Your Wait for a New Joe Perry Project Album Is About to End

Sarcastic title for this post, but in the middle of a busy day, let me get a few things off my mind.

I hope Steven Tyler gets himself some help and gets back to living clean and sober. For all his effort, his role as a wasted, 3rd-rate Mick Jagger in his ’70s prime wasn’t doing anyone much good. I know I’m in the minority of rock fans for preferring the finely crafted hits of post-sobriety Aerosmith, but better yet was the story of that entire 2nd-rate band growing up and actually working to craft tolerable music for washed-up dudes in their late-40s and beyond. Hopefully the band’s second life inspired a few other wasted, washed-up, middle age dudes to start getting their acts together. The last year or so, reports of Tyler returning to his party boy ways and falling off stages are way more pathetic than his wardrobe, which sadly never sobered up.

I saw something about Pete Townshend working on a new rock opera called Floss. A new Who album is to result from this work. The rock opera, which it seems is scheduled to go right to Broadway (with the Who album headed directly for the cutout bin), is about aging. Pete explained that the world needed to hear the author of the greatest ageist song in history expound on old age. Or something like that. Perhaps Pete can seek treatment for his addiction to rock operas.

Finally, I saw that two behind-the-scenes greats of ’60s pop died, Wrecking Crew/Bread/etc bassist Larry Knechtel and Brill Building songwriter Ellie Greenwich. I don’t think I’d ever seen even a photo of Knechtel until I saw him on stage with Elvis Costello during his Mighty Like a Turd tour. He had awesome golden locks.