The Fat Angel Sings

Aerosmith finally broke through with 1975 album “Toys in the Attic“, but their collective creativity was still peaking. So they went right back into their private studio, the Wherehouse just outside of Boston, to rehearse fresh material before moving the proceedings to the Record Plant in New York City.

There was a lot to live up to, beyond the success of “Toys in the Attic”. January saw Columbia Records re-release “Dream On,” and the three-year-old single finally caught on as a rightful anthem on U.S. rock radio right alongside Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” and Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” It was the first Aerosmith track to reach the Top 10,  “Rocks” arrived in stores following that milestone on May 1976.

Guitarist Joe Perry had wanted to call their previous album “Rocks“, but the title suited this nine-song follow up much better. It’s a thick and ballsy statement LP that most acts can only dream of putting together.

“Diamonds are called rocks, and nothing is harder than a diamond,” Perry said in his book named after the record, Rocks: My Life In and Out of Aerosmith. “I wanted the hardest-rocking record imaginable.”

Producer Jack Douglas was back onboard, and he came up with the idea to bring the Record Plant’s mobile recording truck to Massachusetts and back it into the Wherehouse. This way Aerosmith could use the comfortability and warm sound of their home turf to begin building out a fuller record more representative of their truest musicianship.

Perry and Steven Tyler were writing songs at the singer’s new house in Lake Sunapee, N.H., while the rest of the group started pre-production with Douglas. “Rocks” would see guitarist Brad Whitford and bassist Tom Hamilton taking on a greater role in the songwriting process, with Douglas encouraging them along the way.

“This was a big album for Aerosmith,” Douglas said in Walk This Way: The Aerosmith Autobiography. “It had to make a big statement about how loud and hard they were, how unapologetic they felt about being who they were – this brash, rude, sexual hardcore rock band.”

The result was one of Aerosmith’s very best records, and a moment of inspiration for a slew of musicians – notably Slash from Guns N’ Roses and James Hetfield of Metallica.

Here’s a track-by-track breakdown of how they got there:

“Back in the Saddle”
Inspired by country crooner Gene Autry’s “Back in the Saddle Again,” Douglas wanted Tyler to use the image as a metaphor for the band’s quick return.

“Steven went into the stairwell for two hours,” Douglas said in Walk This Way, “and came back with reams of paper with ideas on them, and we cut the vocals.”

Douglas placed a shotgun microphone 10 inches away from Tyler’s mouth to capture his notorious screams. The singer then started playing with the effects on the device, and moved his head so he’d be singing under or above it at different points, resulting in a raspy and in-your-face delivery.

Tyler also handled the sound effects, stomping his cowboy boots on a large piece of plywood for a tough, rootsy effect. He created the sound of spurs by gaffer taping tambourines and bells to each, with help from David Johansen after the New York Dolls singer had stopped by the studio. Tyler used two coconut halves to mimic galloping horses, heard toward the end of the track.

There were multiple, ill-fated and injury-plagued takes, however, as Tyler tried to add a bullwhip. He eventually settled on using a 30-foot microphone cord in its place, with a cap gun to get the cracking sound. Perry came up with the riff on a six-string bass while doing heroin in his bedroom, as “Back in the Saddle” became one of a handful of “Rocks” tracks born out of his and Tyler’s usage of the drug.

“The music flew out of me – all the parts, all the riffs. It came in one special delivery package,” Perry said in his autobiography. “I was still in the stage when the drugs were opening doors to my imagination. And I was lucky enough to have a connection that got me heroin as close to pure as I would ever see.”

This was also the first of five songs where Whitford played lead guitar, hinting at the larger role he’d take on “Rocks“. “Back in the Saddle” later became the album’s final single, just cracking the Top 40 in early 1977.

Last Child”
Whitford came up with the riff for “Last Child,” earning a co-writing credit while developing it further with Tyler at the drums. Perry then came up with some chord changes, and Douglas invited guest picker Paul Prestopino into the sessions when the band decamped to New York City to finish the record.

“There’s a slide guitar part on ‘Last Child’ that I had Paul double with what we called a ‘slide banjo,’” Douglas said. “There’s not supposed to be such a thing, but this metallic sound gave the song a subtle, organic feel that sounded great on a rock ‘n’ roll record. Steven just loved that kind of stuff.” “Last Child” reached No. 21 when it was released as the first single from “Rocks”.

