out, this was a reissue of the album from 1982 or 1983 and it had came in a translucent brownish, yellowish, orangish color…wait…maybe it is gold. Who knows, but I know I loved the cover and sold!!!
After a very long tour in support of their album, “Get Your Wings”, the band was tight and playing better than ever. They were ready to jump back in the studio and bring producer Jack Douglas back with them. This time around though would be different. Their first two albums used up all the songs they had been playing for years. Aerosmith now had to write a whole album from scratch. As a result, they would create an album that was spawned from a new level of confidence with the band and a more polished understanding of how to write songs. The album they created, ‘Toys in the Attic’, would take the band to a whole new level of stardom. The album would go on to sell more than 8 million copies and be one of their most commercially successful albums of all time.
‘Toys in the Attic’ was released on April 8, 1975 and was recorded at the Record Plant in New York City from January to March of that year. It would go as high as #11 on the Billboard Charts and deliver not one, but two Top 40 hits with one going all the way to #10 as well. The success of this album also saw the band’s first two albums get a renewed interest and so they would re-release the single “Dream On” in from the debut seeing it go to #6 on the charts. Yes, ‘Toys in the Attic’, finally saw Aerosmith get what they had been working so hard for over the years. Fame, Fortune and Drugs…lots and lots of drugs.
As you can see from the pictures, my copy of the album is well loved.
The band was still the same old song and dance of members with Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, Brad Whitford and Joey Kramer. Everyone had at least one writing credit on the album except for Joey. Tyler had them on all of the songs except for the cover song they do. The band was on fire, but so were things behind the scenes, especially with the band members wives who didn’t all get along and would be a driving force behind a lot of the band’s battles and problems over the years…well that and drugs…did I mention drugs? These boys could not get enough of the stuff. That would soon become a problem, but not so much now.
Can’t believe it is time for another monthly wrap-up. This year has flown by in almost a blink. October wasn’t as fruitful as other months although it was still pretty good. I only actually hit a record store once during the month. The rest were all bought online whether Amazon, Discogs or directly from the artist.
The first batch is from a trip my daughter and I made to the local antique mall. This mall is really great as it has several booths strictly related to vinyl and that is always where I ended up spending all my time. My daughter wants to look at vintage clothing. It is sad when clothes from when I grew up is now vintage, but that is another story. First up are two Aerosmith releases. One I had on CD, but I had really been looking for a decent vinyl version and finally got one. The other release is a 12″ Maxi Single for “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)”.
The other two items were 12″ Singles for ZZ Top and Bon Jovi. The Bon Jovi is an E.P. and one I had only seen on Mike Ladano’ssite when he wrote about a couple years ago. When I saw it, it was an easy decision.
There was only one more vinyl purchase for the month and this one is the coolest. It is the brand new E.P. from Billy Idol called ‘The Roadside’. I’ve ready written a review for it so you can check it out HERE!!!!!. This one is special because it is autographed by the man, the myth, the legend, Billy Idol. You know when you get some autographs they send a picture insert that the artist signs? Well, they do. Except for Billy. Billy sends an actual album jacket with no album and signs the jacket. Then they send a separate sealed album. Strange, but okay.
And that was the last of the vinyl for the month. The rest are all CDs. I have a wishlist on Discogs and this month, I decided each week I was going to buy something from that list. Easy enough right? Except when you decide which seller to use and find out they actually have several items from that artist that are on your list or other artist and that is where the trouble ensues. I figured, well, I have to buy them all because I will save a ton on shipping…and I’m right. There were three shipments and most were Jeff Scott Soto releases because I am wrapping up my purchases before we start the Jeff Scott Soto series in January 2022! It will be a great way to kick off the new year. Here is what I got…
And then there were a few more…and these last 3 came from France. I didn’t read the listing very well and didn’t realize he shipped these without their cases. I guess that is why the shipping was so cheap from France. Luckily I had some empty cases laying around.
Now a few of the first picture I bought and wound up buying stuff from another artist because I saved on shipping. It was two of Joe Elliott’s Down ‘N Outz side project that I had on CD at one and no longer do…but I do again…long story, sad, don’t won’t get in to it!!
And another purchase I ended up buying a Bonus E.P. from Needtobreathe’s album ‘Hard Love’ which I forgot I didn’t actually have on CD. What was I thinking. It is sealed and I’m trying to decide if I will keep it that way…
Then using MyPoints gift cards, I picked up a couple free things on Amazon. They are both from a band called Tait. The lead singer is Michael Tait formerly of the band DC Talk. His voice is like butter. He sounds like Nat King Cole, but rocks out. Really cool stuff. One of the CDs arrived sealed and autographed by the band. I must not have read the description too well because I don’t remember reading it was autographed. Cool enough. And thanks to Lori for getting rid of it.
And the very last thing I got were a couple of CDs from my pal who I mentioned earlier, Mike Ladano or LeBrain from the The LeBrain Train. He was kind enough to send me the new Max the Axe E.P. and threw in the debut Cars CD which for some reason I didn’t have on CD. I do on vinyl, but nice to have a remastered version as well. Thanks Mike. Now, the Max the Axe CD you just read about on Monday so you know all about that one now.
Not a bad haul I guess. It is just weird that most of these I bought online and not from an actual record shop. I hope I get to hit one or two in October. I know there is record show on October 9th, so I will at least hit that. Until next time, happy purchasing!! Here is everything one more time…
After the debut album being a dud and all the touring, the band wasted no time going in to the studio for their second album, ‘Get Your Wing’. This time around at the boards was famed producer Jack Douglas who was introduced to the band by the one and only Bob Ezrin, who the label wanted to produce the album. Jack worked out well and would go on to have a long relationship with the band and deliver some of their best albums.
The band had extensive preproduction work and extensive rehearsals, the band entered the studio The Record Plant in New York City on December 17, 1973 and by January 14, 1974, they were done. The album would come out on March 15, 1974 and would go only to #74 on the Billboard Charts. All 3 singles flopped and not one of them charted. If they thought the first album was a dud, this one didn’t fare any better. But don’t feel bad, once the band broke, this album has since sold over 3 million copies and is certified Triple Platinum. It all worked out in the end.
But what makes this album successful on its own is that the band found their voice. They found their sound and they would find rock stardom. Bandmates Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer found themselves and were set to take over the world…okay, that is a little dramatic, but you know what I mean.
2 Loud 2 Old Music 