The arrival of summer means two things for this blog. First, I no longer have school as an excuse to convince myself that I’m too busy to update this thing. Second, now that I have a job that pays me in real-life dollars, and not only life experience, I have enough extra scratch to buy new music every week. Add these two up and what you get is a (hopefully) weekly post from yours truly. Each Friday, I take my paycheck to the bank to deposit it with roughly the same vigor that LeBron James takes the ball to the basket (you know, as long as it’s the first three quarters of a game). After doing so, I drive straight to CD Central to get my fix for 1) supporting local business (how hippie-ish of me, right?) and 2) new/old music. Each week, I hope to post about my purchases and why you should emulate my impeccable taste in music.
Aerosmith—Rock In a Hard Place (1982)
The only Aerosmith release to not feature guitarists Brad Whitford and Joe Perry, both of whom left due to “creative differences” (code for a I really fucking hate those assholes) in the years prior to the recording of the album. Few people bought this when it was released and even fewer know about it know. And this is a shame. The album was considered a flop at the time, which is true to a degree since it sold like shit and cost $1.5 Million to make (an unbelievable amount at the time).
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| Tyler performing fucked up circa 1982 |
However, there is more than enough redeeming material on this album to rank it comfortably in my Top Ten Aerosmith albums. This is Steven Tyler at his weirdest and druggiest, and I fucking love it. There is a 70-second vocoder prelude to a song about butterflies, rocking horses and….well, a bunch of other weird shit (“Prelude to Joanie/Joanie’s Butterfly”), which honestly, sounds like a late-60’s Beatles song and makes me long for a one-hitter. Tyler also performs to be what I think is his finest vocal performance ever on the cover of the Arthur Hamilton-penned Julie London-sang “Cry Me a River” (if anyone sees this title and thinks of that fucking Justin Timberlake song, so help me God). We’re also treated to some quintessential, delightful Tyler perversion in songs about those girls who are oh-so-tempting but may also get us thrown in the crowbar motel (“Jailbait”) and good, old-fashioned fucking while high (“Bolivian Ragamuffin”). Throw in a straight ahead rocker about engaging in a round of fisticuffs with one’s rival (“Lightnin’ Strikes”) and we have a pretty damn good album. And that’s before we even get to the female misogyny (“Bitch’s Brew”). Finally, although on the surface, the album closer “Push Comes to Shove” appears to be your traditional break-up/lost love song. However, I have always seen it as Tyler venting about the loss of the most important relationship in his life, the one he has with bandmate, songwriting partner and fellow substance connoisseur Joe Perry (“You said ‘the music does the talkin’ but all you’ve done is talk about”)
Thus, the lyrics are traditional Tyler with a few twists and new, stoned directions thrown in. And frankly, they’re infinitely more interesting than anything he has written in the past 15 years at least. His performance on the album is a bit uneven, very strong at some points, especially the aforementioned “Cry Me a River.” On this one, there is the perfect combination of the right drugs that day, the right song choice and one of the most gifted rock singers that ever lived. A masterpiece. However, there are times when it is clear that Tyler is unhealthy and you can hear the drugs affect his performance. This is not an entirely bad thing. In the strain of his voice, you can hear the authenticity of strung-out, living-on-the-edge-of-an-overdose rock star. And you know what? I dig it. So there.
Although this will be an affront to many Aerosmith fans (especially the soccer mom contingent), I have to say that I think Jimmy Crespo brings a lot to this album. Given the impossible task of filling Anthony Joseph Perry’s shoes as the lead guitarist for the American Stones, Crespo does a bang-up job and even does a few things superior to Perry. He handles nearly all of the guitar parts on the album. His balls-out, punch-you-in-the-dick riff in “Bitch’s Brew” is not only one of my favorite Aerosmith riffs of all time, it’s on my short list of all-time favorites. He does a good deal of tasteful acoustic work on “Joanie’s Butterfly” and takes a refreshing less-is-more approach on “Cry Me a River.” Plus, he also melds perfectly into Aerosmith’s always underrated ability to bring the funk with his work on “Bolivian Ragamuffin,” “Rock in a Hard Place,” and “Jig is Up.”
Chances are anyone reading this does not own this album. Chances also are that anyone reading this has probably gotten laid while listening to “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing.” And that depresses the hell outta me. So, for my sake, buy this album. Best $3.99 you’ll ever spend.
Bob Dylan—“Love and Theft” (2001)
It’s a rare sight for an artist to continue producing relevant music into their 60s, years that most artists reserve to appear on VH1 countdowns, play at state fairs and host glorified talent shows. It’s even rarer for said artist to produce what one could arguably call one of his greatest achievements. This is exactly what Bob did with “Love and Theft,” a title borrowed from an early 1990s study of minstrel shows (hence the quotation marks).
At the time of the release of this album, Bob was in the midst of an artistic and critical resurgence that began with the 1997’s Time Out of Mind. Most critics were quick to point to “Love and Theft” as a continuation of Time Out of Mind, but (as usual) they are wrong. Time Out of Mind has Bob ruminating and coming to terms with aging and the imminent demise of his powers. The album was a major achievement for Dylan but the subject matter was very heavy on death, echoing the theme of some of Dylan’s earlier work with songs like “Not Dark Yet” with its death-is-approaching chorus (“It’s Not Dark Yet, but it’s gettin’ there”) or “Highlands,” in which the narrator curses his fate as an aging man with nothing left in this realm whose heart is already in “the highlands.”
