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All rights reserved.Night in the Ruts - Aerosmith (CD 1993)
Aerosmith start to find themselves in a rut in 1979. (Aerosmith w/o)Review created: 03/23/03
by: deadmilkboy -- a member of Epinions
Pros:
The performances and songs are all memorable...
The performances and songs are all memorable...
Cons:
...with the exception of "Remember (Walking In The Sand)"
...with the exception of "Remember (Walking In The Sand)"
INTRODUCTION
Hello, everybody. This is John Bishop typing, the DeadMilkboy of Epinions.com. Before I launch into the following review, I d like to mention that this is part of a series of reviews I m writing based on one of the greatest American rock n roll bands in history, AEROSMITH! I d like to thank Aerocat (another Arizona native, bless her soul) for giving me the chance to do something other than write reviews of classic B-movies and current CD/DVD releases, and besides AEROSMITH F*CKING ROCKS! Posted here is the URL to Aerocat s official Epinions.com Aerosmith Write-Off page, and a list of names of other hopeful Aero Force fellas and freaks joining me in the write-off. For reference purposes, I got the lyrics and and quotations/information from www.rockthisway.de and aerosmithlyrics.homestead.com.
URL: http://aerowriteoff.bravepages
MEMBERS: Aerocat, hipyx, matta75, thevoid99, deaser26, netnut746, pt-paratroopa, pmills1210, pearl-drum-man, jeff_wilder78, kcfoxy, fartzarellah, sparkospunky, joubert, mattbjorke, shilmafone, donignacio, ned1, fuche_bu, and frostiepekkle.
NIGHT IN THE RUTS
The year is 1979: Aerosmith had rocked its way through five successful studio albums and a plethora of hard rock classics, but conflicts had been brewing between the band s frontmen. Heavy substance abuse and heated conflicts drove the wedge between singer/lyricist Steven Tyler and lead guitarist Joe Perry. By the end of the year, following near completion of a new album, Joe Perry decided to leave Aerosmith to form the Joe Perry Project, and in 1980, a month after said album, NIGHT IN THE RUTS, made a peak at #14, Brad Whitford left Aerosmith. Two patches were filled, and Aerosmith blustered on.
Recording for NIGHT IN THE RUTS started in May 1979, and wouldn t finish until the end of 1979. The band s music was getting sidetracked by drugs and anger, and even though this album could have resulted as a great return to form, had it not been for the excesses of the moments, NIGHT IN THE RUTS is leaner, meaner and more bawdy than DRAW THE LINE, and isn t the worst of Aerosmith s career (that honor still goes to ROCK IN A HARD PLACE). But still, listening to what came out of this record, the result could have been something of genius. Take as an example the first song on the album.
Steven Tyler penned the lyrics to the album s reflective lead-off track, the blistering No Surprize, which rolls along with ballsy rhythm and plenty of attitude. Joe Perry does some credible guitar work here, squelching electric eighth notes with precision. But the highlight of this song is the lyrics, which reflect the band s beginnings:
? we all heard the starters gun/New York is such a pity, but at Max's Kansas City we won/We all shot the sh*t at the bar, with Johnny O' Toole and his scar/And then old Clive Davis said he's surely gonna make us a star/I'm gonna make you a star, just the way you are/But with all his style, I could see in his eyes/That we is goin' on trial, an it was no surprize.
The beginnings turn out good, but then things aren t all that they are cracked up to be for the rock band:
Ridin' on wheels of hell, smokin' our axle grease/Oh the backstage is rockin' and we're coppin' from the local police So what with all our style, you could see in our eyes/That we is still on trial, baby it's no surprize.
It s the last lines of the song, however, which stood out the most and helped make catch phrases when Tyler was on MTV in 1987 and when he was onstage in 2001 being inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. It s the perfect reflection of all that is wrong with the industry:
Candy store rock n' roll, corporation jellyroll/Play the singles, it ain't me, it's programmed insanity/You ASCAP if BMI could ever make a mountain fly/If Japanese can boil teas, then where the f*ck's my royalties.
Chiquita is also a credible driving force in the album, packing a forceful drum beat, fuzzed out guitar melody, and the old brass section. Steven Tyler still does his usual acrobatic vocal tricks, which never sounded better given the weighty sound here. He screams his odd love story with a wild abandon: She takes me walkin' in de sunshine/She she'll be lovin' 'til de moon shine/Love Chiquita/Oh love Chiquita.
