David Hull's Rock Star Supernova

It’s funny to think that just a few months earlier, I was praying for another chance like Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, who made a wad of money, blew it all, and was allowed another go. Now my chance was right in front of me...
--Tabloid Baby, Chapter 25

...Tom Hamilton won’t be with his brothers until mid October. David Hull, a longtime friend of the band who played in the Joe Perry Project, will fill in as bassist.
--Aerosmith.com

Growing up in the Sixties and Seventies, we all wanted to be rock ‘n’ roll stars, and David Hull was the first rock ‘n’ roll star we got to know up close. We were in Connecticut, heading into high school, and he was the cousin of our best friend. David Hull was a few years older than us, a skinny, long-haired, velvet-wearing bass player in rock ‘n’ roll bands at a time when rock ‘n’ roll was important, when Jimi Hendrix was alive, the Beatles were still together and Steven Tyler was singing in local cover bands.

In 1969, David Hull and his guitar-slinging bandmate Charlie Karp entered local rock mythology when they joined The Buddy Miles Express in time to play on the Them Changes album. Buddy was a big fat drummer with a big Afro and a psychedelic red white and blue drum kit who'd been in the Electric Flag and played in Band of Gypsies with Hendrix. Timing being everything, David and Charlie got to know Hendrix-- and play at his funeral. After a couple of years, they left Buddy Miles, made an album with Arthur Lee, and returned to Connecticut with a funk trio called White Chocolate and a contract with RCA Records.

One thing: David Hull was a great rock 'n' roll (and funk) bass player. In high school, he gave us bass guitar lessons, teaching us patterns and names like James Jamerson and Willie Weeks. He had extra cachet because he was friends with the guys in Aerosmith, whose first two albums were essential to every Connecticut kid, and legend was that he and Charlie had recorded with Tyler and that he’d almost joined their band.

That was more than thirty years ago.

Around the time punk was breaking, White Chocolate became The Angels with Dirty Faces, which became the Dirty Angels which were the best bar band of the Seventies— real rock stars in beachside clubs, opening with the Beach Boys' Marcella, blasting in with originals.

They had the chops. They had the attitude. They had rock ‘n’ roll model girlfriends and even had a shot at the big time when they recorded an album for Private Stock at the same time Blondie was laying down their first LP for the same label across the hall. Bruce Springsteen told Creem magazine that their record Tell Me was his favorite song on the radio. But this was the record business. They made their next album with Ted Nugent’s producer— and included new versions of songs from their first album. The Dirty Angels opened for Aerosmith, but eventually broke up.

Around that time, Joe Perry left Aerosmith and started The Joe Perry Project. David Hull joined as bass player.

This was 1980. The gig lasted probably a year and a half.

Joe Perry would get back with Aerosmith for an even greater ride. And that was the last we‘d heard of David Hull, until about a year ago when we looked him up on the Internet. In an interview on an Aerosmith tribute site, he confirmed the legends we’d grown up with:

”I'm from southern Connecticut and I think Steven Tyler was from Yonkers. When I was a kid I used to see him playing around the circuit there. His band would play in high school gyms. I saw him once open up for Sly Stone I think, he had this band called The Chain Reaction and for part of the time he played drums in it. So I just knew him. I was playing with Buddy Miles. Buddy moved to Boston, I started living in Boston and met Steven … Charlie Karp and I were going to start a band with Steven and we actually got together and recorded… Steven wrote the lyrics and sang on it… but then Charlie Karp and I left town with Buddy Miles and went on the road. By the time we got done with that Aerosmith was already under way…”

David Hull had settled in Boston. His story got a little sad in the Eighties as he played with a number of fashionable bands—even changing his name and dressing up for one of them. More recently, he was playing bass for a singer named Pete Droge and recorded with local blues hero James Montgomery.

And, apparently, he stayed friends with the guys in Aerosmith.

Last week, we read that Aerosmith’s bass player, Tom Hamilton, is being treated for throat cancer and would miss the beginning of the band’s Fall tour. And then Aerosmith’s management put out a press release:

David Hull, a longtime friend of the band who played in the Joe Perry Project, will fill in as bassist.

