"Remember (Walking in the Sand)" "Reefer Head Woman" & "Think About It"

There's no way to look at Ruts' three covers and think anything but "filler." They were struggling enough with their originals, so they dug up three tunes to fill out the record. None of them are bad, but they don't enhance the proceedings much, and their existence is a testament to the album's mediocrity.

"Remember (Walking in the Sand)" is originally from the Shangri-La's, a girl group from the 60's, whose angle was that they were tough New York chicks in contrast with the Shirelles and Crystals. They did the biker ode "Leader of the Pack." This is probably the most inexplicable choice, aside from being a choice opportunity for melodrama from Mr. Tyler. The band doesn't have much get-up-and-go on it, though.



"Reefer Head Woman" is a blues tune in the mold of "Big Ten Inch Record" and "Train Kept A Rollin'" and isn't lyrically as good as either. It doesn't have their fire or fun, doesn't really sustain itself. On a better album it might have been a neat isolated moment, but here it feels like a drag.



If they had to pick only one of the covers to stay, it'd be this one. It sounds the most "Aerosmithy," probably because it's originally by the Yardbirds, and the riff is the sort that they'd been basing their career off. They bring the tune out of the 60's and imbue it with that drugged-out Steven Tyler yowl and a pretty wild solo. I just don't love the song itself.

What these covers say to me is that Aerosmith was not a band that was going to make a greatrecord in 1979... but they were still technically proficient, uniquely esoteric in their tastes, generally enthusiastic in their delivery... they could still get something done when they focused. They just weren't that focused at all on this record.