The Smithery: Season 2

Just a quick notice before we jump back in. Last year, I used The Smithery as a distraction for myself from my usual music review site. I was feeling wandering and aimless and wanted something simple to latch onto. My love for Aerosmith has always been uncomplicated. This is just a good, visceral, pure rock band and everything about them seems right to me, even the worst stuff. Last year, I got way, way into their 1970s (and hazy early 80s) stuff and then backed off when my appetite for new stuff returned. That left me with several notable chapters left in the story. This year, I'm back to feeling somewhat blase about my usual assignment - in fact I've mostly gone on hiatus so that I can focus on other projects altogether. But a bunch of influences converged in the past few weeks to point me back at this site, at least for the fun distraction it's supposed to be. One was an ill-advised debate I had with a regular customer in my store (I had skipped my afternoon coffee and was thus easily agitated - at least that's the excuse I'm going with,) and the other was the sudden urge to compile a playlist of 80s hair metal - your Motley Crues, Poisons, Quiet Riots, etc. Maybe hair metal isn't your jam. That's okay. It's a pretty shallow, repetitive form of music, party rock in its purest form: hawt gitar lixx and screechy vocals about "Nothin' But a Good Time." I like it as candy, as dessert, as a way to unwind and unclench when I'm frustrated about the world. Escapism. It was basically the way I first encountered this band as a kid, being that I was more aware of their then-recent 80's output than their 70s gems, and when you're a kid, loud fun music is what's going to draw your ear. What's more, 80s Aerosmith is the dessert course of this band's career, where they flourished as a fun, frothy, weightless version of what they had already been. If you take this music on its own terms, you begin to see the greatness in that endeavour. So that's what we'll be looking at over the next few weeks.

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