The tour is set to launch Tuesday in Columbus, Ohio.

Aerosmith.com reports: “David Hull has been in the studio everyday going over a countless number of songs with (drummer) Joey and David usually got into the studio 2 hours before the rest of the guys to get into a groove.”

So David Hull gets another shot at the big game, 25 years later. Tom Hamilton’s recovery will determine whether he'll be more than a footnote in Aerosmith history, but at a time when we're digging our rock stars 50 years and older, his second, or third, or fourth act couldn't have come at a better time.

Once a rock star, always a rock star.


(The Hulls were a musical family. Dave’s grandmother was our freshman music teacher and his dad was a jazz musician who’d gone the Louis Prima route with a Vegas lounge act. Every year, Gene Hull would bring his group and his gorgeous girl singer to play in our high school gym. Today, one of our researchers discovered that daddy Gene Hull recently wrote his own Tabloid Baby! Hooked on a Horn: Memoirs of A Recovered Musician was published last November. It looks like a great read. We’re ordering it from Amazon, and will have a review soon.

Good news for David Hull

It took most of the mainstream media about three days to catch up with our report on Friday that Joe Perry was claiming that Steven Tyler had quit Aerosmith, but as soon as they did catch up, Steven Tyler came out and denied it.

Tyler walked onstage at the Fillmore in New York where The Joe Perry Project (with bassist and Aerosmith fill-in player David Hull) was performing last night and announced:

"I just want New York to know, I am not leaving Aerosmith! And Joe Perry, you are a man of many colours but I, motherfucker, am the rainbow!"

Then they played 'Walk This Way.' Tyler ended the song with his arm around Perry.

David Hull is back with Aerosmith

We reported three years ago on the Still Crazy-style resurrection of David Hull, the local rock star from Tabloid Baby’s teenage years who'd been called out of obscurity to tour as a member of Aerosmith.

David was the coolest bass player out of Statford, Connecticut (and still a teenager) forty years ago when he and local guitar hero Charlie Karp joined The Buddy Miles Express in time to play on the Them Changes album (the song appears on the new Eric Clapton-Stevie Winwood live album). David and Charlie toured the world before going on to their own success with White Chocolate and The Dirty Angels, including opening for their stadium pals Aerosmith (they'd been working with Steven Tyler when Buddy Miles called). David would later join The Joe Perry Project, and settled in the Boston area, where he remained a part of the blues and rock scene for decades.

Then, in 2006, Aerosmith called him back up to the big leagues, to fill in on tour for bassist Tom Hamilton, who was stricken with throat cancer. He was received warmly by fans, even when he played Tom's signature opening riff to Sweet Emotion, and was suddenly a rock star in his fifties.

Three years later, Aerosmth's on the road again, and David Hull is once again filling in for ailing Tom Hamilton. The band's site reports:

AEROSMITH bassist TOM HAMILTON will be sitting out some dates of the Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Presents Aerosmith tour dates with special guests ZZ Top as he recuperates from non-invasive surgery. Filling in for TOM will be David Hull, a longtime friend of the band who played in the Joe Perry Project and who sat in for TOM on various shows in 2006. When STEVEN TYLER, JOE PERRY, AND JOEY KRAMER return to the road on July 15 at Lakewood Amphitheatre in Atlanta, GA, they’ll be welcoming back BRAD WHITFORD, who has recovered from a recent surgery after having sat out the opening dates of the tour.

Aerosmith is battered. Tyler is recovering from leg surgery and drummer Kramer's got a new book about his depression and addictions. We're sure Joe Perry's not feeling so hot himself. Yet, they rock on. And David Hull can be considered one of the boys.

David Hull photo by Glen Masso

First Oasis, now Aerosmith

Joe Perry says Steven Tyler has quit Aerosmith.

Just this morning, we were watching a CNN clip about Aerosmith's performance in Abu Dhabi and noticed that Perry and Tyler were interviewed separately, Tyler alongside his new partner in crime, Tabloid Baby pal Mark Hudson. Perry says the Abu Dhabi show was the band's last, and that he learned of Tyler's decision "online" but hasn't been able to confirm it because Tyler doesn't return his calls. He denied guitarist Brad Whitford's claim that the band would look for a new frontman.

