Tuesday, 2 September 2008

Exclusive Excerpt: Stephen Davis�s �Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N� Roses�



As Axl Rose purportedly makes final preparations to put out Chinese Democracy any minute now, Stephen Davis, the esteemed rock biographer behind 1985's classic Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga, is releasing his long-awaited Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N' Roses via Gotham Books today. In it, Davis traces GN'R's illustrious history all the way back to Rose's origins as a disaffected Indiana kid named Bill Bailey. After the jump, in an exclusive excerpt from the book's introduction, Davis discovers the inspiration behind the band's best-loved hit.











Some think the legend of Guns N' Roses began in the nighttime Los Angeles of 1985, a distant echo of West Hollywood's neon-lit Sunset Strip. Others think it should begin ten years earlier, at the confluence of two Indiana rivers, the Wabash and the Tippecanoe, in the 1970s. But in this telling, the GN'R saga begins in gritty New York, in upper Manhattan, on a sweltering, run-down street in the late afternoon of a summer day in 1980.

Actually it could begin way below the actual city street, in the deeply recessed concrete canyon of the Cross Bronx Expressway, which is where the two young hitchhikers from Indiana decided to get out of the car. It had been a good ride until then, a straight shot from the Ohio line across I-80, Pennsylvania, New Jersey. Bill Bailey and his friend Paul, both eighteen, had left central Indiana via I-65 thirty hours earlier and were making good hitching time toward their first visit to New York City.



The Ford Econoline van that had packed them up crossed the Hudson over the majestic George Washington Bridge. They were on I-95 now. Crossing on the upper deck, looking south, they could see the Empire State Building and the twin towers of the World Trade Center shimmering in the summer haze. Bill Bailey looked up and saw they were passing a sign that said LAST EXIT IN MANHATTAN. He said, "Hey, man. Let us off, OK?"



"I can't pull over," the driver said. He was an electronics salesman on his way to Providence. They were now headed east in the deep-walled pit of the Cross Bronx Expressway.



Bill asked, "Where's the next exit?"



"Way the hell up in the East Bronx."



The hitchers looked at each other. All they had were their backpacks and maybe thirty bucks between them. "Let us off here," Bill said.



"Man, are you sure? It'll be hard to get out of here."



"Yeah, let us out." Just then, traffic slowed into the constipation typical of I-95 as it crosses New York City. The boys jumped out. Cars honked at them as they inched along the sheer walls, looking for a way out. Drivers laughed at them, told them they were fucking insane. A trucker blasted his air horn and they jumped at the sound. The walls of the roadway were at least a hundred feet high, and all they could see were the tops of the buildings up at street level.



After a while they found the service ladder and scaled the wall, a thousand horns blaring far below, emerging into immigrant New York City, circa 1980: Calcutta on the Hudson.



To Bill and his friend, it was bedlam, a Caribbean neighborhood in Washington Heights with a funky street scene of bodegas and shouting kids playing under open hydrants, crones yelling out of windows in Spanish, idlers under shop awnings, hustlers working the corners of 177th and Broadway. Bill and Paul, from Tippecanoe County in Indiana, were the only white faces in a sea of black people, Puerto Ricans, Jamaicans, Dominicans, Muslim women in veils, Haitians, Hindus, Chinese shopkeepers, and lots of kids immediately picking up on two white boys who'd just climbed out of the hellish Cross Bronx like hayseed mountaineers in cowboy boots, blue jeans, and very long straight hair. The boys just stood and gaped, checking out this scene. "Rapper's Delight," bass-heavy hip-hop, blasted out of a bodega speaker. Lurid graffiti covered every flat surface. Kids were busting moves � break dancing � on the sidewalk. Bill Bailey had never seen this before. Basically, there weren't any black people in his part of Indiana, so they might as well have been in Senegal.



Now an old man limped over to them. He gave them the once-over, seeming to linger over Bill's cowboy boots. Bill was becoming uneasy now, his friend noticed, which was never a good thing, because, when agitated or upset, Bill's behavior could get a little out there. Finally, the old man spoke, or rather squawked, in a high-pitched shriek.



"DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?"



The boys, taken aback, just looked at him.



"I SAID, DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?"



Bill Bailey said, "Uh, we're just trying to get to�"



"YOU'RE IN THE JUNGLE, BABY!"



Bill Bailey � the future W. Axl Rose � just stared at him in wonderment. And then the little old man wound himself up to his full fury and told these white boys what they could expect from New York City at the tail end of the seventies: years of bankruptcy, endemic crime, corruption, decadence � the gateway to the eighties and the scourge of AIDS. He told it to them straight from the gut:



"YOU'RE GONNA DIE!"



Sometimes, legends come from true stories, and this is one of them.



Welcome to the jungle.






From WATCH YOU BLEED by Stephen Davis. Published by arrangement with Gotham Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. Copyright (c) 2008 by Stephen Davis.






