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The plastic inevitable The strangeness of meeting Aerosmith by MIREILLE SILCOTT
This isn't a story about Moby, but about Aerosmith. Actually, it's not even a story about Aerosmith, but about the mechanism that makes all magazines and newspapers seem like they are copying each other simultaneously. A rep from Sony called the Mirror this February, one month after I had become music editor. They offered a trip to Toronto to meet Aerosmith, who were on the cusp of releasing their "Long Awaited Album" Nine Lives. Sony called the destination a "junket" and said many journalists from eastern Canada were coming. On the train one writer laughed because I had brought a bagful of research about Aerosmith. I told him I needed it, because I knew nothing of them, save the Run DMC connection and Liv Tyler. "You don't need to know anything," he said. After the dry train and a glimpse at Aerosmith's rider ("No alcohol near the band," "Fat free turkey"), we arrived at Toronto's Warehouse club, decorated garishly oriental to compliment Nine Lives's "Eastern Feel." I was seated at one table, which I soon realized was a dumbo table, occupied mostly by dolts from Ontario dailies. Each band member spent 15 minutes at each table. My cohorts had a fascination with the particularities of guitars used by Joe Perry. When I look at my notes now, they mean nothing: "Purple sweater"; "fidgety hands"; "looks mean." But the cassette of interviews says even less: "We're all clean"; "We've come to a creative understanding." Aerosmith were shallow. But this efficient "junket" would allow them to be nothing else. The general promotion of large bands is so contrived that it precludes depth, cancelling any chance of insight no matter how tight your questions. Steven Tyler smoked Cubans, had the body of a lithe 16-year-old and the best posture I'd ever seen on a man. He talked of Christmas "with the kids." And it was all horrid. The most famous people on my side of music's fence are the Chemical Brothers, who I've met at parties and seem like, well, people. But observing Tyler's tiny, bloated face a metre from mine was scary in its familiarity. Things can get too iconic: seeing Tyler's spit flying onto the table felt something akin to witnessing the Mona Lisa picking her nose or Ronald McDonald peeing. I don't think Aerosmith are as good as Michelangelo or even a well-placed Big Mac for that matter, but the three have an unchanging plasticity from overexposure in common; something that gives them symbolic status and, somehow, little meaning. "I'm a regular home guy," said Tyler. But he's not. How can you be when half the Western World has seen your face and thinks it somehow means more than their own? Aerosmith play the Molson Centre with opener Jonny Lang Friday, July 4, 8pm. $33-$48 |
Two years ago, I noticed Moby on the cover of four magazines in the same month. He had moved to a large label and every journalist had received packages and interview offers at the same time, just when Moby's album was about to land.