Tyler didn't look all that steady in the Abu Dhabi interview. Then again, he fell off a stage and broke things not to long ago.

Aerosmith is cited as an influence in the book, Tabloid Baby. We've also been following the story of hometown rock 'n' roll hero David Hull, who's been filling in now and then for Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton, and most recently been holding down the bottom for the reunited Joe Perry Project.

Money talks: Steven Tyler rejoins Aerosmith

Aerosmith announced on their website that after months hints that he'd quit, a stint in rehab and threats to replace him, Steven Tyler is back with the band and ready to tour.

The band is heading out with their "Cocked, Locked and Ready to Rock" European tour this summer.


Tyler's been acting strange since he fell off a stage and broke his leg back in August. For a time, he huddled with Tabloid Baby pal Mark Hudson to work on his autobiography before being convinced to clean up his act. He and Joe Perry, meanwhile, rarely spend time in the same room, and they managed to get four of the five members together for the reunion announcement video on the website.


Most striking in the video is the obvious toll throat cancer has taken on bassist Tom Hamilton, who's been replaced on tour periodically in recent years by longtime Aerosmith and Tabloid Baby pal David Hull.


He is, however, still rockin'.

Sinking New York Times elevates stinking TMZ

Recent viewers of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com and its whitewashed syndicated television sister know the AOL and Time Warner-backed operation for its ugly misogynistic harassment of the troubled woman who gave birth to octuplets, and know its shaved bronzed midget frontman as the giddy giggling amalgamation of Sidney Falco and Roy Cohn who's shown up joyfully on local news and morning shows to wallow in the pugwash of the latest conscienceless backdoor gangbang perpetrated by his jealous Hollywood-hating attack squad.

But to readers of The New York Times, TMZ.com is a shining light of investigative muckraking journalism, not only challenging but leading the mainstream in the coverage of "billion-dollar business scandals and the economic collapse."

In a story that's hit the Times website tonight, reporter Brian Stelter states that TMZ actually "drove mainstream coverage and Congressional outrage with a blog post late last month that exclaimed, 'Bailout Bank Blows Millions Partying in L.A.' The site reported that Northern Trust, a bank that received $1.6 billion in taxpayer money, had hosted hundreds of clients and employees at a golf tournament and a series of parties in Southern California. 'Your tax dollars, hard at work,' the site wrote.

"Northern Trust never sought the bailout funds, but agreed to take them last fall at the behest of the government. Regardless, the photos of Tiffany gift bags and the grainy video clips of Chicago and Sheryl Crow performing for the group angered readers —as well as Congressional Democrats, who demanded in a letter that Northern Trust repay what the company 'frittered away on these lavish events.' The bank said it would do so 'as quickly as prudently possible,' news that earned four exclamation points from TMZ.

"Harvey Levin, the editor of TMZ, who called the story 'the most important thing we’ve ever done,' knows his readers don’t come to the site for a dissertation on mortgage-backed securities. 'It’s hard for people to wrap their heads around $800 billion in bailout money. It’s too big a thing,' he said. 'It’s much easier to understand paying for a Sheryl Crow concert.'"

At a time when established, major newspapers are folding left and right in the face of economic woes and Internet competition, such praise and validation in the pages of the financially-troubled New York Times seem outlandish and hard to even fathom-- unless you read TabloidBaby.com and remember our criticism of the boy blogger-turned-Times reporter.

After Stelter wrote his second gushing Times story about the TMZ TV show in December 2007, we wrote that "youthful TV blogger-turned-New York Times special reporter Brian Stelter continues to drag the former 'newspaper of record' down the slippery slope of hype and spin with his breathless adulation of the syndicated television series based on the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com."

