Monday, May 27, 2013
Mount Taylor
I watched the last tiny sliver of red churning sun sink into the desert somewhere between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, Mount Taylor a lingering shadow on the horizon. Its shape like the dark silhouette of a woman sprawled across the distance, her curvy hip reaching up to the sky in a purple haze that made her seem dreary. maybe it was that blissful fog of ecstasy that lingers after long, slow glorious love-making in the afternoon, her body limp and draped across her soft bed, her mind at peace yet full of passionate thoughts of him. She would give him anything he wanted at that moment, so vulnerable yet safe in his arms. Was he the sky or the earth? Or maybe the clouds themselves that intertwined amongst her limbs and valleys creating oneness. Was it the sun bringing fiery forbidden pleasure? Or did she long for the moon to rise again?
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
The Evolution of Music
Check this out...its great commentary on the state and evolution of music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Costume Therapy
Published in the July/August 2012 edition of Zaghareet Magazine, an international magazine for Belly Dance aficionados.
I slashed through the straps of my best fitting, most
expensive “go to” bra. You know the bra I am talking about? The one that makes
you five pounds lighter and gives you the perkiness of a twenty year old.
Ok, thirty year old. The one you wear to
a job interview or a first date. My shiny, new-fangled stainless steal sewing
scissors, razor-sharp, snipped through the straps as my heart-thudded in fear.
It’s only a bra, I repeated to myself, while our instructor assured us “it’s
only a costume” and it would be alright.
Belly dance takes “retail therapy” to a new level. Of course
perfected technique and top form are vital to the dance, but any performer
would agree there is nothing more confidence-boosting, mood-lifting or
splendor-enhancing than a sparkly,
fits-like-a-glove costume. It is the best therapy money can buy. Being a
well-endowed dancer, however, can sometimes make buying a custom-fitted, yet
reasonably priced outfit difficult. I knew it was time to start learning how to
sew.
My mother was an exceptional seamstress. She made my three
older sisters’ clothes when they were young. Purchasing a store-bought
Halloween costume was unheard of in my house growing up. But like many “modern
women,” sewing was not a skill passed on to me, nor was it even taught at any
of my schools. In the days of pre-big box stores sewing certainly, but
unfortunately, was not exposed to me as a pleasure or hobby but a necessity in
times of tight money for a single mother of four. Prior to belly dance, embarrassingly,
it just never occurred to me that I could make my own stuff! Why? I have a job!
I can just buy it, right? And besides, I could whipstitch a torn seam by hand
in a pinch. That was all I needed to know. As I advanced as a dancer my new
hobby suddenly seemed to come along with the same type of necessity to sew that
my mother probably felt.
Last spring, the oh-so-talented-in-more-ways-than-one
Michelle Morrison of Farfesha Studios in Albuquerque, NM held a costume-making workshop and I
decided to give it a try. The year prior had not been kind to me. Dance, both
practice and performance, became my escape. The support of the beautiful women
of the troupe and the ability to take my mind off the real world of divorce,
finances, and work made the studio my sanctuary. And now costume therapy would
begin to take on a whole new meaning.
With Michelle’s supply list in hand, I headed to the local
fabric store a few days before the workshop with the concept of matching my new
costume with a flowing chiffon lavender skirt I had purchased at a swamp meet
months prior. A satin in the most delicious eggplant caught my eye as the
foundation for the bra and belt set and I was instantaneously hooked. Before I
knew it, I was obsessing over rhinestones. 8 mm or 10 mm sequins? 8 inch or 10
inch Egyptian fringe? Bra padding? For me? The DD girl?
Sprawled on the wood dance floor with all my dancer friends,
surrounded by baskets of material, coins, shells, ribbon, batting, we spent
several Sunday afternoons cutting, fitting, sewing, bleeding. It looked as if a
sewing shop exploded on the dance floor. As music played, we drank our tea,
talked about men, and let the children run wild. Satins and baroque fluttered in
a rainbow of colors across the wood while we chattered over how it was possible
that Rachel Brice bends like that. I realized exactly how it must have felt for
women to congregate around the sewing table long ago. It was female bonding,
rich with self-confidence and self-worth. Sadly, this has become a rarity among
women outside the dance studio in American culture. We are catty and
competitive in the dog-eat-dog professional world. We sometimes fight for and cheat
over men. We dress for each other, always seeking approval to be accepted from
our own gender, the same humans who struggle, create and nurture alike. There
are just not enough bonding moments among women to celebrate our sameness and
accept our differences. We distinguish ourselves as mothers, a common
association among most of us, or we are objectified by the media, and sometimes
even devalued by both. If we are not mothers and we are not supermodels, what
are we? We are sometimes lost in our identity and don’t always have female role
models to help find us.
I have since completed the gorgeous purple costume and am
now tackling mermaid skirts and gauntlets. I have started to transform a teal
prom dress into a bra, belt and skirt set. My sewing talents have even
transferred to my regular wardrobe, altering skirts and embellishing blouses. I
find myself now surfing the web for design styles, rather than costumes to
purchase. Watching my instructor dance flawlessly in an outfit she created that
is just as flawless makes her performance all that much more inspirational for
me.
This is more than beadwork, I thought to myself. It was smiles and kind words from fabulous
women of all walks of life that makes you feel everything is going to be
alright even if you just destroyed your best bra. It is the delicate hands of
people I love and admire, constructing creations as one-of-a-kind as the
goddesses who wear them. It was seeing the finished products months later,
flaws and all, which had beauty deeper than what was on the outside, like the
women who wore them.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Motley Crue: Bringin Pyrotechnics- and me- Back
October 2005 were some pretty dark days for me.
Among several catastrophes I can't begin to describe, a soldier, the only soldier from my husband’s unit, was killed by an IED. Already in a state of emotional instability, the print in the Sunday newspaper leapt at me and burned my insides. With no name attached to the lost soul in the article, I kept repeating “if it were him, you would have known by now,” knowing that in the most delicate situations regarding the military, the media is the last to know.
Military funerals can’t get much more depressing. I mean, funerals in general are somber obviously, but there is some great terrible sadness that looms over a soldier’s interment. I really did not want to go, but a military friend convinced me that it would be good for me. The boots, the helmet and the rifle display, an ominous memorial still dusted with the sands of Mesopotamia. An eerie mannequin of what was his being, now blown to bits and unviewable in the coffin on the pedestal.
Looking out at a crowded auditorium of uniforms, all pressed and orderly and few tears being shed by the hardened troops of all branches that gathered there, I felt like a fool, balling my eyes out for a man I really didn’t know, who was the brother of all these men, whether they knew him or not. Every military spouse envisions herself and her husband in that place and but for the grace of God, it wasn’t my husband’s boots under his coffin and my children sobbing. That is why it is so easy to cry for a man I didn’t know.
The pain was nearly more than I could bear over the next few weeks. Soon after the soldier’s passing, and not too surprisingly but painful none the less, my brother passed away. My brother, mostly unrecognizable from debilitating cirrhosis, was visible in his coffin, unlike the soldier. His Dallas Cowboys blanket draped over him slapped me in the face as a reminder I never really knew him at all. He died in my mind much like my father - last words never being said and a lifetime of unspoken expressions lost to infinity. Two funerals weeks apart droned in my head as mind-numbing sting.
And then…as if the shadow of death had not loomed over my doorstep enough, it made a phone call. My dear high school and college friend was murdered. Another funeral, another family shattered. More acquaintances meeting under unhappy circumstances. His last words to me were that I had such beautiful skin. Its weird I remember that so clearly. His killer was never found.
Only one strange and random savior pulled me up from the drudges of the world- The Dirt, Motley Crue’s patchwork account of their rise to fame and miraculous survival of everything unholy and Rock Star-like. When tragedy strikes, they say its best to identify with other’s tragedy, offering the perspective of “I am not alone” or (at the very least) “ok…things could be worse.”
I know, it sounds completely ridiculous. Motley Crue? Poor little rich rock stars who took too much heroine? I admit I had an odd identifiable relationship with them. Or maybe I was just identifying with the feeling of sinking to the bottom of a Jack Daniels bottle.
Nikki Sixx was unloved and homeless by the age of 16. With nothing left to lose, he stole a guitar, not because he knew how to play but because he had to learn how to play to save him from living under an overpass. Vince Neil was detached and from a broken home but with rock star looks dropped out of school for something greater. Mick Marrs lived with sickness and physical pain. Tommy Lee- well he is just Tommy Lee, happy to be alive and having the only “normal” supportive parenting of the bunch. Typically, he is the only one still having a good time and completely UNsober.
The autobiography was a collection of snippets from each band member’s viewpoint on what was happening to them at the same moments of their career- tragedies, drug use, marriages and divorces, money made and lost- all the while managing to keep it together enough to make killer music. (Slash actually notes in his autobiography that Motley Crue taught Guns N Roses how to manage their tour. He really thought they were a class act. Imagine that.) The account culminates with Nikki Sixx’s notorious heroin overdose, after which he escapes from the hospital to go home and do more heroine. Unwavered by the near tragic demise of their band mate, Motley Crue pays acknowledgement to Nikki’s near death experience by writing one of their biggest hits, “Kick Start My Heart.” Nice.
I guess that’s what I identify with- keeping it all together under extreme circumstances. Making it look easy. I felt like a fucking mess, with wounds still not healed, and everyone kept telling me that I made it look easy. That they couldn’t have gone through what I had done. Fuck, sometimes you have no choice.
