Guns N' Roses - Live Like A Suicide
(Uzi Suicide, 1986)
Current
Gemm
price: $172.50- $338.00 (!!!)
By: Pepsi Sheen
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This glorified 45 FELT like a
full-length and redefined sleaze rock in Axl Rose's bandanna'd and
badly tattooed, small-town bad-boy screamin' for vengeance, genuine-draft,
white trash image. While their immediate predecessors, Hanoi Rocks,
had always been too hip, too punk, too androgynous, and too Euro-centric,
with their Clash style rhythms and druggy surf and disco
underpinnings, to fully crack mainstream middle-America's dumbed-down, plantation-sensibilities, Guns
'N' Roses swiped their whole countenance. Adopting Hanoi Rocks'
image wholesale, but draining it of any new wave or reggae influences
'small-town rednecks would find threatening, and recording two originals,
heavily influenced by Aerosmith, and two covers, and changed
rock'n'roll forever. AXL says, "It ain't a live record-if you think
it is, you're crazy. What we did was go into a room, record ourselves, and
put 50,000 screaming people on top." (Aw, fuck, Axl, ya just
hadda go and demystify it. Alrite-you want it demystified, it's
demystified!)
In spite of the fake crowd noises, the "LIVE LIKE A SUICIDE" E.P.
just rocked shit-crazy. Their blistering cover of Aerosmith's "Mama
Kin" made them overnight hard rock heroes in the bloodshot eyes of
millions and millions of greasy, disenfranchised black concert t-shirt
wearers, worldwide. Axl's old hometown runnin'-buddy and rhythm
guitarist, ace songwriter, Izzy Stradlin' was obviously the one
with the good taste in this mangy operation, and I'm guessin' it was him
who first discovered Rose Tattoo, the Australian street fightin'
men who penned the classic, "Nice Boys Don't Play Rock'n' Roll",
which quickly became a rallying cry for shitloadsa down 'n' out
delinquents nationwide, who were already becoming resentful of the growing
influx of shit for brains Ken-Doll Transmaro-drivers who were adopting a
rock pose in those years. The main thing that Guns 'N' Roses
managed to capture on "Live Like A Suicide" was Axl's
authenticity. His rage and desperation were just rollin' off of him. You
could FEEL his righteous indignation and fury towards all the local
yokel cops and high-school guidance counselors and family of origin
members who had preyed upon him, or betrayed him, or let him down. He was
possessed by an untamed, animal-like, fight or flight rage in those years,
you could still feel it all over everything he did-the conflicting
impulses of a latchkey loser who was caught in the usual trap of those
geographically- conditioned to chew tobacco and not think. He was wrapped
in psychic barbed wire, just smart enough to realize something was rotten
in Indiana, that he'd been wronged and lied to his whole life, and he
was wrestling with the ferocious hostilities of someone who had been
victimized and was now transforming steadily into a predator, himself. His
survival instincts were kicking in, and he was on 11 for every song back
then.
When you've only correctly identified some of your enemies, and you've
spent your whole life being pumped full of hate and abuse, not so cleverly
disguised as love or Christianity, and you've yet to be exposed to any
ideas beyond the typical poison you're spoonfed daily when you're growing
up in cornfields and pledge of allegiance country, it's alot to hold.
When all you see are hypocrites, perverts, and predators insisting that
their flags or badges or riding mowers or scalloped potatoes, make them
ordained by God above, to inflict any manner of random physical and
emotional abuse they see fit, when you're subject to sexual abuse and
brutal beat-downs, in the name of the Lord and apple pie, and branded a
criminal if you resist these patterns of sicko hick-town repression, it
puts you on a slippery slope- malevolently designed to either break your
spirit, so you'll be so glad to land a factory job that you'll work your
ass off everyday of your life for shit-pay in order to be worthy of a
woman who's likely to divorce you at some point, or to take you out of
society and put you in jail, where you're no longer perceived
as competition for the Lee Press On Nailed hands of women who are socially
programmed to marry the most obedient providers, but who are biologically
drawn, oftentimes, to the stronger, more rough-cut, defiant, primal,
outsider type of guys. Axl was wise to leave Indiana when he did. Chances
are he'd either be dead or in jail by now, otherwise. There was no room in
that farm and factory 'ville for a personality as big as Axl's.
