demon of screamin'

Aerosmith was around for 20 years before I fully discovered them. I grew up in a house saturated by soft rock. Sure it was the 80s and I had my mall tour crap music, but soft rock and oldies is what I mainly heard, thanks to my mom. Rock music was "frowned" upon in my schools too. Pop was all the rage in elementary, and you had to listen to rap/hip hop in my middle school or fear being shunned. I had already gone through my abusive father's death, was dealing with my mother's advancing illness, and going to more funerals than any young child should have to. I didn't want to make things any rougher at school, so my scared uptight self hid behind a facade.

I've thrown myself into celebrity fandom ever since I was 5. It's how I keep sane. Shockingly, I became a huge fan of Wayne's World. I had their silly book and didn't recognize 90 percent of the bands mentioned. Most of those bands are now some of my all time favorites (Zeppelin, Queen, Bowie, 80s metal). When I watched their first movie, Alice Cooper intrigued the hell out of me. I still maintain that Feed My Frankenstein is one of the hottest songs out there. Hendrix's guitars were a whole other world. All this new music was overwhelming my senses, and I was just a little vulnerable 11-year-old who didn't know what to do with it all. This was also the time when rock was taking a backdoor to grunge. Thankfully my new middle school was much more musically open-minded. Nevertheless, I still tried suppressing all these new feelings.

One day I was watching one of Wayne and Garth's MTV specials, and they were going through a list of top video babes. One of them was Alicia Silverstone, whom I'd seen and enjoyed in The Crush (yes, I know). The video was Aerosmith's Cryin'. As my young uptight self was wont to do, I had already written the Boston boys off since they were "ugly" and "loud." But something happened to me that day when I watched that oh-so-naughty video in fascination. I couldn't get the song out of my head. I couldn't go through my day without hearing that harmonica break. I'd sit in English class and daydream Steven Tyler's wailing on constant loop. I started watching MTV just to catch the video. I did see Amazing and Livin' On The Edge, but it was all about Cryin' at first, the song that Tyler describes as "The only song I wrote about a blow job and got away with." As I watched the video win MTV's best video of the year on New Years 1994, I fell in love with Steve. It was right at the part of the video as he sings "You got that certain somethin'" while beckoning to the camera. That was it. He sure as hell did. I was 13 and newly smitten with a 45-year-old rock star!

Aerosmith's music is geared to awaken all repressed sexual buttons. I was a developing and shy teenager. I was stunned and definitely educated by much of their lyrics and videos (see: lyrics to F.I.N.E.). Was such naughtiness allowed?? It certainly intrigued me, the girl who was forced to be good and proper her whole life. Now those men know how to make a music video. I'll embarrassingly admit that I went on a phone search to every music store in the area, trying to track down the absinthe soaked Rag Doll video. Their videos are always very innovative. The virtual reality cybersex in Amazing, the school violence in Livin' On the Edge, the fake phone sex operator in Sweet Emotion (with insane tension between Steven and Joe), Janie's Got A Gun's molestation, the ever-changing bodies in Pink (hello shirtless centaur Joe), the fetish sex in Love In An Elevator...hard to forget. They also got me to realize many things about myself, including that it's ok to find women beautiful in a sexual way. I'd like to thank Ms Silverstone for that revelation as well. I learned that sexuality is wonderfully fluid, and eventually I'd learn to express myself as freely as they did. Oh, and in my next life? I wish to come back as Steve Tyler's microphone stand.

Aerosmith thrives on fun and dirty double entendre. My mind became entrenched in the gutter after getting into them. This was also thanks in part to Steven's ridiculously tight pants and Joe's arms. They were seemingly every mother's nightmare, but not my mom! I bought their 1993 Get A Grip album and devoured every last inch of it. My mother wasn't too enthralled with the pierced cow udder on the cover (or my many piercings years later), but she didn't object. In fact she, the lady who raised me on Streisand, Phil Collins, and showtunes, started liking them too! Over the years, she happily let me buy their books, cassettes, and videos, anything I could get my hands on. After all, it gave her the opportunity to gaze at one Mr. Joe Fuckin Perry (tm ST). I'm pretty pleased that I got her to open her mind like that. Anyway, after having Get a Grip in my walkman 24/7, it was obvious this was a musical obsession that needed to be fed. I went to The Wall, randomly bought their 1989 Pump album, and I never looked back.

