In the Weird Rock News of the Day department, Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer has sued the band to let him perform at the Grammy Awards this Sunday (January 26), when the group will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. He also wants to rock out with Aerosmith at the high-profile Musicares gig two nights earlier, where they'll receive yet another award, because people love awards.

The whole kafuffle (if that's how you spell it) stems from a minor injury Kramer suffered last year, which sidelined him from performing during the band’s Las Vegas residency, with drum tech John Douglas taking over behind the kit. Now Kramer reckons he's back in good enough shape to perform at the upcoming gigs. His side of the story is explained in a statement sent directly to me by his PR person "because you have previously covered Aerosmith".

Ever since I was 14 years old, I had a set of drumsticks in my hand and a passion to create music. Being prohibited from playing with a band that I have given 50 years of my life to supporting, is beyond devastating.

This is not about money. I am being deprived of the opportunity to be recognized along with my peers, for our collective, lifetime contributions to the music industry. Neither the MusiCares’ Person of the Year Award nor the Grammys’ Lifetime Achievement honors can ever be repeated.

The fact that I would be asked to audition for my own job, demonstrate that I can play at ‘an appropriate level’ and play better than my temporary fill-in with a moving target of made-up standards is both insulting and upsetting. Other band members and their lawyers will likely attempt to disparage my playing and claim that I am unable to play the drums right now. Nothing could be further from the truth. I did everything they asked – jumped through hoops and made both a recording of playing along solo to a recent live recording of the band – one I had never heard before, and that process was videotaped. But I did it, and I did it well. In Aerosmith’s 50-year history, no other band member has ever been subjected to this scrutiny let alone be asked to audition for his own job!

I hope our fans can understand that all I’m trying to do is get back to playing with the band that they love – and that’s Aerosmith with all five original members. The greatest magic and success of Aerosmith happens when all the band’s founding members are together in the house. To be removed from my rightful place on stage to celebrate our success – a success that acknowledges my own life’s work, is just plain wrong.

I gotta say, as much as I adore Joe Perry and his off-the-rails guitar solos, I kinda feel for Kramer's situation. I figure they should let him play because, for one thing, even if he does screw up, it's not like it'll be the first time Aerosmith sucked on stage. Remember that time in '78 at the Pacific Coliseum on the Draw the Line tour when they were all wasted and AC/DC blew them away?

I know Kramer is able to play solid drums if he puts his mind to it. Like that time back in '87 when he recorded "Magic Touch" in Vancouver for the Permanent Vacation album. (Mind you, he had the mighty triumvirate of local producers/mixers/engineers Bruce Fairbairn, Bob Rock, and Mike Fraser twiddling the knobs for him back then, so that mighta helped.)

Now Aerosmith has responded to Kramer's lawsuit with a statement of its own, which reads:

Joey Kramer is our brother; his wellbeing is of paramount importance to us. However he has not been emotionally and physically able to perform with the band, by his own admission, for the last 6 months. We have missed him and have encouraged him to rejoin us to play many times but apparently he has not felt ready to do so.

Joey has now waited until the last moment to accept our invitation, when we unfortunately have no time for necessary rehearsals during Grammys week. We would be doing a disservice to him, to ourselves and to our fans to have him play without adequate time to prepare and rehearse. Compounding this, he chose to file a lawsuit on the Friday night of the holiday weekend preceding the Grammys with total disregard for what is our limited window to prepare to perform these important events. Given his decisions he is unfortunately unable to perform but of course we have invited him to be with us for both the Grammys and our MusiCares honor. We are bonded together by much more than our time on stage.

All this talk of lawsuits brings to mind that time back in 1997 when I had to deal with my own Aerosmith-oriented lawsuit. It all stemmed from that time I took a "so-called friend" to see Aerosmith at the Pacific Coliseum on the Nine Lives tour. Turns out he's a lawyer and didn't cotton much to the way he was portrayed in my write-up of the show. Here's an excerpt from the review, which was published in the October 30, 1997, issue of the Georgia Straight: 

At the climax of Aerosmith’s two-hour-plus concert at the Coliseum last Saturday (October 25), muscular skin-basher Joey Kramer emerged from behind his rotating drum kit, trotted to the front of the stage, and jubilantly hurled one of his drumsticks into the roaring, near-capacity crowd. Seeing as my chances were about 12,000-to-one of catching the prized strip of lumber, I wasn’t that interested, but as it soared high, end over end, I realized it was headed toward my section of the old hockey rink. A second later it was arcing down right toward me, so with glorified visions of nabbing a lifelong souvenir in mind, I reached out to claim the trophy…only to have the tall guy next to me casually throw up a hand and snatch it away.

It was my supposed buddy Bones, who wouldn’t even have been there if it hadn’t been for my spare reviewer ticket. “All right! Cool!” he exclaimed, inspecting the Zildjian-brand stick to find it emblazoned with Kramer’s name and splintered from his recent workout on the encore of “Walk This Way”, which made it extra special. Thanks to my so-called friend’s wicked catching hand, there’s one less rock collectible in my office, but that’s what I get for slagging Aerosmith’s latest CD, I suppose.

The next time I saw my "supposed buddy Bones" he gleefully served me with an official-looking lawsuit claiming I'd defamed his drumstick-catching ass:

"The article is libelous of the Plaintiff in his profession as a Lawyer, and in his personal capacity, suggesting that the said Plaintiff feigned his friendship with the Defendant Stephen Newton for no other purpose than to get a free ticket to the said Aerosmith concert."

Thank god, as you can see below, the lawyer showed mercy by including an option "(5)" that allowed me to both weasel out of the lawsuit and keep the offending drumstick in all it's chipped and battered glory.

One can only hope that the ugly legal battle currently raging between Joey Kramer and Aerosmith results in a similarly agreeable conclusion for both parties.

Dream on.