While TMZ's most notable "contribution" to the coverage of the economic crisis has been its scapegoating and mocking of the so-called "Octomom," tabloid television shows have been, as Stelter praised TMZ and other infotainment shows, "expanding their coverage" since the Eighties, when A Current Affair covered the San Francisco earthquake and fall of the Berlin Wall. The acquisition of the Northern Trust celebrity party photos was the center of TMZ's jaded and cynical spin, but it was a very brief diversion from its usual corrupt fare. Stelter's use of the Times platform to give credibility to the site only gives Levin and his patrons more authority to state with a straight face that the work they do is of value and deserving of corporate and network support in expanding.

And all this comes on an evening when TMZ's gallery of online headlines is highlighted by

Reality Doc Sued Over Alleged Botched Vagina

and

Neverland Was Filled with Sculpted Boys

(Of special to irony to those who recall Harvey Levin's initial brush with the spotlight, TabloidBaby.com "drove mainstream coverage and Congressional outrage" in 2005 with its exclusive photos of Mitzvahpalooza, the $10 million bat mitzvah tossed by a Long Island defense contractor accused of supplying faulty body armour to US soldiers in Iraq, and featuring pop and rock stars like Don Henley, Tom Petty, 50 Cent and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. Mainstream organizations from Rolling Stone to Time magazine used our photos.)

War profiteer faces prison for Mitzvahpalooza

The former CEO of the leading supplier of body armor to U.S. soldiers in Iraq has been charged with looting the company to bankroll a lavish lifestyle that included a $10 million bat mitzvah for his daughter. You remember the "mitzvahpalooza"-- that's the private party that featured performances by sellout superstars including Don Henley, Stevie Nicks, 50 Cent, Ciara, Tom Petty, Steven Tyler & Joe Perry of Aerosmith and (strolling near the buffet, searching for the brown note) Kenny G-- "private," that is, until Tabloid Baby made it public when we ran exclusive and timeless photos of the event two years ago.


Now the real-life Daddy Warbucks may pay big time for the Rainbow Room rockfest. Long Islander David Brooks faces 21 counts, including securities fraud, insider trading, tax evasion and obstruction of justice. He could go to jail for life. And these rock 'n' roll and hip hop stars must go through life knowing these pictures are in their closets.

performance photos © Tabloidbaby.com

David Hull is releasing his first solo album

The sudden late-in-life rock star resurrection of local teenage hero David Hull that we first chronicled four years ago to this day (September 3, 2006) has reached a new apotheosis with the release this month of his first solo album.

Soul in Motion is available for pre-order on i-Tunes and Amazon.com and will be celebrated with a release party on October 14th at the House of Blues in Boston. Dave reports that a video for the tune Pay Some Attention (above) has been shot and will be released soon.


Hull, the bassist from Stratford, Connecticut who found international success forty years ago with the Buddy Miles band, White Chocolate and the Dirty Angels. His connection to Seventies superstars Aerosmith (he and guitar partner Charlie Karp once planned a band with Steven Tyler) paid off at the end of the decade when he joined the Joe Perry Project. Hull would keep up a low-profile career based in the Boston area until 2006 when he was called back to the Majors, filling in on tour for Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton, who was sidelined with throat cancer. In the time since, he's kept up his chops with the James Montgomery Band, toured with a revamped Joe Perry Project and done more shows with Aerosmith.


The album drops September 14th. Hull tells his Facebook friends he's putting a band together, so expect a tour. Stay tuned.

Harvey meets vagina II? It's Steven Tyler's throat.

And it's another example of the disgusting, crass, vulgar material being oozed out on an hourly basis on the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com, which ran the picture this morning to give the impression it was a gynaecological closup of a celebrity vagina. The headline, "Whose Body Part is This?" came with the hint: "Someone was a little too revealing on this morning's Today show... Hint: It's not Britney."

This is TMZ's second clumsy vagina come-on in a month. C'mon, Tonio! Even you have to admit that a person doesn't have to "have it out for TMZ" to be offended by this misogynistic smut-- it's cheap, and not very good tabloid. And we can't help but write about this fascinating phenomenon: this is marketed by a corporate monolith (AOL, Time Warner, Telepictures) as mainstream entertainment!

Anyway, it's not the only time today that TMZ used Britney to make up a story.

