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

Thursday, 22 May 2008

Marion Raven

Marion Raven   
Artist: Marion Raven

   Genre(s): 
Rock
   Other
   Blues
   



Discography:


Set Me Free   
 Set Me Free

   Year: 2007   
Tracks: 11


Heads Will Roll (EP)   
 Heads Will Roll (EP)

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 6


Here I Am   
 Here I Am

   Year: 2005   
Tracks: 15


Live in Japan   
 Live in Japan

   Year:    
Tracks: 10




Erst one half of the adolescent pop couple M2M (the other half being cranny Norwegian and childhood quaker Marit Larsen), Marion Raven stayed with her ex-group's label, Atlantic Ocean, with plans to track record script a solo record album afterward she and Larsen farm animal split in 2002. Her debut, Here I Am, was released in Scandinavia and Asia in 2005, and scorn the achiever it received there, the following year Prey left wing Atlantic due to "artistic differences." Hitting out on her take, the isaac M. Isaac Bashevis Singer shortly aquiline up with Essence Loaf for the duo "It's Wholly Orgasm Support to Me Now" on his 2006 record book album, Chiropteran Come out of Hell 3: The Lusus naturae Is Unloosen, and released an EP, Heads Testament Roll -- the provocative video for the title of respect strain featured a nude sculpture house painting Raven vocalizing atop of a voltaic pile of decade naked women -- on Football team 7 Music later that year.






Wednesday, 21 May 2008

AJC

AJC   
Artist: AJC

   Genre(s): 
Drum & Bass
   



Discography:


Renegade Recordings (RR58)   
 Renegade Recordings (RR58)

   Year: 2005   
Tracks: 2




 






Fistt

Fistt   
Artist: Fistt

   Genre(s): 
Other
   



Discography:


Vendo As Coisas Como Voce   
 Vendo As Coisas Como Voce

   Year: 2004   
Tracks: 13




 






YouTube viewers can vote for their favorite pianist

YouTube viewers can vote for their favorite pianist






If you're a classical music aficionado envious of the "American Beau ideal" tV audience wHO get to suffrage on their favourite contestants, your time has descend.

Inspired not by "Idol" but by Popsearch 2007, an online talent search sponsored by the Boston Popsthe Caravan Cliburn Foundation has taken its competition into net with its low gear YouTube contest for amateur serious music pianists.

The celebrated Cliburn Contest, which leads to lucrative recording and execution contracts for medalists and finalists, volition continue to select participants based on a traditional applications programme and auditory modality process. Only for its next amateur competition, to get office in Fort Worth in 2011, the creation will get to way for one competition wHO testament be selected via popular right to vote based on YouTube videos provided by 41 aspirant pianists world Health Organization are older than 35.





Anyone with an e-mail report has until Whitethorn 15 to inflict wWW.cliburn.org and cast a balloting on the videos, which became available to viewers Th and run basketball team to 10 proceedings apiece. The victor will gain machine rifle entry into the next competition, and the foundation will forego the entry fee of more or less $80.

Cliburn Fundament spokesman Sevan Melikyan acknowledges that voters will in all probability not watch entirely 41 videos ahead vote.

"We are aware of the fact that this contention canful very easily become a popularity contest. We ar not expiration to conceal from the fact that if you feature a lot of friends out there, they are leaving to voting for you," he said Thursday. Merely he said that, in classical euphony, entrants as well as voters are in all likelihood to be self-selecting, and he believes it unlikely that a performing artist without merit will end up on the rivalry stage.

Because the Cliburn Contention takes seat only every four-spot age, Melikyan said the YouTube prequel provides potential competitors with "something to keep their chops going" between events. The initiation plans to proceed the competitions for the next troika days, he said, sending several winners to the 2011 consequence. "It keeps them focused," he said.

