Aerosmith

Refusing to act your age is a treasured trait in rock 'n' roll. The Stones still shake butt, despite 50 years of cruel living, just as Chuck Berry serenades sweet 16-year-olds while deep in his 60s. Still, for sheer arrested development, neither act has anything on Aerosmith. While hardly the most decayed of rockers (average age: 44), Aerosmith ranks among the most wrinkled groups ever to target its music entirely to the sensibility of 15-year-olds. It's as if, back in high school, some teacher sentenced them to detention for life and they took it to heart.

Respect may not be an automatic byproduct of longevity in popular music, but sometimes it works out that way. The Rolling Stones finally get a Grammy. Rap finally gets played on pop radio. Aerosmith finally gets good reviews. Yes, that's right. After years of being dismissed as either arena dinosaurs or metal noisemongers, one of hard rock's godfather bands is hearing flat-out raves. "Yeah," says guitarist Joe Perry. "I worry about that. Especially in Rolling Stone. " It may be too late to stop it, though.

The new role of Songwriter-with-Something-to-Say seems to have dazed Aerosmith screecher Steven Tyler. At last night's sold-out Spectrum show, the lead singer, who has slowed down in more ways than one, looked lost on stage during the band's current hit single, "Janie's Got a Gun. " The eerie song about a daughter's revenge on her abusive father is the band's best single in a decade. It was also the band's best performance last night, paced by a heavy synthesizer and Tyler's subdued yet emotive vocals.

When Aerosmith first took off in the mid-'70s, its members were branded as Rolling Stones manques. Who would have guessed it would be hailed and credited with giving birth to an entire generation of pop-metal bands? Guns N' Roses, Def Leppard, Cinderella and a host of others are heavily indebted to Aerosmith's early rollicking razzle-dazzle and burning cigarette-lighter anthems. Friday night at the Spectrum, we saw two different Aerosmiths: Aerosmith 1, masters of gutbucket boogie and sass; and Aerosmith 2, slick purveyors of over-polished power ballads and empty-headed rockers.

Kiss and Aerosmith toured together nearly 30 years ago, but they made strange bedfellows Friday at the Tweeter Center. Though fans in the Kiss Army (some with painted faces) and the Aero Force mingled harmoniously, the evening felt like a smackdown between bubblegum heavy metal and bluesy hard rock. Kiss' 75-minute show was straight out of 1978. Bassist Gene Simmons, guitarist Paul Stanley, drummer Peter Criss, and lead guitarist Tommy Thayer (in Ace Frehley's role) wore their usual Kabuki-inspired makeup, studded and spiked black leather, and ridiculously tall platform boots.

Alternative rock is dead. Long live arena rock! Or so Columbia Records hopes you'll cheer after hearing Nine Lives, Aerosmith's 12th career album and its first since signing a four-disc deal, said to be worth $30 million, with the label. In stores today, this is the collection that's supposed to teach those alternative twerps who have failed to meet multiplatinum sales projections how things are done. Singer Steven Tyler, guitarist Joe Perry, and the rest of the boys are pushing 50. But, if anything, Nine Lives is even more adolescent-directed than Pump of 1989 and Get a Grip of 1993, the mega-successes (thanks to power ballads like "Cryin' " and "Amazing" and naughty videos featuring Alicia Silverstone and Tyler's daughter, Liv)

Who's the hottest rock band today - this being Friday? If your measure is money, it's got to be Aerosmith. The band, which seemed dead after a wave of popularity in the 1970s, has signed a deal to make four albums for Sony's Columbia Records for a reported $30 million to $50 million. The label disputes the amounts, but won't give one of their own. The New York Times, citing unnamed sources close to the negotiations, says it's the lower figure. The benchmark for all such deals is the $65 million Sony signed Michael Jackson to in March.

NEW YORK - Steven Tyler's memoir has a million of 'em. Like that night in 1978 when he blacked out on stage while singing "Reefer-Headed Woman. " Or when he and Aerosmith visited the White House on the day President Bill Clinton was impeached. Or that weird weekend with Keith Richards at Bing Crosby's old house on Long Island. Everyone, Tyler writes, "was gacked to the nines on coke. " The book, Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? is scheduled for release next week. Explicit and filled with expletives, it reads like a wilder and louder version of Richards' best-selling Life . Tyler, 63, settles back and tells story after story about life in the "most decadent, lecherous, sexiest, nastiest band in the land.

AEROSMITH, with Jonny Lang. Blockbuster-Sony E-Center, Camden, 8 p.m. Friday. Tickets: $23-$38. Info: 609-365-1445. When our 5-year-old friend Will first heard Aerosmith's "Falling in Love (Is Hard on the Knees)" on the car radio, he turned to his mom and dad and breathlessly asked, "What kind of music is that?" Rock and roll, they replied. "Well, if you would turn that rock and roll music up really loud," he negotiated, "I'm sure I would really love it. " Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler laughed on hearing this tale, though he wasn't really surprised.

