Aerosmith, In The Laundromat

Aerosmith fan Julia Roberts

This post best read loud.

Sweet Emotion

Looking square into the vacant chasm that is the space between Steven Tyler’s nose and chin, it’s easy to forget that the new Idol judge’s group of smack-pushing sleaze rockers was once upon a time an indomitable force over the FM airwaves. I share this insight with you now not to celebrate the upcoming 10th anniversary of Just Push Play or even rail against the vastly overrated hockey arena anthem “Dream On,” but rather to emphasize the undeniable, unadulterated perfection of Aerosmith’s 1975 hit “Sweet Emotion.”

Not gonna bog you down with technical specifics (though I’m more than capable of faking profound knowledge of strings, frets and theory). Just suffice it to say that this song represents in a lean 3-minute blast all the things that make me want to relive the Seventies as either a roadie for Foghat or Matthew McConaughey’s big-block Chavelle piloting character in Tim Lincecum biopic “Dazed and Confused.”

Speaking of things Zeppelin, “Sweet Emotion” grooves with more effortless, cocksure swagger than anything that fossilizing group was churning out in ’75 (besides, of course, “The Rover“) – and, in terms of equivalent human movements, best replicates the motion your hand makes when you stick it palm-down out the window of a moving car.

If you’re reading this post in a moving car, stick your hand palm-down out the window to see what I’m talking about. I’ll wait…

I really love how Bahstonian Steve sings “shakin’ yo azz” in the last verse, as if the very core of his existence boiled down to enunciating the words “shaking,” “your” and “ass” with all the detached charisma of the one black kid at your otherwise all-white private school who doesn’t follow the dress code, but skates by because your dorky, suspenders-rocking principal doesn’t have the balls to call him on it and because he plays four different positions for the football team.

Un momento, por favor. I think this guy’s trying to steal my laundry… Yeaaa… Nope.

Close call. See, in the last couple of months, a few of us clothes cleaners have – by chance – come across the one defective (read: rigged) washer that only requires five quarters instead of the usual six. We’ve since each claimed this piece of laundering machinery as our own, but under the unspoken premise that our little coup-de-quarter is still a relative secret. We’re like a tight-knit fraternity of tight-wads. Anyway, long story short, it’s hard to tell whether a dude’s just checking to see if the buck-twenty-five washer’s empty or if he’s legitimately trying to jack your 510 super skinnies.

As much as I’d like to describe for you Aerosmith’s second and third best songs (“Toys In The Attic” and “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” “Sick As A Dog,” respectively), unfortunately we’ve come to the point in the night when some bro in the Impala out front starts pumping The Chronic at ungodly volumes. And you know what would happen if I’m caught writing about Aerosmith on this street cred-bereft Apple product? I’d get a knife pulled on me, probably by the little man in the Spike Lee get-up auspiciously nodding his head in the corner.

In conclusion, then, I’m perfectly aware that this post will be dismissed by critics upon its 2011 release, but reassessed as a “seminal, if misunderstood work of dizzying artistic heights and perverse beauty” probably some time within the next 30 years, but certainly after my death in 2079. Until then, I was just kidding about “Dream On” being overrated.

- Robbie