Rats in the Cellar”
“I wrote ‘Rats in the Cellar’ as a tip of the hat, or an answer to ‘Toys in the Attic,’” Tyler said in his memoir Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? “Rat/cellar – toys/attic. Meanwhile, in real life, ‘Rats’ was more like what was actually going on. Things were coming apart, sanity was scurrying south, caution was flung to the winds, and little by little chaos was permanently moving in.”

Originally titled “Tit for Tat,” the song was heavily inspired by Fleetwood Mac’s “Searching for Madge.” Perry’s chugging, bluesy, classic solo aligned perfectly with Tyler’s lyrics.

“Both he and I were intent on getting into the grit and grime of the basement,” Perry said in Rocks: My Life In and Out of Aerosmith. “The band was getting lower, downer and dirtier, so the cellar seemed like the best place to go. That’s where we found the rats.”

According to Hamilton, “Rats in the Cellar” epitomized where the band was musically at the time. “The end of ‘Rats’ is this fuckin’ thing that builds and builds,” he said in Walk This Way. “It’s us doing the Yardbirds’ trip – because we were so blown away by the idea of taking this music and making it balls to the wall.”

“Combination”
Perry arrived with a stockpile of riffs for songs – but that’s all they were. So out of pure boredom, he started writing lyrics. The result was Perry’s first shared lead vocal, as “Combination” in many ways became his signature track as a singer.

“This was a touchy subject because singing was Steven’s jealously guarded territory,” Perry said in Rocks: My Life In and Out of Aerosmith. “Being in a band with one of the best singers in the world set up an inevitable comparison. In that comparison, I ain’t gonna look too good. But what the fuck? I couldn’t let that stop me. As the great blues prophet John Lee Hooker once said, ‘If it’s in him, it’s gotta come out.’

“Beyond that, anytime the spotlight shone on me, I detected a bit of jealousy from the other guys,” Perry added. “After a while, though, the band came around and supported me, as long as I sang the song as a semi-duet with Steven.”

“Sick as a Dog”
One of the earliest songs put together for the album, “Sick as a Dog” grew out of a rough Hamilton idea initially dubbed “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” What made the track unique is that the bass player switched to guitar, while Perry was on bass.

When the band recorded “Sick as a Dog” at the Record Plant, Perry would take off the bass and hand it to Tyler, then pick up a guitar to do his solo. “Looking like the Keystone Cops, we did this three or four times before we figured out who was going to run where and through what door,” Perry said in his autobiography. “It took a while, but we ended up with a great live take.”

“Nobody’s Fault”
“Nobody’s Fault” is, along with “Round and Round” from “Toys in the Attic“, one of the darkest and hardest compositions in the Aerosmith catalogue. In fact, it’s so heavy that the thrash band Testament saw fit to cover it on their second record, 1988’s The New Order.

As with “Round and Round,” “Nobody’s Fault” was co-written by Whitford, who also handled both lead and rhythm guitar. “I had this one lick that lasted about a minute,” Whitford said in Walk This Way. “We recorded it and Jack wrote ‘Soul Saver’ on the box. We kept changing it until we had a different sounding take on this cool lick.”

Tyler’s lyrics echo the bleakness of the music, with an earthquake theme inspired by the natural disaster in Nicaragua that left thousands dead in 1972. A subsequent temblor in southern California, then learning about the fault line that ran underneath a New Jersey nuclear-power plant, ended up sparking a deep-seated band-wide fear – but also an inspirational performance.

Tyler calls this track “one of the highlights of my creative career” in Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?, while Joey Kramer said “Nobody’s Fault” features some of the best drumming he’s ever done.

“Get the Lead Out”
Oozing sex and sleaze, “Get the Lead Out” is a showcase for Perry, who called the song a “straight-up exhortation to get up and dance” in Rocks: My Life In and Out of Aerosmith.

Tyler wanted to get an opera singer to double his voice for a portion of the track where he sings, “No no/No no/No no.” Douglas recruited an unknown from the Metropolitan Opera to come to the studio.