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| Bob looking wonderfully raggedand a bit confused on the album cover |
While “Love and Theft” confronts the idea of aging, it does so in a playful, boastful and humorous way that Time Out of Mind does not. On this album, Bob’s voice is delightfully ragged and there is a lilt and energy expressed that is nowhere to be found on Time Out of Mind. Despite the lack of range in his voice these days, Bob still conjures an expressiveness from the phrasing he uses that most singers spend their careers searching in vain for. In “Mississippi,” he pulls off one of my favorite lines in recorded music history. As the music builds to a crescendo where most singers would want to oversing and get into the proverbial dick-waving contest, Dylan uses subtlety and nuance in the emphasis of his words and the pauses when he sings, “I need some-thin strong to dis-tract my mind, I’m gonna look at you ‘til my eyes go blind.” In those lines he captures an honest yearning for the glance of this woman to push his troubles out of his head.
Speaking of “Mississippi,” it is one of the most crucial songs on the album and (in my mind) should have been the lead track. It sounds as if Dylan is giving us an updated version of “Tangled Up in Blue,” with the narrator is consumed with a woman whose love he lost through some mistake or event that we are given only one vague hint as to what this was (“Only one thing I did wrong, I stayed in Mississippi a day to long”). “Mississippi” takes the framework one step further and has the narrator reflecting on this at the end of his life. And although this life seems to have been fraught with difficulty (“My ships been split to splinters and it’s sinkin’ fast, I’m drownin’ in the poison, got no future got no past”), the life was one that the narrator ultimately enjoyed and looks back upon fondly (“But my heart is not weary, it’s light and it’s free; I got nothin’ but affection for all those who have sailed with me”). Here the album’s theme of fond reflection and graceful aging is expressed perfectly.
One of the most underrated aspects of Dylan’s catalogue is his use of humor in his lyrics. This is present in heaps on this album. “Lonesome Day Blues” has the narrator recounting various events from different times in his life (as old people are prone to do) in alternating fits of humor and irony (“Samantha Brown stayed in my house ‘bout four or five months; don’t know how it looked to other people, but I never slept with her even once”) and with great non sequiturs (“Leaves are rustlin’ in the wood, things are fallin’ off the shelf; you’re gonna need my help sweetheart, you can’t make love all by yourself”). “Po’ Boy” gives us Dylan reciting some tongue-in-cheek jokes that one may hear their eccentric uncle make (Po’ Boy in the hotel called The Palace of Gloom, he called down to room service and says ‘send up a room.’). We also see Bob dropping phrases like “Hop into the wagon babe, throw them panties overboard” and “makin’ a 2 a.m. booty call.” The effect of the horniness in these lyrics is both hilarious and horrifying, much as if you’re grandpa were to throw these phrases out at Thanksgiving dinner.
“Love and Theft” also has Dylan creating several twisted, instantly memorable characters that come straight out of Dylan’s folk and country roots. There’s the duo of ne’er-do-wells causing trouble and getting wasted at Mardi Gras in “Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum,” the troubadour reflecting on the life he has lived and those who have been a part of it in “Mississippi,” the worn-out-but-still-full-of-piss-and-vinegar of the old tobacco hand in “Floater,” the good-humored, down on his luck drifter in “Po’ Boy,” and the narrator in “Bye and Bye” whose devotion to his lady becomes increasingly stalkerish as the song progresses (“You were my first love, and you’ll be my last” and “I’m gonna baptize you in fire so you can sin no more”). All of these wonderful characters serve as a furtherance of the folk-music tradition of celebrating memorable, vivid characters who are both enthralling and somewhat terrifying, with the perfect example in “Floater” of the field hand who muses fondly on going down the “Ohio, the Cumberland, the Tennessee, all the rest of them rebel rivers” but warns in the next breath that “If you ever try to interfere with me or cross my path again, You do so at the peril of your life.” All of these characters share the common theme of being rather aged but run the gauntlet from hilarious to horny to terrifying. Bob at his best.
For me, the highlight of the album is “High Water,” Dylan’s version of the events of the Great Louisiana Flood of 1927, the flood in which songs by Memphis Minnie and Led Zeppelin are based. In his version, Dylan gives a chilling adaptation of the events of the flood itself (“High water risin’, the shacks are slidin’ down; folks lose their possessions, folks are leavin’ town” and later “High water risin’ 6 inches ‘bove my head; coffins droppin’ in the street like balloons made out of lead”). However, Dylan takes it a step further and uses the flood as a backdrop for the racial and political climate of the South in this era, singing of a woman warning that “you dance with who they tell you to, or you don’t dance at all” and a judge calling for the execution of that heretic Charles Darwin. The track itself is propelled by an ominous banjo, a rocking rhythm section and periodic moans that give a chilling sense of foreboding. My favorite song on one of Bob’s best albums. Good stuff.
Speaking of the album’s music, it would be a crime to verbally fellate Dylan for this album without giving credit to the music itself. As Bob grows older, he has dug deeper into his roots in rural country and folk music, combining them with a sense of blues and rock. This has the effect of giving the listener a tour of the history of American music. The album ranges from jump blues (“Cry a While,”) rockabilly (“Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum,” countrified rock (“Mississippi”), lounge balladry (“Moonlight” and “Po’ Boy”), straight ahead rock (“Honest With Me” and “Summer Days”), foreboding folk-country (“High Water”) and the traditional, 12-bar blues of “Lonesome Day Blues.” The album continues Dylan’s recent trend by placing a spooky, dirge-like ballad at the conclusion; in this case it is “Sugar Baby,” a sparse song filled with apocalyptic imagery ala “Desolation Row.” The album was recorded with Bob’s touring band at the time, who had been with him for several years and countless shows. The move was a wise one, as the band is incredibly capable and perfectly comfortable pulling off so many various song structures and musical styles.
So, there you have it. I just spent a couple thousand words doing everything but taking a picture of myself splooging on the album cover. Thus, it must be good. So buy it. And then come thank me.
Good times and happy listening to all,
Cam.