The book ends with Vince leaving the band. I remember feeling so angry that they could go through so much and recover only to hate each other, a greater waste than the many thousands of dollars they spent on booze and heroine. I felt such respect for the dedication and devotion they had to their music, despite the wild world that spun around them. The most unserious band, with music all about drugs, girls, sex and girls, so serious about their profession. Nikki drove the band with such conviction, he said, because he had everything to lose and nowhere to go but the streets.
At any rate, flash forward a couple of years: the band has survived reality television, Pam Anderson, and “reunion” tours of countless other lesser talents than themselves making a killing on the road and have come to realize an inspiration from 1984…Cruefest. Cruefest is this summer’s hair band festival of not-so-serious hard rockers hand-picked by Motley Crue, gathered for an evening of beer, cymbal smashing and titty cams…definitely my kind of event.
Younger groups Trapt, Buckcherry, Papa Roach, and Nikki’s newest project Sixx AM carried on the standard tattooed rocker tradition of the Crue adequately. I say adequately because everything The Dirt taught me to admire about the headliners overshadowed all others the second their presence hit the stage.
Like an army whose any single soldier is impressive but rallying together is formidable, Crue feels much more vulnerable individually than as the collective as the years have rolled over them. Vince, whose distinctive bad-boy features had every high school girl swooning in my day, appeared heavy and drunk on his reality show after the breakup. Tommy Lee became everyone’s favorite freak show with a tumultuous relationship with Pam Anderson, THE sex tape (with Pam), fights with Kid Rock (over Pam), and gradually painting every inch of exposed skin with ink (allegedly giving Pam hepatitis). All of this overshadowing his tremendous talent as a musician. None of the members has had much success starting successful individual music endeavors, including Motley Crue minus Vince Neil.
So here they were again on the stage, the power of the collective looking better than ever. Tommy was happy (his Pam back for now), Vince slim and his voice sounding as perfect as the Too Fast for Love days. Nikki still with fabulous big hair, faded tattoos freshened by new girlfriend Kat Von D and Mick, whose body was frail as ever but guitar licks monsterous. Their style had maintained the “hair band” image yet looked fresh and update and, well, as intimidating as ever. Every song was flawless, showing they still had the professionalism to pull it together with a new found seriousness. Yes, even Motley Crue found politics, shifting its banned-by-Christians-everywhere Shout at the Devil from satanic verses to political rhetoric by flashing photos of Bush giving the finger on the jumbotron.
And then there is the lost art of pyrotechnics. Pyrotechnics in the 80’s was like leather jackets, spikes and eyeliner. No respectable rock star got on stage without it. I used to compare the level of success of a band by how many fireworks flew. Then Great White put an end to it, what I thought would be forever, with their club incinerating show in 2003 that killed 97.
My hopes were raised when I saw a glimmer of gerbs at Iron Maiden this summer that pyrotechnics might be returning. The Crue, however, raised it from the dead. Reports, flame projectors, torches, airbursts, the whole deal. I would swear the displays even looked different- as if with a shorter lifespan that made me sense the band had paid a bundle for new, safer technology.
They show ended with Tommy Lee’s rendition of Home Sweet Home on a beautifully graffitied grand piano complimented by a montage of photos on the screens from childhood to the current tour. They survived, I said to myself. I survived, myself replied.
Among several catastrophes I can't begin to describe, a soldier, the only soldier from my husband’s unit, was killed by an IED. Already in a state of emotional instability, the print in the Sunday newspaper leapt at me and burned my insides. With no name attached to the lost soul in the article, I kept repeating “if it were him, you would have known by now,” knowing that in the most delicate situations regarding the military, the media is the last to know.
Military funerals can’t get much more depressing. I mean, funerals in general are somber obviously, but there is some great terrible sadness that looms over a soldier’s interment. I really did not want to go, but a military friend convinced me that it would be good for me. The boots, the helmet and the rifle display, an ominous memorial still dusted with the sands of Mesopotamia. An eerie mannequin of what was his being, now blown to bits and unviewable in the coffin on the pedestal.
Looking out at a crowded auditorium of uniforms, all pressed and orderly and few tears being shed by the hardened troops of all branches that gathered there, I felt like a fool, balling my eyes out for a man I really didn’t know, who was the brother of all these men, whether they knew him or not. Every military spouse envisions herself and her husband in that place and but for the grace of God, it wasn’t my husband’s boots under his coffin and my children sobbing. That is why it is so easy to cry for a man I didn’t know.
The pain was nearly more than I could bear over the next few weeks. Soon after the soldier’s passing, and not too surprisingly but painful none the less, my brother passed away. My brother, mostly unrecognizable from debilitating cirrhosis, was visible in his coffin, unlike the soldier. His Dallas Cowboys blanket draped over him slapped me in the face as a reminder I never really knew him at all. He died in my mind much like my father - last words never being said and a lifetime of unspoken expressions lost to infinity. Two funerals weeks apart droned in my head as mind-numbing sting.
And then…as if the shadow of death had not loomed over my doorstep enough, it made a phone call. My dear high school and college friend was murdered. Another funeral, another family shattered. More acquaintances meeting under unhappy circumstances. His last words to me were that I had such beautiful skin. Its weird I remember that so clearly. His killer was never found.
Only one strange and random savior pulled me up from the drudges of the world- The Dirt, Motley Crue’s patchwork account of their rise to fame and miraculous survival of everything unholy and Rock Star-like. When tragedy strikes, they say its best to identify with other’s tragedy, offering the perspective of “I am not alone” or (at the very least) “ok…things could be worse.”
I know, it sounds completely ridiculous. Motley Crue? Poor little rich rock stars who took too much heroine? I admit I had an odd identifiable relationship with them. Or maybe I was just identifying with the feeling of sinking to the bottom of a Jack Daniels bottle.
Nikki Sixx was unloved and homeless by the age of 16. With nothing left to lose, he stole a guitar, not because he knew how to play but because he had to learn how to play to save him from living under an overpass. Vince Neil was detached and from a broken home but with rock star looks dropped out of school for something greater. Mick Marrs lived with sickness and physical pain. Tommy Lee- well he is just Tommy Lee, happy to be alive and having the only “normal” supportive parenting of the bunch. Typically, he is the only one still having a good time and completely UNsober.
The autobiography was a collection of snippets from each band member’s viewpoint on what was happening to them at the same moments of their career- tragedies, drug use, marriages and divorces, money made and lost- all the while managing to keep it together enough to make killer music. (Slash actually notes in his autobiography that Motley Crue taught Guns N Roses how to manage their tour. He really thought they were a class act. Imagine that.) The account culminates with Nikki Sixx’s notorious heroin overdose, after which he escapes from the hospital to go home and do more heroine. Unwavered by the near tragic demise of their band mate, Motley Crue pays acknowledgement to Nikki’s near death experience by writing one of their biggest hits, “Kick Start My Heart.” Nice.
I guess that’s what I identify with- keeping it all together under extreme circumstances. Making it look easy. I felt like a fucking mess, with wounds still not healed, and everyone kept telling me that I made it look easy. That they couldn’t have gone through what I had done. Fuck, sometimes you have no choice.
The book ends with Vince leaving the band. I remember feeling so angry that they could go through so much and recover only to hate each other, a greater waste than the many thousands of dollars they spent on booze and heroine. I felt such respect for the dedication and devotion they had to their music, despite the wild world that spun around them. The most unserious band, with music all about drugs, girls, sex and girls, so serious about their profession. Nikki drove the band with such conviction, he said, because he had everything to lose and nowhere to go but the streets.
At any rate, flash forward a couple of years: the band has survived reality television, Pam Anderson, and “reunion” tours of countless other lesser talents than themselves making a killing on the road and have come to realize an inspiration from 1984…Cruefest. Cruefest is this summer’s hair band festival of not-so-serious hard rockers hand-picked by Motley Crue, gathered for an evening of beer, cymbal smashing and titty cams…definitely my kind of event.
Younger groups Trapt, Buckcherry, Papa Roach, and Nikki’s newest project Sixx AM carried on the standard tattooed rocker tradition of the Crue adequately. I say adequately because everything The Dirt taught me to admire about the headliners overshadowed all others the second their presence hit the stage.
Like an army whose any single soldier is impressive but rallying together is formidable, Crue feels much more vulnerable individually than as the collective as the years have rolled over them. Vince, whose distinctive bad-boy features had every high school girl swooning in my day, appeared heavy and drunk on his reality show after the breakup. Tommy Lee became everyone’s favorite freak show with a tumultuous relationship with Pam Anderson, THE sex tape (with Pam), fights with Kid Rock (over Pam), and gradually painting every inch of exposed skin with ink (allegedly giving Pam hepatitis). All of this overshadowing his tremendous talent as a musician. None of the members has had much success starting successful individual music endeavors, including Motley Crue minus Vince Neil.
So here they were again on the stage, the power of the collective looking better than ever. Tommy was happy (his Pam back for now), Vince slim and his voice sounding as perfect as the Too Fast for Love days. Nikki still with fabulous big hair, faded tattoos freshened by new girlfriend Kat Von D and Mick, whose body was frail as ever but guitar licks monsterous. Their style had maintained the “hair band” image yet looked fresh and update and, well, as intimidating as ever. Every song was flawless, showing they still had the professionalism to pull it together with a new found seriousness. Yes, even Motley Crue found politics, shifting its banned-by-Christians-everywhere Shout at the Devil from satanic verses to political rhetoric by flashing photos of Bush giving the finger on the jumbotron.
And then there is the lost art of pyrotechnics. Pyrotechnics in the 80’s was like leather jackets, spikes and eyeliner. No respectable rock star got on stage without it. I used to compare the level of success of a band by how many fireworks flew. Then Great White put an end to it, what I thought would be forever, with their club incinerating show in 2003 that killed 97.
