Introduction

My name is Scotto Williams. I'm a music blogger.

Last year, I created Sound of the Week as an outlet to write about music, as well as an excuse to constantly explore new music, stuff I hadn't heard yet. I spent most of my teen and college years listening to classic rock, and that left a lot for me to get back around to. It's a really great experience. You should check it out.

But I occasionally run into problems when I want to talk about music I already liked. I have an ongoing series called "Serious Contenders," where I talk about songs I think should be considered among the greatest songs ever. I did a 5-part series on my favourite albums of all time. I've done other retrospectives on albums that shaped my tastes. But I'm always very shy about talking about my favourite band of all: Aerosmith.

They don't fit easily into the narrative over there. If you get me talking about them, I don't feel like I can stop. It would overtake the general objective of the site. I've restricted the amount of verbiage I can spill about them in the interest of keeping the blog's original mission intact.

But they are worth talking about.

They're worth talking about because I'm a guy who doesn't want to stop talking about music, and they're my favourite band. They have a complex place in modern music history, emerging from the 70's as one of the most popular, well-known, yet paradoxically under-considered bands of their time. They were never big sellers or critical darlings, but succeeded in creating a reputation, body of work, and shared experience for listeners, the type that is often sought between rock bands and their audience. They've had triumphs, a few bad albums (we'll be talking about those) alterations in their sound, personal trainwrecks... and later this summer they'll be releasing their first album in 8 years, their first of original material in over a decade.

It's time for me to talk about Aerosmith. This is The Smithery.

Let's rock
-Scotto