Welcome To The Aerosmithsonian

A Tribute to Aerosmith (Perris)
by Martin Popoff

Proving time and again that the emperor has no clothes, the world’s most boring drummer, Carmine Appice (edging out Cozy Powell), tip-taps this awful tribute into the ground with his towering lack of imagination. I mean, listen to his “Walk This Way”: the man can’t even groove. Come on! Joey Kramer is not rock science! Of course, he gets no help from the well-behaved and flat-out brain-dead accompaniment, neither the usually quite talented bassist Jason McMaster nor Lita Ford guitarist Steve Fister speaking up about the doomed deliveries. And if these three Perris pulseless (listen to their “Sweet Emotion,” yechh!) were supposed to sit back and let the “vocalists” shine, well, bad move.

Sadly, one of my heroes, Ted Nugent’s Derek St. Holmes, is still stuck in the ’70s, when competing hard just didn’t matter. That’s just style, something he has control over. Plus, I think his voice is going… Ron Keel? Luv those “BACK” in the saddle screams, which basically aren’t there, because he wimps out. The worst, I mean the worst, ever, worse than any song ever out on any label, is Paul Shortino‘s deplorable and out of tune “Rock In a Hard Place.” I mean, why would he even pick this song, let alone let it be released? Why would he continue lead singing in 2001? One small positive here is that half the vocalists at least have semi-interesting voices and get to the end without embarrassing themselves. But man, all told, this sounds like a talentless hair band that couldn’t get signed in 1989 one-taking a bunch of demos in Mama Kin’s garage. And not only can they not play above minimum requirements, they can’t think, imagine or dream on their way out of a wet paper bag. Guest guitarists include Gilby Clarke, Keri Kelli, Marc Ferrari, Jaimie Scott and Jimmy Crespo. Vocalists: Jason McMaster, Derek Davis, Davy Vain, and Ron Taylor.
(PO Box 783 Cedar Park, TX 78630)