Margarita Noses and Mad Dog Booze... (Get A Grip)

Member Name: sam1942

Product:	Get A Grip
Date:	07/06/06 (199 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A fairly good attempt to recapture the early days of MTV fame for the band

Disadvantages: Too many ballads!

Hard seventies rockers, Aerosmith fronted by the pronounced, ‘ugliest lead singer in rock‘, Steve Tyler had enjoyed a fairly steady career in blues/rock since the band’s birth in 1970. Committing themselves to the life of ‘on the road rockers,’ they immediately took their place along side the well established AC/DC, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin. Shunning all accusations of being the U.S equivalents to The Rolling Stones, the composing ‘toxic twins’ of the band, namely Tyler and Joe Perry utilised a song writing partnership that would last until their brief falling out in 1980. They joined forces again four years later and thus plunged the band’s career into the commercialised Arena rock of which they have stayed famous for ever since.

Jumping on the money making band wagon of MTV, they craftily saw the continuous show of Spandex and metal as a leg up the rock ladder. Biting their tongues at being along side the likes of soft ballad churners, Bon Jovi, they saw their way of staying in the public eye by being semi churners of dull, depressingly whining soundtrack ballads. With this poor excuse for a career move in mind, it is now that we ‘hail’ them for ‘that song’ from the Bruce Willis’ hit movie, ‘Armageddon’ which featured Liv Tyler, Steve’s daughter.

For those of us who have stayed loyal to our drugged up, messy heroes, we will want to forever focus on the very essence of Aerosmith which was ‘Permanent Vacation’ and ‘Pump,’ two excruciatingly loud and forceful rock albums that changed our moods, our outlooks and even for some, our dress sense, (sense, being the operative word here.) So, with these uniquely life shaping albums in mind, it wasn’t surprising to us when with their 1993 release, ‘Get A Grip,’ that we blatantly saw the band’s shift back to the days of their reign over MTV. Since it had been only four years since the acclaimed ‘Pump,’ in 1989, it would have seemed to the rugged lot that their hold on their hardened fans wouldn’t be so difficult to drift away from. Indeed, it still sat proudly at number 2, although the single releases from this album were too much for the pop orientated audience to bear. The fans who had seen the tantrums and the turmoil’s of accidents, drug addiction and too many women were less than impressed with an album, that was felt among the minorities to be a second rate copy of the previous, ‘Pump.’
One thing I will not be doing here is mentioning the single releases, their positions and their release dates. It is not that I don’t know them, it’s just I do think this album is worth owning. I just have this fear that one could be seriously put off by the depressingly, embarrassing positions that these singles held.

Nevertheless, we bought it. Even with that tongue in cheek cover, we smirk at the cow’s udder. The inside will determine the musical content within. The usual body piercing photographs and statutory black and white of a long gone freak exposing his talents, we are not moved too far from these semi shocking pictures. Hey this is Aerosmith, what did we expect? So, we hold the album in our palms and how do we feel now? Hook, line and sinker, we have been fished in like dolphins into a tuna net. The initial smile that played on our lips when hearing the familiar 10 note introduction to ‘Walk This Way,’ the hit with Run DMC from August 1986, we are taken by the nuts into a crescendo of tribal wails, shaking drums and animal like yelps at the beginning of ‘Eat The Rich.’ We are suitably delighted when, with all Aerosmith albums, there is no need to adjust your volume knob, let the boys do the sound check for you.

It certainly kicks off at a fast and promising rate and we find ourselves thrashing around like wild animals (please remove all valuables) and picking up the chorus with utter gusto. There is one thing that this band has never failed to deliver and that’s rock and roll entertainment. For those who have been grossly fortunate to have seen them live, it is not hard to imagine lurid images of Tyler in leopard skin tights and trade mark mouth the size of Bournemouth thrusting his balls and face into an unsuspecting camera man. With it’s statutory clash of continuous cymbals, this track will not fail to please. It is the usual opening to an Aerosmith album, and we settle back for an evening of showmanship.