Pop The Coup Sorry To Bother You (Anti- ***) Oakland rapper Boots Riley doesn't have all that much competition when it comes to being the sharpest, wittiest, must musically expansive Marxist social critic on the block. But that doesn't mean the Coup's commander-in-chief is easing up on his band's sixth album and first since 2006's Pick a Bigger Weapon . The Coup, who play Underground Arts on Dec. 7, still technically consist of Riley and DJ Pam the Funkstress, but they stretch out further than ever into Sly Stone-George Clinton psychedelic-funk territory here.

There is a moment in the first episode of Oprah's Next Chapter , the new celebrity and spiritual travelogue starring Oprah Winfrey and also her interview subjects, that feels more like something out of This Is Spinal Tap than a star debriefing on a cable network ostensibly for women. At the end of two television hours (!) together on last Sunday's premiere, Winfrey and Steven Tyler, the flamboyant Aerosmith front man and, more recently, American Idol judge, were in a forest in Tyler's native Sunapee, N.H. They had hiked there to find a bed of moss where Tyler says he discovered his spirituality as a young man. They sat down on the moss, these two superstars in their respective realms, and each sniffed the moss.

NEW YORK - Steven Tyler's memoir has a million of 'em. Like that night in 1978 when he blacked out on stage while singing "Reefer-Headed Woman. " Or when he and Aerosmith visited the White House on the day President Bill Clinton was impeached. Or that weird weekend with Keith Richards at Bing Crosby's old house on Long Island. Everyone, Tyler writes, "was gacked to the nines on coke. " The book, Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? is scheduled for release next week. Explicit and filled with expletives, it reads like a wilder and louder version of Richards' best-selling Life . Tyler, 63, settles back and tells story after story about life in the "most decadent, lecherous, sexiest, nastiest band in the land.

Wednesday, on the stage of the Forum in Los Angeles, amid intense speculation - OK, not that intense; everyone knew it for awhile now - the final two American Idol judges were announced! "Rolled out," as they say. They are Steven Tyler , lunatic wide-mouth tenor of Aerosmith , and impossibly gorgeous Jennifer Lopez . They'll join Randy Jackson , still there after all these years. Host Ryan Seacrest introduced the trio in a fired-up, thumping, pointless rally. See, they're "auditioning.

AEROSMITH front man Steven Tyler has signed on to become an "American Idol" judge, as the Fox show hustles to replace Simon Cowell and Ellen DeGeneres . At least in this job, the big-haired, bigger-mouthed singer could remain safely seated. He's taken a few nasty tumbles during recent Aerosmith gigs, breaking a shoulder last autumn. His latest unintentional stage dive occurred Tuesday in Toronto as the band was performing "Love in an Elevator. " Video shows Tyler hip-bumping guitarist Joe Perry , who bumps back and sends the spindly rocker flying.

ITALY is known for its delicious food and tourists travel there from around the world to dine on meats, cheeses, pastas and sauces. Cats? Not so much. Italian state TV (RAI) confirmed yesterday that it had suspended Beppe Bigazzi, the 77-year-old host of a popular morning cooking show, after he shocked the nation by talking about much he enjoyed the Tuscan delicacy cat stew. (Felineguini and Claw Sauce?) "Why, people maybe don't eat rabbit, chicken, pigeon?" the white-haired grandfather said.

WE MAY NOT have seen the last of Michael Jackson. One day there could be Michael 2.0. According to Britain's Daily Star, it seems as if back in 1996, Michael underwent several three-dimensional scans so a virtual-reality "robotic" twin could be produced. "The data has been in our archives since he had the scans," said the anonymous businessman who allegedly owns the alleged images. "The thing about this data is it immortalized him at the age of 37, before his nose was disfigured and when he was in the prime of his life.

CNN's John King to replace Dobbs Politico and the Washington Post say CNN anchor John King, the upright, square-jawed good-looker who made his name with the "magic map" - that big-screen thingie where you move your fingers around and it gets bigger or goes over there - is taking over for Lou Dobbs at the 7 p.m. slot. Dobbs pole-axed the world Wednesday night, when he verrrry dramatically announced his resignation right on the air. Dobbs was cut loose from his contract by an evidently relieved CNN. King's a good reporter, and "SideShow" hopes he does great.

Cocaine use contributed to Mays' death Cocaine use was a "contributory cause" in the heart attack death of infomercial star Billy Mays in June, the Hillsborough County, Fla., medical examiner's office reported yesterday. Mays, 50, was famed for his ear-shattering, booming voice and machine-gun delivery, which turned his OxiClean and Orange Glo pitches into hyper-consumerist kabuki. Heart disease still is cited as the primary cause of death. Another Baldwin is born Daniel Baldwin, 48, of The Baldwin Bros.