“But he couldn’t anticipate the note because in opera there’s nothing before the downbeat,” Douglas said in Walk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith. “We worked with him all night, blew his voice out, and in the end, I had to move the vocal up by playing it off the synch-head instead of the playback head. I think we traumatized the poor guy.”

“Lick and a Promise”
Led by Kramer’s fade-in drum intro, “Lick and a Promise” is about playing for and winning over an audience according to Tyler. “Such a snapshot of us in those days, a clear moment in time for me,” he said in Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?

The song was meant to sound like Aerosmith were playing live, and there’s a part in the final third where listeners can hear a crowd calling for more. In reality, there were just six people in the studio – including drug dealers and assistants.

Douglas recorded them and doubled it, then repeated that and boosted it until the recording came to resemble an arena full of fans.

“Home Tonight”
Stylistically like nothing else on “Rocks”, “Home Tonight” repeated the “Toys in the Attic” formula of closing things out with a ballad, much as that LP did with “You See Me Crying.”

Aerosmith had high hopes for the track, which grew out of a turn by Tyler at the piano. They released it as this project’s second single, hoping “Home Tonight” would follow in the hitmaking footsteps of “Dream On.” Instead, the track didn’t make much of an impact, stalling at No. 71 on the charts.

Tyler later underscored the connection by occasionally performing a snippet of “Home Tonight” as an in-concert intro to “Dream On.”

The aptly named “Rocks” is hands down one of the best rock albums of the 1970s. Recorded right before the band free-fell into a morass of addiction and bad vibes, “Rocks” is Aerosmith at their hot mess best. It’s firmly in my top ten favourite rock albums. This shit is savage.

“Sick as a Dog” and “Lick and a Promise” are particular favourites. We all know “Last Child” and “Back in the Saddle,” two of Aerosmith’s most blistering jams. If you maintain that Sober Aerosmith lost its edge in the 80s and 90s, this is the record for you to have.

 Jenny Lewis has confirmed her fifth solo album “Joy’All” is coming out June 9th via Blue Note/Capitol Records. The announcement comes with new single “Psychos,” which might have the realest lyric I’ve heard in a minute: “I’m not a psycho / I’m just trying to get laid.” Amen!

“I started writing some of these songs on the road, pre-pandemic,” Lewis said about the album. “Then put them aside as the world shut down, and then from my home in Nashville in early 2021, I joined a week-long virtual songwriting workshop with a handful of amazing artists, hosted by Beck. The challenge was to write one song every day for seven days, with guidelines from Beck. The guidelines would be prompts like ‘write a song with 1-4-5 chord progression,’ ‘write a song with only cliches,’ or ‘write in free form style.’” 

“Joy’All”out June 9th via Blue Note/Capitol Records.

The Canadian indie-rock band The New Pornographers have graced the new year with a new single from their upcoming album, “Really Really Light,” from “Continue as a Guest”, set to release on March 31st with Merge Records. Singer/guitarist A.C. Newman took an old track written by Destroyer’s Dan Bejar that didn’t make their 2014 album “Brill Bruisers” and reworked it into something new. It has a classic feel to it, with Newman drawing inspiration from artists like Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty.

The best New Pornographers songs are more than the sum of their very talented parts. That’s the case for several tracks on “Continue As Guest”, the ninth album from the band, whose members now include A.C. Newman, Neko Case, Kathryn Calder, Todd Fancey, John Collins and Joe Seiders. Longtime member Dan Bejar co-wrote the opening track “Really Really Light” with Newman but is otherwise uncredited on the LP, which was largely recorded remotely.

Standout track “Bottle Episodes” captures the claustrophobia and societal breakdown common in pandemic-era music, but Newman’s perspective is as razor-sharp as ever: “Seen you with some famous shadows, not familiar but I’ve seen the names / And the two-way mirrors on the ceiling stretch them into funhouse shapes / Here inside the TV glow of these bottle episodes.”

Players:
A.C. Newman – vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards
John Collins – bass, guitar, keyboards
Joe Seiders – drums, vocals
Kathryn Calder – keyboards, vocals
Neko Case – vocals
Todd Fancey – guitar
Zach Djanikian – bass, guitar, soprano and tenor saxophones

Additional player:
Paul Rigby – pedal steel

The New Pornographers’ new album ‘Continue as a Guest’ out 3/31/23 on Merge Records.

