Rocks In The Attic #112: Aerosmith - ‘Live! Bootleg’ (1978)

This album is overlong. The performances are sloppy. The mix is pretty murky. But I love it.

Of all of the Aerosmith albums that I initially bought when I got turned onto them, this one represented the ‘way in’ to their back catalogue. Other than 1980’s Greatest Hits and 1991’s Pandora’s Box, there wasn’t really any other comprehensive Aerosmith compilations available in the early 90s when I started to listen to them. Now it’s gone the other way and I believe that when I last counted, their (officially released) compilations and live albums were just about to overtake their count of studio albums. That’s a pretty bad statistic, but proof that record companies will plunder and plunder an artist’s back catalogue, endlessly re-releasing the same songs over and over again, as long as there’s a willing public to buy them.

In terms of chronology, this 1978 release comes between 1977’s Draw The Line and 1979’s Night In The Ruts - in their only fallow year (up to this point they had released a studio album every year since their 1973 debut). If Draw The Line didn’t signal the end of the band due to their over-reliance on drugs, this surely did.

Aside from the hits (Walk This Way, Sweet Emotion, Dream On, Back In The Saddle), the set covers a heap of decent album tracks which wouldn’t see the light on Greatest Hits and in most cases would have to wait until Pandora’s Box to get the attention they deserved.

But the real treasures of the album are those live tracks not recorded in stadiums and arenas like the majority of the material. There’s Last Child, recorded in a Boston Club; a stunning cover of Come Together, recorded at the band’s rehearsal space; and in I Ain’t Got You and Mother Popcorn, two covers showcasing the band’s R&B influences, recorded for a radio performance in 1973 when promoting their first album. I have that 1973 Paul’s Mall performance in its entirety on CD - a fantastic set - and a true live bootleg album, unlike this one which is CBS Records’ attempt to capitalise on the trend of professional-sounding bootleg albums in the late 70s.

There’s just one more reason I love this album: the photos on the gatefold showing Joe Perry playing his red BC Rich Bich -  truly awesome, and in terms of body-shape, the best looking guitar I’ve ever seen.

Hit: Walk This Way

Hidden Gem: Mother Popcorn

Rocks In The Attic #91: Gloria Estefan - ‘Greatest Hits’ (1992)

I remember having a tape of Gloria Estefan songs that somebody gave me when I was in my first year of secondary school. It never seemed to make sense, and I guess that’s because ‘Oldham’ and ‘Latin Beat’ don’t really go together in the same sentence. This album should make a bit more sense now I’m no longer land-locked and living in a coastal environment, but I think it would only make sense if I drove a Ferrari and worked as a detective in Auckland Vice. That sounds like a TV series I hope they never make.

The upbeat stuff on this album is pretty good - especially the early Miami Sound Machine material - but the ballads could have been written and performed by anyone.

Hit: Rhythm Is Gonna Get You

Hidden Gem: Dr. Beat

Rocks In The Attic #59: Jr. Walker & The All Stars - ‘Greatest Hits’ (1969)

Another one of my Dad’s (I think). This one’s a Tamla Motown record, and features the singles of Jr. Walker & The All Stars - a very overlooked artist in the Motown canon - released between 1965 and 1969.

It’s incredible how well known their debut single Shotgun is. It’s one of those soul songs you’ve heard a million times, in films and television especially, but you might not know who performs it. Many of the songs are driven by Walker’s saxophone, but there’s something very Steve Cropper about guitarist Willie Woods, and his licks are as funky as anything.

Hit: Shotgun

Hidden Gem: Cleo’s Mood

Rocks In The Attic #44: The Byrds - ‘The Byrds’ Greatest Hits’ (1967)

I’ve never been a huge fan of The Byrds. I think it’s the heavy use of Roger McGuinn’s 12-string Rickenbacker. It’s funny that whenever you play a 12-string guitar - electric or acoustic - no matter what you play, it immediately sounds like you are playing something by The Byrds. Play a song written by Phil Collins and it sounds like The Byrds’ covering a Phil Collins song. Play a song by Lady Gaga...and so on.

I remember buying this record on CD first - and playing it over and over again - probably looking for a substitute Beatles, and I suppose they’re the closest thing to an American version of The Beatles, or at least the two bands’ sounds are very similar through the mix-sixties period (Lennon and Harrison would play 12-string Rickenbackers on many songs throughout 1964 and 1965).

I like the way 12-string Rickenbackers are designed.  The machine heads for the twelve strings are offset, so six are facing forwards, and the other six are facing backwards. Essentially it looks to the untrained eye like a standard 6-string guitar, as you can usually only see six machine-heads at a time. I think I read somewhere that this confused George Harrison when he originally saw The Byrds play live - how could McGuinn get such a rich jangly sound out of only six strings?

Hit: Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season)

Hidden Gem: So You Want To Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star

Rocks In The Attic #43: Chuck Berry - ‘Chuck Berry’s Greatest Hits’ (1966)

Be careful around Chuck Berry. If he ever comes into the recording studio where you work, to do a song with Keith Richards maybe, don’t ever, EVER, touch his amp.

You can’t say a bad thing about Chuck Berry really. Well, aside from the fact that he’s a convicted armed robber. But hey, nobody’s perfect. In terms of his influence on music though, for me there’s one key lead guitarist that Berry influenced and that’s Angus Young. So no Chuck Berry, no AC/DC. And I can’t imagine a world like that.

Hit: Johnny B Goode

Hidden Gem: Sweet Little Sixteen

Rocks In The Attic #37: Duane Eddy - ‘The Greatest Hits Of Duane Eddy’ (1979)

I don’t know what I like best about this album - the corner of the sleeve that proudly declares ‘AS SEEN ON T.V.’ or the other notice that states ’20 TWANGY GUITAR GREATS’. I think it has to be the latter. As though people were entering record shops in the 1970s and looking specifically in the racks for the TWANGY GUITAR section.

The sleeve even has a photograph of Duane Eddy on the reverse - playing an acoustic guitar for some reason - but it isn’t made clear that it’s a photo of Eddy. The photographer’s credit - Colin Earey - appears next to the photo, suggesting that it’s a picture of an acoustic guitarist named Colin Earey. Who the hell is Colin Earey? This would probably have confused hundreds of prospective buyers, both when the album was released in 1979, and in second-hand record stores over the intervening decades.

This album - poorly packaged, but well recorded - seems to be a collection of Duane Eddy performances recorded in 1979, not a simple compilation of his already recorded greatest hits. To that end, because it’s recorded late in the 1970s, the production is very good and very clear. Although the downside is that there’s no actual production per se on there. It sounds like they simply got all the levels down pat and then recorded all twenty twangy guitar greats in one sitting.

Looking at Eddy’s discography on Wikipedia, it’s amusing to see he once released an album titled The Biggest Twang Of All, which sounds more like a venture into soundtracking bad 1970s porn films.

Hit: Peter Gunn

Hidden Gem: Rebel Rouser