Here Today... Gone To Hell!: 5th anniversary October 26th 2001  
    

 

Back in 1996 I got the idea of doing a web site. I had no knowledge of HTML and thought that maybe I could learn some by doing a small web site. There weren't that many GN'R sites on the web at the time, so I decided to do one. Besides, I had some material (articles, pictures etc.) that weren't available on any other site. I thought that if I put that on my page I could have a pretty good start. Said and done. Then I had to decide on a name. I remembered the text printed on the back of my t-shirt that I bought at my first (and only) GN'R show. It said: HERE TODAY... GONE TO HELL!

The first version of the page had some articles from RIP magazine (Guns N' Roses: The Illusion Of Greatness, Guns N' Roses Here Today, Gone To Hell (And Lovin' It), Guns N' Roses From The Inside and the big one, I, AXL a 3-part interview), one article from Q (Tears Before Bedtime?) and one from Metal Hammer (Guns N' Roses: Is It All Over? Does Anyone Care?). Most of those articles weren't available on the Internet in 1996.

Something that was also a big part of the site, and still is, was the history of GN'R. The information in that section came from a lot of places. Sometimes it was a news story on MTV and other times it was an article. All the info has been collected from various places over the years (magazines, newspapers, TV, books etc.).

There was also a section with facts about the Gunners (the pictures came from Robert John's web site) and a lyrics section (the album covers were from Jeff Boerio's GN'R FTP-site). I had no access to a scanner back then....

The years went by, I kept adding stuff to the page.

Stuff like mp3 files (this was probably the first GN'R page with that kind of stuff). Everybody else was offering WAV or RealAudio files. I couldn't even encode mp3s on my computer (it would have taken forever), so I had to do it on my friends' computers instead!?! :-)

Later on, I added a Message Board. The first one was shut down because some people couldn't handle the responsibility of using a board without registration....

Now it's October 2001 and I can't believe it's been five years since I started this.... Lots of stuff has changed in the last five years, but some things stay the same. There are still people who think that the best way of doing a website is by taking other peoples work without asking for permission or giving credit.....

These are some of the things that have happened in the world of GN'R since this site started:

Slash and Duff quit.
Matt was fired and rejoined The Cult.
Robin Finck joined, quit and rejoined.
Buckethead joined
Josh Freese joined and left.
Brain and Tommy Stinson joined.
One live album, one new track, one new home video.
Album title revealed
Two live shows + one European tour announced (and rescheduled).
Solo albums from Izzy and Gilby.
Slash's Snakepit recorded an album.
Duff's second solo album was never released.

 
Here's how some of the past pages looked
(Click pictures to see bigger version):
 

The first one (October 1996)

The logo was made in some DOS paint program (I can't remember which one) and the page was made in Notepad.

Updated one (December 1996)

This one featured Guns N' Roses and What's New gif-animations.

New logo, layout etc. (1997)

Also in 1997, the "New Album" section was added to the site. It's been online since July 10th 1997.

 

This one is from 1999. Featuring a new logo. Actually it's the old one, but with the famous GN'R logo in the background. :-)

5  
   
Thanks:  

The band (you know, GN'R) - I don't think this site would exist without GN'R....
Jukka-Pekka Luukkonen, Jukka "Juke" Kylli, The Article transcribers (Amanda, Andre, Andreas, BelkaStrelka, Bob, Chris, Daniel, Gonzalo, Kate, Louise, Michael, Natalie and Laura!), Everybody who sent in news (too many to list, you know who you are..), Pasi "Flex" Kurvinen and Mikko Härmä (mp3 encoders), Jeff Boerio (Dust N' Bones), Elly @ .44 Calibre Horticulture, Jorn @ Paradise City, Linda @ snakepit.org, Ravi @ Welcome To The Jungle (these were the first sites that linked to mine and most of them are still active), Robert John (pictures), Sonicnet, MTV Online, Allstar (for writing about GN'R when nobody else cared!), the m97 people (Carl-Henrik "Kalle" Uvesten, Patrik Nyborg, Stefan "Nalle" Johansson....), Robert Ottosson, the cool people at the Message Board (past and present), Coop, Joey @ M80, Olivier (Izzy scans etc.), Gordon Schumacher, Koch, Greg Gilmore and Louisa Eastman (for all the 10 Minute Warning info!), Nightrain - the unofficial GN'R fanzine, GNRUnlimited, Lost Rose, Rainfox, Surge (GN'R mp3warehouse), Lourenco, everybody else who helped in one way or another and everybody who just visited! Thank you!

 

/jarmo

 
        

 

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