“Crispy Crunchy Nothing” is a love letter to being alive even with all the nitty gritty details considered. The sophomore album from the Toronto/Ottawa-based band Packs, it encapsulates all of the messy, magical, and confusing moments that make up the human condition. Its 14 tracks offer a slice of life that doesn’t shy away from the painful lows or exhilarating highs we all face. The follow-up to “WOAH“, their stripped-down EP released over the summer, 

Madeline reunited with bandmates Dexter Nash (lead guitar), Noah O’Neil (bass) and Shane Hooper (drums, backup vocals) for a weeklong recording retreat at a cabin on Lac Sarrazin in rural Quebec that they dubbed the Trout House, where the quartet bashed out all of the album’s 14 tracks and where the sauna doubled as nightly ritual and recording booth. After spending 18 months fleshing out demos over a Google Drive folder, uncertain of the band’s IRL future, the week was propelled by the kinetic energy of old friends reuniting in person, making sense of the smorgasbord of gear they crammed into the cabin.

And while the specter of death looms over “Crispy Crunchy Nothing” and its brisk, folk-rock vignettes of loneliness, yearning and confusion, so too does Madeline’s sense of humour. It’s bone-dry, tucked within her drawling vocals, and buried beneath guitars that alternately sneer and twang. But it’s there, the album’s beating heart — a sense of purpose and unflinching resolve evident even in its title, taken from Madeline’s description of biting into a moldy apple. 

“Crispy Crunchy Nothing” sees the quartet returning to the gleaming garage rock that defined their 2021 debut, “Take The Cake”. At it again with a full band to back her, band leader Madeline Link combines the scruffy sound that put Packs on the map with country influences, both contemporary and classic, to create an album that sounds like it was made by the kids that would sneak booze into the state fair. Simultaneously incorporating the woozy-whimsy of Alex G and the twang of legends like Hank Williams (who Link would listen to with her dad during lockdown), they cover as much ground sonically as they do emotionally. 

From “Take The Cake” out 5/21 on Fire Talk / Royal Mountain.

In terms of packaging, Roxy Music’s suave European futurism was glam incarnate. If you’re looking for a single image to accompany glam’s encyclopedic entry then look no further than “For Your Pleasure’s” inner sleeve. Bryan Ferry’s bolero Elvis; Andy MacKay’s green-flecked quiff; Eno’s space age lady-boy… here, at last, was an album that looked exactly like it sounded. A million stylistic miles from the sluttiness of their contemporaries, Roxy Music offered sophistication, ennui and lounge lizard languor. No proletarian foot-stomping on “In Every Dream Home A Heartache”, just casual, alienated, impenetrable cool.

The track from their second album “For Your Pleasure”, released in March 1973. Placed at the end of the LP’s first side, many listeners mistakenly lifted the turntable arm prematurely due to the fake fade-out. But the song fades in again with a glorious phase shift effect. Phil Manzanera plays a fantastic guitar solo to close that song.

“For Your Pleasure” captured the group’s zany art school whimsy in glittering hits like ‘Editions of You’ and its only single, ‘Do the Strand’. The latter opens the album to introduce a fast fashion theme intrinsic to the glam era and in keeping with the glamorous cover photo of Ferry’s then-partner, Amanda Lear. The album throbs with lavish opulence in the instrumentals and Ferry’s sensual croon, but as early on as ‘Beauty Queen’, the LP’s second track, shadows are never far away. As Ferry sings: “Valerie please believe / It never could work out / The time to make plans / Has passed, faded away,” all hope has already been dashed in the opening lines of the song. 

Brian Ferry talked about the album:

“The first album was interesting and obviously pointed to several different directions, but “For Your Pleasure” was a big album for me. We’d been on the road and were much more experienced and integrated. We recorded in Air Studios with engineers in lab coats, high above Oxford Street, with people running around below. It felt like the center of everything. The album just felt more mature: darker, with better singing.”

Brian Eno talked about him leaving the band after this album:

“It was a typical clash of young male egos. What had happened was that because I was visually so bizarre-looking, I got a lot of press attention. I made good photographs. That distorted the impression of where the creative leadership of the band was. It was definitely Bryan’s band.”

