Van Halen on top of a Sherman tank at the CaliFFornia World Music Festival in LA, 1979.
 
Today’s rock and roll history lesson comes courtesy of David Lee Roth’s highly entertaining 2000 autobiography Crazy From the Heat in which DLR recalls the details about the time VH rented a Sherman tank so they could destroy a vintage VW Bug—all to spite Aerosmith. According to Roth the occasion would mark the last time that he would ever speak to Steven Tyler, Joe Perry and the rest of the boys in Aerosmith. Say what you want about Aerosmith but if you’ve got Boston blood flowing through your veins then you also know how to hold a wicked long-term grudge, pal.
 

Van Halen at the CaliFFornia World Music Festival, 1979.
 
The story goes that back in 1979 were a part of the CaliFFornia World Music Festival held at the LA Coliseum and on the second night of the two-day festival Van Halen was co-headlining the gig with Aerosmith—who would to on to temporarly implode six-months later after the release of their sixth record Night in the Ruts (or as we called it back in the day in Boston “Right in the Nuts”). In an effort to one-up Aerosmith, the troublemakers in Van Halen cooked up a plan that involved renting a Sherman tank from a local Hollywood prop shop and the purchase of a couple of yellow VW Beetles. The idea was that announcements made over the Coliseum’s PA system would lay the groundwork for folks to think that one of the members of Aerosmith parked the Bug illegally and were asking for it to be moved. The “punchline” in all this excessive craziness was that the tank would roll out just as Van Halen took the stage, crushing the Bug to bits. Sadly someone in VH’s camp must have been a Boston native because Aerosmith caught wind of Van Halen’s shenanigans and had already come up with a plan of their own to one-up the tank gag and VH aborted their awesome caper.

Since Van Halen does not fuck around when it comes to fucking around they actually tested out the prank by having a hired driver roll the tank down some stairs over one of the yellow Beetles which sent debris hurtling in all directions including one of the doors that Roth still has in his massive collection of Van Halen related artifacts. Luckily a few images of the mighty VH riding on top of the tank and Roth taking a swipe at the pile of rubble that was formerly a VW bug like the charming ringmaster of mayhem that he is exist which I’ve posted below. In my mind if VH had actually pulled this one off the already dangerously drug-addled Aerosmith might have called it a day right then and there and we never would have had to endure the shambolic record that is Night in the Ruts (full disclosure—I love that record and I welcome your hate mail). I’ve included some other photos taken at the festival like the little people security detail “employed” by Van Halen and a few other gems that will make you wish you were there yourself (though I’m sure that at least a few of our DM readers probably were).
 

 
More after the jump…

Aerosmith, “Sweet Emotion” (1981)
 
All albums are actually “Sweet Emotion” by Aerosmith.

I know what you’re thinking: “Sweet Emotion” is not an album by Aerosmith!

But you are wrong. All you have to do is look at gallery of album covers that can be found at the Every Album Is Aerosmith Tumblr.

I told a friend of mine about this Tumblr a few days ago; after he got home he wrote me a text saying that “Sweet Emotion” had come on the radio during his drive home.

All albums are actually “Sweet Emotion” by Aerosmith.
 

Aerosmith, “Sweet Emotion” (1987)
 

Aerosmith, “Sweet Emotion” (1979)
 

Aerosmith, “Sweet Emotion” (2002)
 

Aerosmith, “Sweet Emotion” (1980)
 
More sweet ‘Sweet Emotion’ after the jump…

 
I have to offer a bit of full-disclosure here. I’m not an Aerosmith fan. I think they produced a handful of good to great songs in their first four years between 1973 and 1976, but they’re certainly a band who overstayed their welcome and the atrocities of their 1977-2012 catalog piss over any legacy they may have ever had as a decent hard rock band. I once made a list of my top ten “most hated songs of all time,” and Aerosmith appeared a whopping three times on that list (“Ragdoll,” “Dude [Looks Like a Lady],” and “Love in an Elevator,” in descending order for anyone keeping score.)

I have to admit, however, a soft spot for “Dream On.” It’s one of their few tracks that I view as truly transcendent. One day in a classic rock YouTube k-hole, I stumbled upon what I thought would have been a killer live performance of the song from 1977. Seconds after hitting “play,” I began scanning the comments to see if what I was watching was indeed a true Aerosmith performance and not one of those internet “shreds” videos. If you’ve been living under a rock, “shreds” videos were all the rage a few years ago - clever YouTubers would record out-of-tune audio tracks over the top of performance footage of popular bands, resulting in a few yuks at the bands’ expense.

This is not a “shreds” video.

What we have here are Steven Tyler and Joe Perry at the height of their “Toxic Twins” indulgence,  zonked completely out of their minds, barely able to stumble through their signature tune. Perry delivers so many clams he could open a seafood shack, sounding like a fumbling teenager’s first visit to a Guitar Center President’s Day sale. Tyler fades in and out, struggling to keep it together. At times the other band members look on with some confusion. The band starts to gel by the crescendo, and then allows the fizzle-fart ending to put a cap on how much of a shit they don’t give about being onstage.

This has since become a YouTube favorite, and one I like to pull out anytime someone mentions the “greatness” of ‘70s Aerosmith.

In a just world, copies of this performance would have been distributed as parting-gifts to American Idol contestants dismissed by Tyler. Certainly, many bruised egos could have been salved. 

You can’t say much in defense of this, but at least, once-upon-a-time, Steven Tyler looked cool.
 

 
Aerosmith might be are pretty cheesy, don’t get me wrong, but that wasn’t always the case. Before lots of money too much money and rampant drug addiction killed their mojo, Aerosmith, uh, rocked. I was an unrepentant rock snob, even as a little kid, but I still had time for their Rocks album, especially, but also for Toys in the Attic and “Dream On.”

After that, they pretty much lost me for good—they’ve been shite for 30 plus years now, of course—although I confess I saw them once at Madison Square Garden (at the height of their cheesiness) but that was only because I got a free ticket and I had never been to the Garden before. I found myself seated right next to actress Sylvia Miles, of all people.

In the clip below, from the (justifiably) much-maligned Sgt. Pepper’s Lonley Hearts Club Band starring Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees, Aerosmith (when the drugs were still working for them, apparently) perform a barnstorming cover of “Come Together.”
 

 
Ah, the delights of hair metal. Marc, you have really opened up a can of glam worms with that post on vintage Poison! Here in its engorged entirety is still the best document of the mid-80s spandex metal years I have seen, though how most of these bands qualify as “metal” is beyond me, as is the fact that most of these men were considered red-blooded, macho heterosexuals! This whole world has been undergoing a re-appraisal in recent years, possibly as being the last time mainstream rock was this fun, stupid and thoroughly enjoyable. To quote Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler “And then that pussy Cobain came along and ruined everything”.

Decline… Pt 2 has lots of recognisable faces (Kiss without their make-up, a surprisingly lucid Ozzy Osbourne, the Toxic Twins from Aerosmith, wisened elder Lemmy) but the real stars of the film are the musicians and fans plucked straight from the Sunset Strip who we have never heard from again. The “where are they now” pathos, especially at the end, is almost heart-breaking. But don’t let that detract from the fun, especially the sight of Paul Stanley on a bed full of groupies, and Chris Holmes from W.A.S.P. pouring fake vodka into his own face while floating in a swimming pool and shouting at his mother: