Rocks In The Attic #123: Aerosmith - ‘Permanent Vacation’ (1987)

Although essentially this is where the rot set in for Aerosmith - when they started to employ outsiders as songwriters - this album also marks their revival to the second age of their career. It’s a cracking album - a little too much of its time, so I don’t know how it will sound in 10 or 20 years - but it’s got a level of energy that was unheard of from the band up to this point.

This album also hints at their penchant for novelty songs - Dude (Looks Like A Lady) would soon be joined by the likes of Love In An Elevator and Aerosmith would forever be associated with the crazily titled rock song, and for a whole new generation of rock fans (and subsequent generations), this would be the only thing they would know the band for.

This album - or more truthfully, the promotion for this album - would also be the first time they would have great success with music videos, storming their way into the party held over at the house of the MTV generation (their parents must have been out of town). The videos that accompany this album are all very enjoyable (well, Dude and Rag Doll are - I still can’t take the video - or the song, for that matter - of Angel seriously), and at least the band look relatively young. Young enough not to look too much out of place hanging around with hot chicks half their age (compared to now where they’ll star in videos with hot chicks a quarter of their age - ugh).

Years after first hearing Hangman Jury - the band’s one and only real jaunt into roots music - on MTV Unplugged and loving it, I was lucky enough to see the band play it live in Dublin, with the intro played just by Tyler and Perry on acoustic guitar and harmonica, sat at the end of the ego-ramp, mere yards away from where I stood. Fantastic.

Hit: Dude (Looks Like A Lady)

Hidden Gem: Hangman Jury

Rocks In The Attic #104: Nirvana - ‘MTV Unplugged In New York’ (1994)

Released following Cobain’s suicide, I guess this is the first example of Geffen Records cashing in on his death. None of the other contemporary bands that recorded an Unplugged performance on MTV went on to release them on record (except for Alice In Chains and Alanis Morrissette) - the tracks usually found their way onto singles as B-sides (or existed in full only on bootlegs). An Unplugged album was more of a classic rock thing to do - hence the releases by Clapton, Dylan, Bryan Adams and the Page & Plant reunion.

I wasn’t a fan of Nirvana at the time this was released - mostly because I didn’t like that he wasn’t particularly a good guitarist. Learning the guitar will give you crazy notions and put you off bands like that. I later realised that it’s far more important to be a good songwriter than it is to be a good guitarist; a guitar solo is never going to change anybody’s life.

Trying not to like them, and failing miserably as this performance was getting a lot of airplay on MTV, the songs started seeping in and I started to become a Nirvana fan, purely by osmosis.

You know those famous questions - ‘Where were you when Kennedy was assassinated?’ or ‘Where were you when the Berlin Wall fell?’ - the first such question I can remember in my lifetime was ‘Where were you when Kurt Cobain shot himself?’ The answer: travelling home in a taxi, on a Friday night, leaving Middleton and just reaching Chadderton. We asked the taxi driver to turn the radio up, and still shocked, had to explain to the taxi driver who had died.

Hit: Come As You Are

Hidden Gem: Oh Me

Rocks In The Attic #18: Stone Temple Pilots - ‘Purple’ (1994)

I was always very anti-Nirvana when I was getting into music, in the early nineties. I’m never one to follow hype, and everybody loved them. The band for me at that time - at least the American band for me - was Stone Temple Pilots.

I remember seeing Weiland singing one of the big songs from Core (1992) - probably Plush - on an MTV Awards show, and not being terribly impressed. Yet another vocalist, singing in the style of Cobain and Vedder, I had probably thought. Then when Purple came out and I heard the single Vaseline, I was hooked. I went out and bought the single (the MTV video was in heavy rotation), and probably the album not long after.

Due to Weiland’s drug problems putting the band into hiatus upon the release of their (very underrated) third album, I was never able to see them play back in the 90s. I saw them play in New Zealand last year though (their first time in this country), and they rocked, playing my favourite song from Purple - Still Remains - along with their great cover of Zeppelin’s Dancing Days.

This is one of many coloured vinyls I have in my collection. Needless to say, it’s purple.

Hit: Interstate Love Song

Hidden Gem: Still Remains