Not The Same Old Song And Dance- A Tribute To Aerosmith

All right, first of all lets preface by saying that there is no such thing as aperfect tribute record. Face it, while we're always so curious to hear a bunchof famous (or would-be famous, or even formerly famous) artists tackling the greatest hits of one of our favorite artists, its almost always disappointing. A tribute record is rarely the equal of the artist it honors,simply because its only as good as the roster of artists that have been gathered. So most of these kind of records are hit or miss at best. Fortunately, 'Same Old Song And Dance' has more hits than misses - though there are some savage misses.

The first miss would be the cover art - a bunch of cows with piercings galore. This is an obvious parody of/nod to the 'Get A Grip' album cover. Now, I ask you, is that really one of the great Aerosmith albums that seems worth refering to? I notice nobody chooses to do anything off of it here. And is that really such a good album cover (a cow's pierced utter) that it should be representative of an album saluting Aerosmith's considerable body of work? Somehow, I don't think that that's what Steve and Joe had in mind.

But anyway, on to the music. The album starts off with "Back In The Saddle" as sung by Mark Slaughter. When you finally get finished laughing your ass off at him screaming, "I'm BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!" (which should take you to about halfway through the song) you'll notice its actually a really good rendition, very faithful to the original musically (as are all the cuts, which is a big plus - I can think of nothing worse than a techno "Seasons Of Wither" or an industrial "Dude (Looks Like A Lady)"). Slaughter's vocals are noticably buried WAY down in the mix. I guess that loud shreik was starting to make producer Bob Kulick's hair stand on end (quite a mean feat, since he's bald!).

Next, Aerosmith's old blood-brother Ted Nugent does "Rag Doll." In true mutual-admiration-society fashion, I'm sure when they do one of these for Nugent, Tyler and Perry will do their best "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang." Its a great choice for Nugent who has no trouble making it his own.

Then we hit a few nails in the road - "Chip Away The Stone" doneby Vince Neil. Whoa boy! How the hell did this happen? Musically its aalmost note for note, until Neil comes in. This guy has to have one of the worst voices in rock, now that his looks are gone, how the hell does he still work? Even though this is not a great Aerosmith track, its still sacrelige the way Neil mangles it. Somewhere, right at this moment, even David Lee Roth is laughing his ass off at this guy.

But wait! It gets worse! Next up is former Starship wuss (yes, "We Built This Cityon Rock N Roll" Starship) Mickey Thomas ruining "Last Child." Interestingly, the tempo they play the opening in makes it sound exactly like Skid Row's "18 and Life" (never realized that that's where Skid Row got that from - and where the hell is Sebastian Bach? Isn't ha always on these?). This track is pretty terrible, but hey - never thought I'd ever hear Thomas singing lines like "...can't catch no dose from a hot, sweet poontang...", so its not a total loss.

But it gets worse before it gets better. Ted Nugent's too-melodic-for-metal Damn Yankees pals Jack Blades and Tommy Shaw DESTROY "Sweet Emotion." This is just terrible. What makes its so bad is that they're trying to sound badass, when between the two of them there isn't enough attitude to intimidate the front row of a Backstreet Boys concert (without their parents!).

But wait - the second half of the record is considerably better than the first. The oddest artist to show up here - Ronnie James Dio - does an emotional belting of "Dream On." This is probably the best track on the album, even though lead-guitarist (and fellow out-of-place tributeer) Yngwie J. Malmsteen's shredding is a little too busy for my liking. Dio lends the album a lot of class. His brilliant and powerful vocal delivery lets us forgive Vince, Mickey, Tommy, and Jack. I don't know why he's here, I'm just glad he is! After that, the vocals start to finally get as Aerosmithian as the music with Jeff Skeoch of Tesla doing a rock-hard "Draw The Line" and Jack Russell doing his best Tyler on "Same Old Song And Dance" (with Edgar Winter blowing a mean saxophone).

But the big surprise is "No Surprize." With Jani Lane on vocals (you won't even recognize him), Chris Holmes on guitar and Steve Riley on drums, this kicks ass. I'm not even really familiar with this song and this sounds more like ASerosmith than anything else on the album. Holmes really has the Joe Perry thing down and Lane has never sounded so rock n roll in his life. You have to also admire these guys for picking out a rare chestnut rather than just re-doing "Walk This Way," "Sweet Emotion," or any other over-played arena staple like everyone else did.

Closing out the album is Tracii Guns, Aynsley Dunbar, and Stephan Pearcy racing through a ninety-miles-an-hour "Toys In The Attic" that really rocks. Somehow Pearcy doesn't sound too much like Pearcy, so that helps a lot. And Tracii is the man. He and Aynsley make it work.

Overall, this is a really fun record. Its one of the rare tribute albums that you'll actually want to hear more than once. Even the aforementioned clunkers are made bearable by teriffic musicianship and slick production by Kulick. These kind of reecords don't usually see too well, but you can tell people really like to be on them. Everyone seems to be having fun, and why not? ocking out and jamming on a bunch of killer tunes by one of the all-time great rock bands is certainly my idea of a great Sunday afternoon.

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