One of the TMZ amateurs with a camera let his foot get run over by her car-- all so TMZ could promote a phony story for the TV show ("Tune in tonight to TMZ TV to see how it all went down -- and Britney's reaction!"). And the lazy "mainstream" news media followed in formation, pimping for TMZ by shooting video off the website for their shows this morning.

Meanwhile, as the kids with cameras cause real danger, swarming and chasing unstable young women driving out of parking garages, and Harvey and company pay some asshole to stick his foot under a wheel for a show tease (and you can bet they would have sued had he not been stupid enough to turn to another pap's camera to say he was "fine"), there are real, compelling-- even important-- grown-up tabloid show biz stories taking place every day in the Twink Male Zone.

Tabloid Baby's Mitzvahpalooza photos help convict war profiteer in fraud case

Tabloid Baby has aided in the conviction of body armour mogul and Iraq war profiteer David H. Brooks on 17 counts, including insider trading and securities fraud, stemming from what prosecutors described as corporate looting and stock-trading schemes that made him more than $190 million.

The multimillionaire from Long Island was found guilty yesterday of looting his business to fuel a lavish lifestyle-- including the infamous "Mitzvahpalooza": the $10 million Rainbow Room bat mitzvah where stars inclusing 50 Cent, Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Don Henley, Kenny G, Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty and Ciara serenaded his coming-of-age daughter.

The New York Daily News reports that:

"As proof, prosecutors showed the federal jury damning photos of Brooks holding court at the staggeringly opulent 2005 bat mitzvah for daughter Elizabeth."

The photos of that bat mitzvah, an embarrassment and shame to the rap and rock legends who were exposed as sellouts for making themselves available like balloon artists or party clowns, were first tracked down and published here on TabloidBaby.com- in November 2005- then republished and broadcast-- with credit-- to this news organization.

(See our original posts and exclusive photos here, here, here, here, and here.)

Brooks was indicted in 2007. Tabloid Baby was not called to testify in the case, nor were our photos ever subpoenaed.

photos © Tabloidbaby.com

Aerosmith Update: David Hull returns to reality

From the James Montgomery Band website:

Dec 29 Chan's Woonsocket, RI David Hull rejoins the band after 3 months as Aerosmith's bassist! Welcome back Dave! The most venerable blues and jazz club in all the Northeast. Great dinner and great music. The crowd here is the best! "We play to the crowd more here than any other place we play," says James. Come down and experience it personally!

The rock’n’roll Cinderfella success story of the year is winding to a close, and the local hero rock star of Tabloid Baby’s teenage years is returning to the trenches after a season at the top. For a few months now, we've been following the amazing comeback of David Hull, Seventies rock star turned journeyman musician, to whom fate handed an incredible second coming in September when he was recruited to play with Aerosmith on the band's Route of All Evil tour. We first knew David Hull more than thirty five years ago. It was Southern Connecticut. We must have been 14. He was the cousin of our best friend Brian Butler, a few years older and the rock star we all wanted to be. He made records with Buddy Miles and Arthur Lee, jammed with Hendrix, and had planned to start a band with Steven Tyler before returning home victorious with White Chocolate and later The Dirty Angels, a trio and quartet that provided the bar band soundtrack of our Seventies. He gave us bass lessons when we were young, and when we were older and had traded guitars for the journo life while moving the punk scene with our Connecticut pals Tom Hearn and Legs McNeil, we wrote about his band and records. David Hull’s Aerosmith connections stuck through the years. The Dirty Angels opened for Aerosmith in their late Seventies burnout years, and he played bass with the Joe Perry Project when Joe wandered off on its own. Over the past 25 years, he’s been based in Boston, playing with a variety of rock, pop and blues bands, back in the bars and small clubs, still socializing with the guys from Aerosmith but apparently content in his role as a journeyman who’d reached for the brass ring and almost made it. When he was young. And then, this summer, opportunity knocked. Aerosmith was headed off on a fall tour with Motley Crue, but bass player Tom Hamilton, a fan favorite, couldn’t make it because he was being treated for throat cancer. The show would go on, and David Hull got the call to fill in. Another chance at rock stardom, years after it seemed to be in his past. In his 50s! Suddenly, this rock pro who hadn’t played to arenas full of screaming fans since the Seventies, was being plucked from the clubs and bars of New England where he’d been playing with local hero James Montgomery. Aerosmith management assured the fans it would only be for a month or so, that Tom was on the mend and would be back soon. David did a crash course on the Aerosmith songbook, worked for weeks getting into the groove with drummer Joey Kramer, getting his hair in shape. He made his debut on September 5th in Ohio. Onstage, he laid back. He knew whose shoes he was filling and the possible fan backlash that could rival the reaction when Ringo took over for Pete Best. But as weeks turned to months, and it became clear that Tom’s condition was worse than let on, David's reputation as a good guy and longtime compatriot added to the goodwill. He loosened up, started looking like a rock star again. The fans accepted him. And what would otherwise be seen as sacrilege-- playing the classic opening bassline of Sweet Emotion-- was heard as a tribute from an old friend. He'd even inspire his own subgroup of fans known as FOD: “Followers of Dave.” And he played the entire tour, which wraps up tonight at the Arco Arena in Sacramento. The members of Aerosmith wlll scatter to their own private rock star corners of the world for winter vacations. For David Hull, it's back to work. He'll will rejoin The James Montgomery Band, beginning at Chan’s Chinese restaurant and jazz club in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Not quite the Arco Arena. But Aerosmith will soldier on in 2007. And there's a good chance David Hull will be with them. His rock star comeback isn't over. We'll keep you posted.