Remember (Walking In The Sand) is a departure from the usual Aerosmith sound in some way, mining the kind of bubblegum appreciation which was best celebrated by The Ramones. It s a cover of a song made famous in the 60s by the female quartet The Shangri La s, whose Leader Of The Pack also proved to be a surprising cover for Twisted Sister. Here, Aerosmith and producer Gary Lyons somehow evoke Phil Spector, which isn t a truly good thing: even though the performance is up to the trick (snapping fingers and harmony vocals), it sounds kind of queer coming from a band whose interest in love was always done best in a bawdy, reckless way. Steven Tyler always was able to do a sensitive vocal, and he does it here, but this was simply single fodder, and even ended up on the band s GREATEST HITS album in 1980, despite peaking at #67.
Track four, Cheese Cake, picks up lost steam, riding a nice slide guitar riff, and slow, bluesy shuffle. Joe Perry said this was a one-take performance, with no overdubs, from a regular 6-string guitar to a lapsteel and back, all live. His performance is one of the best things about this song, as well as the return to the playfully sleazy lyrics of good Aerosmith: I met a babe in a backseat drive-in/Back in the saddle she'd sit/Pulled on the reins just to keep me risin'/She loved to chomp at the bit Cheesecake, looser than her sister/Cheesecake, her sugar gets me high/She knows I can't resist her cheesecake/Got my fingers in her pie, cheesecake.
Three Mile Smile is a chugging rocker that features the most recognizable contribution from second lead guitarist Jimmy Crespo, brought in to fill in the blanks left by Joe Perry. In fact, the story goes that Jimmy Crespo and Brad Whitford had recorded solos for this number, which actually harkens back to the rugged Yardbirds style of the first half of 1974 s Train Kept A Rollin . But Tyler preferred Crespo s riff to Whitford s, and that one ended up on the album much to the dismay of Whitford, who would leave the band himself. It still angers Whitford to this day. Here s a sample lyric from this number: Take a look at my old billy goat/He used to raise all kinds of hell/He took a dose of radiation dope/Back in the barn is where he felt like hell.
It then leads into another blues number, a slow 12-bar novelty called Reefer Headed Woman, which contains the great line I got a reefer headed woman, she fell right down from the sky/Well I gots to drink me a two fifths of whiskey just to get half as high. Tyler gets the harmonica out for his solo, then kicks it over to Joe Perry for a trippy solo of his own.
When faced with a song about a Coney Island White Fish Boy, one must turn to expert an on Coney Island creatures for help on researching the meaning of this phenomenon. Dr. Steven Tyler has this to say about the Coney Island White Fish:
"A Coney Island White Fish is a scumbag. When you lived by the Hudson River like I did, you always saw these things floating by on their way to sea. They were rubbers--guys would tie 'em up and they'd just keep floating. And that, boys and girls, is a Coney Island White Fish."
That said, the seventh song on the album is a fast-paced rocker devoted to the topic, Bone To Bone (Coney Island White Fish Boy), a sleazy fable about a runaway used condom. I won t say any more.
Thankfully, the third and best of the cover songs on the album is a rendition of The Yardbirds Think About It, which is a walloping rocker with an excellent guitar solo and some nice yowling courtesy of Mr. Tyler. The lyrics go a little like this: "When will the clouds all blow it away/When will de good people have their say/Now I hope you're still around to see the day/Take a while, think about it."
The last song in this 35 minute affair, or track nine, is written by Tyler in exclusive dedication to a newborn child named Mia. She was actually the second child with fatherly ties to Steve (Liv Tyler was borne first, albeit out of wedlock), but Mia inspired this closing number. Leading with a great piano melody and sincere vocal ad libbing, the song also features guitar work from Richie Supa (writer of Chip Away The Stone and additional guitarist on No Surprize) and Neil Thompson. But the song is a fitting lullaby, a sparse ballad with Tyler in tip-top shape singing Rock a bye sweet lady, gypsy blue/The nightingale's singin' her song in the rain/Hush a bye sweet lady, soft and new/Don't cha cry, the wind she's-a screamin' your name.
Obviously, Aerosmith wasn t the same after NIGHT IN THE RUTS came out, and that took a toll on the LP s success. Steven Tyler could barely hold a live show together in the shape he was circa 1980, even collapsing onstage. But Aerosmith didn t release that bad of an album here (the only true failure was Remember (Walking In The Sand)), and the result is something which sounds pretty good as it is, but in another life would have been up to par with ROCKS and TOYS IN THE ATTIC.