"Move To The City" was totally tapped-in to the real-life experience of
people who were forced to flee Main St. U.S.A., who are immediately then
plunged neck-deep in debauchery, into a whole new realm of sordid
temptations, and the extreme and often dehumanizing lengths one must go to
merely persevere in the urban jungle. It's a weird trip how quickly one's
dreams of deliverance from hickoid perversity and an unimaginative,
loathsome, pre-scripted, smalltown, clock-punching, TV-watching fate, are
dashed---when you actually do step off the bus and realize that
Tinsel-Town ain't gonna be no Beach Boys song. Absolutely fucking
heartbreaking. It really is a jungle out here. While the sunny, Hollywood,
California we grow up absorbing, via gameshows and "I Love Lucy" reruns, IS
always rife with hard-luck stories of the shark-infested world of
show-business, when one is so utterly overwhelmed with the pathos and pain
of his fire and brimstone churchin' country bumpkin origins, he is
compelled to leave home in search of a more tolerant environment, you
just HAVE to create some kind of false-hope, happy ending, rock-dream fairy
tale to allow you to keep on believing...in ANYTHING. I remember reading a
Spin magazine article about Bob Stinson from the Replacements, years ago,
and how he grew up reading every last dead rockstar bio, and identifying
with all these tortured characters, and how cruel it is when rock'n'roll
dangles redemption and acceptance and-hell, even applause and
celebrity- only to snatch it maliciously away.
In December of 1986 - Geffen released this four song EP called "Live
??!!'@ Like A Suicide" on GN'R's own off-shoot vanity-label,
Uzi Suicide.
10,000 copies were released and the original vinyl version is probably for
sale at Bleeker Bob's for $10,000 by now. "Hey fuckers, suck on Guns and
fucking Roses!" The opening song, "Reckless Life" spotlights
Axl's highest
and most ferocious, vein-straining wailing and aggressively introduces
this ragtag gypsy band of badseeds and mascara'd bruisers with a blustering
mission statement, brimming over with sheer bravado and the cocaine
fuelled over-confidence of five desperate drug fiend outcasts who fate had
thrown together for one last futile shot at glory, and these motherfuckers
all knew they had to make it count. The stories of their other ill-fated
tenures in previous groups from London to L.A Guns, the Fastbacks and
Ten
Minute Warning, are well-documented, and they all used to talk about
how they'd been forced to come together because they were unable to fit in
to any other Hollywood bands. Slash had been rejected by Poison
for not
being pretty enough. This is why these other line-ups always fall-flat:
from Adler's Appetite (featuring all the second string has-beens); to
Velvet Revolver with the Cult drummer and the Stone Temple
Pilots sponge-rock charlatan; to Axl's own misguided attempts to milk the
brand name, employing all these ludicrous sidemen. Axl's best bet for
a guitar-player besides Izzy or Slash was probably not this
Buckethead
mook, but Circus Of Power's Gary Sunshine, who he merely utilized as his
own guitar-coach a few years back. Even propped up by the "cute"
Replacement, Tommy Stinson on bass, and a cast of thousands from this or
that lame industrial band, Axl is unlikely to ever recapture anything
remotely similar to the death or glory majesty of the original
line-up---because all five of those fuckers were desperate enough, and
REAL ENOUGH, back then, to put their own little individual blow-jobs and
egos aside long enough to see the bigger picture and make it count!!!
Legions of wanna-beez have scratched their heads for years about how
GUNS were ever able to strike the kind of synergistic balance that
produces these highwater-mark, triumphant works of lasting value. What
they should've all sussed out by now, especially the band, is it was
because Adler and Slash didn't insist on being the coverboy pin-ups on the
front of the E.P., y'know? Steven "Popcorn" Adler wasn't demanding to write
the lyrics, etc. Everybody was willing to play to their own strengths, and
SHARE CREDIT, and put vanity aside long enough to make something magical,
that was much, much bigger than the sum of it's parts. Izzy's made some
damn fine solo records, Duff is a charming sort of punk-doofus who's
shined-out as a member of Neurotic Outsiders (originally known as
Neurotic Boy Outsiders, cadged from an N.M.E. headline about Morrisey
fans, I think.) his short-lived supergroup with ex members of the Cult,
Sex Pistols, and Duran Duran.
Adler's gone through hell and we're all just glad to see he's still
alive, willing, and able to reform the original line-up. Everybody seems
to love Slash-even though he tried to audition Sebastian Bach (???!!!) and
all these post-grunge pop-tarts, to "replace" Axl in the
Velvet Revolver super band. (Shoulda gone with Joshua Todd, boys-you guys reduced that
poor cat to playing with chump kids, and he was BORN to be Axl's
under-study!) Axl? I can't even talk about it, it pains me so much to see
how far this cat has fallen. Whoo. Better you than me, brother. What a bag
of bricks THAT guy gets to carry around! Back when Guns 'N'Roses were
first cresting that gigantic initial wave of desperation-driven momentum,
NOBODY could come close to 'em, cos everybody contributed their own thing.