David Hull makes his debut with Aerosmith

Tabloid Baby’s old friend, 60s and 70s rock star David Hull, had his TV movie moment last night when he made his debut onstage as the bassist for Aerosmith.

Dave, whose rock star days seemed but a memory a few weeks ago, finds himself dusting off his leather pants, teasing up his hair and fixing his makeup at an age when he should be having his prostate checked. His good fortune comes at the expense of his friend, Aerosmith’s longtime bassman Tom Hamilton, who's sidelined with throat cancer. But that’s how these things happen.

And the story’s just beginning.

Here’s the first photo (above) from the Germain, Amphitheater (that’s Dave, second from the left), from Steve Mitchell, and review, from Aaron Beck of the Columbus Dispatch, as Dave and the boys kicked off their Route of All Evil tour with Motley Crue:

Aerosmith fired on all cylinders, delivering reinvigorated '70s chestnuts (Sweet Emotion; Draw the Line; Mama Kin; Walk This Way; Dream On) and enlivened its post-drugs and drink/MTV-friendly fare (Rag Doll; Cryin'; F.I.N.E.).

As for Steven Tyler, still the main face of Aerosmith, he sounded strong all night even if his pants these days might do well with some pleats. The 58-year-old, whose throat ailment derailed his band's tour in February, was his former self, though, scatting his banshee scat, blowing a bit of harmonica and, in general, singing with force and projection.

Still, it was Perry, channeling Jimmy Page, Keith Richards and Peter Green (literally when he sang and played Fleetwood Mac's Stop Messin' Around) between multiple wardrobe and six-string changes, who commanded the most attention.

The guitarist, dedicating Stop Messin' Around to bassist Tom Hamilton, who is recovering from throat cancer treatment, raced all night about a stage accentuated with the occasional laser light show. Perry was all over the place, shoulder-length locks blowing in the wind, his head toward heaven and eyes closed during many a Les Paul solo.

During Sweet Emotion the guy even managed a Theremin solo. Talk about fun, a Theremin manipulated by a shirtless dude in leather pants center stage, a fellow born in 1950? That's some top-drawer Tuesday-night fun.

The operative phrase here is fired on all cylinders. Aerosmith is a rock 'n' roll machine, and the bass is crucial to keep it running without a hitch. David Hull is supposed to be on the road with the band for the next six weeks or so, until Hamilton is well enough to rejoin his mates (if he’s well enough, we must add, regretfully but realistically). Dave should be looking a lot more like his old-time rock star self by then.

What a great story. Check in here for updates.

Big Ten Inch Jesus

Someone pointed out Steven Tyler's sensitivity in selecting stagewear for his performance at the Big Ten Million Dollar Bat Mitzvah.