Woo-hhooo! My fav mag has my fav man on the cover (well he shares it w/ a few others...) but either way, it is an honor, I feel.
There's a write up about Gnr by J. Perry, and Slash writes about Aerosmith
I've copied and pasted GNR write-up from this very website, and the Aerosmith write-up from
www.rollingstone.com--ck out the site to see the cover...(can't wait to go and get myself a copy once these hellish exams are over
)
In the latest Rolling Stone magazine there's a list of The Immortals. It's the second volume of the magazine's tribute to the 100 greatest artists in rock & roll, the music?s innovators are celebrated by their peers and inheritors. The magazine got Joe Perry to write about GN'R:
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92) GUNS N? ROSES
By Joe Perry
GUNS N? ROSES REVIVED OUR KIND OF ROCK. I remember someone handing me a copy of Appetite for Destruction and saying, ?You?ve got to hear these guys - they?re the new big thing.? Bands like Bon Jovi and Whitesnake were big around then but Guns N? Roses were different. They had dug down a little deeper into rock?s roots. I heard a lot of Aerosmith in them, which meant I also heard a lot of bands that came before us. And I remember being a little jealous, because they were really hitting the nail on the head.
They opened up for us in 1988, and one of the things that impressed me was how much personality they put across, even when they weren?t playing. Axl knew how to work an audience. They used to have to go out there and tape foam rubber around everything that Axl could touch - from his teleprompter to his mike stand - to make sure he wouldn?t break anything, or hurt himself. I think people saw that he was basically just let out of the cage. Part of the thrill was wondering what he was going to do next.
They were called metal at the time, but they weren?t: Metal isn?t sexy, but rock is. To put it another way: You can have the rock, but you need the roll. Songs like ?Paradise City? and ?Welcome to the Jungle? were just simple enough: the chorus lines came right when you wanted them. Slash plays what?s needed for the song, as opposed to trying to make a tune a showcase for his guitar technique. Guns N? Roses? music wasn?t full of the overblown gymnastics that a lot of guys were doing back then - their stuff is just very tasty. Duff McKagan is like the bass player in AC/DC: His parts were fairly simple, but they made the band an unstoppable force. Izzy Stradlin was also an important part of that band. Guns N? Roses played as a gang, which is just what you want.
Guns N? Roses are still an example of how a band can move rock forward. Sometimes you think, ?How can you top anything by the Yardbirds, or Zeppelin, or the Stones?? And then you hear Guns N? Roses, and it?s inspiring. You can think that it?s all been written, but it hasn?t. There?s another way to twist those three chords around, to make it sound new, fresh and rebellious.
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#57 Aerosmith By Slash
I don't think this generation has a clue what classic Aerosmith was all about. But they were the template for what I do, as well as plenty of bands that came after Guns n' Roses: Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam all owed a serious debt to old-school Aerosmith.
My big awakening happened when I was fourteen. I'd been trying to get into this older girl's pants for a while, and she finally let me come over to her house. We hung out, smoked some pot and listened to Aerosmith's Rocks. It hit me like a fucking ton of bricks. I sat there listening to it over and over, and totally blew off this girl. I remember riding my bike back to my grandma's house knowing that my life had changed. Now I identified with something.
The key to Rocks is the first two songs -- "Back in the Saddle" and "Last Child." That combination just ripped my head off. But my favorite song on the record has always been "Nobody's Fault," which is the second song on the B side. Aerosmith had an aggressive, psychotic, drugged-out vibe, but at the same time they had a Stones-y blues thing going on. There was just nothing cooler than Aerosmith coming out of America at that point. What else was there? Foghat?
When I was learning to play the guitar, Aerosmith gave me the shove. I identified with Joe Perry's image, both visually and soundwise. He was streamlined in a way that reminded me of Keith Richards, was always wasted and had a careless guitar style that was really cool. But I was also totally into Brad Whitford's guitar solos, and he had a more direct influence on the way I play than anybody realizes. And anyone who sings needs to be exposed to Steven Tyler.
My first Aerosmith concert was in 1978. They were playing at a festival with Van Halen -- they were incredibly loud and I barely recognized a note, but it was still the most bitchin' thing I'd ever seen. Soon after that they broke up, which to me marked the end of Seventies rock. The next time I saw them was when they got back together six years later, and they were amazing. When Aerosmith are in the groove, they're just rock-solid. Not too long after that Guns n' Roses were asked to open for Aerosmith on their Permanent Vacation tour. We went to their manager's hotel room, and while he was in the bathroom we ordered $1,500 worth of room service and trashed the place. But they must have liked us a lot, because they put us on the bill anyway, and I've known them ever since.
Source(s): RollingStone, Issue 972 April 21, 2005
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