My hopes were raised when I saw a glimmer of gerbs at Iron Maiden this summer that pyrotechnics might be returning. The Crue, however, raised it from the dead. Reports, flame projectors, torches, airbursts, the whole deal. I would swear the displays even looked different- as if with a shorter lifespan that made me sense the band had paid a bundle for new, safer technology.
They show ended with Tommy Lee’s rendition of Home Sweet Home on a beautifully graffitied grand piano complimented by a montage of photos on the screens from childhood to the current tour. They survived, I said to myself. I survived, myself replied.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Won't Get Fooled Again
Sometimes I really wish I paid better attention.
This occurred to me last week when the VH-1 Rock Honors paid homage to The Who, the gods of Rock Gods.
I saw The Who in 1989, on either a farewell tour or reunion tour, already proving my point that I really should pay better attention. But as quite common for me, rather than listening carefully to the finer details of life, my attentions were turned toward a boy. I was in Buffalo, NY where I desperately followed the guy I seriously (funny now) thought I would marry, for some twisted reason. I followed him there, clearly knowing I would lose him anyway but held out hope that my valiant effort of traveling to dreamy Buffalo would rescue us. So you’d think consolation of every part of that romantic disaster would be seeing The Who, right? Well, I failed to point out that the aforementioned man of my attention was a roid-raging ex-football player meathead who tried to kill me at every drunken opportunity. The Who being in town was no exception.
Upon arriving at Rich Stadium, 74,000 + capacity home of the Buffalo Bills, Meathead managed to down an entire beer ball almost on his own and then proceeded to harass other tailgaters in the parking lot. This being a reunion/farewell tour, ensured each of the 74,000 seats were full and the parking lot, notorious for its tailgaters, a sea of cars, rockers, trash and humidity. As we made our way through the massive river of humans, Meathead randomly picked a fight…about what again my memory fails me…and proceeded to attempt to punch my lights out in the process. A bit inebriated myself, the next few minutes were a bit blurry but four events that remain in my memory may help summarize the next few minutes of my musical adventure (or nightmare). 1) Cops on horses; 2) Squares of paper laced with acid dots being flung like confetti from Meathead’s pockets; 3) Magic Bus blaring from the coliseum; 4) My concert ticket being shoved into my hand by police as they lead Meathead away. I was alone among the masses.
Once inside the vastness of the arena, I wandered through the concessions trying to fully comprehend just what happened to me. The only guy I know in this riot (and major city for that matter) was just drug off to jail no doubt, I have no money, no phone (this is BCP- Before Cell Phones), no car, but plenty of Who bursting from every seam of the massive concrete bowl. My drunken fog was quickly lifting as rationality took over. Wandering aimlessly for a good hour, luck ran me right into Meathead’s older brother, who we had arrived with but parted ways to join other friends. His brother, the polar opposite, was calm, quiet and willing to become my protector each time his brother went postal, unsurprised as I gave the sob story. He guided me with an unnecessary sense of concern to the area where his friends were and we managed to sober up and enjoy what was left of the show.
The Who’s crowning as the world’s loudest rock band was not unfounded. They shook the house and the masses in it. Roger Daltry, sounding much the same in 2008 as 1989, as I’m sure 1970 or 1963, whose soul-penetrating scream sounded like some strange godly creature not of this earth…it was just thunderous. I recall the “I Can See for Miles” rendition that seemed to go on for 20 minutes (not my favorite Who song) pounding my same-day-hangover. I can’t even really recall the final song, though I assume it was Baba O’Riley, still stupidly concerned about HIM and what the cops had done with him.
The Who did two things for British Rock. They made teenage angst fashionable and they made it EPIC. Yes, The Beatles fathered it and the Rolling Stones mothered it, Zepplin labored and gave birth to it, but The Who nurtured it into the adolescent monster British Rock became. The Who made the child sweet in songs like Pictures of Lily and I Can’t Explain, then put a Mohawk on it in songs like My Generation. I’m a Boy explored youthful sexual identity and Substitute the torment of teenage identity in general. They put out its senses and gave it a pinball machine in Tommy, whose cover scared the crap out of me when I was a kid.
But unlike today’s whiney Emo (and even the 90’s Kurt-Cobain-I-Hate-The-World grunge for that matter), The Who made their teenage revolution epic, not frail and wimpy. Primal, soulful screams, the wind-milling guitar, the destruction of instruments, (and the first casualty of the Rock N Roll dead drummer epidemic)- all ambitious, always bigger and better, pushing the genre of rock n roll, itself still adolescent, on journeys it had not yet taken. All the while, creepy Uncle Pete Townshend holding its hand reassuringly uttering “Don't cry/Don't raise your eye/It's only teenage wasteland.”
Listening to and watching them on VH-1, some 45 years after taking their first baby steps, I was surprisingly, or depressingly, touched by the relevance of every word they sang, discerning and intuitive to the listener discovering them for the first time.
“And the world looks just the same,
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the next war.
I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again”
Is that Bush they are talking about? Or maybe LBJ? Prime Minister Heath? The essence of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is the consequence of not paying attention, no matter the politician, issue, decade. And that makes their music timelessly relevant, my definition and testament of truly talented artists. And despite my lack of attention, I didn’t need you, VH-1, to remind me of that, but thanks for honoring them anyway.
Each look at the tattered ticket I managed to hold on to as a souvenir, I remind myself of how naïve I was. Such an event happening to me today is laughable. My reaction would have received no fear, sympathy or other emotion, except maybe irritation, and a “fuck off” as I reveled in the greatness of rock gods. Instead my Who experience was nothing more than the immature feeling of abandonment, a familiar feeling far less scary to me now.
Today I am grateful to Meathead, despite the fact that he eventually left me back in Albuquerque after a cross-country voyage in his Monte Carlo, disappearing in the night and clearing out my bank account along with every pair of shoes I owned in the trunk of his car. (That’s a whole other story.) His brother’s sweet, sympathetic voice on the line once again protecting me, after my 24 hours of agonizing, breaking the news to me that his brother was somewhere in the Midwest headed home, leaving shards of my broken heart all along the way.
Yes, today I am grateful for him for two reasons. First, he gave me the opportunity to see The Who in the massive arena setting where few concerts exist today. Second, much like The Who’s prime anti-establishment anthem, my once irrational heart beats out a vow it won’t get fooled again.
This occurred to me last week when the VH-1 Rock Honors paid homage to The Who, the gods of Rock Gods.
I saw The Who in 1989, on either a farewell tour or reunion tour, already proving my point that I really should pay better attention. But as quite common for me, rather than listening carefully to the finer details of life, my attentions were turned toward a boy. I was in Buffalo, NY where I desperately followed the guy I seriously (funny now) thought I would marry, for some twisted reason. I followed him there, clearly knowing I would lose him anyway but held out hope that my valiant effort of traveling to dreamy Buffalo would rescue us. So you’d think consolation of every part of that romantic disaster would be seeing The Who, right? Well, I failed to point out that the aforementioned man of my attention was a roid-raging ex-football player meathead who tried to kill me at every drunken opportunity. The Who being in town was no exception.
Upon arriving at Rich Stadium, 74,000 + capacity home of the Buffalo Bills, Meathead managed to down an entire beer ball almost on his own and then proceeded to harass other tailgaters in the parking lot. This being a reunion/farewell tour, ensured each of the 74,000 seats were full and the parking lot, notorious for its tailgaters, a sea of cars, rockers, trash and humidity. As we made our way through the massive river of humans, Meathead randomly picked a fight…about what again my memory fails me…and proceeded to attempt to punch my lights out in the process. A bit inebriated myself, the next few minutes were a bit blurry but four events that remain in my memory may help summarize the next few minutes of my musical adventure (or nightmare). 1) Cops on horses; 2) Squares of paper laced with acid dots being flung like confetti from Meathead’s pockets; 3) Magic Bus blaring from the coliseum; 4) My concert ticket being shoved into my hand by police as they lead Meathead away. I was alone among the masses.
Once inside the vastness of the arena, I wandered through the concessions trying to fully comprehend just what happened to me. The only guy I know in this riot (and major city for that matter) was just drug off to jail no doubt, I have no money, no phone (this is BCP- Before Cell Phones), no car, but plenty of Who bursting from every seam of the massive concrete bowl. My drunken fog was quickly lifting as rationality took over. Wandering aimlessly for a good hour, luck ran me right into Meathead’s older brother, who we had arrived with but parted ways to join other friends. His brother, the polar opposite, was calm, quiet and willing to become my protector each time his brother went postal, unsurprised as I gave the sob story. He guided me with an unnecessary sense of concern to the area where his friends were and we managed to sober up and enjoy what was left of the show.
The Who’s crowning as the world’s loudest rock band was not unfounded. They shook the house and the masses in it. Roger Daltry, sounding much the same in 2008 as 1989, as I’m sure 1970 or 1963, whose soul-penetrating scream sounded like some strange godly creature not of this earth…it was just thunderous. I recall the “I Can See for Miles” rendition that seemed to go on for 20 minutes (not my favorite Who song) pounding my same-day-hangover. I can’t even really recall the final song, though I assume it was Baba O’Riley, still stupidly concerned about HIM and what the cops had done with him.
The Who did two things for British Rock. They made teenage angst fashionable and they made it EPIC. Yes, The Beatles fathered it and the Rolling Stones mothered it, Zepplin labored and gave birth to it, but The Who nurtured it into the adolescent monster British Rock became. The Who made the child sweet in songs like Pictures of Lily and I Can’t Explain, then put a Mohawk on it in songs like My Generation. I’m a Boy explored youthful sexual identity and Substitute the torment of teenage identity in general. They put out its senses and gave it a pinball machine in Tommy, whose cover scared the crap out of me when I was a kid.
But unlike today’s whiney Emo (and even the 90’s Kurt-Cobain-I-Hate-The-World grunge for that matter), The Who made their teenage revolution epic, not frail and wimpy. Primal, soulful screams, the wind-milling guitar, the destruction of instruments, (and the first casualty of the Rock N Roll dead drummer epidemic)- all ambitious, always bigger and better, pushing the genre of rock n roll, itself still adolescent, on journeys it had not yet taken. All the while, creepy Uncle Pete Townshend holding its hand reassuringly uttering “Don't cry/Don't raise your eye/It's only teenage wasteland.”
Listening to and watching them on VH-1, some 45 years after taking their first baby steps, I was surprisingly, or depressingly, touched by the relevance of every word they sang, discerning and intuitive to the listener discovering them for the first time.
“And the world looks just the same,
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the next war.
I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again”
Is that Bush they are talking about? Or maybe LBJ? Prime Minister Heath? The essence of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is the consequence of not paying attention, no matter the politician, issue, decade. And that makes their music timelessly relevant, my definition and testament of truly talented artists. And despite my lack of attention, I didn’t need you, VH-1, to remind me of that, but thanks for honoring them anyway.
Each look at the tattered ticket I managed to hold on to as a souvenir, I remind myself of how naïve I was. Such an event happening to me today is laughable. My reaction would have received no fear, sympathy or other emotion, except maybe irritation, and a “fuck off” as I reveled in the greatness of rock gods. Instead my Who experience was nothing more than the immature feeling of abandonment, a familiar feeling far less scary to me now.
Today I am grateful to Meathead, despite the fact that he eventually left me back in Albuquerque after a cross-country voyage in his Monte Carlo, disappearing in the night and clearing out my bank account along with every pair of shoes I owned in the trunk of his car. (That’s a whole other story.) His brother’s sweet, sympathetic voice on the line once again protecting me, after my 24 hours of agonizing, breaking the news to me that his brother was somewhere in the Midwest headed home, leaving shards of my broken heart all along the way.
Yes, today I am grateful for him for two reasons. First, he gave me the opportunity to see The Who in the massive arena setting where few concerts exist today. Second, much like The Who’s prime anti-establishment anthem, my once irrational heart beats out a vow it won’t get fooled again.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
...but I still haven't found what I'm looking for.
I marveled at the abilities of my ancestors as I stood at the top of an Aztec pyramid.
I viewed the Emerald City from young impassioned eyes.
I was numbed by the quiet pain radiating from the gaping hole of 9/11.
I saw Tokyo Tower and lost my breath at the top of the Akasaka.
I walked the hotel halls of Hollywood glamour, and the ghettos of Juarez.
I saw Mount Fuji for 5.2 seconds.
I could only imagine what walls could say if only they could speak…from Whisky a Go Go to CBGB.
I saw 1940’s racism exist in the 1990’s south.
I sat in President Taft’s enormous chair somewhere in California.
I made myself disappear into the crowds of Shibuya and never felt more at home.
Bono sang to me in the desert.
Billy Idol let me touch his hair.
I’ve seen the moon rise over glistening white sand and the sun set on a quiet gulf.
I saw 126 soldiers leave and 125 come home.
I developed a hopeless addiction to the Windy City, and heard blues as I’ve never heard them before.
I’ve been mesmerized by the lights of Las Vegas one too many times.
The finest steak melted in my mouth deep in the heart of Texas.
A hall of famer tried to take me to bed with him, but a world series pitcher succeeded.
I fell off a bridge at college and was rescued by the man who’d become the father of my children.
I rushed to the city different and saw hope in a black man’s face, reassuring me he might just be president.
I’ve been to so many places I never meant to go but have never been in the place I’ve so badly wanted to be.
I viewed the Emerald City from young impassioned eyes.
I was numbed by the quiet pain radiating from the gaping hole of 9/11.
I saw Tokyo Tower and lost my breath at the top of the Akasaka.
I walked the hotel halls of Hollywood glamour, and the ghettos of Juarez.
I saw Mount Fuji for 5.2 seconds.
I could only imagine what walls could say if only they could speak…from Whisky a Go Go to CBGB.
I saw 1940’s racism exist in the 1990’s south.
I sat in President Taft’s enormous chair somewhere in California.
I made myself disappear into the crowds of Shibuya and never felt more at home.
Bono sang to me in the desert.
Billy Idol let me touch his hair.
I’ve seen the moon rise over glistening white sand and the sun set on a quiet gulf.
I saw 126 soldiers leave and 125 come home.
I developed a hopeless addiction to the Windy City, and heard blues as I’ve never heard them before.
I’ve been mesmerized by the lights of Las Vegas one too many times.
The finest steak melted in my mouth deep in the heart of Texas.
A hall of famer tried to take me to bed with him, but a world series pitcher succeeded.
I fell off a bridge at college and was rescued by the man who’d become the father of my children.
I rushed to the city different and saw hope in a black man’s face, reassuring me he might just be president.
I’ve been to so many places I never meant to go but have never been in the place I’ve so badly wanted to be.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Dancing with Def Leppard
Def Leppard squashed the last shimmering shard of hope held close to my rocker-chick heart that they still maintained a bit of coolness. They appeared live on Dancing with the Stars. No really. Live. As ballroom dancers whirled around them in sequins and bad self-tanner. I know, I know…people love this wholesome, family entertainment. Which is exactly why it disturbs me that Def Leppard would appear there. In the midst of pondering the horror, I (the marketing/PR girl that I am) wondered if Def Leppard was: 1) appealing to the demographics of the show; 2) Trying to spit shine their image; 3) earning some quick cash; or 4) losing their marbles.
Now granted, in the grand scheme of rock star reputation, Def Leppard was no Guns N’ Roses. They probably didn’t trash many hotel rooms or assault groupies with live aquatic animals but they weren’t exactly clean cut. The drummer, afterall, wore the union jack for shorts! (Gasp!) And I’ve seen that one-armed drummer in action and he is BAD ASS. Do not be mistaken, Def Leppard was the master of Pyrotechnic British Heavy Metal in the 80’s. They were one of the early saviors of MTV, with catchy videos and smashing good looks. (Joe Elliott…sigh…)
Def Leppard has been crowned, however, the most unluckiest band in Rock n Roll. Their excesses caused them to lose not only the arm of their drummer, Rick Allen, but original guitarist Pete Willis who was kicked out of the band for severe alcoholism (how bad are you when you are fired from a rock band?); Later guitarist Steve Clark died from an overdose of drugs in combination with alcohol, making him the official 110th rocker to die from his own vomit (Ok I made that number up). So really, after all those bad mishaps, its just too late to try and salvage any sort of reputation you may have once (if at all) had.
Ok, so we’ve established Def Leppard’s status in the world of the rock n roll lifestyle. Yes, they could be trying to appeal to an older sophisticated Generation X’er crowd that once banged their heads to Rock Rock (Til You Drop) and now enjoy B-listers doing the Fox Trot to Pour Some Sugar on Me. Ok, granted, Pour Some Sugar on Me was the pop-phase of Def Leppard and it was all pretty much down hill from there. Even I acknowledge it to be Def Leppard’s least shining moment. But Def Leppard as entertainment for Dancing with the Stars? No. Not my generation. Not me. Not ever.
I believe the biggest (unfortunate) likelihood is that Def Leppard simply sold out. Their last two new albums have been less than stellar money-makers and even their compilation (greatest hits) albums have not scored big. My guess is the High n Dry funds are high and dry.
Now granted, in the grand scheme of rock star reputation, Def Leppard was no Guns N’ Roses. They probably didn’t trash many hotel rooms or assault groupies with live aquatic animals but they weren’t exactly clean cut. The drummer, afterall, wore the union jack for shorts! (Gasp!) And I’ve seen that one-armed drummer in action and he is BAD ASS. Do not be mistaken, Def Leppard was the master of Pyrotechnic British Heavy Metal in the 80’s. They were one of the early saviors of MTV, with catchy videos and smashing good looks. (Joe Elliott…sigh…)
Def Leppard has been crowned, however, the most unluckiest band in Rock n Roll. Their excesses caused them to lose not only the arm of their drummer, Rick Allen, but original guitarist Pete Willis who was kicked out of the band for severe alcoholism (how bad are you when you are fired from a rock band?); Later guitarist Steve Clark died from an overdose of drugs in combination with alcohol, making him the official 110th rocker to die from his own vomit (Ok I made that number up). So really, after all those bad mishaps, its just too late to try and salvage any sort of reputation you may have once (if at all) had.
Ok, so we’ve established Def Leppard’s status in the world of the rock n roll lifestyle. Yes, they could be trying to appeal to an older sophisticated Generation X’er crowd that once banged their heads to Rock Rock (Til You Drop) and now enjoy B-listers doing the Fox Trot to Pour Some Sugar on Me. Ok, granted, Pour Some Sugar on Me was the pop-phase of Def Leppard and it was all pretty much down hill from there. Even I acknowledge it to be Def Leppard’s least shining moment. But Def Leppard as entertainment for Dancing with the Stars? No. Not my generation. Not me. Not ever.
I believe the biggest (unfortunate) likelihood is that Def Leppard simply sold out. Their last two new albums have been less than stellar money-makers and even their compilation (greatest hits) albums have not scored big. My guess is the High n Dry funds are high and dry.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Rest in Peace
Last June one of the soldiers from my husband's unit was killed in Iraq. Of all my personal experiences with the burdens of Iraq, memories of Sgt. C stuck with me oddly, even though I didn't really know him or his family.
