It's 1978 or '79 and two kids, William Bailey and Jeff Isbell, in Lafayette, Indiana are playing in garage bands and getting busted by the local pigs. Bill drops out of high school, Jeff doesn't. Bill leaves Indiana and hitchhikes around the country, occasionally coming back to visit family. He then decides to leave for good in one of the all-time most genius moves and heads to LA. Jeff does the same, without all the hitchhiking. The play in various bands in the Los Angeles area. Then they meet a kid named Saul with a Jewfro and a penchant for tophats and Les Pauls. They form a band.
Fast forward to 1987. The popular music scene is just as lobotomized as it is today, if not more. With the exception of a few HUGE talents (Prince, Madonna, U2 et al), mainstream Top 40 radio and video is filled with vapid and vacuous "talents." Rock music is no better, to be honest. It's imbued with roving bands of fops who snorted, fucked and guzzled their way from the Sunset Strip and onto MTV (I blame you, Nikki Sixx). Then, like a saltwater crocodile stalking a dingo too close to the water's edge, Guns N' Roses emerges and proceeds to slaughter all that America thought it knew about Rock N' Roll.
The Gunners, like the aforementioned fops, came from the Strip. They also drank, fucked, and did hard drugs. What separated the Gunners from the other Sunset Strip bands was two things: songwriting and attitude. My guess would be that 99% of those bands wrote happy, catchy songs about girls and getting/being famous and money. Guns did not. They may have written about girls, like "Sweet Child O'Mine," the token ballad written for Axl's girlfriend Erin Everly; it was (and still is) a great tune with one of music's most memorable riffs. Then there was "My Michelle," a riff with so much testosterone that all the world's testicles combined cannot equal. Written about a friend of the band named Michelle who, upon hearing Elton John's "Your Song," wanted a song written about her. And the song is true. Junkies, porn stars, dead mothers, it's all true. In case you hadn't heard. Guns wrote about the shitty side of LA, sort of a Straight Outta Compton for white people. And they rightfully took over the fucking planet. They also struck the first blow to Hair Metal, as no one else had the chops or the balls to do what the Gunners did. They were too blues, too heavy, too punk.
Over the next six years, no one was bigger. They did everything right with Rock N' Roll. Violent outbursts, drug addiction (hello and goodbye, Steven Adler!), inciting multiple riots, and kilts with baseball equipment as a shirt. Of course, problems started- most notably Axl going full-on batshit megalomaniac control freak- and the band began to lose its bravado. They released a terrible cover album that did feature a bitchin' cover of "Sympathy for the Devil," but the band soon had enough of Mr Rose. They pretty much all quit. Axl then began work on a 10+ year album, secluding himself from the public eye and recruiting Buckethead.
Fast-forward to 2011. Mainstream music is once again lobotomized. Pop acts are Auto-Tuning their way through more vapidity, wearing meat dresses and having their vaginas and wieners "unknowingly" photographed and thrown on the Interwebz. Rock music is ruled by the blandest of the bland like Nickelback, Daughtry, Disturbed et al- bands with ZERO to say and music boring and painful enough to lull one to sleep or lead one to a killing spree. There's zero substance, and yet they sell FUCKING BILLIONS. Axl & Co. must get together to save us. I don't ask for another Appetite for Destruction, though it would be nice. They just need to settle their differences and show the music world how shit gets done. And fast. Lose the cornrows, Axl, put on your kilt and "Charlie Don't Surf" tee, crab walk your way to Slash, Duff and Izzy before it's too late. That's all I ask. Seriously.
No comments:
Post a Comment