Roxy Music performing “In Every Dream Home a Heartache” live on the BBC program The Old Grey Whistle Test. First broadcast on April 3rd, 1973.

The band’s second full-lengther, their last stand with Eno on board, their sonic high watermark. The A side has the hits (“Do The Strand”, “Editions Of You”, “In Every Dream Home A Heartache”), but I says the B side is even better: the epic, metronomic, Krauty stomp of “The Bogus Man” and the ambient gloom of the title track being the highlights. No other band sounded like them at that time, which is why they were the best UK outfit of the early ’70s

The sinister edge of the album bleeds into the second side and its nine-minute documentation of a sexual stalker on the loose, pursuing his wicked fantasies, ‘The Bogus Man’. The track displays Roxy Music’s staggering level of sonic command with a bouncing rhythm teeming with furtive tension that’s somehow more revealing of the song’s narrative than the lyrics. “For Your Pleasure” finally takes a bow with its classy title track, which begins an airy ballad but works itself into a perfect sound storm infused with an impressive blend of tape loop effects. The track perfectly exemplifies the album’s most admirable quality: combining pop sensibilities with a progressive edge is no easy feat. 

Roxy Music’s saxophonist Andy Mackey once said: “We were never a typical rock ‘n’ roll band. We were basically a group of art students, and my focus was always about creating this theatrical style and look, a really strong image.”

Andy MacKay: Farfisa organ, saxophone

Bryan Ferry: vocals, rhythm guitar

Brian Eno: VCS 3 synthesizer, tape effects

Paul Thompson: Drums

Phil Manzanera: Guitar

John Porter: Bass

After releasing their first four albums in less than three years, Led Zeppelin took what seemed like forever to release their fifth. In fact, it was less than 17 months. But after the regularity of their previous releases, the gap this time seemed eternal.

On March 28th, 2023, the 50th anniversary of “Houses of the Holy”, Jimmy Page shared some insight into the recording process. “My original idea for the opening tracks… was that a short overture would be a rousing instrumental introduction with layered electric guitars that would segue in to ’The Seasons,’ later to be re-titled ‘The Rain Song.’ Again there would be a contrasting acoustic guitar instrumental movement with melotron that could lead to the first vocal of the album and the first verse of the song.

Page continued. “The first set of recordings were done at Olympic Studios with George Chkiantz. We then came to record at Stargroves, Sir Mick Jagger’s country home, and like Headley Grange, with the Rolling Stones’ recording truck.

“‘The Song Remains The Same’ was played on a Fender 12 string, the same one used on ‘Becks Bolero,’ with my trusty Les Paul Number One on overdubs in a standard turning. The ‘Rain Song’ was an unorthodox tuning on acoustic and electric guitars. On live shows, it became a work-out feature for the double neck.”

“I had a home demo of ‘The Rain Song’, but unfortunately the tapes have been lost. Which is a real bastard,” he said at the time. “I literally had the full piece from beginning to end. I had the Mellotron idea and everything on it.”

For the album’s cover art the band and their management turned to the accomplished English design studio, Hipgnosis, for inspiration. Co-founder Aubrey Powell, inspired by Arthur C. Clarke’s 1953 science fiction novel, Childhood’s End, selected the remote area in Northern Ireland called Giant’s Causeway, a natural series of rock and columns which attracts over one million visitors each year, for the location of a photo shoot.

Siblings Stefan Gates—just five at the time—and his slightly older sister, Samantha, were selected for what proved to be a treacherous assignment. The children were pictured on the cover as they ascended the rocky terrain. Both are unclothed. There are laws in place that allow the use of photographs of underage, nude models in art, provided the images are not indecent, obscene or pornographic. (The Protection of Children Act is in place to ensure that children are not exploited.)

“Houses of the Holy” was released on March 28th, 1973. The album, featuring such Led Zeppelin favourites as “Over the Hills and Far Away,” “Dy’er Maker” and “The Song Remains the Same”—but not, ironically, the song “Houses of the Holy”—was another enormous success, reaching #1 in both the U.K. and U.S.