Everybody worked together for something bigger than own personal,
"ceaseless vainglory". A high tide rises all boats. Everybody
won. Guns 'N' Roses went on to make one of the greatest rock'n'roll
records of all time, "Appetite For Destruction", and followed it with one
of the most embarrassing, overproduced, half-baked, double albums ever,
the nearly inexcusable, atrocious shit sandwich Flash Metal Catastrophe,
"Use Your Illusions Parts 1 & 2". The band were the greatest of all time,
back when space was afforded to each individual, to shine in their own respective ring of fire, before they lowered themselves to power struggles
and competition within the home-team, itself---back when they actually
still collaborated. When they were still hungry enough and actually happy
to share the GLORY. When they still knew what it was like to miss a
couple of meals, when they really were underdogs, and not tired and
arrogant fatcats posing for supermodels in posh hotel rooms with a
deathgrip on their lame ego trip...When they still loved ROCK'N'ROLL and
their brothers, the people who helped 'em achieve their greatness, more
than the petty tug of war and competition and the rush they felt from
having their girlfriend nod along that they were the "REAL STAR" of the
band, day in and day out..
The only non-Izzy, post-"Appetite" Guns-related moment, for me, was
Slash's collaboration with Michael Monroe, "Magic Carpet Ride", on the "Coneheads"
soundtrack.
Nobody really gives a shit about Guns 'N' Roses without Adler.
Don't scoff. It's a hard fact.
Listen to me, Saul, and Jeff, and Big Bad Bill... Duff, whatever your
real name is, PAY ATTENTION, HERE. I'm trying to help save you
over-confident fuckers from alot of needless, ongoing suffering, that you
know eats at you constantly in your tiny hours, 'cause something's wrong,
and you don't know what it is, and none of your money or shit can ever
make it right.
Think about how you guys felt about classic VAN HALEN. Now, think about
how you guys felt about UGH! Hagar, and that goof from Extreme, fronting
that band that had once meant so much to you; back when they still stood
for something authentic, back when they knew what it was to dance the
night away, when they still cared about the fans and the music (!!!!!)
more than (yawn!) impressing their wife some more. AXL---Call Adler. You
still have his Mom's number. Do it in her basement. No one brings their
old ladies or their yes-men sycophants. Try to go deep inside yourselves,
kids, and just see if you can make any remote contact, whatsoever, with
who YOUR REAL FRIENDS are, with who YOU are, and WHERE
you came from, and
WHO originally recognized your greatness, spurring you to greater glories,
who really stuck with you, when it really matters-when the nightmare years
were closing in.
Reflect on how exactly you got to be big balls lord of the manor, and
who really helped you get everything you're so proud of now C'mon, they
weren't wearin' no goddamned KFC bucket on their heads now, were they?
EVERYBODY'S got so many suck ass weasels and liars always willing to
lie to them. Banish these parasites IMMEDIATELY, as a demonstration of
faith to one another, that part of you can still remember YOUR authentic-self, and show some motherfucking respect to your true
peers, your real partners, and the no bullshit suffered gladly authenticity
that MADE YOU CATS THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME. YEAH, I know, the wives all
agree you're the real star, blah blah blah. You can getcher little
ego-stroking entourages fully-refunded at anytime. You can have all the
groupies and lackeys back to lord over later on, but you gotta treat the
REAL GUYS like THE REAL GUYS. A king can always see and hear a king. You
know it's all bullshit without the originals.
All Five Original members.
Anything less is somebody's delusional head-trip. FUCK OFF. It'll suck in
the long-run, nobody wants it.
WE'LL ACCEPT NO MORE IMITATIONS.
Ten songs, pure rock, make it count.
That's what we loved you for----not the dopey ballads or dolphin videos,
and not even the predictable "punk" covers album, although we thank you
for allowing Mister Chrome to buy himself a house.
Greed, fear, and competition is ruining everyone. "I'm goin' for a ride. I
might not be back for awhile."
You're all outta your minds. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?
AXL, WHAT HAPPENED?
Further:
GNR Official
Website (ha!)
(-PEPSI "LIVE LIKE A SUICIDE" SHEEN, I'm only here to help!)
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