Sgt. C did his first tour in Iraq with my husband in a National Guard military police unit. When they returned, for reasons I will never understand, Sgt. C joined the regular Army and was stationed in Ft. Bragg, NC. Soon after he was sent back to Iraq.
He was later killed by a roadside bomb. He had five children and a wife at home. He was due to return home in September.
We were never real close friends at all with the Sgt. C family. But Sgt. C and his kids were active in my son's little league and they went to the same schools as my kids. We used to see them often at the ball park...their five kids beyond rambunxious. Even if you didn't KNOW them, you always knew when they were around.
What was innocent wildness from a pack of kids with little supervision and an absent father turned into haunting memories for me that will never leave my head. I remember when the unit first left to Ft. Polk, LA for training before shipping off to Iraq. The yellow ribbon ceremony was in a hanger at the local airforce base. The general told us how this mission was the most dangerous mission of all for the state's national guard. (That was real reassuring.) The local restaurant fed us barbeque. The yellow ribbon magnets were selling like hotcakes...so naturally they upped the price from $3 to $4. Nice gesture to the departing war heroes. We said our miserable goodbyes and the soldiers were put on a bus to head out.
The Sgt. C kids were balling...and I mean BALLING. And when five kids scream and cry, again, you can't miss them. I remember thinking how I wished they would just calm down. They were overwhelming eachother with emotion...like a chain reaction....all clinging to their mother, slobbering and sniveling. And the chain reaction was spreading to my kids. And probably for selfish reasons I just wanted them to quiet down. "Just calm down, just calm down" I kept thinking to myself, so we all didn't have to hear the wrechedness, like a wailing injured cat you just want put out of its misery.
Later, we all had the chance to visit with the soldiers in Alexandria, LA before they headed overseas. A last goodbye...again. I remember wishing I didn't have to do it. Sometimes you reach a point after a goodbye when you reach peace. Another goodbye just started another war of emotions. But I couldn't just NOT go. They left on our 15th wedding anniversary. Some way to celebrate.
Again, the Sgt. C clan was at the hotel where we were staying during this last-goodbye-again visit. The kids were WILD in the pool. It was quite hilarious at the time watching them go crazy while their mother tried to coral them. She didn't just descretely do it either...screaming at the top of her lungs, flinging her arms, all of them too fast for her lumbering, child-warn body to catch them.
I watched it all happen relaxing in the hot tub. Sgt. C got in, trying to relax I suppose, though his children pestered him. It was just me and him in the tub. We never talked or anything but I just remember him so clearly as if it were just today that I soaked with him. His tattoos, almost prison like. I thought to myself at that moment that he must have had a rough life and the military was his saving grace- from the law or maybe just financially. His look of exhaustion over what was to come was a look all the soldiers had at the time. The anticipation of what was to come was written on their faces and you could sense that no matter how much they loved their families, they just wanted to be there already. Their eyes looked passed their wives and mothers into the visions what might be waiting for them across the ocean. And the shadow of death weighed heavy on Sgt. C's shoulders.
And I remember the sounds of his kids crying as he left.
God bless his children today as they still cry.
Sgt. C did his first tour in Iraq with my husband in a National Guard military police unit. When they returned, for reasons I will never understand, Sgt. C joined the regular Army and was stationed in Ft. Bragg, NC. Soon after he was sent back to Iraq.
He was later killed by a roadside bomb. He had five children and a wife at home. He was due to return home in September.
We were never real close friends at all with the Sgt. C family. But Sgt. C and his kids were active in my son's little league and they went to the same schools as my kids. We used to see them often at the ball park...their five kids beyond rambunxious. Even if you didn't KNOW them, you always knew when they were around.
What was innocent wildness from a pack of kids with little supervision and an absent father turned into haunting memories for me that will never leave my head. I remember when the unit first left to Ft. Polk, LA for training before shipping off to Iraq. The yellow ribbon ceremony was in a hanger at the local airforce base. The general told us how this mission was the most dangerous mission of all for the state's national guard. (That was real reassuring.) The local restaurant fed us barbeque. The yellow ribbon magnets were selling like hotcakes...so naturally they upped the price from $3 to $4. Nice gesture to the departing war heroes. We said our miserable goodbyes and the soldiers were put on a bus to head out.
The Sgt. C kids were balling...and I mean BALLING. And when five kids scream and cry, again, you can't miss them. I remember thinking how I wished they would just calm down. They were overwhelming eachother with emotion...like a chain reaction....all clinging to their mother, slobbering and sniveling. And the chain reaction was spreading to my kids. And probably for selfish reasons I just wanted them to quiet down. "Just calm down, just calm down" I kept thinking to myself, so we all didn't have to hear the wrechedness, like a wailing injured cat you just want put out of its misery.
Later, we all had the chance to visit with the soldiers in Alexandria, LA before they headed overseas. A last goodbye...again. I remember wishing I didn't have to do it. Sometimes you reach a point after a goodbye when you reach peace. Another goodbye just started another war of emotions. But I couldn't just NOT go. They left on our 15th wedding anniversary. Some way to celebrate.
Again, the Sgt. C clan was at the hotel where we were staying during this last-goodbye-again visit. The kids were WILD in the pool. It was quite hilarious at the time watching them go crazy while their mother tried to coral them. She didn't just descretely do it either...screaming at the top of her lungs, flinging her arms, all of them too fast for her lumbering, child-warn body to catch them.
I watched it all happen relaxing in the hot tub. Sgt. C got in, trying to relax I suppose, though his children pestered him. It was just me and him in the tub. We never talked or anything but I just remember him so clearly as if it were just today that I soaked with him. His tattoos, almost prison like. I thought to myself at that moment that he must have had a rough life and the military was his saving grace- from the law or maybe just financially. His look of exhaustion over what was to come was a look all the soldiers had at the time. The anticipation of what was to come was written on their faces and you could sense that no matter how much they loved their families, they just wanted to be there already. Their eyes looked passed their wives and mothers into the visions what might be waiting for them across the ocean. And the shadow of death weighed heavy on Sgt. C's shoulders.
And I remember the sounds of his kids crying as he left.
God bless his children today as they still cry.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Finding My Mom
I really started to believe my mom turned republican. I mean it was really starting to scare me.
I guess with age comes a stronger conservative leaning, but she was about to fall over the edge. I first noticed it when she expressed how much she despised Al Gore. I disregarded it as a personal issue. Well as we all know, he lost the 2000 election and I really suspected she voted for Bush, but I'll let her go to her grave, and mine, with that bit of info. I forgive her, as I have forgiven the 10 bijillion other Americans for their momentary lapse of reason in electing the idiot. Twice. Anyway, she never really would admit why she hated Gore so much. She just did.
My mom then began to hate the Clintons. I mean straight up hatin. I had always admired the fact that my mother had survived the deep south segregation with a realistic perspective of the harshness of racism and a fairly liberal outlook on life. Racism was the one thing she NEVER tolerated in our home. She did, after all, marry a radical Mexican. My aunt, on the other hand, did not. She still actually believes blacks were better off as slaves because they were taken care of, and they apparently cannot take care of themselves. Seriously, she believes it.
So here my mom was, 2008, telling me she would move to England if Hillary wins. And never admitting whether she liked Obama or not, truly keeping me in suspense. Now granted, I support Obama, but it has nothing to do with the Clintons themselves, who after all didn't have the worse of terms. It comes down to leadership. And I'm afraid with all of Clinton's touting of being the most experienced, she participated, in my opinion, in the most irrevocable mistake in US history- the Iraq War. I tend to believe that when you fuck up that bad, there is no redemption. Obama, on the other hand, with his young, inexperienced "head in the clouds" perspective chose not to partake in Bush's war game. I call that foresight and I will forever respect him for it.
Enough about me.
So its primary day in New Mexico and the suspense is killing me. I want to ask her if she needs a ride to the polls but I'm terrified of what the answer might be. How is this happening? I talk to my mom about everything!!! (In New Mexico only registered Dems can vote in the democratic primary.) So I decided to call her and let her know I'm leaving work early to vote. What if the one person I'm closest to has swapped values? She watches over my children! I feel on the verge of an identity crisis, as if I just lost my mom in a crowd of mediocrity. Really, I just didn't want to know.
"Hey can you take me with you?" She says, "I haven't made it to the polls yet today and I hate to get out in the traffic."
I peek over her shoulder at the polls and see she has marked a big X next to Obama.
I found my mom. All is well.
I guess with age comes a stronger conservative leaning, but she was about to fall over the edge. I first noticed it when she expressed how much she despised Al Gore. I disregarded it as a personal issue. Well as we all know, he lost the 2000 election and I really suspected she voted for Bush, but I'll let her go to her grave, and mine, with that bit of info. I forgive her, as I have forgiven the 10 bijillion other Americans for their momentary lapse of reason in electing the idiot. Twice. Anyway, she never really would admit why she hated Gore so much. She just did.
My mom then began to hate the Clintons. I mean straight up hatin. I had always admired the fact that my mother had survived the deep south segregation with a realistic perspective of the harshness of racism and a fairly liberal outlook on life. Racism was the one thing she NEVER tolerated in our home. She did, after all, marry a radical Mexican. My aunt, on the other hand, did not. She still actually believes blacks were better off as slaves because they were taken care of, and they apparently cannot take care of themselves. Seriously, she believes it.