On April 26th, 2019, Michelle W, the administrator of the popular Led Zeppelin–Ultimate Fan Page group on Facebook wrote: “So…apparently Facebook has decided to remove my previous post this morning that included a link to a petition that someone started regarding being blocked/banned for posting anything that included the “Houses of the Holy” album cover.

“Facebook told me that my post violated their Community Standards resulting in it being removed. I have requested a review. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like they will allow any posting of that album. “It appears that those who control what goes on Facebook allow the hate crimes, demeaning posts to women and sexually explicit pages yet continue to block/ban an iconic album cover.”

Three days later, Michelle wrote: “Facebook continues to remove and ban posts related to “Houses of the Holy“. So just to test things, I reported Nirvana’s album cover. You would think a baby boy’s penis would go against their standards…but as you can see, it doesn’t. “I figured if they are going crazy removing all trace of the “Houses of the Holy” cover for nudity, why not Nirvana? It’s interesting how one cover that depicts nudity is not against the standards, but a 46-year-old classic album does.

“Who would have thought that in 2019, an album cover could cause so much trouble on a social media site that allows much worse.” It took a while, but Facebook’s “problem” with the album cover was finally resolved.

Boygenius, the supergroup featuring Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus, and Phoebe Bridgers, announced their debut full-length album, “the record”, and shared three new songs from it: “$20,” “Emily I’m Sorry,” and “True Blue.” There was much debate over which of the three songs we liked best, with a strong case made for “True Blue.” We’ve settled on “$20,” which is led by Baker and the more rocking of the three tracks.

As solo artists, Baker (27), Bridgers (28) and Dacus (27) inspire a level of devotion that borders on zealotry – drawing frenzied audiences, spawning memes and tabloid gossip. They are queer-identifying, vocal about issues from abortion to trans rights to colonialism, while their songwriting, which tends to be smart, introspective and somewhat melancholic, has handed each of them the peculiar charge of articulating the feelings of a generation.

As Boygenius, the “supergroup” they formed in 2018, the intensity of adoration has only magnified. Perhaps not since Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt united for 1987’s Trio has a songwriters’ supergroup incited such anticipation. The expectation around their debut album, “The Record”, is fevered. “I want people to like it because we like it,” says Dacus, sitting beside her bandmates in a photo studio in lower Manhattan. 

“The record” is due out March 31st via Interscope.

Boygenius formed in 2018 and released their self-titled debut EP the same year via Matador. The trio self-produced “the record”, which was recorded at Shangri-la Studios in Malibu, California. In June 2020, a week after she released her acclaimed sophomore album “Punisher”, Bridgers sent the demo for “Emily I’m Sorry” to Baker and Dacus and asked if Boygenius could record music again. Baker then created a Google Drive folder called “dare I say it?” and the three songwriters began adding potential songs to it. Then after all three were vaccinated, the trio got together in person in April 2021 to truly begin writing the album. The band then recorded “the record” at Shangri-la in January 2022 over the course of a month, working for 10 hours every day.

Technically, “True Blue”  I do really like the song and Lucy Dacus’ evocative storytelling, “$20” is a cleaner hit to the gut. But had “True Blue” been the only boygenius song released this week.

The debut album from the indie rock supergroup of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus. This highly-anticipated collection takes the artistry of each member to a whole new level, combining the elements that make their music great. Dacus adds a touch of irreverent wit, Bridgers offers a gentle melancholy, and Baker brings ferocity. Imperfect but beautiful, this combination creates an unforgettable listening experience.

“My favourite thing about this band is that it’s fun for me, it’s a respite for me,” says Baker. “My real-life friendships with you both are among the dearest relationships in my life,” she tells Dacus and Bridgers. Releasing an album feels “like you’re at the top of a big rollercoaster that everyone keeps hyping because they’re excited about you being good at what you do. I was super-anxious there wouldn’t be time to cultivate our friendship. I was precious and protective of it.”

It was recently announced that boygenius will be playing Coachella in America this April, which sparked speculation that new music from the trio might be on the way.

Dacus’ latest album, “Home Video”, came out in 2021 via Matador . Baker’s last album, “Little Oblivions”, also came out in 2021 via Matador. 

The debut full length album from boygenius; Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus.