BEFORE THE BUMBLEFOOTZ AND BUCKETHEADZ,UNDER THE AQUANET FOGZ OF PARADISE CITY!
20 yearz.
Sheesh, haz it really been that long?
Yep, last month marked the 20th anniversary of the release of one of the greatest rock albumz of all time.
Why should I bring it up? Well, there'z only neen a hand full of rock albumz that are considered rock classics to actually have any significance to ME. Most of the onez I find important aren't really all that important to the rest of the world. but Guns N' Roses' "Appetite For Destruction" meant a whole hell of alot to me, my friendz and the rest of the rock world back in 1987.
It'z one of thoze recordz that you remember exactly what you were doing when you first heard it. Kinda like when you remember what waz going on in your life when John Lennon waz killed, or when man first landed on the moon, or when Elvis died. That iz, if your an old fuck like me. I wonder, will kidz feel the same twenty yearz from now when they first heard that Fall Out Boy mp3?
I'm not gonna go on and on about how this record changed rock n' roll in the late 80'z. That'z all been said. Everyone alwayz sayz shit like that when a hit record comez out. They said it about "Pet Sounds" and "SGT.Pepper" and "Thriller" and "Nevermind" and "The Life Of Chris Gaines". In the end it doesn't matter what the record meant to the world, it'z how it affected you.
In 1987 I waz amongst the many shaggy haired twiddlerz that waz eyeing that almighty rock n' roll brass ring, along with my fellow twangerz in a lil' hometown band. Like everyone else, we were emulating our rock god heroes, hoping to be discovered and make it to the big time so we would never have to grow up and get real jobz. Kerrang magazine waz our bible. But in late 1986 I waz exposed to the GnR thru RIP magazine in a little article about this new band and thier e.p. "Live Like A Suicide" which I quickly nabbed up from the local record shop. Sure, it waz raw and gritty, and I dug it, but it didn't stand out that much from what else waz going on. And hell, I waz a sucker for any band that ratted the hair up and sported glam rawk smarminess. We read more about GnR az the monthz went by, and there waz a buzz about them even in Flint, Michigan...far from where they were ripping up the Sunset Strip nightly.
I remember the day when "Appetite" came out. My bass player and partner in crime Shawn and I tooled on down to Rock-A-Rolla Records to pick up a few slabz o' new releases. We decided to split up our change and pick up the three major releases that we figured we'd need. They were Poison's "Look What The Cat Dragged In' and "Faster Pussycat's" self titled debut. Shawn decided to take a chance and nabbed "Appetite" on cassette. We headed home and a few hourz later reunited for a band practice. The first thing Shawn said when he dropped in waz-"You gotta hear this, it'z the most brutal and intense album I've heard in a long time. And the singer soundz like three different guys!"
I slapped the cassette in the player and instantly our musical direction changed. We couldn't believe what we were hearing. Little did we know that every other band out there waz being affected the exact same way. Suddenly we were all trying to be tougher, meaner, more vicious in our songz. We all thought we were sleazier, dirtier and badder. Yeah right. But that record set it all straight. It seemed like we all had to write songz that used the F word in it. And we all used the bitch word alot more. Playtime waz over, now it waz time to get serious.
And it wazn't like GnR waz doing anything that hadn't been done before. David Lee Roth wore bandanas before Axl came along. Alice wore top hats. Punk rock spit and sneered. Hanoi Rocks sleazed it five yearz before. KISS and The Beatles had thier members with thier seperate and unique visual personalities. And well, stoned and drugged out and drunked up rockers filled the stages for 30 some yearz before. But what GnR did right waz mix it all up and spit it out cranked thru a Les paul all at the time when we needed it most. They took Nazareth's "Hair Of The Dog" and beat the crap out of it and punched us in the face with it'z carcass and woke us all up. Rock and roll izn't supposed to be pretty.
Ok, so I lied. Here I am ranting about how it changed rock and roll.
But it really did, and it changed us who were knee deep in it. Suddenly we weren't dangerous enough for our girlfriendz, we weren't sweaty enough for the big time and well, dammit, guess we gotta get some tattoos and learn how to down a bottle of Black Death vodka to stay in this game.
But we were fine with that, cuz it made it all the more exciting.
The first time I saw Guns N' Roses live waz May 6, 1988 at The Saginaw Civic Center in Michigan. They played smack dab in the center of a bill they shared with Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction and UDO, the toady frontman from the German not yet realized by the metal crowd of how homosexual they were,Judas Priest wannabeez Accept. It waz a tense night, cuz all us guyz that were going waz pretty much sure they were gonna lose thier girlfriendz to Axl Rose, but we hadda see if this band waz really az real az they say they wanna be.
I gotta say I waz pretty impressed by Zodiac Mindwarp and I waz in doubt GnR could follow that bikerrawkin' slab o' rock. But when they hit the stage it waz obvious that they were the big gunz. The one everyone really came to see. The band that couldn't be touched. Oh sure, afterwardz everyone waz trying to be cool and they'd say stuff like "Boy,they sure waz sloppy" or "What the hell waz with that song that Axl whistled thru?", but we knew. Yeah, we knew. They were the shit! My buddy Shawn couldn't go to the show that night. He had to work. He worked at a gas station. That night, a small limo pulled up to the gas station and Slash walked out of it, approached Shawn and shyly asked for a pack of Winstons. Shawn replied in his trademarked wit-"So, did Udo get laid tonight?" Slash laughed and shuffled back to his limo with his fresh new pack o' smokes.
Soon after they became legends. Every party you would go to waz blasting "Appetite". Every guitarist waz twiddling "Sweet Child O' Mine" instead of "Stairway To Heaven". The whole world knew who they were. And we pretended we knew what it waz like to live on the streets and fight and we started to come up with what our tattoos we were gonna look like and, tho I couldn't give up the aqua net just yet, there were more and more dayz when I would actually leave the house with flat hair and a bandana wrapped around my head. The girlz eventually would leave for the badder boyz, and then grunge came along and took everything that GNR made exciting and dissed it and made rock and roll boring again.
GNR got bloated and lost thier street fightin' wayz. Axl dumped the band like the girlz dumped us. And it seemed like it waz all a drug drenched dream. We woke up, broke up and parted wayz with each other just like Slash and Duff and Gilby and Puff and Ziggy and Wiggy and all the rest of the bloated beast they became.
Yearz later I'm living in Las Vegas and seein' Slash and his Snakepits play at a small bar for fifteen bux, I get my doctor's prescriptions from the same pharmacist that Steven Adler doez. In fact, I've ran into Steven a few times at the bars. Hell, what a strange trip it'z been. Here I am now, still thinking about what an impact this record made on us and it still never leaves the cd player.
And we've caught the new Guns and the new Revolvers, and tho they may give us a taste of what we want, but it just doesn't quench our "Appetite For Destruction".
Ewww.did I really just type that?
Now...about that Chris Gaines record....
Sheesh, haz it really been that long?
Yep, last month marked the 20th anniversary of the release of one of the greatest rock albumz of all time.
Why should I bring it up? Well, there'z only neen a hand full of rock albumz that are considered rock classics to actually have any significance to ME. Most of the onez I find important aren't really all that important to the rest of the world. but Guns N' Roses' "Appetite For Destruction" meant a whole hell of alot to me, my friendz and the rest of the rock world back in 1987.
It'z one of thoze recordz that you remember exactly what you were doing when you first heard it. Kinda like when you remember what waz going on in your life when John Lennon waz killed, or when man first landed on the moon, or when Elvis died. That iz, if your an old fuck like me. I wonder, will kidz feel the same twenty yearz from now when they first heard that Fall Out Boy mp3?
I'm not gonna go on and on about how this record changed rock n' roll in the late 80'z. That'z all been said. Everyone alwayz sayz shit like that when a hit record comez out. They said it about "Pet Sounds" and "SGT.Pepper" and "Thriller" and "Nevermind" and "The Life Of Chris Gaines". In the end it doesn't matter what the record meant to the world, it'z how it affected you.
In 1987 I waz amongst the many shaggy haired twiddlerz that waz eyeing that almighty rock n' roll brass ring, along with my fellow twangerz in a lil' hometown band. Like everyone else, we were emulating our rock god heroes, hoping to be discovered and make it to the big time so we would never have to grow up and get real jobz. Kerrang magazine waz our bible. But in late 1986 I waz exposed to the GnR thru RIP magazine in a little article about this new band and thier e.p. "Live Like A Suicide" which I quickly nabbed up from the local record shop. Sure, it waz raw and gritty, and I dug it, but it didn't stand out that much from what else waz going on. And hell, I waz a sucker for any band that ratted the hair up and sported glam rawk smarminess. We read more about GnR az the monthz went by, and there waz a buzz about them even in Flint, Michigan...far from where they were ripping up the Sunset Strip nightly.
I remember the day when "Appetite" came out. My bass player and partner in crime Shawn and I tooled on down to Rock-A-Rolla Records to pick up a few slabz o' new releases. We decided to split up our change and pick up the three major releases that we figured we'd need. They were Poison's "Look What The Cat Dragged In' and "Faster Pussycat's" self titled debut. Shawn decided to take a chance and nabbed "Appetite" on cassette. We headed home and a few hourz later reunited for a band practice. The first thing Shawn said when he dropped in waz-"You gotta hear this, it'z the most brutal and intense album I've heard in a long time. And the singer soundz like three different guys!"
I slapped the cassette in the player and instantly our musical direction changed. We couldn't believe what we were hearing. Little did we know that every other band out there waz being affected the exact same way. Suddenly we were all trying to be tougher, meaner, more vicious in our songz. We all thought we were sleazier, dirtier and badder. Yeah right. But that record set it all straight. It seemed like we all had to write songz that used the F word in it. And we all used the bitch word alot more. Playtime waz over, now it waz time to get serious.
And it wazn't like GnR waz doing anything that hadn't been done before. David Lee Roth wore bandanas before Axl came along. Alice wore top hats. Punk rock spit and sneered. Hanoi Rocks sleazed it five yearz before. KISS and The Beatles had thier members with thier seperate and unique visual personalities. And well, stoned and drugged out and drunked up rockers filled the stages for 30 some yearz before. But what GnR did right waz mix it all up and spit it out cranked thru a Les paul all at the time when we needed it most. They took Nazareth's "Hair Of The Dog" and beat the crap out of it and punched us in the face with it'z carcass and woke us all up. Rock and roll izn't supposed to be pretty.
Ok, so I lied. Here I am ranting about how it changed rock and roll.
But it really did, and it changed us who were knee deep in it. Suddenly we weren't dangerous enough for our girlfriendz, we weren't sweaty enough for the big time and well, dammit, guess we gotta get some tattoos and learn how to down a bottle of Black Death vodka to stay in this game.
But we were fine with that, cuz it made it all the more exciting.
The first time I saw Guns N' Roses live waz May 6, 1988 at The Saginaw Civic Center in Michigan. They played smack dab in the center of a bill they shared with Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction and UDO, the toady frontman from the German not yet realized by the metal crowd of how homosexual they were,Judas Priest wannabeez Accept. It waz a tense night, cuz all us guyz that were going waz pretty much sure they were gonna lose thier girlfriendz to Axl Rose, but we hadda see if this band waz really az real az they say they wanna be.
I gotta say I waz pretty impressed by Zodiac Mindwarp and I waz in doubt GnR could follow that bikerrawkin' slab o' rock. But when they hit the stage it waz obvious that they were the big gunz. The one everyone really came to see. The band that couldn't be touched. Oh sure, afterwardz everyone waz trying to be cool and they'd say stuff like "Boy,they sure waz sloppy" or "What the hell waz with that song that Axl whistled thru?", but we knew. Yeah, we knew. They were the shit! My buddy Shawn couldn't go to the show that night. He had to work. He worked at a gas station. That night, a small limo pulled up to the gas station and Slash walked out of it, approached Shawn and shyly asked for a pack of Winstons. Shawn replied in his trademarked wit-"So, did Udo get laid tonight?" Slash laughed and shuffled back to his limo with his fresh new pack o' smokes.
Soon after they became legends. Every party you would go to waz blasting "Appetite". Every guitarist waz twiddling "Sweet Child O' Mine" instead of "Stairway To Heaven". The whole world knew who they were. And we pretended we knew what it waz like to live on the streets and fight and we started to come up with what our tattoos we were gonna look like and, tho I couldn't give up the aqua net just yet, there were more and more dayz when I would actually leave the house with flat hair and a bandana wrapped around my head. The girlz eventually would leave for the badder boyz, and then grunge came along and took everything that GNR made exciting and dissed it and made rock and roll boring again.
GNR got bloated and lost thier street fightin' wayz. Axl dumped the band like the girlz dumped us. And it seemed like it waz all a drug drenched dream. We woke up, broke up and parted wayz with each other just like Slash and Duff and Gilby and Puff and Ziggy and Wiggy and all the rest of the bloated beast they became.
Yearz later I'm living in Las Vegas and seein' Slash and his Snakepits play at a small bar for fifteen bux, I get my doctor's prescriptions from the same pharmacist that Steven Adler doez. In fact, I've ran into Steven a few times at the bars. Hell, what a strange trip it'z been. Here I am now, still thinking about what an impact this record made on us and it still never leaves the cd player.
And we've caught the new Guns and the new Revolvers, and tho they may give us a taste of what we want, but it just doesn't quench our "Appetite For Destruction".
Ewww.did I really just type that?
Now...about that Chris Gaines record....