Ear of Newt

40 years ago today: Aerosmith releases Rocks, Newt's folks aren't impressed

by Steve Newton on May 3rd, 2016 at 3:28 PM
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      Forty years ago today--on May 3, 1976--Aerosmith released its fourth album, the aptly titled Rocks. It was one of the heaviest slabs of vinyl my teenaged ears had ever happened upon. It gave Blue Oyster Cult's Tyranny and Mutation a run for its money.

      Needless to say, the raucous racket emanating from my downstairs bedroom didn't make happy campers of my mom and dad, who didn't get Aerosmith at all.

      Or Blue Oyster Cult, for that matter.

      But to their credit, they didn't complain much about the noise, and they surely could have in the spring of '76 because I played the bejeezus out of Rocks.

      I was obsessed with that LP--Aerosmith's followup to the previous year's Toys in the Attic--from the very first tune. I mean, how could you not be when the lead-off track was "Back in the Saddle"?

      I remember being entranced by the way the song opens, how it builds up with foreboding riffs, the snare drum getting progressively louder, joined by that clicking effect like a galloping horse's hooves before the beast whinnies, cymbals crash, Steven Tyler screeches "I'm baaacckk!" underneath a soaring guitar lick and Joe Perry takes command with that unexpected six-string bass run that totally funks shit up.

      If that first 30 seconds of "Back in the Saddle" isn't a prime example of the positive effects of heavy drug use I don't know what is.

      Wicked as it seemed, "Back in the Saddle" wasn't released as a single until ten months later--in March of '77. How it only made it to #38 on the Billboard Top 100 I'll never know.

      The other two singles from Rocks were "Last Child" and "Home Tonight", both of which were far from my faves. I was more into the raging rockers like "Sick as a Dog", "Rats in the Cellar", and "Lick and a Promise".

      Pretty sure those were the ones my folks appreciated the least, though.

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      UPDATE, MAY 3, 4:47 PM: speaking of Aerosmith, I just heard that Steven Tyler is coming to Vancouver for a show at the Orpheum Theatre on July 10.

      Won't be the same without Joe, though.

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