Dinner in Detroit With Aerosmith

The Future of "Cock-Rock" from Creem, 1975

As I reread this after many years to prepare it for posting, a few things stuck out. Why did I pretend I needed to rely on a press kit, to act like I was unfamiliar with the band? Aerosmith was on Columbia Records, where I had worked for two years prior to coming to Creem. Breaking Aerosmith was a priority project for the record company. "Dream On" was released and re-released as a single because of the confidence of the radio promotion, sales, and marketing teams that it was a hit record, and they stayed with it until it became a reality.

While still working there, writing and co-editing the house magazine Playback, I went to Boston to cover Aersomith's "triumphant" homecoming concert at the Orpheum Theatre. Blue Öyster Cult, also on Columbia, was the opening act. My story for Playback earned me a reprimand, because I forgot to keep my "record company" hat on, and wrote my rock critic opinion that Blue Öyster Cult was the better of the two bands that night. I was told in a letter from…