Appetite at 25

tejastech08

Really good bunch of quotes and memories at Dead Spin about the 25th anniversary of Appetite For Destruction.

http://deadspin.com/5928254/appetite-fo … n-and-more

My favorite one might be this:

I entered ninth grade in 1988. My high school had a jukebox in the cafeteria. Every two weeks, new songs were added to the jukebox with the oldest rotated out. The first two songs added were "Welcome to the Jungle" and "It's So Easy". After someone discovered that "It's So Easy" was the uncensored version, someone would feed quarters in the machine and play it consecutively as many times as possible. Three days later, Mr. Gates (the alcoholic math teacher) was serving his term as cafeteria monitor. Mr. Gates decided to stand by the jukebox since it was one of the vantage points that gave the best possible view of the cafeteria.
"It's So Easy" started up for the first time. The students held their collective breath. Some of them put their heads down. It was going to happen. The song shifted to the spoken portion that ended with Axl defiantly yelling "FUCK OFF!" Mr. Gates turned in horror and literally ripped the power cord out of the wall. The cafeteria was plunged into a brief pause of silence, and then a wave of laughter rippled through the room. The song finally got the wanted reaction.
The jukebox was never used again.

That is the definition of rock and roll right there. Pissing off your parents and teachers is what it's all about. Sadly, Appetite was before my time. I was born in November 1985, so obviously way too young to have known what the hell was going on when the album came out. For you old timers who were around at the time, please share your memories in this thread.

Sky Dog

told this one before....1988, college in Athens, Ga...REM ruled....all the hipsters loved REM. I am at a fraternity/sorority mixer. At some point, SCOM comes on the speakers...blasting. Guys look around and all the chicks immediately get up on tables and start doing the Axl sway and completely rocking the fuck out. It was awesome...hot chicks too. I knew at that moment that we had a real rock band on our hands.

always remember, "the men don't know, but the little girls understand." Gnr had the best of both worlds. They could rock the boys cocks off while making the ladies wet at the same time. Awesome.

tejastech08

Sky Dog wrote:

told this one before....1988, college in Athens, Ga...REM ruled....all the hipsters loved REM. I am at a fraternity/sorority mixer. At some point, SCOM comes on the speakers...blasting. Guys look around and all the chicks immediately get up on tables and start doing the Axl sway and completely rocking the fuck out. It was awesome...hot chicks too. I knew at that moment that we had a real rock band on our hands.
always remember, "the men don't know, but the little girls understand." Gnr had the best of both worlds. They could rock the boys cocks off while making the ladies wet at the same time. Awesome.

I can't remember who it was, someone in the media maybe, who said that GN'R accidentally stumbled onto the perfect combination. They had punk rock attitude, bluesy traditional hard rock sound, and all the girls wanted to hook up with them. On the surface, GN'R seemed like the type of band that would be destined for cult status. How the fuck did they blow up like that? Zutaut deserves a lot of credit for realizing their potential and pushing David Geffen to not give up on the band. He was ready to pull the plug on them at numerous times.

Sky Dog

they were definitely mutts....everybody in the band brought a different influence which is very rare in my opinion. There was nothing original in the music other than no other band really could step in to all the genres that Gnr could....like you said, punk, blues, metal, traditional hard rock, pop.

tejastech08

What I really love about the Appetite sound is that it's basically a perfect mixture of everything that came before it. Like you said, the sounds were not really that original (except for Axl's voice, which is about as unique as can be in rock and roll IMHO). But they mixed the likes of Aerosmith, Stones, Skynyrd, and AC/DC with the Sex Pistols and New York Dolls. There is an edgier quality to their sound than the classic rock bands that inspired them, even edgier than AC/DC. And despite that edgy punk sound, they still managed to pull out these incredibly catchy melodies along the lines of the Stones or Skynyrd.