So here my mom was, 2008, telling me she would move to England if Hillary wins. And never admitting whether she liked Obama or not, truly keeping me in suspense. Now granted, I support Obama, but it has nothing to do with the Clintons themselves, who after all didn't have the worse of terms. It comes down to leadership. And I'm afraid with all of Clinton's touting of being the most experienced, she participated, in my opinion, in the most irrevocable mistake in US history- the Iraq War. I tend to believe that when you fuck up that bad, there is no redemption. Obama, on the other hand, with his young, inexperienced "head in the clouds" perspective chose not to partake in Bush's war game. I call that foresight and I will forever respect him for it.
Enough about me.
So its primary day in New Mexico and the suspense is killing me. I want to ask her if she needs a ride to the polls but I'm terrified of what the answer might be. How is this happening? I talk to my mom about everything!!! (In New Mexico only registered Dems can vote in the democratic primary.) So I decided to call her and let her know I'm leaving work early to vote. What if the one person I'm closest to has swapped values? She watches over my children! I feel on the verge of an identity crisis, as if I just lost my mom in a crowd of mediocrity. Really, I just didn't want to know.
"Hey can you take me with you?" She says, "I haven't made it to the polls yet today and I hate to get out in the traffic."
I peek over her shoulder at the polls and see she has marked a big X next to Obama.
I found my mom. All is well.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
My 80s Flashback Part 3: Victim #3
So the month prior to the holidays, my life was consumed with Slash, hopelessly sending me further into my 80's flashback from which I'm not sure I have recovered. Oddly, my obsession with Slash's new autobiography was perfect timing with a recent pre-80s-flashback trip to Los Angeles. While there for a conference, I tormented my fellow conference attendees by dragging them up and down the Sunset Strip of Hollywood seeking out the notorious Whisky A Go Go, among other rock n roll landmarks. They hated me by the end of the night. That's what they get for trying to hang with the hard core. :)
Anyway, prior to this trip I had never seen the seedy side of Hollywood that is the primary birthplace of any sort of decent music, but particularly 80s metal. So this trip really set the stage for me when reading Slash's book. He was raised by his music costume design mother up and down the hills of Hollywood. The band members met through the glam rock scene here and sowed their more than wild oats in the sleazy bars and clubs on the strip.
There were several observations that I gained from the book that really changed my outlook on the music and my favorite band. Slash spent every last dime from 1986 to 2006 on some sort of drug, but primarily heroin. The guitar god didn't even own the guitar he recorded Appetite with...what a shame. While glued to the entire book I couldn't help but look at the dates and think of the (decidedly more boring) things I was doing at the time. In 1988, Appetite had been out almost a year and Guns N Roses was still struggling to gain popularity. Traveling the country, touring month after month, the band was gaining momentum. And in the most cliche way, they hit it big overnight. Sheer pre-internet word of mouth carried them to stardom. Traveling Europe and the US, their hardcore way of life made Motley Crue look like boy scouts. Slash even admitted he couldn't believe how much more Motley Crue had their shit together than they did. Read The Dirt, and you'll understand just what that statement means.
I, meanwhile, was in my first year of college. Never leaving the same lame ass state I grew up in, hanging with the same lame ass friends. What the hell was I thinking? The place to be was LA. One time my roommate and her friend loaded up her car with food, drink and an 8 ball of coke and drove straight to LA, on the whim that they might meet Axl. They didn't, but they did manage to track down LA Guns. I was holed up at some GI's apartment and missed the whole adventure.
By 1991, however, Guns N Roses was reaching its last days. Much of the great music they produced was music written in 1986 and even earlier, including much of Use Your Illusion. They had massive charisma in the beginning but their hard lifestyle and personalities ultimately tore them apart. The Use Your Illusion tour was one of the biggest tours of the time and few have been bigger since, but it nearly didn't happen each and every night. From Metallica's pyrotechnics accident to Axl's tirades, concerts were canceled, delayed, and rioted. I just happened to get lucky and see them on a night when they had it together. The weather was right, Axl was happy, and the crowd of 35,000 was great. Personally, no other concert has rivaled it. How big are you when Metallica opens for you? In all actuality, Slash's book revealed that Metallica refused to headline because of Axl's notorious lateness and they would NOT be delayed.
Unfortunately for me, this was not the original GNR. This Epiphany came to me only when I read Slash's story. (Ya, I'm slow sometimes.) I suppose at the time I was aware of it but it didn't really matter to me. There was Axl and there was Slash...what more do you need. Fortunately for me, however, I have a better appreciation for music today and now realize how sad that a band with such command only produced two albums, Appetite and Lies, due to drugs and personality conflicts. How sad that I never saw the original band members because the drummer couldn't even play anymore he was so debilitated. How much better it must have been to see this young scrappy band, fresh from dropping out of high school, in an intimate venue like the Whisky scaring everyone with that hair and top hat, that voice, that mean attitude.
My final observation was that of the relationship between Axl and Slash. My impression had always been that the two hated each other and that Axl was a total dick. (If you happen to read my blog, Axl, I love you.) I think both impressions were very much inaccurate. First, Slash admittedly had a serious drug problem, as did all of the band members. Axl was the only one who had managed to keep his shit together and overcome his addiction. His fight for the rights to the GNR name was rightly so. He watched Steven Adler, the drummer, become a near vegetable and sign away his interests in the band. I believe Axl knew what destruction this band was capable of doing to themselves and wanted to ensure his band was protected. As shitty as this might have seemed at the time, and as much as Slash claims he hated Axl for doing this, Slash couldn't even take care of himself and barely kicked his habit last year, much less take care of his interests in the band.
Second, I think the two really cared for each other. There is a sweet picture of them talking in a hallway after a show and they seem to really have a brotherly relationship. Mostly it was this selection of the book that I found summed up their complex relationship:
Axl is super intelligent, yet at the same time he lives in a place where logic that governs other people does not apply. He doesn't ever realize what an inconvenience his choices might be for others. He means no harm; its just the way he is. Its very hard to try to even explain it. He is as sincere as someone can possibly be, but it comes down to the fact that Axl, regardless of the world around him, insists on existing according to rules that hold true only in the universe that he has created around himself...
I remember being really angry and Izzy felt that same way that night. But as pissed off as we were, sitting there in the bathroom discussing how we were determined to find a new singer, when he showed up, Axl still won us over. Slowly but surely, we found it in our hearts just to let it go.
As Bret Michaels' diabetes and Quiet Riot's Kevin DuBrow's untimely death, Slash suffered from the excesses of the 80s. Years of heroine ruined his heart, requiring a pace-maker to send a shock to his system each time the excitement of the guitar raises his heart rate, something drugs did for him for years. He lost most of his earnings and much of his memorabilia and priceless guitars.
But the real victim was the music. Granted, most great music is written in the haze of drug-induced inspiration. But one must wonder what new levels the Guns N Roses music would have reached had the band had treated their group like a business, much like the Rolling Stones. Axl may not have been so desperate to take control of the GNR empire had the other members acted as if they cared to take ownership of that same empire. Then again, sobriety may have caused less than stellar music. I tend to think they were a good enough band to survive their clarity of reality. Certainly, Slash is revered as one of the greatest riff makers. Velvet Revolver has proven their survivability. I think they were good enough to survive the grunge era that so quickly ran all other hair metal bands out of town. Surely Axl's disturbing outlook could have rivaled anything Kurt Cobain had to say. Guns N Roses grinded the 80s and 90s together musically. As all other metal music wimped out, GNR showed its strength in the double CD of Use Your Illusion that released in 1991. Nirvana's Nevermind album released soon after and is credited with changing the face of music and ushering in the grunge era. But I could debate that with a whole other blog. November Rain was written by Axl before GNR formed, but many new sounds on the UYI album show an evolution within GNR, but it was a place the rest of the band wasn't willing to go. I'm still amazed by the quantity of good music on that CD set. I know alot of people would argue that point with me, but I think it is better than most of the 90s grunge that came out soon after.
Axl says in Locomotive "if love is blind, I guess I'll buy myself a cane." Maybe my loving blindness of the band might skew my opinion. Maybe I'm the real victim.
Gotta go...Bret Michaels Rock of Love 2 is on.
Anyway, prior to this trip I had never seen the seedy side of Hollywood that is the primary birthplace of any sort of decent music, but particularly 80s metal. So this trip really set the stage for me when reading Slash's book. He was raised by his music costume design mother up and down the hills of Hollywood. The band members met through the glam rock scene here and sowed their more than wild oats in the sleazy bars and clubs on the strip.
There were several observations that I gained from the book that really changed my outlook on the music and my favorite band. Slash spent every last dime from 1986 to 2006 on some sort of drug, but primarily heroin. The guitar god didn't even own the guitar he recorded Appetite with...what a shame. While glued to the entire book I couldn't help but look at the dates and think of the (decidedly more boring) things I was doing at the time. In 1988, Appetite had been out almost a year and Guns N Roses was still struggling to gain popularity. Traveling the country, touring month after month, the band was gaining momentum. And in the most cliche way, they hit it big overnight. Sheer pre-internet word of mouth carried them to stardom. Traveling Europe and the US, their hardcore way of life made Motley Crue look like boy scouts. Slash even admitted he couldn't believe how much more Motley Crue had their shit together than they did. Read The Dirt, and you'll understand just what that statement means.
I, meanwhile, was in my first year of college. Never leaving the same lame ass state I grew up in, hanging with the same lame ass friends. What the hell was I thinking? The place to be was LA. One time my roommate and her friend loaded up her car with food, drink and an 8 ball of coke and drove straight to LA, on the whim that they might meet Axl. They didn't, but they did manage to track down LA Guns. I was holed up at some GI's apartment and missed the whole adventure.
