Aerosmith 1971: The Road Starts Hear ( Full Album )

Before Steven Tyler and Joe Perry became the “Toxic Twins,” they were merely intoxicated. On a newly unearthed demo tape, which is coming out with the regrettably punny title The Road Starts Hear, that Aerosmith cut in 1971 — two years before releasing their self-titled debut — the band sounds loose and lubricated on embryonic versions of “Dream On,” “Mama Kin,” and other ditties they would be performing live for the next 50 years. It’s at once both a sonogram of the band as journeymen and a testament to the vision they had early on, the dogged determination to dream until the dream comes true — even if it sounds anything but dreamy in the moment. The band members were all in their late teens or early twenties when they first came together in 1970. Originally, Tyler had corralled Perry, bassist Tom Hamilton, and drummer Joey Kramer into backing him on an audition tape for the Jeff Beck Group, which had recently parted ways with Rod Stewart. They ultimately figured they made a pretty good racket of thei