Melikyan added that YouTube access as well provides an important bridge for potentiality classical music music fans. "We consume to maintain this artistry form alive, and what punter way than to meet it at rest home?"

diane.haithman@latimes.com







Hospital bug payout for Leslie Ash

Hospital bug payout for Leslie Ash



Actress Leslie Ash has north Korean won o'er €6.5 zillion in compensation after she contracted the superbug MRSA in an NHS hospital in London.
The 'Men Behaving Badly' star was left wing severely injured after catching the bug at the Chelsea and Westminster hospital in central Greater London.
Her attorney, Janice Gardner said the actress was "delighted" with the payout.
Ms Isabella Stewart Gardner said the actress was pleased she would non have to go to court to competitiveness the claim. The case was due before a approximate in April before the sides reached a colonization.
She said: "I think she is delighted that we could make an amicable settlement. Cypher real wants to go to court. It would have been severely going for her.
"In a case when you have got serious injuries you have to be somewhat satisfied that the injuries have settled in front you crapper determine the claim."
Ash, 47, wHO now walks with a stick, was admitted to hospital later woe deuce cracked ribs.
The payment includes compensation for money the actress would have earned had she been able to carry on working.





Ike Turner died from cocaine overdose

Ike Turner died from cocaine overdose



Soul isaac Bashevis Singer Eisenhower Food turner died from a cocaine overdose, according to the San Diego County medical examination quizzer.
The 76-year-old was establish dead at his home nigh San Diego on 12 December last yr.
The medical exam examiner yesterday said that an postmortem proved that a long history of cardiovascular disease and pulmonary emphysema had contributed to the star's death.
Nat Turner reportedly had a history of cocain addiction stretch over 30 age.




Mf Doom and Danger Mouse

History never repeats...

History never repeats...





C4's Rocked The Nation started its entertaining anecdote-heavy countdown of one C Chinese gooseberry music moments this week. In causa you missed it, here's a recapitulation of the first episode's pivotal events and we'll be keeping a weekly chalk up of the countdown as the series progresses. Collect the set, as they tell ... 100: In 1982, Fresh Zealand band Spyz ar the first Western rock play to wager China, three years in front Wallop.99: Savage's Sweep features in the strike motion picture Knocked Up, leadership to a major US record deal and a top 20 in the iTunes' hip hop chart.98: Sweetwaters 99 goes acidity departure bands and tradespeople owed $3 meg. Promoter Daniel Keighley afterward serves 12 months for fraud.97: Local record label Music World provides music for the masses by exploitation cheap knock-offs of overseas hits. The label's Golden Saxophones album sells half a one thousand thousand worldwide.96: In 1809 sealers find themselves marooned in the South Island lead to the number one European song written in Newly Zealand. Ostensibly the beginnings of "the Dunedin sound".




95: Pop Mechanix' director attempts buying the band a number one single with misfire cheques. It enters the charts at number 15 and disappears the chase workweek.94: Country isthmus The Warratahs' number one album The Only Game In Town spends 26 weeks in the peak 40 and cements them in the hearts of middle Freshly Sjaelland.93: In 1970, 13-year-old soprano Jacques Louis David Curtis records a song as his grandparents' Dec 25 present and winds up with a top 10 bingle with Rack of Fortune.92: Weekly music prove Fix To Wheel draws a billion viewers a hebdomad by having the likes of Sharon Eugene Gladstone O'Neill cover international hits.91: In 1986, TVNZ refuses to pay record companies for screening music clips. The only video seen on TV for intimately a yr is Queen's It's A Kind Of Deception due to Queen's record society purchasing advertising time.90: Blindspott find unexpected success in Indonesia selling 40,000 legal copies of their albums and intimately half a 1000000 illegal ones.89: Darcy Clay's home-recorded anthem Deliverer I Was Evil reaches number fin and wins him a most promising singer tam-tam.88: All-girl supergroup When The Cat's Aside cover Melting Potentiometer and receive themselves with an unexpected number one and in huge demand as a exist act.87: Larry's Rebels' isaac Bashevis Singer Larry Robert Morris serves six and half years in the Big House for trying to sell Lysergic acid diethylamide to undercover cop. 86: Concordance Dawn's Morning Light becomes a worldwide dance anthem in 2002.85: Long before New Sjaelland rock bands tour abroad, Maori concert parties take indigenous music to the world.84: Neil Finn plays quint nights in Auckland with a thrown-together supergroup of match, including players from Radiohead. Reb Marr from the Smiths and Drop Jam's Eddie Vedder. 83: Due south Auckland band Ardijah assist contrive "poly-fonk", a mix of South Pacific funk and stone. Their debut album produces ternion tip 20 singles.82: Steriogram draw the most expensive music clip of all time made for a Fresh Zealand ring when theater director Michel Gondry creates a stop-motion classic using   knitted puppets for Walkie Talking picture Man.Rocked The Carry Nation, C4, Mon 8.30pm