Appetite is the pinnacle of hard rock. We haven't heard anything since 1987 that has matched or topped it in this genre, not even close. A lot of people feel it's overrated because it came out during the era of hair metal, which supposedly made it look better than it "really" was. However, I discovered this album while growing up in the 90's with grunge and post-grunge alternative blaring over the airwaves. For me stuck in a grunge and "alt rock" wasteland in the late 90's, Appetite was every bit the revelation that it must have been for people stuck in a hair metal and synth pop wasteland in the late 80's.

Sky Dog

sad to see something so good not reach it's full potential....Neil Young on the breakup of his classic bands...

Where the eagle glides ascending
There's an ancient river bending
Down the timeless gorge of changes
Where sleeplessness awaits
I searched out my companions,
Who were lost in crystal canyons
When the aimless blade of science
Slashed the pearly gates.

It was then I knew I'd had enough,
Burned my credit card for fuel
Headed out to where the pavement turns to sand
With a one-way ticket to the land of truth
And my suitcase in my hand
How I lost my friends I still don't understand.

They had the best selection,
They were poisoned with protection
There was nothing that they needed,
Nothing left to find
They were lost in rock formations
Or became park bench mutations
On the sidewalks and in the stations
They were waiting, waiting.

So I got bored and left them there,
They were just deadweight to me
Better down the road without that load
Brings back the time when I was eight or nine
I was watchin' my mama's T.V.,
It was that great Grand Canyon rescue episode.

Where the vulture glides descending
On an asphalt highway bending
Thru libraries and museums, galaxies and stars
Down the windy halls of friendship
To the rose clipped by the bullwhip
The motel of lost companions
Waits with heated pool and bar.

But me I'm not stopping there,
Got my own row left to hoe
Just another line in the field of time
When the thrashers comes, I'll be stuck in the sun
Like the dinosaurs in shrines
But I'll know the time has come
To give what's mine.

Axlin16

I promised Tejas a couple weeks ago I would check out this thread, and sadly because I came into Guns during the UYI phase, and the premiere of the YCBM video being my first exposure as a young elementary kid looking for a soundtrack to my life... I guess from that point forward things were never the same.

I wish I had a really cool GN'R story, but it wouldn't be very rock n' roll, and it would be after-the-fact.

I went to school and a very rough school and there was a period of time Welcome To The Jungle became some sort of Miami Vice-like battle cry, for some hellish burnout scenario between pushers and 16-year old Mexican drug cartel wannabes with uncles and fathers who were in the cartel, and wouldn't hesitate to drop a couple of burnt corpses in a ditch only blocks from my house if you looked at them cross-eyed. I was living Sons of Anarchy years in advance, except I opted for a linen jacket, ripped jeans, a Crockett mullet.

Is this all a bit dramatic? Hell yes. Is this all the absolute truth? Absolutely. I wish I could lie to you. I wish I could have my innocence back. I wish I could've just thrown on a letterhead jacket and been a fucking football jock fucking two chicks before the girls knew how to even use their pussies. It's So Easy for them. But I lived on the wrong side of the tracks because I chose the truth. The Bible tells us that he who speaks the truth, does it alone. I chose truth and from that point forward they were Out Ta Get Me.

I could've just stepped aside. Maybe it was too much TV, too much glory made to see it all fall. I didn't get to live the idyllic high school party life. I was too busy dealing with life how it existed. And once you're in that world, there is no coming out. Whether you're a mark, a user, a trick, a pusher, or just a fucking lunatic you're there and it either changes you or kills you. I decided to be the guy they respected from the fear of what I might do. I wasn't one of them, but I wasn't normal either. I wasn't of them, but they were the only ones that understood me. The action became a drug. Normal life just... bored me.

I came home one day and pulled out the pistol from underneath my truck I had begun taking to high school, because of what might happen. We'd already had two gang wars take place in the very parking lot I had just stood in only a couple minutes earlier.

I walked inside the house, put the pistol and keys on the table, and threw my books to the couch. I flipped on MTV. The year 1999. And a song so perfect, that I hadn't paid attention to in years summed it all up perfectly. Made me feel so at ease that I felt sick. I knew I was there and my innocence lost. I would never be the same because I was home.

This is what played...

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