But I was smart enough to immediately click off on his terms of agreement, unread (as usual). My only condition was that—since my mind does wander a bit--I insisted on some sort of a prompt. I bugged him for a prompt. I begged him for a prompt. And the prompt that Hi-Def dropped on me today goes like this:
“[write about] an album that moved you, changed the way you heard things/saw things. an album that no matter what happens in life, you go back to it and feel something powerful. doesn't matter what genre. doesn't matter what era. write about it from the heart, be true to the feelings you have in you about it.”
This is a very tall order, motherfucker, since there are so many albums that changed me and still move me. If you ask me to do this assignment seven times in seven days you’d get a dozen different reports.
Today I was all set on writing about the Fiery Furnaces’ Blueberry Boat (and thinking how I often cite Slint’s Spiderland as a quick all-time favorite), but instead when I took ‘Def’s advice and closed my eyes and thought about it, I found myself back in Claremont in the late ‘70s riding skateboards and BMXs, being as awkward as you can be, and absorbing all the clues to who I’d someday become.
Specifically, I found myself in the bedroom of the tiny apartment my grandmother and I shared--that was literally on the wrong side of the tracks--listening to everything wondrous on my giant headphones. Headphones were essential in this era because the walls of this tiny apartment were thin and privacy and courtesy were serious considerations. And because I listened to everything on headphones, nothing escaped notice or analysis. Quickly, I got to an album’s essence. This was a blessing for me.
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I don’t know whatever happened to my cool older cousin who introduced me to leisure biking, bicycle customizing, dirty jokes, marijuana (genuine bamboo bong), and music. I’m long overdue in thanking Bruce for doing more for me than he’ll ever understand or remember. Musically, Bruce introduced me to Yes, Boston, the Rolling Stones, Devo, Aerosmith, ELO, ELP, Allman Bros., and other “white boy music.” My father and my uncle grounded me in Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye, Kool and the Gang, and Al Green. But what Bruce played just fuckin' rocked!
When was about eleven, my then high school-aged cousin, Bruce, let me borrow his newly released 8-track tape of Aerosmith’s, Rocks. My life changed in many ways specifically because of this loaner. I became Technicolor Dorothy. I got rocked. I owned Rocks on 8-track and LP once I understood that the 8-track fucked up the playlist.
I know people hate on Aerosmith because since their epic 1978 collapse they’ve been the worst, most cliché, post-rehab bunch of corporate monkeys you’d want to shove into an active volcano. I fully appreciate this assessment, though, and cannot defend anything recorded after Night in the Ruts (with special thanks to Run-DMC for saving their junky asses). The best thing that could have happened to Aerosmith’s legacy would have been for them to crash their tour plane into the earth circa 1979.
But I’ll fight you to death over how awesome Aerosmith was between 1974 and 1977. Nobody rocked harder. Nobody rocked better. There were no bigger Rock Stars.
So having fully absorbed and studied every nuance of Rocks, I then went deep and hard into the Aerosmith back catalog. “Dream On,” from the ’73 debut was still fresh in my young consciousness from AM playlists of third grade. And making that those-are-the-same-guys connection was essential because I had loved that song as an eight year-old. Get Your Wings? I knew every beat, bass line, and guitar solo (“Seasons of Wither,” “Lord of the Thighs”). And 1977’s “Draw the Line” was my Jr. high skateboard jam album (“I Wanna Know Why,” “Kings and Queens,” “Bright Light Fright”).
I know this is unimaginably drawn-out, but the record I’m typing about today is 1975’s Toys in the Attic. Bruce gave me Rocks, but Toys in the Attic was mine. All mine. I had it first, learned it faster, and knew it better than Bruce.
This is Toys:
This is Toys:
Toys is not only a textbook on 4/4 ensemble rock, it was a graduate seminar in hooks. It’s easy to understand my attraction, but it’s the 35-year wake that mesmerizes me. I can air-riff “Toys in the Attic,” I can sing every lyric, and I still FEEL every emotion I ever experienced listening to this record alone through poverty and headphones.
And in the history of the classic piano rock ballad, “You See Me Crying” is my most poignant and personally applicable (followed by “Home Tonight”). I’m a sucker for this shit and it was all about me.
I could draw the Aerosmith wings logo, I saw them at the Santa Monica Civic in 1978, and I fantasized of one day being Steve Tyler or Joe Perry. I lucked out becoming neither. I made my own Steven Tyler mic stand, I pouted my lips like Ugly Joe. I totally got it.
Toys in the Attic was my gateway drug-album into Jimi, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, and others. The rest is history, and is still my future.
Oh, and if their over-produced cocaine records weren't enough, these addicts were a motherfucker live:
Toys in the Attic was my gateway drug-album into Jimi, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, and others. The rest is history, and is still my future.
Oh, and if their over-produced cocaine records weren't enough, these addicts were a motherfucker live:
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Around the beginning of my freshman year in high school my grandmother began limiting my exposure and access to my dear cousin, (don’t bring me down) Bruce. It made sense to me once he began to slip through the cracks of our community. It was all for my own good and shit. I clearly understand this now, but I will never forget what Bruce gave me: Genuine, 100%, white boy rock and roll! Only now could I even discuss a Slint or Fiery Furnaces record, see?
Thank you, Bruce. Every thing I learned about rock and roll you gave me.
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