With a giant burp out of the way, we are trusted into yet more high pitch wails from Tyler and the crew in the title track, ‘Get A Grip.’ It holds enough charm and chant to want the audience to shout this phrase at the next person to piss you off that day. It incorporates a booming back drop on arm bending drumming by Joey Kramer. It is the averagely polished piece that it true Aerosmith, and just right to save us from the incredibly furious ‘Fever.’ Hold on to you knickers, it’s time to take your partners for the ‘Tyler two step.’ Swing those legs and remove all hair pieces before they fall off by themselves. This delightfully speedy track is brilliantly harmonised in its vocal and we can imagine the band sweating furiously that they will be wanting a lie down in a darkened room after this. Tyler is almost singing in tune at this racy track. With all these strangled guitars, screaming vocals and added ‘freight train’ harmonicas on a down hill slope with a tail wind, it will make you worn out just sitting in your arm chair.

Perhaps the sobering ‘Living On The Edge,’ might have been penned in a autobiographical style, however, not quite at the stage of arm waving, it still packs in enough punch for it to be pleasing yet a well welcomed break from all the drug induced metal from the previous tracks. It is not too whining, sorry folks, that’s yet to come. This track, it it’s minor keys will temporarily wipe the smile off your face, especially when that riff breaks in. All the same, it is a track where Tyler can flex his vocal range to it’s utter most limit. It is a fairly powerful piece, but you will get the feeling it is like walking over a sand drenched desert in scorching hot sun.

Taking up the mood ever so slightly, we are in reflective mood from the initial opening tracks of this album in ‘Flesh.’ We gawp in wonderment at that incredibly high pitched vocal and what the hell Tyler had to do to achieve it in the first place. The intro is still fundamentally a hard rock band, meaning very little to us humble listener, unusual sounds both human and non human still do not put us off continuing further into this album so the title shouldn’t be putting us off either. Again, climbing like the updraft of a tornado, we are increasingly amazed at this names vocal range. We are drawn away from the messy rock drop and even the subject matter, and straight into the mouth of Tyler, we he stuns us with his mind blowing high voice. Again, showing us what skill there is to be learnt in being a aging rock star, we are shown the reverse in the Guns N Roses sound alike, ‘Walk On Down.’ In my mind, I had initially believed that the Roses had swaggered into the studio at pushed Tyler and his boys out, sat down and shouted this track out whilst the tape was still recording. It tinges heavily with the sound of ‘Mr Brownstone’ and the like, but it is still screaming Aero. Whatever happened there, we are switched back into Aero mode with the slightly pop like ‘Shut Up And Dance.’ Reflecting back to the days of ‘Pump’ even more so with this particular track, we feel their MTV influence bursting through like an unwanted pimple. We really must be in praise of the soft rock production line that was the early MTV. It was, what kept these guys employed, so if they want to pay homage, then we should bow down to their demands. As a average Arena rock track, it could fill one, rather than empty it….

Okay, so I’m afraid the time has come. Yes, it is the introduction of the first ballad and it‘s ‘Cryin.’ I did say, first, and what we would normally say to ourselves, is that, ‘okay, this is the statutory ballad entry, okay, we’ll ride it and get it over and done with,’ but there is more of them, and this is where I believe the album starts to falter. I do think, however, that Tyler has the best whining, miserable voice in the business for strained ballads, it’s just not my cup of tea, particularly when they feature a Dylan sounding harmonica solo towards the end, that for me, tends to put the mockers on the whole thing, and sometimes, for me, the whole album. However, this track is not too below average. The usual guy meets girl, girl buggers off, guy regrets meeting girl in the first place, so we know the story, we just don’t need to hear it from Tyler’s point of view. One would be quick to think that he probably can’t remember which girl it was about anyway….

