Sweet Emotion

They couldn't be anything else.

The first time I heard "Dream On" was just about now, only forty one years ago, crossing the great state of Massachusetts from Amherst to the 91.

There were no iPods, never mind Walkmen, and unless you had a modern car, you were limited to AM. And my automobile was a '63 Chevy, which I inherited from my older sister and eventually passed down to my younger sister who threatened to leave it on Nantucket until my father insisted she fix it and drive it back to its homeland of Connecticut.

And that car required full-time attention, it had a wandering front end. But it was a convertible, when those were almost extinct, and if you drove on the east coast the goal was to keep the top down until it snowed. And I did. And rambling down this two lane highway I heard this magic elixir emanating from the one speaker in the dash that had me riveted and exhilarated to the point where I purchased the band's debut album just to hear it.

And although uneven, I took the plunge on the second, "Get Your Wings," which may not be their best but is certainly my favorite. Sans any hits, tracks like "Lord Of The Thighs" and "Seasons Of Wither" had you playing them over and over again and for others to the point where Hooker borrowed my cassette without asking so they could flip to it.

A little explanation... When you drove cross-country back then you prepared, you spent two days making cassettes, because before satellite radio there were vast stretches of highway where your antenna pulled in absolutely nothing, and you needed your tunes, they truly drove the culture back then. And I made a cassette of "Get Your Wings" and I played it that magic month in Mammoth Lakes in the spring of '75 and I got everybody hooked on it, even Hooker, who blasted it while he and Dave and the rest were practicing their flips on Mammoth Mountain.

And when you were in the boonies back then you were on a virtual news blackout, I was unaware that Aerosmith had released a new album that was suddenly dominating the airwaves, that there was one song that might not have crossed over but had made the band stars. That track was "Sweet Emotion."

Joe Perry is flogging a book. I haven't read it, I usually don't, they're all the same. How drink and drugs and fighting drove the performer to oblivion and then they returned, intact, for a victory lap. But Howard Stern elicited the nuggets we were interested last week and when they were talking about "Sweet Emotion" I had to pull it up in Deezer, to hear it stream in CD quality.

And it is all about the sound. It's about Tom Hamilton's bass, the percussion, and then the way the band settles into the groove and absolutely wallops it. You stood in the audience nodding your head like a zombie, if you were privileged to see the band live, if not, you replicated this behavior in front of the giant speakers you worked minimum wage to buy.

"Talk about things that nobody cares"

Welcome to my world. Somewhere along the line I lost the plot, or the world forked off and I wasn't even aware there was a choice. Suddenly it became all about the money and our heroes were people who could make things, the perpetrators of ideas took a back seat, if they were in the car at all.

"Wearin' out things that nobody wears"

I'm stuck in the seventies, I wear the same clothes I did in college, and I know I stick out, but I'm afraid of inauthenticity, feeling fake in the attire of the day which is gonna fade and be laughed at in far less than a decade. That's right, I'm proud I never wore a leisure suit.

"Ya callin' my name but I gotta make clear
I can't say baby where I'll be in a year"

That's the difference. Once upon a time I was itinerant, sleeping on floors all across the west, and now I've lived in the same place for decades, waiting for the one big break that seems to constantly elude my grasp.

"Some sweathog mama with a face like a gent
Said my get up and go musta got up and went"

You can't even say that today, the politically correct police will denounce you. That's the society we live in, one of gotcha, where the goal is to find the mistakes of those who raise their head above and pull them down into the hole you're in.

"Standin' in the front just a shakin' your ass
I'll take you backstage you can drink from my glass"

We were envious, the girls had something to give our heroes. They sacrificed themselves at the altar of rock and roll, and we just wished we could have been there at the ceremony. And this behavior is deplored today, but sex makes the world go 'round, and when you speak from your heart and your words and music resonate the world spreads its legs and lets you inside. And no amount of naysaying will deny this. The only difference was back then the money was not the primary attraction, you just wanted to get closer to the people singing and playing these songs.

"Sweet emotion
Sweet emotion"

There's something that goes on in your ears, and it's perfectly sweet, and it's definitely emotion. And the older generation couldn't get it, never mind understand it, and those listening to AM radio were out of the loop but by this time nearly the entire younger generation had slid over to the FM dial and rock star was the apotheosis, the peak of living on this mortal coil.

The rock stars got politicians elected. Just ask Jimmy Carter, who was helped by the Allman Brothers. Or Jerry Brown, who was helped by his paramour Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles and so many other SoCal performers.

The rock stars defined society, we hung on every word.

And yet, still, the scene was not embraced by the mainstream.

Until MTV. Which rained down coin previously unfathomable.

And then came the Internet, which made the rest of the nerds rich and famous to a degree the musicians could never foresee.

And now everybody wants to say nothing has changed. When the truth is everything has. Music does not only not make as much money, it doesn't even glorify the same people. Used to be outsiders ruled, who insisted on doing it their way, who gave the middle finger to social mores, whereas today's doofuses do it for the label and the corporate cash and the ability to show up at the Met Ball and the rest of the affairs that used to exclude them.

"No more no more"

Actually, "Sweet Emotion" was not my favorite track on "Toys In The Attic," that role was filled by its follow-up, "No More No More."

No more rock stars dominating our culture, respecting the past but focused on making the music and the world their own.

No more rock stars recording their albums without label input.

No more cheap tickets.

No more practicing in isolation, honing your chops so your nonverbal self could get laid.

No more buying the latest release and playing it for weeks until you knew every lick.

No more satisfaction with your success and your station, today the musicians are as greedy as the rest of our society, bitching about being ripped off and unable to be...

Aerosmith.

"Joe Perry On The Howard Stern Show": http://bit.ly/1D5YnDC


--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1

If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25




-- powered by phpList, www.phplist.com --