By 1991, however, Guns N Roses was reaching its last days. Much of the great music they produced was music written in 1986 and even earlier, including much of Use Your Illusion. They had massive charisma in the beginning but their hard lifestyle and personalities ultimately tore them apart. The Use Your Illusion tour was one of the biggest tours of the time and few have been bigger since, but it nearly didn't happen each and every night. From Metallica's pyrotechnics accident to Axl's tirades, concerts were canceled, delayed, and rioted. I just happened to get lucky and see them on a night when they had it together. The weather was right, Axl was happy, and the crowd of 35,000 was great. Personally, no other concert has rivaled it. How big are you when Metallica opens for you? In all actuality, Slash's book revealed that Metallica refused to headline because of Axl's notorious lateness and they would NOT be delayed.
Unfortunately for me, this was not the original GNR. This Epiphany came to me only when I read Slash's story. (Ya, I'm slow sometimes.) I suppose at the time I was aware of it but it didn't really matter to me. There was Axl and there was Slash...what more do you need. Fortunately for me, however, I have a better appreciation for music today and now realize how sad that a band with such command only produced two albums, Appetite and Lies, due to drugs and personality conflicts. How sad that I never saw the original band members because the drummer couldn't even play anymore he was so debilitated. How much better it must have been to see this young scrappy band, fresh from dropping out of high school, in an intimate venue like the Whisky scaring everyone with that hair and top hat, that voice, that mean attitude.
My final observation was that of the relationship between Axl and Slash. My impression had always been that the two hated each other and that Axl was a total dick. (If you happen to read my blog, Axl, I love you.) I think both impressions were very much inaccurate. First, Slash admittedly had a serious drug problem, as did all of the band members. Axl was the only one who had managed to keep his shit together and overcome his addiction. His fight for the rights to the GNR name was rightly so. He watched Steven Adler, the drummer, become a near vegetable and sign away his interests in the band. I believe Axl knew what destruction this band was capable of doing to themselves and wanted to ensure his band was protected. As shitty as this might have seemed at the time, and as much as Slash claims he hated Axl for doing this, Slash couldn't even take care of himself and barely kicked his habit last year, much less take care of his interests in the band.
Second, I think the two really cared for each other. There is a sweet picture of them talking in a hallway after a show and they seem to really have a brotherly relationship. Mostly it was this selection of the book that I found summed up their complex relationship:
Axl is super intelligent, yet at the same time he lives in a place where logic that governs other people does not apply. He doesn't ever realize what an inconvenience his choices might be for others. He means no harm; its just the way he is. Its very hard to try to even explain it. He is as sincere as someone can possibly be, but it comes down to the fact that Axl, regardless of the world around him, insists on existing according to rules that hold true only in the universe that he has created around himself...
I remember being really angry and Izzy felt that same way that night. But as pissed off as we were, sitting there in the bathroom discussing how we were determined to find a new singer, when he showed up, Axl still won us over. Slowly but surely, we found it in our hearts just to let it go.
As Bret Michaels' diabetes and Quiet Riot's Kevin DuBrow's untimely death, Slash suffered from the excesses of the 80s. Years of heroine ruined his heart, requiring a pace-maker to send a shock to his system each time the excitement of the guitar raises his heart rate, something drugs did for him for years. He lost most of his earnings and much of his memorabilia and priceless guitars.
But the real victim was the music. Granted, most great music is written in the haze of drug-induced inspiration. But one must wonder what new levels the Guns N Roses music would have reached had the band had treated their group like a business, much like the Rolling Stones. Axl may not have been so desperate to take control of the GNR empire had the other members acted as if they cared to take ownership of that same empire. Then again, sobriety may have caused less than stellar music. I tend to think they were a good enough band to survive their clarity of reality. Certainly, Slash is revered as one of the greatest riff makers. Velvet Revolver has proven their survivability. I think they were good enough to survive the grunge era that so quickly ran all other hair metal bands out of town. Surely Axl's disturbing outlook could have rivaled anything Kurt Cobain had to say. Guns N Roses grinded the 80s and 90s together musically. As all other metal music wimped out, GNR showed its strength in the double CD of Use Your Illusion that released in 1991. Nirvana's Nevermind album released soon after and is credited with changing the face of music and ushering in the grunge era. But I could debate that with a whole other blog. November Rain was written by Axl before GNR formed, but many new sounds on the UYI album show an evolution within GNR, but it was a place the rest of the band wasn't willing to go. I'm still amazed by the quantity of good music on that CD set. I know alot of people would argue that point with me, but I think it is better than most of the 90s grunge that came out soon after.
Axl says in Locomotive "if love is blind, I guess I'll buy myself a cane." Maybe my loving blindness of the band might skew my opinion. Maybe I'm the real victim.
Gotta go...Bret Michaels Rock of Love 2 is on.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
My 80s Flashback Part 2
So back to my flashback...
My job often takes me on long trips across empty desert that invites the mind to wonder. Its truly un-glamorous travel but the scenic no-man's-landscapes never fail to surprise and with a subtle angle of lighting from the sunset or clouds hanging just right I manage to always see a different viewpoint. Plus it beats hanging around the office.
A recent adventure across landscapes unknown, my first 80's flashback occurred. A fortunate last minute download to my IPod of VH1's Bret Michaels Rock of Love is what did it. Truly trashy, it kept me spellbound...well at least for the couple of hours I had nothing much else to look at. Yes, its reality TV at its worse...what do you do? But what got me was the season finale confession of the Poison lead singer regarding his terrible health. Years of living the 80's Rock N Roll lifestyle left him with debilitating diabetes.
KISS made "I wanna Rock N Roll all night and party everyday" such a damn fine-sounding idea.
And though Poison would rank as glam hair band rock in my book of metal status, Bret was none the less a product of the same rock machine as myself. Rock star status suddenly became much less alluring. Damn you Bret.
As Bret's mortality sinks into me, I roll into El Paso, TX. El Paso is the dirtiest, grimiest, non-glamorous city barely in the United States...and I love every bit of it. I wondered out loud to myself...yes...I this happens when you've been driving for several hours alone with Bret Michaels...why I always got so damn excited about this brown city. Brown in more ways than one. This brown city brought tears to my eyes and a rush of emotion. Then it hit me. This was MY epicenter of the Rock N Roll lifestyle. Bret and Slash had Sunset Blvd. but I had the strip in Juarez, Mexico.
College brought me to the area where I tried my best to live up to those KISS words. Most of the major rock bands I have seen in my short lifetime were in the El Paso area- Aerosmith, KISS (sans makeup), Rolling Stones, LA Guns, Guns N Roses and Metallica (Las Cruces), Skid Row, Dokken, Winger (What the hell???), and more than I can remember.
I saw many not so-famous-but-should-have-been bands at some of the heavy metal clubs on the US side of this boarder town. Heavy Metal Clubs just don't exist anymore. I even married my husband in a denim skirt and fringed white boots at the JOP downtown. I banged my head and dirty danced way too many times to AC/DC's Shook Me All Night Long as the sun came up. I used to hang with two rocker chicks (the not too unimaginable female versions of Vince Neil and Nikki Sixx) at the Drink N Drown every Thursday night...then I figured out they were lesbians. How I figured it out is another story for another time. I drank yards of beer at the English Pub with Judas Priest in the background and Def Leppard posters on the walls. El Paso was my metal home.
So it was on this very same day that I heard the lead singer of Quiet Riot had died. (I saw them in Albuquerque.) I'd later find out it was a drug overdose. Another victim of the Rock N Roll lifestyle...neither a newsflash or startling revelation. Except a little voice that keeps repeating "these guys are almost the same age as you."
Funny, I had always secretly desired and was envious of being a groupie. You know, following a band around the country, giving blow jobs indiscriminately to roadies to get back stage and then wildly fucking the drummer. Maybe even reaching preferred groupie status and by-passing the roadies with the sheer general common knowledge of my talents...like Sweet Sweet Connie. I never thought about being the WIFE of a rock star. Dumb ass.
I guess it ended up alright that I chose the safe route. I married young, had children young, and settled for dreaming about the rock star life. I might trade it all for Axl, but I wouldn't trade singing Sweet Child O' Mine to my baby boy. It's his ring tone now.
My job often takes me on long trips across empty desert that invites the mind to wonder. Its truly un-glamorous travel but the scenic no-man's-landscapes never fail to surprise and with a subtle angle of lighting from the sunset or clouds hanging just right I manage to always see a different viewpoint. Plus it beats hanging around the office.
A recent adventure across landscapes unknown, my first 80's flashback occurred. A fortunate last minute download to my IPod of VH1's Bret Michaels Rock of Love is what did it. Truly trashy, it kept me spellbound...well at least for the couple of hours I had nothing much else to look at. Yes, its reality TV at its worse...what do you do? But what got me was the season finale confession of the Poison lead singer regarding his terrible health. Years of living the 80's Rock N Roll lifestyle left him with debilitating diabetes.
KISS made "I wanna Rock N Roll all night and party everyday" such a damn fine-sounding idea.
And though Poison would rank as glam hair band rock in my book of metal status, Bret was none the less a product of the same rock machine as myself. Rock star status suddenly became much less alluring. Damn you Bret.
As Bret's mortality sinks into me, I roll into El Paso, TX. El Paso is the dirtiest, grimiest, non-glamorous city barely in the United States...and I love every bit of it. I wondered out loud to myself...yes...I this happens when you've been driving for several hours alone with Bret Michaels...why I always got so damn excited about this brown city. Brown in more ways than one. This brown city brought tears to my eyes and a rush of emotion. Then it hit me. This was MY epicenter of the Rock N Roll lifestyle. Bret and Slash had Sunset Blvd. but I had the strip in Juarez, Mexico.
