Aerosmith / Get A Grip

Today is a good day to write something about this album because it may be the most influential album in my life to this day.

It was 1998. I just turned 11 eleven years old. This story actually does not start with Get a Grip, or even with Aerosmith for that matter. No, it starts with The Offspring. They had released their album Americana and the song Pretty Fly for a White Guy was all over the radio. This song was my first encounter with what I later learned was ‘distortion guitar’.

Back then I was confused for a long time about whether the sound that I heard was actually guitar or bass. I was already a fan of the guitar, but until then I only heard clean electric guitar or acoustic guitar.

The sound of distortion was really amazing to me. And I think I also mentioned it to my best friend at the time.

When we were at his house, he then put on a CD that belonged to his sister who was a couple of years older than us. By then she was already heavily invested in Hip Hop. That gave my friend the opportunity to sneak the CD out of her collection and put it in his own CD player in his bedroom.

I was first a bit shocked by the cover. Wasn’t that piercing hurtful for the cow? Was that even allowed?

Anyways I quickly forgot the cover when the first song started. The voice of Steven Tyler and followed by the tribal percussion got me hooked instantly. What then came was the song Eat the Rich. Talking about Distortion! The intro and the breaks knocked me almost on the floor! What the hell was this?? The song ended with a massive Burp in the Microphone! Again I thought…Is that even allowed?

The song Fever started with a sound that to me sounded like a proper space rocket launching into space. What an experience.

I became an instant fan of this band. I knew this would be my number one band forever! “What’s their name again?”’”, I probably asked. “Oh yes… Aerosmith. Spelled with an A..an..E..R..O. That’s the most Bad Ass name for a band EVER!!”, I thought.

My friend was so kind as to record the album on cassette tape for me. Again something he probably ‘borrowed’ from his older sister.

The next day at school, he gave the tape. I was so happy when I got home. Finally I could listen to all this amazing Aerosmith music, and on my own tape!

Now that tape had some curiosities about it, that made the legacy of this album for me personally even bigger. Due to that tape I experienced the album in a very strange and unique way. I’ll try to explain it.
Before I continue I should mention that I listened to that tape for 2 years straight before I actually purchased the album. 2 Years full on.

So that tape was really ingrained in my DNA. Now let’s talk about these strange moments.

Shut Up and Dance

As you might know, a cassette tape had two sides. Side A and Side B. Both sides had 30 minutes of capacity on them. When recording music on a cassette..It would record on side A until the 30 minutes were fulfilled..and then (automatically?) switch to side B. However in the meantime..the music would still continue to play. So that means you might miss a couple of seconds when the tape switches.

This actually happened on my tape when the 8th song of the album ‘Shut Up and Dance’ was playing. Researching this in hindsight I can inform you when this happened. Back then I had absolutely no clue what happened ofcourse. There were no tracktimes available on this cassette.

If you look up the song, the tape stopped probably around 2:33 minutes.

The Tape continued at side B around 2:38 minutes. So for years I missed those 5 seconds. And what happens in these very 5 seconds?

I’m not a drummer so I can’t tell you the exact term. But let’s say it’s an rhythmic Alteration played by drummer Joey Kramer, where to me as a listener it feels like he stops or holds the Beat for a while before continuing it.

You should really listen to it. I unintentionally missed that part for all these years! And when I finally purchased the CD and listened to that part, it always felt as if the tape for the band had stopped as well at that very moment! Years later, when I got a bit more knowledge about music production. I started wondering… What if?

What If I experienced a similar thing that the band had experienced during the recording of the song. Was there a tape issue that happened to be some kind of happy accident that caused Joey to alter the beat at that moment? I’ll probably never know. But I do know this after years of listening and analyzing Aerosmith songs (Live and studio) Joey is not much of a Beat skipper… Who knows what it is… But it really enhanced the legacy of the album for me.

As if that is not enough. There was another curiosity with that old tape…

Amazing

So when listening to the songs in chronological order I got familiar with songs such as Cryin’ and Crazy. Back then I did not know the term ‘Ballad’ or ‘Rock Ballad’. But I really felt these songs had an extra emotional layer of sadness and despair to them, compared to for example a rocker such as Fever or Eat the Rich.

By the end of the tape the last song on my tape was Amazing. Out of these 3 (what later turned out to be Ballads’) I always felt that Amazing had the most weight/emotion/despair to it. Again at that time I did not know how to describe the feeling, and still am looking for the right words. But Amazing was the one that felt the most special to me.

Especially for the following 2 reasons:

1. The ‘screams’ of Steven Tyler that start around 3:35 felt so powerful to me. Again that emotion that I can’t describe. It was just so extremely powerful.
2. My tape ended shortly after that. When researching I would say around 3:37. So I never knew how it would end. That was it! And it was the most ‘amazing’ song I had ever heard.

But how would it end? Remember for years I had only heard the song until that part. Never knowing what would come after that.

The truth is, I did not really care because it was already perfect for me! Not knowing how the song actually ended was not an issue for me. I already had the perfect song, and it ended the way it did for me. Immediately after the ‘Tyler Screams’ at 3:37. That was that, A perfect album! One that I would consume this way for years to come.

How wrong could I be? When I finally purchased the CD years later.. I finally found out what I had missed. And I really started to see it as ‘missing’. Something I never did these years before.

So.. What happens after 3:37? The perfect song was actually far from over. The Big finale, the most epic Joe Perry Solo in the history of Rock Guitar.. combined with even more desperate screams from Steven Tyler. And it felt like the solo just kept going on and on, and the perfection did never end. It felt so long and so good. It was literally Amazing!!!!!

And there was even one more song after Amazing. The instrumental song called Boogie Man. I must say that by that point, I was already drained from listening to Amazing so many times on repeat, that everytime I would listen to Boogieman, I could not really care for it. The song grew on me in later years though.

What happened between 1998 and 2024?

In short: I’m still a massive Aerosmith fan. I saw the band live, purchased all their albums and still check their live bootlegs on Youtube. I must say that in the last couple of years, I never listened to Get a Grip. I became more of a fan of the ‘Old shit’. The album always had a special place in my heart of course. These curiosities are so special to me. And for 23 years these curiosities would forever be attached to this album. Surely the album did not have anything else to offer in the curiosity department after all these years right?

Today on April 20, 2024

Well..Never say Never with Get a Grip.

Because of Record Store Day we decided to check our local Record Store. I had not a particular album in mind and was not even sure if I would buy something. Then when we were almost on our way out, I thought about maybe scoring a nice CD for the CD Player of the car.

Get A Grip immediately crossed my mind, but I did not really think they would have it. It turned out they actually had a copy! I did not hesitate and purchased the album. It felt like meeting a long lost friend again.

Back at home I checked my X / Twitter Timeline. I noticed Aerosmith posted something very familiar! The Cover of Get a Grip! Why? Well it turns out that the album was released on this very day 31 years ago! I bought it again exactly on it’s Birthday!

What a coincidence. And well fitting in this beautiful history of curiosities, if you ask me.

During the writing of this post. I gave the album a spin. And of course it ROCKS HARD!

As Steven Tyler would probably say: Happy Birthday Motherfucker!

Cheers to another 31 years of great music and curiosities.