More info

Saturday, 23 August 2008

Download Glass Candy mp3






Glass Candy
   

Artist: Glass Candy: mp3 download


   Genre(s): 

Other

   







Discography:


Spring Tour
   

 Spring Tour

   Year: 2004   

Tracks: 6






This no wave common chord from Portland, OR, is fronted by the foreign and exquisite waif Ida No, whose crazy caterwauls recall the unrestrained singing of the Swans' Jarboe, David Bowie, and the shifting rhythms of James Chance. John David V provides discotheque beatniks, while a ever-changing cast of drummers has included Avalon Kalin and Jimi Hey. Two singles ("Brittle Women" and "Alloy Gods") appeared on K Records in brief afterward they began playing in the Pacific Northwest. A 2001 enlistment with the Baltimore set the Convocation Of... introduced their ill-mannered, glammy performance art-oriented usher best captured on the Smashed Candy (Live) record album on Vermin Scum. In 2003 they released their proper full-length debut, Love Love Love, on Troubleman Unlimited; Life After Sundown arrived the following





Download Black Funeral

Wednesday, 6 August 2008

ANSWER

ANSWER   
Artist: ANSWER

   Genre(s): 
Rock
   



Discography:


Reprenem respostas   
 Reprenem respostas

   Year:    
Tracks: 11




 





R.Carlos Nakai and William Eaton

Sunday, 22 June 2008

Bengu

Bengu   
Artist: Bengu

   Genre(s): 
Other
   



Discography:


Baglasan Durmam   
 Baglasan Durmam

   Year: 2005   
Tracks: 11




 






Saturday, 14 June 2008

Are Ashlee Simpson And Pete Wentz Getting Married This Weekend? 'Blah, I Got Nothing,' Wentz Tells MTV News




Are Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson set to be married this Saturday at a "top secret" location? Well, according to Us Weekly, the answer is "Yes."

In a story that published late Monday on its Web site, the magazine quoted "a source close to the couple," who said that the pair will marry on Saturday, and that while "proper invites have not been sent out," guests have already received a save-the-date notice.

There is also apparently a rehearsal dinner — described as "an intimate affair" for "family and close friends only" by the inside source — scheduled for Friday, and that on Saturday "all guests will be transported by shuttles to the wedding location" in an attempt to give paparazzi the slip.

Looking for confirmation, MTV News reached out to Wentz himself, who — perhaps not surprisingly — didn't seem to be in the mood to talk about his impending nuptials. Instead, he wanted to talk about robots.

"Blah, I got nothing," he wrote in an e-mail. "I wish we could write a fun story about music or a robot that's really a human or something. Seems like the facts would be about the same."

Awesome! A spokesperson for the couple also refused to confirm the report, telling MTV News "this is a private matter, so there is nothing to comment on."

The couple announced their engagement last month, and Wentz later denied to MTV News the reports that Simpson is pregnant.






See Also

Monday, 9 June 2008

Aniston to move closer to boyfriend?

Former 'Friends' star Jennifer Aniston is reportedly set to move from Los Angeles to New York in order to be closer to her new boyfriend, 'Sex and the City' star Jason Lewis.
According to the Daily Star, a source close to the actress suggested that a move may be on the cards.
The source said: '"When she came back from Los Cabos after ringing in the New Year with Jason, she looked happier than I've seen her for months."
"She's been thinking of a switch to the east coast for a while and, now she's with Jason who is based there, she feels the time has never been more right to make the break from the claustrophobia in LA."

Sunday, 25 May 2008

Vanden Plas

Vanden Plas   
Artist: Vanden Plas

   Genre(s): 
Rock: Electronic
   Metal: Progressive
   Metal: Heavy
   Rock
   



Discography:


Christ 0   
 Christ 0

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 10


Beyond Daylight   
 Beyond Daylight

   Year: 2002   
Tracks: 10


Spirit Of Live   
 Spirit Of Live

   Year: 2000   
Tracks: 11


Far Off Grace   
 Far Off Grace

   Year: 1999   
Tracks: 10


The God Thing   
 The God Thing

   Year: 1997   
Tracks: 9


Accult   
 Accult

   Year: 1996   
Tracks: 11


Colour Temple   
 Colour Temple

   Year: 1995   
Tracks: 10




Formed in 1990, German progressive metallic element band Vanden Plas combined the creativeness of progressive rock with the hostility of metal. Consisting of Stephen Lill on guitars, Torsten Reichert on sea bass, Andreas Lill on drums, Andy Kuntz on vocals and Günter Werno on keyboards, Vanden Plas issued a heavy many singles in the '90s -- in that same decennium they issued trine full-length albums and an EP, all of which became progressively more than adventuresome and modern and helped establish their European winnow base. Their low gear full-length record album, the self-produced Colour Temple, came kO'd in 1994 and featured a straight-ahead metal style that highlighted Lill's guitar playacting. That album would finally be reissued by 2 other labels, giving the band more than exposure and chasten commercial success. With their future album, the EP AcCult, they went in a completely different direction, making an altogether acoustic record album that contained four-spot absorbing covers, including Ray Charles' "Georgia on My Mind," and "Kayleigh" by Marillion. The album was a critical success and gave Vanden Plas the mandate to be even more than creative with their side by side record album, 1997's The God Thing. That record album ventured off in prog-metal soil, combination LIll's great guitar arcs with heavily orchestrated sections, viewing a heavy Dream Theater influence. Continuing in the same tradition was their 1999 release (on Inside Out Music America in the U.S.) Far Off Grace, which was followed in 2000 with a mid-priced live album, Life of Live. 2002's Beyond Daylight was next, screening the mathematical group growing into a more than experimental and technically difficult outfit.





Freud Becomes Priciest Living Artist