Hello, everybody. This is John Bishop typing, the DeadMilkboy of Epinions.com. Before I launch into the following review, I d like to mention that this is part of a series of reviews I m writing based on one of the greatest American rock n roll bands in history, AEROSMITH! I d like to thank Aerocat (another Arizona native, bless her soul) for giving me the chance to do something other than write reviews of classic B-movies and current CD/DVD releases, and besides AEROSMITH F*CKING ROCKS! Posted here is the URL to Aerocat s official Epinions.com Aerosmith Write-Off page, and a list of names of other hopeful Aero Force fellas and freaks joining me in the write-off. For reference purposes, I got the lyrics and and quotations/information from www.rockthisway.de and aerosmithlyrics.homestead.com.
URL: http://aerowriteoff.bravepages
MEMBERS: Aerocat, hipyx, matta75, thevoid99, deaser26, netnut746, pt-paratroopa, pmills1210, pearl-drum-man, jeff_wilder78, kcfoxy, fartzarellah, sparkospunky, joubert, mattbjorke, shilmafone, donignacio, ned1, fuche_bu, and frostiepekkle.
NIGHT IN THE RUTS
The year is 1979: Aerosmith had rocked its way through five successful studio albums and a plethora of hard rock classics, but conflicts had been brewing between the band s frontmen. Heavy substance abuse and heated conflicts drove the wedge between singer/lyricist Steven Tyler and lead guitarist Joe Perry. By the end of the year, following near completion of a new album, Joe Perry decided to leave Aerosmith to form the Joe Perry Project, and in 1980, a month after said album, NIGHT IN THE RUTS, made a peak at #14, Brad Whitford left Aerosmith. Two patches were filled, and Aerosmith blustered on.
Recording for NIGHT IN THE RUTS started in May 1979, and wouldn t finish until the end of 1979. The band s music was getting sidetracked by drugs and anger, and even though this album could have resulted as a great return to form, had it not been for the excesses of the moments, NIGHT IN THE RUTS is leaner, meaner and more bawdy than DRAW THE LINE, and isn t the worst of Aerosmith s career (that honor still goes to ROCK IN A HARD PLACE). But still, listening to what came out of this record, the result could have been something of genius. Take as an example the first song on the album.
Steven Tyler penned the lyrics to the album s reflective lead-off track, the blistering No Surprize, which rolls along with ballsy rhythm and plenty of attitude. Joe Perry does some credible guitar work here, squelching electric eighth notes with precision. But the highlight of this song is the lyrics, which reflect the band s beginnings:
? we all heard the starters gun/New York is such a pity, but at Max's Kansas City we won/We all shot the sh*t at the bar, with Johnny O' Toole and his scar/And then old Clive Davis said he's surely gonna make us a star/I'm gonna make you a star, just the way you are/But with all his style, I could see in his eyes/That we is goin' on trial, an it was no surprize.
The beginnings turn out good, but then things aren t all that they are cracked up to be for the rock band:
Ridin' on wheels of hell, smokin' our axle grease/Oh the backstage is rockin' and we're coppin' from the local police So what with all our style, you could see in our eyes/That we is still on trial, baby it's no surprize.
It s the last lines of the song, however, which stood out the most and helped make catch phrases when Tyler was on MTV in 1987 and when he was onstage in 2001 being inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. It s the perfect reflection of all that is wrong with the industry:
Candy store rock n' roll, corporation jellyroll/Play the singles, it ain't me, it's programmed insanity/You ASCAP if BMI could ever make a mountain fly/If Japanese can boil teas, then where the f*ck's my royalties.
Chiquita is also a credible driving force in the album, packing a forceful drum beat, fuzzed out guitar melody, and the old brass section. Steven Tyler still does his usual acrobatic vocal tricks, which never sounded better given the weighty sound here. He screams his odd love story with a wild abandon: She takes me walkin' in de sunshine/She she'll be lovin' 'til de moon shine/Love Chiquita/Oh love Chiquita.