Pump is a work of art. There is not one mediocre song on there, and I would gladly upload it right now if not for copyright issues. It's a perfect representation of every classic Aerosmith style. There are mood setting instrumental segues before 3 songs that help make this album so unique. The aforementioned F.I.N.E was obviously a retaliation to the Parental Advisories being enforced by Tipper Gore. What It Takes is a desperate, pissed off ballad that I can listen to on repeat (not a slow tempo fan here). Don't Get Mad, Get Even is the one song I would do anything to hear at a concert, but I sadly don't think they've played it live. It's very bluesy, and they do dark dirty blues oh-so-well. Voodoo Medicine explores their fascination with exotic music, in this case African. They've also experimented with Eastern and Polynesian sounds. The Other Side is one of my favorite horn heavy songs. Aerosmith often employ two instruments that make me melt: horns and harmonicas. Horns are sexy no matter whether the song's from the 30s or 00s. Harmonicas, especially played with the famous Tyler mouth, are so hot that they just might be hawt. Monkey On My Back clearly addresses their past drug addiction; this was truly their comeback album. My Girl is a fun breezy song about a sexually free-spirited girl. It's perhaps the one throwaway song, but it's still very good. And of course, there's Love In An Elevator and Janie's Got A Gun. The song that means the most to me is Young Lust. It's the first song on the album and sets the tone for the next hour. It's just good fast juvenile raunch. It's also the song I remember listening to the last time I saw my step-grandmother alive. I loved her so dearly and sat out in the nursing room hall with my music as her last rites were read. It was the end of a generation in my new life with my stepfamily...many things were about to change just in the coming year alone. I had Aerosmith with me as I grew up.

Aerosmith's sound was heavily influenced by Led Zeppelin, The Yardbirds, Rolling Stones, blues, and jazz. It's very raw and aggressive. Their music certainly isn't for everyone, but I can usually get anyone to admit at least one song that they respect. This often happens to be either Dream On or Walk This Way, but hey...I'll take what I can get! It's my job to introduce gems like Hangman Jury, Train Kept A Rollin', Rats In The Cellar, Kings and Queens, Adam's Apple, The Farm, Aint That a Bitch, The Grind, One Way Street, and especially Mama Kin. Mama Kin is the song that Steven swore would be their first breakout hit, to the point that he got it tattooed on his arm. Their next best album after Pump is 1975's Toys In the Attic, which includes the pre-Run-DMC Walk This Way, Sweet Emotion, and Big Ten Inch Record. I'm not super enthralled with the 2001 Just Push Play album, but they made up for it with their following blues tribute. I just wish they'd stop releasing greatest hits albums with one or two new singles. It's very frustrating because there are definitely a lot of lost songs out there.

13 years later I have accumulated 20 CDs and a ton of other music, videos, shirts, books, etc. I wasn't what you'd call popular, but everyone knew and respected my love for them. I saw them in concert for the first time in Aug '94 on the Get a Grip tour. My best friend's dad took us and another friend. It was my first concert ever, and they also happen to be the closest seats I've ever had for the boys. Her dad still teases me to this day how all he remembers about the concert is me going "AHHHHHHEEEEEE!!!!STEVEN!!!!!!" Same thing happened when I saw the Nine Lives tour in Jan '98. My one friend thinks I made him deaf in his left ear that night. Saw the Girls of Summer tour in Sept '02 and was never more relaxed at a concert. Just chillin' on the lawn with my friends and drinks in front of my boys playing their hearts out for me while underage kids puked from marathon drinking a few feet away. It killed me to see everyone jump up and scream for shit like I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing when they could be rockin' out to Back In The Saddle. It may sound corny, but I never truly felt like an experienced adult until that night. I had the fortune to see them on my birthday in Nov '05. Happy birthday, here's Joe Perry ripping off his shirt and using it to whip the hell out of his guitar. Oh my lord. That night was just glorious yet frustrating....if I had known there would be 3 catwalks throughout the floor seats, my broke ass would have spent an extra $150. Who knows how much longer they'll be touring!

It hurts to see how Steven can no longer do things like back flips and hardcore singing. I know he's even lucky to be alive after living a drug filled life for 20 years. Most people know that the band was heavy into heroin and coke for years, but they all got clean and reunited by the time Permanent Vacation was released in 1986. As I'm sure many have heard, Steven Tyler recently revealed that he's had Hepatitis C for years. I'll be honest, I sat right here in my computer chair and cried as if it were my own family. I know he's still alive and functioning fine, but it's a real kick in the heart to realize your idols are mortal. The thought of losing his beautifully warped, screechy, brilliant sensibility is too much for me to comprehend now. Joe Perry, Joey Kramer, Tom Hamilton, Brad Whitford, and especially Steven Tyler, were with me as I grew up. They narrated my adolescence through adulthood, my sexual awakening, my heartache, my achievements, and cured my insatiable need for hard rock with real layers and flavor. I learned how to feel and be alive through them.