College brought me to the area where I tried my best to live up to those KISS words. Most of the major rock bands I have seen in my short lifetime were in the El Paso area- Aerosmith, KISS (sans makeup), Rolling Stones, LA Guns, Guns N Roses and Metallica (Las Cruces), Skid Row, Dokken, Winger (What the hell???), and more than I can remember.
I saw many not so-famous-but-should-have-been bands at some of the heavy metal clubs on the US side of this boarder town. Heavy Metal Clubs just don't exist anymore. I even married my husband in a denim skirt and fringed white boots at the JOP downtown. I banged my head and dirty danced way too many times to AC/DC's Shook Me All Night Long as the sun came up. I used to hang with two rocker chicks (the not too unimaginable female versions of Vince Neil and Nikki Sixx) at the Drink N Drown every Thursday night...then I figured out they were lesbians. How I figured it out is another story for another time. I drank yards of beer at the English Pub with Judas Priest in the background and Def Leppard posters on the walls. El Paso was my metal home.
So it was on this very same day that I heard the lead singer of Quiet Riot had died. (I saw them in Albuquerque.) I'd later find out it was a drug overdose. Another victim of the Rock N Roll lifestyle...neither a newsflash or startling revelation. Except a little voice that keeps repeating "these guys are almost the same age as you."
Funny, I had always secretly desired and was envious of being a groupie. You know, following a band around the country, giving blow jobs indiscriminately to roadies to get back stage and then wildly fucking the drummer. Maybe even reaching preferred groupie status and by-passing the roadies with the sheer general common knowledge of my talents...like Sweet Sweet Connie. I never thought about being the WIFE of a rock star. Dumb ass.
I guess it ended up alright that I chose the safe route. I married young, had children young, and settled for dreaming about the rock star life. I might trade it all for Axl, but I wouldn't trade singing Sweet Child O' Mine to my baby boy. It's his ring tone now.
Akasaka Prince
This was written on April 18, 2007 on the plane from Tokyo back home:
I followed the lines as they curved like a serpant, sinking its teeth into you, sinking your teeth into me.
I prayed to the Shinto gods for mercy.
Chinese writing telling the story of your life, trailing the arch of your back.
A story of which I streaked through momentarily.Not long enough.
Etched into my mind like your tattoos...the way you looked through me into the deep pools of my soul and announced it dreamy. Dreamy.
I followed the lines as they curved like a serpant, sinking its teeth into you, sinking your teeth into me.
I prayed to the Shinto gods for mercy.
Chinese writing telling the story of your life, trailing the arch of your back.
A story of which I streaked through momentarily.Not long enough.
Etched into my mind like your tattoos...the way you looked through me into the deep pools of my soul and announced it dreamy. Dreamy.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
My 80's Flashback Part I
I've been having an 80's flashback. Not the "wow, I feel like listening to Depeche Mode" but some serious metal transport to my past life as a straight up Rock N Roll Hair Metal Girl- fringed white boots, big hair, and all. I haven't quite switched back to Aqua Net, but I have had visions of times when I did kill the Ozone before heading out on a Saturday night. I guess a series of events have brought on my daydreams of rock gods. But I'll get to that soon.
I actually can't say I was a truly devout metal chick for the entire 80's, but more the latter part of the decade. Here's how it went down...
As I entered high school around 1984, Christianity as we know it was being threatened by four California boys named Motley Crue. I say boys because I later realized they were only a couple of years older than me at the time. Now this was a serious and urgent matter in a strict private Presbyterian preparatory school. No pentagram star t-shirts, cassette tapes with Vince's crotchal area, or sacrilegious lyrics were allowed on campus or one would face certain inquisition/exorcism. I laugh now at the deep concerns of my school's administration on the matter. They are so nonthreatening today, but at the time...they were the devil.
Nick, my friend from Arizona who lived in the dorms and was a constant source of humor due to his crippling boredom, actually changed the words to "Shout at the Devil" to "Shout at Your Grandma" (his grandma was deaf) to dodge trouble but to push the envelope simultaneously. All this activity over such bad boys made them an obsession amongst all us young, shy girls nearly overnight. Not so chronologically, Metallica soon followed. Though more "underground" and a bit more edgy and disturbing, they none the less disturbed our preacher. And Iron Maiden? Forget about it.
It didn't take too long after that though that I fell into a long punk/New Wave scene. I became enthralled with Adam Ant (I believe God will forgive me sooner for loving Motley Crue). The local "teen dance club" opened and led me to Depeche Mode, New Order and alot of the English synth bands.
Then one day...I heard THE VOICE. I saw the nearly neurotic, oddly sexual, frightening presence of the man who changed my outlook on the world- Axl Rose. He scared the crap out of me. He turned me on. He was the sexy bad boy, but probably too unsafely bad. The kind of guy to lure you into his car with a flashy smile, then slip you roofies and gang bang you along with three of his much hairier friends. But ya...you'd still get in the car.
And speaking of hair...not until then, nor since has any guy sported long hair better than him.
My first year in college (pre-guns n roses) my boyfriend helped bring me to some sense of reason when it came to music. I discovered Lynard Skynard (I'm over it now), KISS, Def Leppard, AC DC, Judas Priest, and some really heavy rock like Accept. I rediscovered my older sisters music- particularly Zepplin. But come my sophomore year, there was only one soundtrack, background music, theme song, etc. for any college student, and that was Appetite for Destruction. Motley Crue were bad boys but this was different. Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll, were taken to a whole new darker level. MC made it sound like fun, but G n R made it sound down right scary. The inside album photo was of a young blindfolded girl who'd just been raped by some scary creature. The photo was originally meant for the cover of the album but G n R were forced to change it for fear of reprisal for such a graphic image. It was replaced with the iconic drawing of the band members skeleton images on a cross that later became a tattoo on Axl's arm.
Axl sung about heroin...and not in a good way. He called women bitches and suggested rape. It was haunting and captivating and it rocked. At the time, no one I knew listened to anything else. Literally. I remember endless nights of parties playing the cassette repeatedly and never pausing to play something else. The pace of the album just kept everyone stirring. I had two copies myself. It seemed to personify the new sense of hopelessness that came with AIDS, unprecedented levels of violence, and the "war on drugs"- the debilitating use of crack. Sex and drugs were now deadly for everyone and forever. The innocence of the 60's was not only dead, but G n R stomped on its grave. G n R didn't just reflect the times...they oozed it. I was a full-fledged rocker chick.
I actually can't say I was a truly devout metal chick for the entire 80's, but more the latter part of the decade. Here's how it went down...
As I entered high school around 1984, Christianity as we know it was being threatened by four California boys named Motley Crue. I say boys because I later realized they were only a couple of years older than me at the time. Now this was a serious and urgent matter in a strict private Presbyterian preparatory school. No pentagram star t-shirts, cassette tapes with Vince's crotchal area, or sacrilegious lyrics were allowed on campus or one would face certain inquisition/exorcism. I laugh now at the deep concerns of my school's administration on the matter. They are so nonthreatening today, but at the time...they were the devil.
Nick, my friend from Arizona who lived in the dorms and was a constant source of humor due to his crippling boredom, actually changed the words to "Shout at the Devil" to "Shout at Your Grandma" (his grandma was deaf) to dodge trouble but to push the envelope simultaneously. All this activity over such bad boys made them an obsession amongst all us young, shy girls nearly overnight. Not so chronologically, Metallica soon followed. Though more "underground" and a bit more edgy and disturbing, they none the less disturbed our preacher. And Iron Maiden? Forget about it.
It didn't take too long after that though that I fell into a long punk/New Wave scene. I became enthralled with Adam Ant (I believe God will forgive me sooner for loving Motley Crue). The local "teen dance club" opened and led me to Depeche Mode, New Order and alot of the English synth bands.
Then one day...I heard THE VOICE. I saw the nearly neurotic, oddly sexual, frightening presence of the man who changed my outlook on the world- Axl Rose. He scared the crap out of me. He turned me on. He was the sexy bad boy, but probably too unsafely bad. The kind of guy to lure you into his car with a flashy smile, then slip you roofies and gang bang you along with three of his much hairier friends. But ya...you'd still get in the car.
And speaking of hair...not until then, nor since has any guy sported long hair better than him.
My first year in college (pre-guns n roses) my boyfriend helped bring me to some sense of reason when it came to music. I discovered Lynard Skynard (I'm over it now), KISS, Def Leppard, AC DC, Judas Priest, and some really heavy rock like Accept. I rediscovered my older sisters music- particularly Zepplin. But come my sophomore year, there was only one soundtrack, background music, theme song, etc. for any college student, and that was Appetite for Destruction. Motley Crue were bad boys but this was different. Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll, were taken to a whole new darker level. MC made it sound like fun, but G n R made it sound down right scary. The inside album photo was of a young blindfolded girl who'd just been raped by some scary creature. The photo was originally meant for the cover of the album but G n R were forced to change it for fear of reprisal for such a graphic image. It was replaced with the iconic drawing of the band members skeleton images on a cross that later became a tattoo on Axl's arm.
Axl sung about heroin...and not in a good way. He called women bitches and suggested rape. It was haunting and captivating and it rocked. At the time, no one I knew listened to anything else. Literally. I remember endless nights of parties playing the cassette repeatedly and never pausing to play something else. The pace of the album just kept everyone stirring. I had two copies myself. It seemed to personify the new sense of hopelessness that came with AIDS, unprecedented levels of violence, and the "war on drugs"- the debilitating use of crack. Sex and drugs were now deadly for everyone and forever. The innocence of the 60's was not only dead, but G n R stomped on its grave. G n R didn't just reflect the times...they oozed it. I was a full-fledged rocker chick.
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