The funked up, minor pop like ‘Gotta Love It,’ almost appears, on the surface as a track that, instead of Run DMC pinching it from them, it was Aero pinching something back. It’s fairly jolly, and dare I say it, catchy. It jogs along a reasonable pace and it rather tuneful. I think, though, it doesn’t really hold a place on this punchy album. It would certainly be more at home on Permanent Vacation. Suddenly all recollections of being referred to as the U.S Stones, has faded into complete obscurity. So, where are we left when the cries of despair not only pour from our speaker sin drippy ballad number two but from us, the patient listener? So, this ballad is, what we could imagine as the B side of that first one. Somehow Captain Correlli’s mandolin has crept in, but it could be Nic Cage just dressed up for the part and pouting. This track is so winging that it is best placed perhaps at the end of ‘Cats’ the musical, for it sounds just like a bunch of scabby alley cats. Sorry. ‘Crazy,’ it may be called, but I think they were crazy to recorded in the first place….

Thank God for ‘Line Up,’ okay so it might be about drugs, who cares?! It’s party time again, so throw that arm chair away from under you and get boogin’ to this heavy weight, humorous, thumping number. Welcome back Aero, and we welcome with open arms those cheeky lyrics and jokey backing vocals. So quickly as that stops, we find ourselves on top of another chantingly good track and the those sounds of the Roses’ checking in again for good measure. ‘Can’t Stop Messin,’ is another one of those Aero tunes where their Microsoft keyboard forgot to add the ‘g’ at the end of the title. It’s a slightly whining chorus, but we forgive them for just about everything by the end of the album. The riff at the break fades off the plot completely but we love Aero all the same. We have to, another one of those wrist slicing tracks is coming next, so I will make this quick and as painless as possible.

‘Amazing,’ is far from it. In all honesty, I would have preferred Foreigner to have jumped into the recording studio right now. Tyler is in serious life reflective mode and it doesn’t suit him. It is piano drilled and it holds no real feeling although Tyler is still giving it all he has as he always does, fast or slow. It is dull, dreary and completely unimaginative. There is always a certainly genre bridge that these rock bands seem magnetically wrenched across. Aero bit into the bitter slice of self indulgence and thought that they could conquered all. Perhaps if Aero took on something of a disco nature, I would have forgiven them, but ballads? No, move slowly away with you backs to the walls, those killer rock ballads are out there and they’re hunting down suspect, rock bands whose careers are on a decline….So please, no extended endings, only Prince can get away with that…

Perhaps ‘Boogie Man,’ is the most unusual piece of work I have ever encountered on a rock album. It is far from Aero, but what I do feel is that is a homage to the very basics of blues, which is, the deep roots of Aerosmith. It is a ‘silent’ piece of guitar with a twistingly dark side to its rhythm. It is non vocal, drifting and soulful that we find it hard to believe that after a fairly shallow album, that Aero wouldn’t be capable of something which such depth. It is a piece of simple electric guitar notes that last for only a minute or two, yet will leave the listener with a puzzled look for this piece in particular, but also those high notes, and too many ballads….

This album for such a now, transatlantic outfit, was, as it seemed, a last big push for a band who, for in this country, felt that they were on the way out. It was an album that was truly reflective but yet not successful in its conquest for days gone by. These bands who try to reclaim a sound long gone seldom do sit back on the pedestal from whence they came. Perhaps the last word should be left to what they did next…


Their next greatest achievement was the release of their 2001 album, which was the time machine that they had searched for. The title said it all…


‘Just Push Play.’



Steven Tyler - vocals/keyboards/harmonica/mandolin
Joe Perry - guitar/dulcimer/vocals
Brad Whit ford - guitar
Tom Hamilton - electric bass
Joey Kramer - drums/percussion

1993 Geffen Records
All songs written by Tyler and everyone else
Bought on CD for 7 pounds at HMV.



©sam1942 2006.

Summary: A mixture of great, fast rock anthems and pretty dire ballads.