Picture for a House, Anyone?

If there's one thing Earl Langdon would teach you, it's to always always always bring a camera with you. He recently received a house, yes a real house, from the five members of the rock band Aerosmith, simply for sending them a few pictures he took of them a long time ago.

Let me set the stage...

It's 1964, and Steven Tyler is the 18 year old drummer (yeah, it's weird, I know!) for his band called Chain Reaction. They're recording an album of mainly covers of The Beetles, The Stones, Animals, and Yarbirds. Nearby in New Hampshire, Joe Perry and Tom Hamilton are in a band called The Jam Band. Then, one fateful night in 1971 when both bands had a gig at "The Barn" in New Hampshire, The Jam Band was missing a few of their members. Brad Whitford offered to play guitar for them, and Tyler stepped up to sing. And bam... instant awesomeness. Aerosmith was born.

And Earl Langdon was there and got pictures of that first ever Aerosmith gig. Not thinking much of the value of his pictures, he sent copies of the pictures along with a letter, trying to prove his loyalty as a fan maybe score an autograph or something. Well he scored much more than an autograph. He received a letter back from Aerosmith's manager, saying that the guys never knew these pictures existed and, instead of buying the rights for the pictures, offered to buy a house for Mr. Langdon in exchange for the rights to the pictures. Earl wholeheartedly accepted, no doubt.

There hasn't been any kind of indication of what kind of house they'll be getting him, but you that when Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitmore, Joey Kramer, and Tom Hamilton chip in to get you a pad, it's gonna be one hell of an incredible pad.

You might be thinking, so what? Guy happens to have a camera with him on the right night. But remember... this was 1971! No tiny fit-in-your-pocket digital cameras back then. This guy would've had to been carrying around a big ol' honkin' film camera with him all night. That in itself is incredible.