Remember (Walking In The Sand) is a departure from the usual Aerosmith sound in some way, mining the kind of bubblegum appreciation which was best celebrated by The Ramones. It s a cover of a song made famous in the 60s by the female quartet The Shangri La s, whose Leader Of The Pack also proved to be a surprising cover for Twisted Sister. Here, Aerosmith and producer Gary Lyons somehow evoke Phil Spector, which isn t a truly good thing: even though the performance is up to the trick (snapping fingers and harmony vocals), it sounds kind of queer coming from a band whose interest in love was always done best in a bawdy, reckless way. Steven Tyler always was able to do a sensitive vocal, and he does it here, but this was simply single fodder, and even ended up on the band s GREATEST HITS album in 1980, despite peaking at #67.
Track four, Cheese Cake, picks up lost steam, riding a nice slide guitar riff, and slow, bluesy shuffle. Joe Perry said this was a one-take performance, with no overdubs, from a regular 6-string guitar to a lapsteel and back, all live. His performance is one of the best things about this song, as well as the return to the playfully sleazy lyrics of good Aerosmith: I met a babe in a backseat drive-in/Back in the saddle she'd sit/Pulled on the reins just to keep me risin'/She loved to chomp at the bit Cheesecake, looser than her sister/Cheesecake, her sugar gets me high/She knows I can't resist her cheesecake/Got my fingers in her pie, cheesecake.
Three Mile Smile is a chugging rocker that features the most recognizable contribution from second lead guitarist Jimmy Crespo, brought in to fill in the blanks left by Joe Perry. In fact, the story goes that Jimmy Crespo and Brad Whitford had recorded solos for this number, which actually harkens back to the rugged Yardbirds style of the first half of 1974 s Train Kept A Rollin . But Tyler preferred Crespo s riff to Whitford s, and that one ended up on the album much to the dismay of Whitford, who would leave the band himself. It still angers Whitford to this day. Here s a sample lyric from this number: Take a look at my old billy goat/He used to raise all kinds of hell/He took a dose of radiation dope/Back in the barn is where he felt like hell.
It then leads into another blues number, a slow 12-bar novelty called Reefer Headed Woman, which contains the great line I got a reefer headed woman, she fell right down from the sky/Well I gots to drink me a two fifths of whiskey just to get half as high. Tyler gets the harmonica out for his solo, then kicks it over to Joe Perry for a trippy solo of his own.
When faced with a song about a Coney Island White Fish Boy, one must turn to expert an on Coney Island creatures for help on researching the meaning of this phenomenon. Dr. Steven Tyler has this to say about the Coney Island White Fish:
"A Coney Island White Fish is a scumbag. When you lived by the Hudson River like I did, you always saw these things floating by on their way to sea. They were rubbers--guys would tie 'em up and they'd just keep floating. And that, boys and girls, is a Coney Island White Fish."
That said, the seventh song on the album is a fast-paced rocker devoted to the topic, Bone To Bone (Coney Island White Fish Boy), a sleazy fable about a runaway used condom. I won t say any more.
Thankfully, the third and best of the cover songs on the album is a rendition of The Yardbirds Think About It, which is a walloping rocker with an excellent guitar solo and some nice yowling courtesy of Mr. Tyler. The lyrics go a little like this: "When will the clouds all blow it away/When will de good people have their say/Now I hope you're still around to see the day/Take a while, think about it."
The last song in this 35 minute affair, or track nine, is written by Tyler in exclusive dedication to a newborn child named Mia. She was actually the second child with fatherly ties to Steve (Liv Tyler was borne first, albeit out of wedlock), but Mia inspired this closing number. Leading with a great piano melody and sincere vocal ad libbing, the song also features guitar work from Richie Supa (writer of Chip Away The Stone and additional guitarist on No Surprize) and Neil Thompson. But the song is a fitting lullaby, a sparse ballad with Tyler in tip-top shape singing Rock a bye sweet lady, gypsy blue/The nightingale's singin' her song in the rain/Hush a bye sweet lady, soft and new/Don't cha cry, the wind she's-a screamin' your name.
Obviously, Aerosmith wasn t the same after NIGHT IN THE RUTS came out, and that took a toll on the LP s success. Steven Tyler could barely hold a live show together in the shape he was circa 1980, even collapsing onstage. But Aerosmith didn t release that bad of an album here (the only true failure was Remember (Walking In The Sand)), and the result is something which sounds pretty good as it is, but in another life would have been up to par with ROCKS and TOYS IN THE ATTIC.
Review ID: 10000000000210751
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